NA TURE 



169 



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 191 1. 



HEALING BY TOUCH. 

 The King's Evil. By Dr. Raymond Crawfurd. Pp. 

 187. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 191 1.) Price 

 8s. 6d. net. 



THE history of the king's evil and the royal touch, 

 whether as a picture in detail of a certain stream 

 of a very ancient tradition, or as a particular instance 

 of something more than a tradition or symbol, of a 

 mystic interpretation of man's relation to the unseen 

 powers which encompass him, is a deeply interesting 

 study. We are far from imputing it as a fault to 

 Dr. Raymond Crawfurd if, in his scholarly decision 

 to keep to his own part of a great subject, and to do 

 thoroughly what he undertook, he has averted 

 his eye from the ancient sources of the mystery, or 

 even neglected the facts and fables which linked up 

 the modern and the ancient modes of miraculous heal- 

 ing. Still, has not Dr. Crawfurd almost dissembled 

 these sources of the far past and the ancient myth? 

 He remarks, for Instance, that the gods " have trans- 

 mitted the gift " (of healing) to mortal man — especially 

 to conspicuous individuals such as kings ; to Pyrrhus, 

 for example, or Vespasian. And a few sentences 

 farther on (p. 10) he says that, with the spread of 

 Christianity, the priest " usurped " for a while the 

 prerogative of healing. This seems scarcely the right 

 colour to put upon the past. Samuel looked upon 

 Saul as the usurper of intercessory functions. And 

 the gift of healing was not so much a " transmission " 

 from gods to men as that in this function the priest- 

 king originally was the organ rather than the agent 

 of the supernatural ; originally the potency was not so 

 much a delegation as a continuity. 



The laying on of hands, as practised for disease in 

 England and France, and as still practised in the 

 institution of Holy Orders, passed by insensible grada- 

 tions from gods and godlings to heroes and men. 

 Any kindred touch might convey its influence, even 

 the touch of a relic of the operative personage. From 

 this point of view, in Greece, x^tp and Bvvanis were 

 equivalent. And in various times and circumstances 

 the manual act might pass a stream of virtue from 

 healer to patient, or might be a manumission, or a 

 protective gesture, or merely a symbol. Clearly, in 

 the idea of the royal touch, it stood for more than a 

 symbol. 



The "soothing-handed" (ivTud^ftp';*) Chiron, 

 Eileithyiae, Apollo, Hygieia, poured forth their virtue 

 to Asclepius, Serapis, the mother of God (x^\p Tfjt 

 Ilavayias), Cosmas and Damian, and onward, until we 

 take up the modern part of the story with Dr. Craw- 

 furd, from Robert the Pious (996-1031 a.d.). If in 

 view of the inclination of the readers of 

 Nature towards evolution I have ventured to knit 

 up a few of these ancient links, from the beginning 

 of his own story Dr. Crawfurd is an indispensable 

 guide. From the first we feel we are in good hands; 

 the scrupulous references to authorities, the explora- 

 tion of the sources, many of which the author has 

 NO. 2197, VOL. 88] 



either brought to light or has set in their proper light, 

 the first glance at the scholarly translations from the 

 Latin, or at the excellent bibliography, and, above all, 

 the sound criticism not unspiced with humour, give 

 the reader a sense of completeness and sureness. The 

 subject of the royal touch had not been adequately 

 treated; Dr. Crawfurd has been fortunate in his sub- 

 ject, and has produced an exhaustive and probably a 

 final study of it. 



Magic touch in ancient times was valid not for a 

 few but for all or any diseases and for parturition. In 

 the Middle Ages, however, it had become restricted to 

 jaundice — the morbus regius — and to bubos. For the 

 jaundice the touch soon fell out of use ; the bubos were 

 chiefly of the scrofulous kind, but Dr. Crawfurd sup- 

 poses that not a few ambulant cases of bubonic plague 

 (lues inguinaria) were included in the crowd. At a 

 later date probably syphilis came in, a disease not 

 mentioned, I think, by the author, though as he has 

 forgotten an index — the only defect in his scholarly 

 apparatus — I cannot be sure of this. In one of the 

 Continental galleries I remember a picture, of the early 

 sixteenth century, commemorating a cure by a miracle- 

 working saint, in which the patient exhibited in his 

 own person a fine specimen of syphilitic ulceration 

 and of the painter's veracity. 



If we regard the laying on of hands as an ancient 

 prerogative, one deriving from the larger function of 

 " Binding and Loosing," we attach less importance to 

 the defects of the records of its appearance in modern 

 times ; we guess that this mystery never died out ; that 

 the lack of records is due to their destruction, or to 

 silence on matters of familiar custom. Still, Dr. 

 Crawfurd is as precise as sources will allow, and it 

 Is not without Interest to note that, if in France the 

 definite history of the touch begins with Robert the 

 Pious, yet the legends of the times of Clovis suggest 

 in this respect also the continuity of Gallo-Roman 

 ritual. With Clovis, as with later kings of England 

 and France, with Queen Anne for instance, the 

 assumption of this prerogative may have been to prove 

 that he too was hedged about with divinity. Eng- 

 land, in her comparative isolation from the Roman 

 tradition, records no royal touch before Edward the 

 Confessor. 



If it was not until much later times that the kings 

 became specialists in scrofula the previous vagueness 

 depended largely on that of contemporary diagnosis. 

 And here we come to matter of interest to^ our 

 faith-healers of to-day ; to the partnership of physician 

 and priest or king— priest or king as the touch 

 was, generally speaking, conducted under an imposing 

 courtly and religious ceremony. Dr. Crawfurd care- 

 fully reproduces the Offices as modified from time 

 to time, and he tells us that the enthusiasm of the sick 

 was thus exalted to an amazing passion. Moreover, 

 the king's physicians todk a prominent part, not only 

 in protecting him IVoni (-idwds of sullen rs of a non- 

 descript kind, or of kinds not amenable to the royal 

 touch, but actively in securing this blessing for the 

 cases in which their skill had failed, and for persons 

 in whom they were Interested. Passing over earlier 

 and cruder ages, we may descend in time to so great 



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