412 CURE BY Y E TOUCH. 



numerous. If Dr. Newton could find patients, then a fortiori 

 the sovereign. I have as little doubt that many, honestly 

 believing themselves better for the royal imposition of hands, 

 would pronounce themselves cured. 



Then a considerable number, feeling no better for the 

 touching, would nevertheless testify to the cure, prompted by 

 a certain spirit of subserviency (toadyism I think they call 

 it), to the influence of which some individuals have ever been 

 prone, and ever will be. If, in reviving the pretension, the 

 practice were also revived of hanging a gold medal round 

 the neck of each candidate, then doubtless witnesses to the 

 truth, as by royal proclamation set forth, would be still more 

 numerous. 



As for lookers-on, individuals not stricken with disease, 

 yet called upon to offer some sort of opinion, it may be tes- 

 timony ; probably the result might be as it was of old. A 

 considerable portion of the educated classes, starting with 

 testimony of cures performed, would supply what they might 

 conceive to be the ratio medendi. Amongst dissentients, the 

 majority would veil their dissent, actuated by the desire of 

 peace and quiet, leaving the minority to be snubbed into 

 sneering acquiescence by combined force of state and church, 

 fashion and interest ; aided by certain professors of law and 

 physic, perhaps for certain, by a legion of sycophants. 



Even so was the result, and so it would be again. Assu- 

 redly, if the belief in spirit-rapping and table-turning can find 

 acceptance, credence in the efficacy of the royal touch should 

 not be a matter of surprise. Mesmerism, indeed, has pre- 

 pared the way for a revival of the belief, inasmuch as (taking 

 the evidence furnished by mesmerists as reliable) cures of 

 diseases by gentle passes of the hand, similar to the act of 

 caressing a cat,* are by no means uncommon. 



* Hence the expression stroking for the evil, formerly universal. During 

 the reign of Charles II. several private gentlemen acquired high repute as 

 strokers. An Irish gentleman, named Valentine Greatracks, was the most 



