222 STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE. 



growths so treated was one he had had from childhood. " Then," 

 continues the narrative, " she nailed the piece of lard, with the fat 

 towards the sun, upon a post of her chamber window, which was to the 

 south. The success was that in five weeks' space all the warts went 

 quite away, and that wart which I had so long endured for company. 

 But at the rest I did little marvel," says Bacon, " because they came in 

 a short time, and might go away in a short time again; but the going 

 away of that which had stayed so long doth yet stick with me." The 

 miscellaneous character of the substances used in wart charms and in 

 incantations of like nature, at once reveals the fact of the real cure 

 lying in some direction other than that of the nostrum. Beneath the 

 material substance unconsciously used as a mere bait for the 

 imagination, work the forces of mind acting through the medium of 

 the nervous system. " The confident expectation of a cure" to use 

 Dr. Carpenter's expression, is the most potent means of bringing it 

 about ; and, as another writer remarks, " Any system of treatment, 

 however absurd, that can be 'puffed' into public notoriety for efficacy 

 any individual who, by accident or design, obtains a reputation 

 for the possession of a special gift of healing is certain to attract a 

 multitude of sufferers, among whom will be several who are capable 

 of being really benefited by a strong assurance of relief, whilst others 

 for a time believe themselves to have experienced it. And there is, 

 for the same reason," adds this author, "no religion that has attained 

 a powerful hold on the minds of its votaries, which cannot boast its 

 f miracles ' of this order." 



The same spirit of popular belief and credulity which long ago 

 asserted that vaccination produced a growth of ''horns" on the heads 

 of the vaccinated subjects, from their being inoculated with the 

 matter obtained from the cow, was displayed in another but equally 

 unreasoning fashion in the assertion that the touch of a royal hand 

 could cure scrofula a disease which to this day retains the popular 

 name of "king's evil." Macaulay relates that when William III. 

 refused to lend his hand and countenance to the cure of scrofula, 

 evidence of overwhelming nature as to the multitude of cures which 

 had been wrought by the royal touch was collected and submitted. 

 The clergy testified to the reality of the effects induced, as in earlier years 

 they had frequently been the chief propagators of superstitious myths 

 concerning healing powers of occult nature, whilst the medical pro- 

 fession testified that the rapidity of the apparent cures placed them 

 beyond the sphere of natural causation, and brought them within the 

 domain of faith a lack of which virtue resulted in failure to effect a 

 cure. In the reign of Charles II. nearly one hundred thousand persons 

 were "touched" ; and King James, in Chester Cathedral, performed a 

 similar service to eight hundred persons. On William the conse- 

 quences of refusing to favour a popular delusion fell fast and heavy. 



