176 



♦ KNOW^LEDGE 



[April 1, 1886. 



imagination could affect a part of the body, as that some 

 secret sympathy might exist between a part of the body and 

 some substa,nce which had touched it. INIany readers will 

 remember that Sir Kenelm Digby, in a work published as 

 lat« as 16.58, discusses gravely the influence produced on a 

 badly wounded hand by bathing a garter, which had been 

 stained with the blood, in a basin of water wherein a certain 

 powder had been dissolved. " As soon as tlie bloody garter 

 was put within the bason," the wounded man "started sud- 

 denly as if he had found some strange alteration in himself" 

 " I asked him what he ailed 1 " proceeds the narrator. " ' I 

 know not what ailes me, but I find that I feele no more pain. 

 Methinks that a pleasing kind of freshnesse, as it were a wet 

 cold napkin, did spread over my hand, which had taken 

 away the inflammation that tormented me before.' I replied, 

 ' Since then that you feel already so good effect of my 

 medicaments, I advi.se you to cast away all your plaisters; 

 only keep the wound clean, and in a moderate temper be- 

 twixt heat and cold.' This was presently reported to the 

 Duke of Buckingham, and a little after to the King, who 

 were both very curious to know the circumstance of the 

 businesse, which w-as " (the stoi'v is not so distinct here as 

 could be wished) " that after dinner I took the garter out of 

 the water, and ])ut it to dry before a good fire. It was scarce 

 dry, but Mr. Howell's servant came running, that his master 

 felt as mucli burning as ever he had done, if not more, for 

 the heat was such as if his liand were 'twixt coles of fire. I 

 answered, although that had happened at present, yet he 

 should find ease in a short time ; for I knew the reason of 

 this new accident, and would provide accordingly ; for his 

 master should be free from that inflammation, it may be, 

 before he coidd possibly return to him ; but in case he found 

 no ease, I wished him to come presently back again ; if not, 

 he might forbear coming. Thereupon he went ; and at the 

 instant I did put again the garter into the water : thereupon 

 he found his master without any pain at all. To be brief, 

 there was no sense of pain afterwaids ; but within five or six 

 days the wounds were cicatrised, and entirely liealed." Sir 

 Walter Scott, in speaking of such stories as tliese, expresses 

 the opinion that possibly the cure may have resulted from 

 the care with which the wound was in the first place washed. 

 It will be observed, however, that Sir Kenelm Digby 's 

 account does not countenance this explanation. Nor, if one 

 could accept it as it stands, could one adopt the idea that 

 the imagination of the patient produced the changes of 

 feeling described. For it is clearly stated that the patient 

 felt relief before he knew that the garter had been placed in 

 the basin of water ; that the pain i-eturned when the " chivur- 

 geon " in another house had diied the garter, and that the 

 pain disappeared befoi'C the ]-eturn of the messenger who 

 carried back the )iromise of relief. If such stories as these 

 were current in Bacon's time, and were generally believed, 

 his explanation of the disappearance of his warts, confirmed 

 as it seemed by what he knew of the actual circumstances, 

 may have seemed to him as philosophical as to us it appears 

 al)surd. 



So the faith, which pi-evailed for many years after Bacon's 

 time, in the efficacy of the Royal Touch must be regarded 

 as based to some degree on evidence, though the evidence 

 was misunderstood. In days when many believed that a 

 certain divinity doth hedge a king, it was natural that in the 

 first place tlie imaginations of those folks of feeble vitality, 

 and often of deficient mental power, who were brought to 

 kings to be touched, should be so far affected as to cause 

 such bodilj' changes as we now know to be produced by a 

 strongly excited imagination ; and that in the second place 

 the persons thus cured, and those who heard of such cures, 

 siiould attribute the effect to the virtue of the kingly touch, 

 not to the influence of mere mental processes. Dr. Todd, 



in his " Influence of the Mind on the Body," quotes a singular 

 passage from a book l>y Browne of Norwich, surgeon to 

 King Charles II. — a book rejoicing in the title " Adeno- 

 choiradelogia ; or, a Treatise of Glandules, and the Eoyal Gift 

 of Healing them." "A Nonconformi.st child, in Norfolk," 

 says Browne in the passage referred to, " being troubled with 

 scrofulous swellings, the late deceased Sir Thomas Browne, 

 of Norwich, being consulted about the same, his Majesty 

 being then at Breda or Bruges, he advised the parents of 

 the child to have it cai-ried over to the king (his own method 

 being used ineft'ectually ) ; the father seemed very strange at 

 his advice, and utterly denied it, saying the touch of the 

 king was of no greater efficacy than any other man's. The 

 mother of the child, adhering to the doctor's advice, studied 

 all imaginable means to have it over, and at last prevailed 

 with the husband to let it change the air for three weeks or 

 a month ; this being granted, the friends of the child that 

 went with it, unknown to the father, carried it to Breda, 

 where the king touched it, and .she returned home peifectl}' 

 healed." The worthy doctor is careful thot the moral of the 

 story should not be overlooked. " The child being come to 

 its father's house, and he finding so great an alteration, in- 

 quires how his daughter arrived at this health. The fiiends 

 thereof assured him, that if he would not be angry with them 

 they would relate the whole truth ; they having his promise 

 for the same,' assured him they had the child to be touched 

 at Breda, whereby tliey apparently let him see the great 

 benefit his child received thereby. Hereupon the father 

 became so amazed that he thiew off his Nonconformity, and 

 expressed his thanks in this manner : — ' Farewell to all 

 dissenters, and to all nonconformists I If God can put so 

 much virtue into the king's hand as to heal my child, I'll 

 serve that God and that king so long as I live, with all 

 thankfulness.' " It was found later that Hanoverian kings 

 had the same power as the Stuart, even as old Aubrey had 

 noted of the Yorkist and Lancastrian kings. " The curing 

 of the King's E\-il," he said, "by the touch of the king, does 

 much puzzle our philosophers, for whether our kings were of 

 the house of York or Lancaster, it did the cure for the most 

 part." And so no doul)t it would if the patient had been 

 touched by one of the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, or by 

 the valet of such a one, or in fine by Tom Noakes or John 

 Stj'les, so only that the patient was fully persuaded he had 

 been touched b)' the rightful monarch. 



Another "royal personage" succeeded (by a coincidence 

 singular enough, at the same place, Breda) in curing a num- 

 ber of men of a much more active disoi'der, though in this 

 case the imagination was aided chiefly by the ideas suggested 

 by medicine-bottles of orthodox shape, not solely by faith 

 in i-oyal blood. During the siege of Breda in 1625 many 

 soldiers of the Prince of (Grange's army were prostrate with 

 scurvy. The mortality was serious, the patients ha-\ang 

 altogether lost heart. " This," says Dr. Frederic Yan der 

 Mye, who was present, " was the most terrible circumstance 

 of all, and gave rise to a variety of misery ; hence proceeded 

 fluxes, dropsies, and every species of distress {onive chnns 

 morborum), attended with a gi'eat mortalitj'." At length 

 the Prince of Grange sent word to the sufierers that they 

 should soon be relieved, and provided with medicines pro- 

 nounced by doctors to be wonderfully efficacious in the cure 

 of scurvy. " Three small ]ihials of medicine were given to 

 each physician, not enough for the recovery of two patients. 

 It was publicly given out that three or four drops were suf- 

 ficient to impart a healing virtue to a gallon of liquor." 

 " We now," says Yan der Mye, " displayed our wonder- 

 working bal.sams, nor were even the commanders let into 

 the secret of the cheat put ujion the soldiers. They flocked 

 in crowds about us, every one soliciting that part might be 

 reserved for their use. Cheerfulness again appears in every 



