48 DISEASES OF CHILDREN. 



a supernatural power, and which is thus treated of in the "Surgical Treatises" 

 of Richard Wiseman, who was Serjeant Chyrurgeon to King Charles II., and 

 one of the foremost surgeons of his day. After stating that the king's evil 

 often baffles the skill of the young surgeon, Wiseman goes on to say : 



" But when upon trial he shall find the contumaciousness of the disease which 

 frequently deludeth his best care and industry, he will find reason for acknowledging 

 the goodness of God, who hath dealt so bountifully with this nation in giving the 

 kings of it, at least from Edward the Confessor downwards (if not for a longer time), 

 an extraordinary power in the miraculous cure thereof. This our chronicles have all 

 along testified, and the personal experience of many thousands now living can 

 witness for his Majesty that now reigneth, and his Royal father and grandfather. 

 His Majesty that now is having exercised that faculty with wonderful success, not 

 only here but beyond the seas in Flanders, Holland, and France itself. The King of 

 this last pretends to a gift of the same kind, and hath often the good hap to be alone 

 mentioned in chirurgical books as the sole possessor of it, when the French them- 

 selves are the authors, yet even they, when they are a little free, will not stick 

 to own the Kings of England as partakers with him in that faculty. Witness the 

 learned Tagaultius, who in his institutions takes notice of King Edward's faculty of 

 doing the same cure, and the continuance of it in his successors. Italy as 

 well as France hath made the like acknowledgments in the books of Polydore Virgil, 

 who, reciting the gift given to St. Edward the Confessor, doth subjoin these words, 

 * Which immortal gift hath been derived as it were by an hereditary right to 

 the latter kings ; for the Kings of England even now do cure the struma by 

 touch, etc.' " 



After alluding to and controverting the assertion that had been made by certain 

 Roman Catholic divines that this miraculous power departed from the sovereigns of 

 England at the Reformation, Wiseman goes on to say, " But it is not my business to 

 enter into divinity controversies : all that I pretend to is first, the attestation of 

 the miracles ; and, secondly, a direction for such as have not the opportunity of 

 receiving the benefit of that stupendious power. The former of these, one would 

 think, should need no other proof than the great concourse of strumous persons 

 to Whitehall, and the success that they find in it. I myself have been a frequent 

 eye-witness of many hundreds of cures performed by his Majesty's touch alone, 

 without any assistance of chirurgery ; and those many of them such as had tired 

 out the endeavours of able chirurgeons before they came thither. It were endless to 

 recite what I myself have seen, and what I have received acknowledgments 

 of by letter, not only from the several parts of this nation, but also from Ireland, 

 Scotland, Jersey, and Guernsey. It is needless also to remember what miracles of 

 this nature were performed by the veiy blood of his late Majesty of blessed memory, 

 after whose decollation by the inhumane barbarity of the regicides, the reliques of 

 that were gathered on chips, and in handkerchiefs, by the pious devotees, who could 

 not but think so great a suffering in so honourable and pious a cause would 

 be attended by an extraordinary assistance of God, and some more than ordinary 

 miracles ; nor did their faith deceive them in this point, there being so many 

 hundred that found the benefit of it. If this dead blood were accompanied by 



