MESMERISM. 667 



Vespasian, who performed two miracles now ascertained to be 

 mesmeric, to that of the Scandinavian princes, particularly St. 

 Olaf in 1020, and even down to our modern kings, for whose 

 mesmeric virtues the royal surgeon Wiseman, not through the 

 mean craftiness of a courtier, but through philosophical con- 

 viction, stoutly vouches. 6 It is very remarkable that it was not 

 simply hereditary and constitutional, but depended upon the 

 individual being actually in office as king, and it is a loss, if 

 not disloyal and radical, to consider our kings as no longer 

 endowed with this virtue. George the Third gave up the pre- 

 tension ; but a king would still have thousands of patients if he 

 would but practise : a strong argument in favour of mesmeric 

 influence. The practice of the imposition of hands and the 

 manner of benediction are unquestionably mesmeric. The Chal- 

 dean priests are said to have practised this mode of treatment ; 

 as also the Indian Brahmins, and the Parsi ; and the Jesuit 

 missionaries inform us that the practice of curing diseases by 

 the imposition of hands has prevailed in China for many years. 

 The imposition of hands in blessing, and in the episcopal form of 

 confirmation dates from the remotest antiquity, and originated 

 in the view of imparting some holy effluence, just as I presume 

 the imposition of the hands in correcting naughty boys and 

 thrashing a man must have originated in the view of imparting 

 something disagreeable. Among the eastern nations curative 

 virtue was found to proceed from good men, if but even the 

 hem of their garment could be touched. On the ot,her hand, 

 pernicious influence has always been acknowledged to proceed 



c " 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 surgeons 

 before they came thither." " This our chronicles have long testified, and the 

 personal experience of many thousands can testify for his Majesty that now 

 reigneth, and his uncle, father, and grandfather. His Majesty that now is 

 having exercised this faculty with wonderful success not only here, but beyond the 

 seas, in Flanders, Holland, and France itself." (p. 243.) The king always ex- 

 pressed his belief that the cure was effected by the grace of God, saying, at the 

 time of the ceremony, " I touch, God heals ; " and the pious and moral Charles 

 II. touched 92,107 in twenty years, an average of twelve a day. Chirurgical 

 Treatises, vol. i. p. 387. In 1684, Thomas Roswell was tried for high tresaon 

 in having spoken contemptuously of the royaV touch. See Wadd's Mems., . 

 Maxims, and Memoirs. 



