Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery Part 6

And it was manifestly suggestion, and not the injections of pure water, that checked the fever, arrested the cough, diminished the expectoration, revived the appet.i.te, and increased the weight.[72:1]

A simple experiment, with a view to proving that a patient is accessible to auto-suggestion, is described by Professor Munsterberg. Some interesting-looking apparatus, with a few metal rings, is fastened upon his fingers, and connected with a battery and electric keys. The key is then pushed down in view of the patient, who is instructed to indicate the exact time when he begins to feel the electric current. The sensation will probably shortly be felt in one of his fingers; whereupon the physician can demonstrate to him that there was no connection in the wires, and that the whole galvanic sensation was the result of suggestion.[72:2]

Joseph Jastrow, in "Fact and Fable in Psychology," remarks that the modern forms of irregular healing present apt ill.u.s.trations of occult methods of treatment which were in vogue long ago. And chief among these is the mental factor, whether utilized when the patient is awake or when he is unconscious, as a curative principle. The legitimate recognition of the importance of mental conditions and influences in therapeutics is one of the results of the union of modern psychology and medicine.

FOOTNOTES:

[53:1] Thomas Jay Hudson, _The Law of Psychic Phenomena_, p. 23.

[54:1] _Christian Healing_, p. 14.

[54:2] _Ibid._, p. 7.

[56:1] Dr. Hugo Magnus, _Superst.i.tion in Medicine_.

[58:1] _McClure's Magazine_, November, 1909.

[59:1] H. Bernheim, M.D., _Suggestive Therapeutics_, p. 196.

[60:1] Larousse, tome x, p. 1104.

[60:2] Edward Berdoe, _The Healing Art_, p. 248.

[61:1] Reuben Post Halleck, _Psychology and Psychic Culture_, p. 166.

[63:1] Mark Twain, _Christian Science_, p. 34

[64:1] _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquarians of Scotland_, 3d Series, vol. iii, p. 492. Edinburgh, 1893.

[65:1] _The Academy_, vol. x.x.xi, p. 258; 1887.

[65:2] _Journal of American Folk-Lore_, vol. viii, p. 287; 1895.

[65:3] John Harland and T. T. Wilkinson, _Lancas.h.i.+re Folk-Lore_.

[66:1] Alfred T. Schofield, M.D., _The Unconscious Mind_, p. 288.

[67:1] Alfred T. Schofield, M.D., _The Unconscious Mind_, p. 366.

[67:2] _Boston Herald_, February 20, 1909.

[70:1] Adams, _The Healing Art_, vol. i, p. 202.

[72:1] Dr. R. Romme, in _La Revue_.

[72:2] _Psychotherapy_, p. 213.

CHAPTER VI

THE ROYAL TOUCH

_Malcolm._ Well; more anon.--Comes the king forth, I pray you?

_Doctor._ Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls That stay his cure: their malady convinces The great a.s.say of art; but at his touch-- Such sanct.i.ty hath heaven given his hand-- They presently amend.

_Malcolm._ I thank you, doctor. [_Exit Doctor._

_Macduff._ What's the disease he means?

_Malcolm._ 'Tis called the evil: A most miraculous work in this good king; Which often, since my here-remain in England, I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven, Himself best knows: but strangely visited people, All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, The mere despair of surgery, he cures, Hanging a golden stamp about their necks, Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken, To the succeeding royalty he leaves The healing benediction. With this strange virtue, He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy, And sundry blessings hang about his throne, That speak him full of grace.

_Macbeth_, Act IV, Scene 3.

The healing of physical ailments by laying-on of hands was in vogue in the earliest historic times. Certain Egyptian sculptures have been found, ill.u.s.trative of this practice, wherein one of the healer's hands is represented as touching the patient's stomach, and the other as applied to his back.[74:1]

From numerous references to the subject in Holy Writ, three are here given: "Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of hands of the Presbytery."[74:2] "They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

"And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them."[74:3]

We are told that Asclepiades of Bithynia, a famous Grecian physician of the second century B. C., who practised at Rome, systematically employed the "induced trance" in the treatment of certain affections. Probably he considered this method to conform with certain principles which he advocated. For he professed that a physician's duty consisted in healing his patients safely, speedily, and pleasantly; and as he met with considerable success, his system was naturally very popular. It seems certain that the physicians of old had no true conception of the psychological and physiological principles of healing by laying on of hands. It is probable, on the other hand, that they used this method in a haphazard way, relying largely on the confidence of their patients and the expectation of cure.[75:1]

Tacitus, in his "History," book IV, chapter 81, relates that at the instance of the G.o.d Serapis, a citizen of Alexandria, who had a maimed hand, entreated that he might be pressed by the foot and sole of Vespasian (A. D. 9-79). The Emperor at first ridiculed the request, and treated it with disdain. However, upon learning the opinion of physicians that a cure might be effected through the application of a healing power, and that it was the pleasure of the G.o.ds that he should be the one to make the attempt, Vespasian, with a cheerful countenance, did what was required of him, while the mult.i.tude that stood by awaited the event in all the confidence of antic.i.p.ated success. Immediately, wrote the historian, the functions of the affected hand were restored.

The priests and magi of the ancient Druids possessed a wonderful faculty of healing. They were able to hypnotize their patients by the waving of a wand, and while under the spell of this procedure, the latter could tell what was happening afar off, being vested with the power of clairvoyance.

But the Druidic priests also effected cures by stroking with the hand, and this method was thought to be of special efficacy in rheumatic affections. They also employed other remedies which appealed to the imagination, such as various mesmeric charms and incantations.[76:1]

John Timbs remarks in "Doctors and Patients," that any person who claimed to possess the special gift of healing, was expected to demonstrate his ability by means of the touch; for this was the established method of testing the genuineness of any a.s.sumed or pretended curative powers. Among Eastern nations at the present time, European physicians are popularly credited with the faculty of healing by manual stroking or pa.s.ses, and the same ideas prevail in remote communities of Great Britain. In the opinion of the author above mentioned, the belief in the transmission of remedial virtues by the hands is derived from the fact that these members are the usual agents in the bestowal of material benefits, as, for example, in almsgiving to the poor.

According to the popular view, royal personages were exalted above other people, "because they possessed a distinctive excellence, imparted to them at the hour of birth by the silent rulers of the night." In view of this belief, it was natural that sovereigns should be invested with extraordinary healing powers, and that they should be enabled, by a touch of the hand, to communicate to others an infinitesimal portion of the virtues with which they had been supernaturally endowed. These virtues dwelt also in the king's robes. Hence arose the belief in the miraculous power of healing by the imposition of royal hands.[77:1]

There is nothing that can cure the King's Evil, But a Prince.

JOHN LYLY (1553-1606), _Euphues_.

The treatment of scrofulous patients by the touch of a reigning sovereign's hand is believed to have originated in France. According to one authority, Clovis I (466-511) was the pioneer in employing this method of cure. Louis I (778-840) is reported to have added thereto the sign of the cross. The custom was in vogue during the reign of Philip I (1051-1108), but that monarch is said to have forfeited the power of healing, by reason of his immorality and profligacy.[77:2] During later medieval times the Royal Touch appears to have fallen into disuse in France, reappearing, however, in the reign of Louis IX (1215-1270), and we have the authority of Laurentius, physician to Henry IV, that Francis I, while a prisoner at Madrid after the battle of Pavia, in 1525, "cured mult.i.tudes of people daily of the Evil."

The Royal Touch was a prerogative of the kings of England from before the Norman Conquest until the beginning of the Hanoverian dynasty, a period of nearly seven hundred years, and the custom affords a striking example of the power of the imagination and of popular credulity. The English annalist, Raphael Holinshed, wrote in 1577 concerning King Edward the Confessor (1004-1066), that he had the gift of healing divers ailments, and that "he used to help those that were vexed with the King's Evil, and left that virtue, as it were, a portion of inheritance, unto his successors, the kings of this realm."

But the earliest reference to this king as a healer by the touch was made by the English historian, William of Malmesbury (1095-1143), in his work, "De Gestis Regum Anglorum." The story, wrote Joseph Frank Payne, M.D., in "English Medicine in the Anglo-Saxon Times," has the familiar features of the legends and miracles of healing by the early ecclesiastics, saints, or kings, as they are found in the histories and chronicles from the time of Bede, the Venerable (673-735). But there appears to be no real historical evidence that Edward the Confessor was the first royal personage who healed by laying on of hands.

John Aubrey, in his "Miscellanies," a.s.serts, on the authority of certain English chronicles, that in the reign of King Henry III (1206-1272), there lived a child who was endowed with the gift of healing, and whose touch cured many diseases. Popular belief, as is well known, ascribed this prerogative also to a seventh son.

Pettigrew, in his "Superst.i.tions connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery," said that Gilbertus Anglicus, the author of a "Compendium Medicinae," and the first practical writer on medicine in Britain, who is believed to have flourished in the time of Edward I (1239-1307), a.s.serted that the custom of healing by the Royal Touch was an ancient one.

In the opinion of William George Black ("Folk-Medicine," 1883), the subject belongs rather to the domain of history than to that of popular superst.i.tions.