Eighteenth Century Waifs

by John Ashton

Then there was a far higher-priced necklace, but, as it also operated on adults, it was perhaps stronger and more efficacious. ‘A necklace that cures all sorts of fits in children, occasioned by Teeth or any other Cause; as also Fits in Men and Women. To be had at Mr. Larance’s in Somerset Court, near Northumberland House in the Strand; price ten shillings for eight days, though the cure will be performed immediately.’ And there was the famous ‘Anodyne Necklace.’

In the preceding century there were some famous quacks, notably Sir Kenelm Digby, who, with his sympathetic powder, worked wonders, especially one instance, an account of which he read to a learned society at Montpellier. He recounted how a certain learned gentleman, named Howell, found two of his friends engaged in a duel with swords, how he rushed to part them, and catching hold of one of their blades, his hand was severely cut, the other antagonist cutting him severely on the back of his hand. Seeing the mischief they had done, they bound up his hand with his garter, and took him home. Mr. Howell was of such note that the King sent his own physician to him, but without avail; and there was expectation that the hand would mortify and have to be amputated. Here Sir Kenelm, who knew him, stepped in, and, being applied to by his friend to try his remedies, consented. Let him tell his own tale.

‘I asked him then for anything that had blood upon it; so he presently sent for his garter, wherewith his hand was first bound, and as I called for a basin of water, as if I would wash my hands, I took a handful of powder of vitriol, which I had in my study, and presently dissolved it. As soon as the bloody garter was brought me, I put it in the basin, observing, in the interim, what Mr. Howell did, who stood talking with a gentleman in a corner of my chamber, not regarding at all what I was doing. He started suddenly, as if he had found some strange alteration in himself. I asked him what he ailed.

‘“I know not what ails me; but I feel no more pain. Methinks that a pleasing kind of freshness, as it were a wet cold napkin, did spread over my hand, which hath taken away the inflammation that tormented me before.”

‘I replied, “Since, then, you feel already so much good of my medicament, I advise you to cast away all your plasters; only keep the wound clean, and in a moderate temper, betwixt 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 circumstances of the business; which was, that after dinner, I took the garter out of the water, and put it to dry before a great fire. It was scarce dry before Mr. Howell’s servant came running, and saying that his master felt as much burning as ever he had done, if not more; for the heat was such as if his hand were betwixt coals of fire. I answered that 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 might be, before he could 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 the garter again into the water; thereupon he found his master without any pain at all. To be brief, there was no sense of pain afterwards; but within five or six days the wounds were cicatrized, and entirely healed.’

Faith worked wonders, and a credulous imagination formed an excellent foundation for healing. Take another instance in the same century—the case of Valentine Greatraks (who cured by the imposition of hands), who was nearly contemporary with Sir Kenelm. It would serve no good purpose to go minutely into his history: suffice it to say that he was an Irishman of good family, and, as a young man, served under Cromwell. After the disbandment of the army he was made Clerk of the Peace for the County of Cork, Registrar for Transplantation (ejection of Papists who would not go to church) and Justice of the Peace, so that we see he occupied a respectable position in society.

After Greatraks settled down in his civil capacity, he seems to have been a blameless member of society; but his religious convictions were extremely rabid, and strong on the Protestant side. Writing in 1668, he says: ‘About four years since I had an Impulse, or a strange perswasion, in my own mind (of which I am not able to give any rational account to another) which did very frequently suggest to me that there was bestowed on me the gift of curing the King’s Evil: which, for the extraordinariness of it, I thought fit to conceal for some time, but at length I communicated this to my Wife, and told her, That I did verily believe that God had given me the blessing of curing the King’s Evil; for, whether I were in private or publick, sleeping or waking, still I had the same Impulse; but her reply was to me, That she conceived this was a strange imagination: but, to prove the contrary, a few daies after there was one William Maher of Salterbridge, in the Parish of Lissmore, that brought his Son William Maher to my house, desiring my Wife to cure him, who was a person ready to afford her Charity to her Neighbours, according to her small skill in Chirurgery; on which my Wife told me there was one that had the King’s Evil very grievously in the Eyes, Cheek, and Throat; whereupon I told her that she should now see whether this were a bare fancy, or imagination, as she thought it, or the Dictates of God’s Spirit on my heart; and thereupon I laid my hands on the places affected, and prayed to God for Jesus’ sake to heal him, and then I bid the Parent two or three days afterwards to bring the Child to me again, which accordingly he did, and then I saw the Eye was almost quite whole, and the Node, which was almost as big as a Pullet’s Egg, was suppurated, and the throat strangely amended, and, to be brief (to God’s glory I speak it), within a month discharged itself quite, and was perfectly healed, and so continues, God be praised.’

This may be taken as a sample of his cures, albeit his first; and, although he excited the enmity of the licensed medical profession, he seems to have cured the Countess of Conway of an inveterate head-ache, which greatly enhanced his reputation. He died no one knows when, but some time early in the century.

And in our time, too, have been the quacks, the Zouave Jacob and Dr. Newton, who pretended to have the miraculous gift of healing by the imposition of hands, so that we can scarcely wonder that, in an age when the dissemination of accurate and scientific knowledge as the present is (imperfect though it be), a man like Valentine Greatraks was believed in as of almost divine authority at the period at which he lived. But it is a very curious thing that some men either imagine that they have, or feign to have a miraculous gift of healing. Witness in our own day the ‘Peculiar People,’ who base their peculiar gift of healing on a text from the Epistle of St. James, chap. 5, v. 14—‘Is any sick among you? let him call upon the elders of the Church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.’