A Book About Doctors

by John Cordy Jeaffreson

Greatrakes himself also speaks of his more violent curative exertions making him very hot. But it was only occasionally that he had to labour so vehemently. His eye, the glance of which had a fascinating effect on people of a nervous organization, and his fantastic ticklings, usually produced all the results required by his mode of treatment.

The fame of the healer spread far and wide. Not only from the most secluded parts of Ireland, but from civilized England, the lame and blind, the deaf, dumb, and diseased, made pilgrimages to the Squire of Affane. His stable, barn, and malt-house were crowded with wretches imploring his aid. The demands upon his time were so very many and great, that he set apart three days in the week for the reception of patients; and on those days, from six in the morning till six in the evening, he ministered to his wretched clients. He took no fee but gratitude on the part of those he benefited, and a cheering sense that he was fulfilling the commands of the founder of his religion. The Dean of Lismore cited him to appear before the ecclesiastical court, and render an account of his proceedings. He went, and on being asked if he had worked any cures, replied to the court that they might come to his house and see. The judge asked if he had a licence to practise from the ordinary of the diocese; and he replied that he knew of no law which prohibited any man from doing what good he could to others. He was, however, commanded by the court not to lay his hands again on the sick, until he had obtained the Ordinary's licence to do so. He obeyed for two days only, and went on again more earnestly than ever.

Let a charlatan or an enthusiast spread his sails, the breeze of fashion is always present, and ready to swell them. The Earl of Orrery took his quondam lieutenant by the hand, and persuaded him to go over to England to cure the Viscountess Conway of a violent headache, which, in spite of the ablest physicians of England and France, she had suffered from for many years. Lord Conway sent him an urgent invitation to do so. He complied, and made his way to Rugby, in Warwickshire, where he was unable to give relief to his hostess, but was hospitably entertained for a month. His inability to benefit Lady Conway did not injure his reputation, for he did not profess to be able to cure every one. An adverse influence—such as the sins of a patient, or his want of faith—was enough to counteract the healing power. In the jargon of modern mesmerism, which practically was only a revival of Greatrakes's extravagances, the physician could affect only those who were susceptible. But though Lady Conway was beyond the reach of his mysterious agency, the reverse was the case with others. The gentry and commonalty of Warwickshire crowded by thousands to him; and he touched, prayed over, and blessed them, and sent them away rejoicing. From Rugby he went to Worcester, at the request of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of that city; and from Worcester he was carried up to London. Lord Arlington commanded him to appear at Whitehall, and mumble in his particular fashion for the amusement of Charles II. A man who could cure gout by a touch would have been an acquisition to such a court as then presided over English manners.

In London he immediately became a star. The fashion of the West, and the wary opulence of the East, laid their offerings at his feet. For a time he ruled from Soho to Wapping. Mr. Justice Godfrey gave him rooms for the reception of patients in his mansion in Lincoln's-inn-Fields; and thither flocked the mob of the indigent and the mob of the wealthy to pay him homage. Mr. Boyle (the brother of the Earl of Orrery), Sir William Smith, Dr. Denton, Dr. Fairclough, Dr. Faber, Sir Nathaniel Hobart, Sir John Godolphin, Dr. Wilkins, Dr. Whichcot, and Dr. Cudworth, were amongst his most vehement supporters of the sterner sex. But the majority of his admirers were ladies. The Countess of Devonshire entertained him in her palace; and Lady Ranelagh frequently amused the guests at her routs with Mr. Valentine Greatrakes, who, in the character of the lion of the season, performed with wondrous results on the prettiest or most hysterical of the ladies present. It was held as certain by his intimate friends that the curative property that came from him was a subtle aura, effulgent, and of an exquisitely sweet smell, that could only be termed the divine breath. "God," says Dr. Henry Stubbe, "had bestowed upon Mr. Greaterick a peculiar temperament, or composed his body of some particular ferments, the effluvia whereof, being introduced sometimes by a light, sometimes by a violent friction, should restore the temperament of the debilitated parts, re-invigorate the blood, and dissipate all heterogeneous ferments out of the bodies of the diseased by the eyes, nose, mouth, hands, and feet. I place the gift of healing in the temperament or composure of his body, because I see it is necessary that he touch them. Besides, the Right Honourable the Lord Conway observed one morning, as he came into his Lordship's chamber, a smell strangely pleasant, as if it had been of sundry flowers; and demanding of his man what sweet water he had brought into the room, he answered, None; whereupon his Lordship smelled upon the hand of Mr. Greaterick, and found the fragrancy to issue thence; and examining his bosom, he found the like scent there also." Dean Rust gave similar testimony; and "Sir Amos Meredith, who had been Mr. Greaterick's bed-fellow," did the like.

Amongst the certificates of cures performed, which Greatrakes published, are two to which the name of Andrew Marvell is affixed, as a spectator of the stroking. One of them is the following:—

"Mr Nicholson's Certificate.

"I, Anthony Nicholson, of Cambridge, Bookseller, have been affected sore with pains all over my body, for three-and-twenty years last past, have had advice and best directions of all the doctors there; have been at the bath in Somersetshire, and been at above one hundred pounds expense to procure ease, or a cure of these pains; and have found all the means I could be advised or directed to ineffectual for either, till, by the advice of Dr Benjamin Whichcot and Dean Rust, I applyed myself to Mr Greatrake's for help upon Saturday was sevenight, being the latter end of March, and who then stroked me; upon which I was very much worse, and enforced to keep my bed for five or six days; but then being stroked twice since, by the blessing of God upon Mr Greatrake's endeavours, I am perfectly eas'd of all pains, and very healthy and strong, insomuch as I intend (God willing) to return home towards Cambridge to-morrow morning, though I was so weak as to be necessitated to be brought up in men's arms, on Saturday last about 11 of the clock, to Mr Greatrake's. Attested by me this tenth day of April, 1666. I had also an hard swelling in my left arm, whereby I was disabled from using it; which being taken out by the said Mr Greatrake's, I am perfectly freed of all pain, and the use thereof greatly restored.

"Anthony Nicholson.

"In the presence of Andrew Marvell, Jas. Fairclough, Tho. Alured, Tho. Pooley, W. Popple."

There were worse features of life in Charles the Second's London than the popularity of Valentine Greatrakes; but his triumph was of short duration. His professions were made the butts of ridicule, to which his presence of mind and volubility were unable to respond with effect. It was asserted by his enemies that his system was only a cloak under which he offended the delicacy of virtuous women, and roused the passions of the unchaste. His tone of conversation was represented as compounded of the blasphemy of the religious enthusiast and the blasphemy of the profligate. His boast that he never received a fee for his remedial services was met by flat contradiction, and a statement that he received presents to the amount of £100 at a time from a single individual. This last accusation was never clearly disposed of; but it is probable that the reward he sought (if he looked for any) was restoration, through Court influence, to the commission of magistrates for his county, and the lost clerkship of the peace. The tide of slander was anyhow too strong for him, and he retired to his native country a less honoured though perhaps a not less honest man than he left it. Of his sincerity at the outset of his career as a healer there can be little doubt.

Valentine Greatrakes did unconsciously what many years after him Mesmer did by design. He in his remarkable career illustrated the power which a determined man may exercise over the will and nervous life of another.

As soon as the singular properties of the loadstone were discovered, they were presumed to have a strong medicinal effect; and in this belief physicians for centuries—and indeed almost down to present times—were in the habit of administering pulverized magnet in salves, plaisters, pills, and potions. It was not till the year 1660 that it was for the first time distinctly recorded in the archives of science, by Dr. Gilbert, of Colchester, that in a state of pulverization the loadstone no longer possessed any magnetic powers. But it was not till some generations after this that medical practitioners universally recognized the fact that powder of magnet, externally or internally administered, was capable of producing no other results than the presence of any ordinary ferruginous substance would account for. But long after this error had been driven from the domains of science, an unreasonable belief in the power of magnets applied externally to the body held its ground. In 1779-80, the Royal Society of Medicine in Paris made numerous experiments with a view to arrive at a just appreciation of the influence of magnets on the human system, and came to the conclusion that they were medicinal agents of no ordinary efficacy.

Such was the state of medical opinion at the close of the last century, when Perkins's tractors, which were supposed to act magnetically, became the fashion. Mr. Perkins was a citizen of Connecticut, and certainly his celebrated invention was worthy of the 'cutest people on the 'varsal earth. Barnum's swindles were modest ventures by comparison. The entire world, old and new, went tractor-mad. Every valetudinarian bought the painted nails, composed of an alloy of various metals (which none but Perkins could make, and none but Perkins sell), and tickled with their sharp ends those parts of his frame which were regarded as centres of disease.