"Quacks"

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The Quackdoctor (JPEG-99 K)

 

Entry 1: Quacks

The traveling occultists, lithotomists, and hernia operators of the sixteenth century are looked upon with disgust by the professional fraternity of medicine. However the city of Worms states in their Code of 1582 that "such lithotomists, oculists and teeth-pullers who are skilled and who do not administer medicine internally, which does not belong to their art...shall be tolerated. The Barber Surgeons Company in London licenses people for lithotomy, couching of cataracts, etc. as long as the licensee calls in a member of the company for consultation and pays him a fee. Once such licensee is Mathias Jenkinson who was "examyned concernyge his skill in the arte of surgery and was lycensed to cut for the Hernia or Rupture and to couch the cataract, to cut for wry neck and the harelip, provided he call the present Masters of this Company to every such case..."

 

Entry 2: Couching of Cataracts

The couching of cataracts is a quack specialty. In 1583 George Bertisch wrote in his book on the care of the eyes about the practitioners of the art, "Nor is there any lack of old women, vagrant hags, therica sellers, tooth-pullers, ruined shopkeepers, rat and mouse catchers, knaves, tinkers, hog-butchers, hangmen, bum-baliffs, and other wanton good for nothing vagabons...all of whom boldly try to perform this noble cure." William Reed was a titled oculist to weak-eyed Queen Anne who started out as a tailor. The queen also had as a protege a Dr. Grant who began as a tinker, progressed into preaching, before finding his calling as a "Dr.". The appointed royal oculist, Charles Taylor at least had a nodding acquaintance with medicine, having started out as an apothecary's assistant and listing amongst his patients Gibbon and Handel.

 

Entry 3: Gold- the best of all medicines

A dedicated Paracelsian born in 1550, Francis Anthony has develedped a cureall, aurum potablile, which brought him an international reputation. Prepared by the reaction of vinegar of wine with finely powdered gold, he bases its rationale upon the following logic: Metals are the most important of all remedies, Gold is the noblest of the metals and therefore Gold should be the best of all medicines.

 

Entry 4: Univeral Medicine

In 1640, a minister named John Evans published his tract called Universal Medicine in which he reasons that since antimony purifies gold, it must also purify the human body. He makes cups made of antimony and declares that drinking from his cups will cure most diseases. He offers his cups for sale, even allowing the prospective buyer to take one home for a free trial. The Royal College of Surgeons has condemned his theories and the Archbishop of Canterbury has ordered his tract destroyed.

 

Entry 5: Touching for the King's Evil (scrofula)

Believing that the monarch possessed supernatural powers due to his owing his kingship to divine inspiration, led to the practice of touching for the the King's Evil. The custom was brought across the Channel with William the Conqueror. Henry VII who reigned from 1485 until 1509 began the practice of touching a sore with a freshly minted gold noble. The gold noble had upon it a picture of an angel surrounded by the words "Per Crucem Tua Salva-Nos=Chr' - Redempt" which read "By the Cross save us, Redeemer Christ. Once the king touched the sore of the victim, the medal was given to the sufferer, who wore it thereafter on a ribbon around his neck. This practice still continues. In 1626, a proclamation fixed the times for healing and required each petitioner to present a certificate from the minister and church wardens of his parish signifying that he had not already received the touch.

 

In his diary, John Evelyn tells of the ceremony in 1684 when "There was so great a concourse of people with their children to be touch'd for the Evil that six or seven were crush'd to death by pressing at the Chirurgeon's doore for tickets."

 

Between the date of his restoration and his death, Charles II touched nearly 100,000 of his subjects.

 

Shakespeare refers to the medal in Macbeth:

"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 heir necks,

Put on with holy prayers..."

 

 

 

Credits:

 

1 - The Quackdoctor; Oil on canvas; at Mauritshuis, The Hague

Picture courtesy of Emil Kren from the website Web Gallery of Art at http://sunserv.kiki.nu/~artnp/index.html

 

 

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References:

Newman, Art (1988). The Illustrated Treasury of Medical Curiosa. McGraw-Hill, Inc. New York, New York.