Contributions to the history of medicine in Ireland. Part I, The history of periodic medical literature in Ireland, including notices of the medical and philosophical societies of Dublin / [W.R. Wilde].

  • Wilde, W. R. (William Robert), 1815-1876
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Contributions to the history of medicine in Ireland. Part I, The history of periodic medical literature in Ireland, including notices of the medical and philosophical societies of Dublin / [W.R. Wilde]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/50 (page 4)
    reaks, generally known as the 44 stroking doctor ’ for his supposed cures of scrofula, rheumatism, and epilepsy, or, as Ware informs us, his 44 wonderful gift of healing king’s evil and other ulcers and pains, by stroking the parts affected so that the Members of the 44 Royal Society and other modern philosophers,” not able to dispute the fact, found words to define it, and called those strange effects 44 a sanative conta¬ gion in his body which had an antipathy to some particular diseases and not to others.” This influence (so called) had, nearly two hundred years ago, as great an effect on the public mind as, under another title (that of Mesmerism), it has at the present day—nay, even more so, for the cures said to be performed by its means were printed in the Philosophical Transactions by Mr. Thores- by; and the observant and learned Boyle annexed his testimo¬ nial of their efficacy, along with those of Drs. Whichcote, Cutworth, Patrick, and other eminent men of science and re¬ putation, to the account which Greatreaks published of his wonderful cures(rf). (c/) “ A brief Account of Mr. Valentine Greatreaks, and divers strange cures by him lately performed ; in a Letter to the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq.” London, 1666, 4to. This work was written in answer to an attack made upon him by Mr. David Lloyd, Chaplain to the Charter House, entitled, “ Wonders no Mira¬ cles ; or, Mr. Valentine Greatreaks’ Gift of Healing examined.” London, 1666. From this period his star ceased to be in the ascendant, and what the Royal Society, and the wise and learned wondered at, sanctioned, and applauded, the common sense and truthful narrative of a Welch parson, and the ridicule and satire of an English novelist, completely dispelled, for “ I am mistaken,” says Ware, “if it was not on this occasion that Mr. St. Evermond wrote a novel called the ‘Irish Prophet,’ wherein he ingeniously exposes the people’s credulity.” See also The Dublin Penny Journal for 183d, vol. i. p. 401, for some further account of Greatreaks. Touching for the evil has long been in vogue among the lower orders of the Irish, either by the hand of a person of a particular family believed to be en¬ dowed with the power of healing, or with a piece of linen supposed to be marked with the blood of King Charles the first. We remember seeing the late worthy Abbot of Cong (who possessed the celebrated Cross of Turlogh O’Connor and the shrine of the Ficteail Phadraig, both non in the splendid collection of