Well, if it’s 6 July, it must be the 363rd anniversary of the day courtier, landowner and founding fellow of the Royal Society John Evelyn wrote in his diary that he’d witnessed Charles II “touch for the evil!” — putting his hands on people to cure TB
6th. His Majesty began first to touch for the evil! according to custom, thus: his Majesty sitting under his state in the Banqueting-house, the chirurgeons cause the sick to be brought, or led, up to the throne, where they kneeling, the king strokes their faces, or cheeks with both his hands at once, at which instant a chaplain in his formalities says, “He put his hands upon them, and he healed them.” This is said to every one in particular. When they have been all touched, they come up again in the same order, and the other chaplain kneeling, and having angel gold strung on white ribbon on his arm, delivers them one by one to his Majesty, who puts them about the necks of the touched as they pass, whilst the first chaplain repeats, “That is the true light who came into the world.” Then follows, prayers for the sick, with some alteration; lastly the blessing; and then the Lord Chamberlain and the Comptroller of the Household bring a basin, ewer and towel, for his Majesty to wash.
This ritual was introduced by Edward the Confessor in the 11th century — well, unless it was Henry I in the 12th, or Edward III (14th). In France, it seems to have been introduced under King Philip I (11th C. Unless it was Louis IX — 13th).
Accounts vary a bit.
The idea, anyway, was that a royal personage could cure scrofula (Tuberculous lymphadenitis — the popular name apparently comes from “the Latin word scrofa, a breeding sow supposedly prone to the disease”.)
The practice even made its way into Shakespeare, with Macbeth visited by “people, / All swollen and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye” on whom he bestows “the healing benediction”.
Cromwell stamped out such superstitious papist nonsense, obviously — so people travelled to France to get touched by the man who would be Charles II, and he swiftly reintroduced the practice when he became king, touching 92,102 people in the following 22 years. (This July 1660 ceremony looks like it might have been his first.)
Apparently Charles once managed to touch 600 people in a day, and whether it was direct rivalry or not, Louis XVI in June 1775 went all out and did 2,400 “stinking sufferers” at one session.
It started to get less popular in Britain the less Catholic monarchs got. William III wasn’t keen, only performing the ceremony once. Queen Anne revived it — touching a two-year-old Samuel Johnson in 1711, for example — but that was the end of it. Then Robert Koch really spoilt things by discovering the tubercle bacillus in 1882
Did it work? Obviously not, but, as well the gentle caress of a monarch, sufferers did get a gold coin, and they could sell that, and buy food — and that improved their health considerably.
You can find out more about scrofula — a marvellous word for a not very nice thing — from the Wellcome Collection
