t princes;--Dr. Harpsfield, in his "Ecclesiastical History of
England," admitted it, and in Wiseman's words, "when Bishop Tooker would
make use of this Argument to prove the Truth of our Church, Smitheus doth
not thereupon go about to deny the Matter of fact; nay, both he and Cope
acknowledge it." "I myself," says Wiseman, the best English surgical
writer of his day,[Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. iii. p.
103.]--"I my self have been a frequent Eye-witness of many hundred of
Cures performed by his Majesties Touch alone, without any assistance of
Chirurgery; and those, many of them such as had tired out the endeavours
of able Chirurgeons before they came hither. It were endless to recite
what I myself have seen, and what I have received acknowledgments of by
Letter, not only from the severall parts of this Nation, but also from
Ireland, Scotland, Jersey, Garnsey. It is needless also to remember what
Miracles of this nature were performed by the very Bloud of his late
Majesty of Blessed memory, after whose decollation by the inhuman
Barbarity of the Regicides, the reliques of that were gathered on Chips
and in Handkerchieffs by the pious Devotes, who could not but think so
great a suffering in so honourable and pious a Cause, would be attended
by an extraordinary assistance of God, and some more then ordinary a
miracle: nor did their Faith deceive them in this there point, being so
many hundred that found the benefit of it." [Severall Chirurgicall
Treatises. London.1676. p. 246.]

Obstinate and incredulous men, as he tells us, accounted for these cures
in three ways: by the journey and change of air the patients obtained in
coming to London; by the influence of imagination; and the wearing of
gold.

To these objections he answers, 1st. That many of those cured were
inhabitants of the city. 2d. That the subjects of treatment were
frequently infants. 3d. That sometimes silver was given, and sometimes
nothing, yet the patients were cured.

A superstition resembling this probably exists at the present time in
some ignorant districts of England and this country. A writer in a
Medical Journal in the year 1807, speaks of a farmer in Devonshire, who,
being a ninth son of a ninth son, is thought endowed with healing powers
like those of ancient royalty, and who is accustomed one day in every
week to strike for the evil.

I remember that one of my schoolmates told me, when a boy, of a seventh
son of a seventh son,