d while under the spell of this procedure, the latter could
tell what was happening afar off, being vested with the power of
clairvoyance.

But the Druidic priests also effected cures by stroking with the hand,
and this method was thought to be of special efficacy in rheumatic
affections. They also employed other remedies which appealed to the
imagination, such as various mesmeric charms and incantations.[76:1]

John Timbs remarks in "Doctors and Patients," that any person who
claimed to possess the special gift of healing, was expected to
demonstrate his ability by means of the touch; for this was the
established method of testing the genuineness of any assumed or
pretended curative powers. Among Eastern nations at the present time,
European physicians are popularly credited with the faculty of healing
by manual stroking or passes, and the same ideas prevail in remote
communities of Great Britain. In the opinion of the author above
mentioned, the belief in the transmission of remedial virtues by the
hands is derived from the fact that these members are the usual agents
in the bestowal of material benefits, as, for example, in almsgiving to
the poor.

According to the popular view, royal personages were exalted above other
people, "because they possessed a distinctive excellence, imparted to
them at the hour of birth by the silent rulers of the night." In view of
this belief, it was natural that sovereigns should be invested with
extraordinary healing powers, and that they should be enabled, by a
touch of the hand, to communicate to others an infinitesimal portion of
the virtues with which they had been supernaturally endowed. These
virtues dwelt also in the king's robes. Hence arose the belief in the
miraculous power of healing by the imposition of royal hands.[77:1]

There is nothing that can cure the King's Evil,
But a Prince.
JOHN LYLY (1553-1606), _Euphues_.

The treatment of scrofulous patients by the touch of a reigning
sovereign's hand is believed to have originated in France. According to
one authority, Clovis I (466-511) was the pioneer in employing this
method of cure. Louis I (778-840) is reported to have added thereto the
sign of the cross. The custom was in vogue during the reign of Philip I
(1051-1108), but that monarch is said to have forfeited the power of
healing, by reason of his immorality and profligacy.[77:2] During later
medieval times the Royal To