Faith-healing and Christian Science / by Alice Feilding.

  • Feilding, Alice.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Faith-healing and Christian Science / by Alice Feilding. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/232 (page 7)
    on a wider basis of testimony than the efficacy of the royal touch in the “ King’s Evil.” Not only theologians of eminent learning, ability, and virtue gave the sanction of their authority to this belief, but some of the principal sur- geons of the day certified that the cures were so numerous and rapid that they could not be attributed to any natural cause, and that the failures were to be ascribed to want of faith on the part of the patients.’1 The valuable truth ‘ want of faith ’ as the cause of failure was, we see, thus early recog- nised, though its great importance was not fully appreciated. Another secular, but little known, faith-cure superstition is that one concerning the seventh son, who was popularly credited with special healing faculties. This belief was held in pro- vincial England (particularly in the western counties) and in certain parts of France, and I doubt whether, in spite of universal educa- tion, it is yet altogether extinct in this country. A seventh son was commonly called c doctor ’ in recognition of this birthright, and that this 1 Mental Physiology, W. B. Carpenter, M.D., p. 686.