March 13, 2017 • 37 mins
The practice of the monarch laying on hands to cure sick people lasted from the medieval period all the way to the 18th century in Britain and France. One disease in particular was so often "cured" it came to be known as the King's Evil.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy Wilson and I'm Holly Crying. Today's podcast was
originally supposed to be about afro ben uh, and don't
(00:24):
worry if you are one of the many many people
who asked for that one and are disappointed by the
words supposed to be uh. That episode is still in
the works, but very early on in researching it, a
book that I was reading was sort of setting the
stage with a description of life during the Restoration that
was the return of the British monarchy in sixteen sixty
(00:46):
in the years that followed it. And one bit of
this description was that when he was restored to the throne,
Charles the Second brought back a customary treatment for quote
the king's evil, also known as scrofula, and that treatment
was for the to touch people. I love it. You know, medicine. Yeah, yeah,
(01:07):
I knew. I knew that the practice of the monarch
laying on hands to cure sick people had been around
during the medieval period, but uh, I did not know
it had gone all the way into the Restoration. And
I definitely did not know that a particular illness was
so connected to it that people literally called it the
King's evil. So that was compelling enough to put off
(01:30):
Afriban until a little later, which conveniently also gives me
time to get through the immensely large book. Holly saw
that book last week while I was in Atlanta. It
was quite big. I did. Tracy was here visiting for work,
and she held up the book and said, how am
I ever going to get through this time? Because it
(01:51):
is really a serious tone it is it is, so
I'm glad that you'll have more time to work on
that one. Me too, because I was having that moment
where like when you're in middle school and you put
off your paper to the last minute. Except I didn't
put off the paper till the last minute. I just
didn't realize until I got into it how colossal the
(02:14):
research was. I like, how you think that's a middle
school thing and not say, in your forties working thing.
It could be that too. It is for me sometimes
not on purpose, but you know, we do lots of stuff,
so sometimes things fill in and I don't get as
much time as I would like to write a thing. Um,
(02:36):
But today we know that scraphula is caused by the
same bacteria as tuberculosis, and tuberculosis has been around for
at least nine thousand years. It is one of the oldest,
if not the oldest, infectious diseases still existing on Earth,
and most people are probably familiar with tuberculosis in its
pulmonary form, which has also been known as consumption or thysis.
(03:00):
The huge list of historical figures who were either known
or believed to have had pulmonary tuberculosis is huge. It
includes people like John Keats, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Bronte,
and many, many, many others. It's come up a lot
in episodes of our show that Holly and I have
worked on, including the history of the Grove Park in
(03:22):
to Rare, the New England vampire panic, Alan L. Hart,
and then of course Salmon Waxman, and the development of streptomycin,
which was the first drug successfully used to cure it. Scrapula,
which comes from the Latin term for brood sow, is
extra pulmonary tuberculosis, so it affects the body outside of
the lungs. Specifically, it's an infection of the lymph nodes
(03:45):
that's caused by tuberculosis, although lymph nodes all over the
body can be affected. In general, scrawfula has been used
to describe an infection in the neck, and when untreated,
it causes swellings, sores, and sometimes abscesses, in particular around
the lymph nodes at the top of the neck and
under the jaw. There's a little bit of debate about
(04:07):
why a word for sal came to be used to
describe scrawcula, and some accounts it's because pigs were prone
to having tumors in their throats, and others it's because
scrawfula makes your neck look thick and swollen like a pig's.
Cassius Felix, who was writing in the year four or
forty seven, said it looked quote, just like the swollen
neck of a sal. And some thought that maybe it
(04:30):
was that the swellings and the sores brought on by
scrawpula looked like pigs themselves. That one seems like the
most unlikely to me, but it weirdly, I read a
lot of old medical documents of people theorizing about why
it was called that, from like the seventeen hundreds. You know,
(04:54):
it's worth examination. But today we have diagnostic tests to
confirm a tuberculosis in section, and thankfully we have the
drugs to treat it, especially in places with reliable access
to modern medicine. It's really rare for scrophula to become
a serious problem, with the exception of patients whose immune
systems are compromised or occasionally in a drug resistant strain
(05:17):
of the disease, and when treated quickly, the symptoms are
usually limited to painless swelling in the lymph nodes. But
before the development of antibiotics, scrophula could become incredibly painful
and disfiguring. It was also often mistaken for other conditions
that also caused swelling or sores in the throat or neck,
(05:38):
or those conditions were mistaken for scrophula, and these included mumps,
glandular disorders, various skin conditions, and cancer. Prior to the
germ theory of disease, physicians had all kinds of other
ideas about what caused scrophula. Under the ancient Greek idea
of the body being regulated by four humors, rahula was
(06:00):
caused by an excess of phlegm. Charles, the seconds Royal
Surgeon wrote that scrawfula came from the glands filling up
with humor. Some physicians in history believed it was inherited
and not communicable. In eighteen thirteen, William Curon described it
as quote a genuine idiopathic hereditary disease, and in eighteen
(06:21):
thirty three John Can't called it quote an hereditary taint.
Can't went on to say, quote, the other causes of
this disease are bad and unwholesome diet, insufficient clothing, neglect
of exercise, and want of proper cleanliness. I may also
observe that it frequently makes its first appearance after an
(06:42):
attack of measles, smallpox, rheumatic fever, or other debilitating affections,
and it is often excited into obvious existence by blows, sprains, bruises,
or other accidents. According to Thomas Fern, who wrote a
treatise on scraphula in seventeen o nine, mine, it was
quote a preternatural malignant tumor or humor produced by a
(07:05):
particular acidity of the serum of the blood, either in gland,
muscle or membrane, which it both coagulates and indurates, or
in the marrow, which it always dissolves and also putrifies
the bone. Mm hmmm, I don't nobody's eating breakfast while
they listen to this. There are several parts of this
(07:25):
episode where if if this were an episode of Saw Bones,
it would be the part where Justin is going, we
can move on, Like you can tell he just wants
Sydney to stop saying the gross part, Yeah, I don't.
I don't want to. And just occurs to me that
if somebody is a little bit delicate of tummy to
these types of things, this move maybe pause until you're
(07:48):
done with your meal. But Inferns treatise children whose parents
had scrawfula, especially if their mother did while nursing, were
more likely to develop it themselves, and quote here, I
cannot omit one observation by the by that children also
who are begotten at improper times of the moon have
been often subject to be afflicted with this evil and
(08:11):
to the last degree to a virulency. Let this be
a warning to married people. To let this be a
warning to marry people. Made me laugh a lot the
first a lot. It just loves the idea that, depending
on what time of the lunar cycle of baby is made,
(08:34):
might make it more um, you know, likely to contract this. Yeah.
Ferd went on to list others who were more prone
to scrawl pula, including people whose blood was naturally too acidic,
children who had rickets, people who were generally weak, people
whose bodies didn't have enough quote heat for good digestion,
(08:55):
living in places with air that was too thin or
too thick or was bad uh, And also quote salt, sour,
slimy meats or drinks. Not getting enough exercise, according to him,
was yet another way you could develop scrawfula. Okay, putrefying
bone is not a problem, but slimy meats is like,
we're creeping up to the edge of my like copability here. Um.
(09:19):
Some physicians did conclude that scrapula and tuberculosis were related,
even if all their other ideas about it were completely
off base. John Kent, for example, who had named its
cause quote and hereditary taint, also wrote that consumption was
quote neither more nor less than scrawpula of the lungs
in an eighteen thirty three edition of a text on
(09:41):
scrawpula and cancer. But it wasn't until eighteen eighty two
that medical science pinpointed the bacterial cause of tuberculosis and
confirmed that scrawpulo was caused by the same thing. Even then,
there were naysayers who argued that scrawfula was unrelated and
not transmissible. Over the centuries, a wide range of treatments
(10:03):
were used to relieve scrawfula, or try to. Because the
glands in question we're usually in the next surgeries could
be particularly dangerous, although some doctors did attempt them while
still in the world of four humor theory. Treatments were
often meant to balance the humors or drain excess through purgatives, diuretics,
(10:25):
and bleeding compresses. Poultices and topical bombs were applied to
the swellings as well, and for those who thought that
too much salt or too thin air, those sorts of
things where the problems, the treatment would include a change
of diet or a change of scenery. And we're going
to talk about how scrawfula came to be known as
the king's evil that could be cured if the king
(10:47):
touched it. Uh, But first we're going to pause for
a little sponsor break. In medieval England, the name the
king's voll eventually came to be directly connected to scrapula,
but the basic idea goes back earlier than that and
also connects to other diseases. In ancient Rome, the Latin
(11:11):
morbius regius, or royal disease, was used to describe a
number of different diseases, including jaundice and leprosy, which today
is known as Hanson's disease. It's not entirely clear where
either of these associations came from. One is that royal
was a reference to gold, so jaundice being called the
royal disease is because the color of the patient's skin.
(11:34):
Another theory is that particular royal or noble families were
prone to certain diseases long after the time we're talking
about today, and in other parts of the world, epilepsy
and hemophilia have been described as royal diseases because of
their connections to royal families. There's some suggestion that people
thought Hanson's disease could be cured through a royal touch,
(11:57):
but there's the very little evidence of a king actually
trying that, Although of course there are biblical and other
religious references that are not about a monarch. There are
a few very spotty references to monarchs in England and
France curing people through touch prior to the tenth and
eleven centuries. The first was Clovis, King of the Franks,
(12:19):
who reigned from four eight one to five eleven, although
the record on that one is very sparse. There are
also reports of miraculous cures at the hands of Robert
the Second of France, also known as Robert the Pious
or Robert the Pious, who was co ruler of the
Franks with his father from seven to nine six, and
then he was the Soul Monarch until his death in
(12:39):
ten thirty one. But the first widely chronicled event of
the royal touch was under Edward the Confessor, who lived
from one thousand three to ten sixty six, and he
ruled England from ten forty two until his death. He's
called the Confessor because of his reputation for being a
deeply pious man, and he's the only king of England
(13:02):
ever to have been canonized. Edward the Confessor reportedly cured
a woman of scrawfula. The woman had an infection under
her jaw that was causing swelling, a bad smell, and
multiple sores. She had a dream that if the king
washed her with water she would be cured, so she
went to the court and asked to be given an audience.
(13:23):
This might sound odd to today's ears, but asking for
an audience with the king for something like this at
the time was definitely not unheard of. Edward the Confessor,
along with other monarchs, distributed alms and alfered offered comfort
to the poor and the sick, particularly on religious holidays,
and in this case, when the woman was brought before
the king, he asked for a bowl of water. There's
(13:47):
some variation in exactly what happened next as described in
later accounts, but in general it was more than just
a laying on of hands or an anointing with water.
Combining the miraculous with the medical. Edward dipped his fingers
in the water and touched the woman's abscesses, which opened
up and drained, with some of the descriptions of what
(14:07):
came out being far grosser than others. He kept dipping
his fingers and washing and pressing until all of the
putrescence was gone, and then he ordered the woman to
be fed and cared for out of the royal purse
until she recovered. I will repeat that if you go
read up about this on the Internet. Some of the
(14:28):
descriptions are incredibly graphic. I originally had more graphics stuff
in here, and then I was like, you know what,
we're going to read this at ten o'clock in the morning,
when we're both a little you know, still getting used
to the day. Maybe this is a little too intense.
I'm okay with the abscess draining. I'm still back on
(14:52):
slimy meat and oh no. So there's some debate about
whether this woman's uh symptoms were really scrawfula or whether
it was some other condition, but regardless, this one event
solidified the connection between the King's Evil and scrawfula, and
(15:12):
soon the royal ability to cure through touch was connected
pretty much only to scrawfula. Thomas Fern, who's treatise on
Scrawfula we referenced in part one, wrote quote, but I
beg leave here to make one digression, by the way,
about our English term for the struma or scrawfula, as
at it as as it is now commonly called the
(15:35):
King's evil and everybody's mouth before I begin to define
what I have hitherto only been describing by name. And
some writers think that this name was given to any
scraw fulis or streamist disease long before Edward the Confessor's time.
But however, all agree at least that from his reign
it was called nothing else generally, and I may say
(15:56):
vulgarly too, but the king's evil in England. Fern also
wrote that the ability to heal it through touch was
quote a particular gift to him at first, and to
nobody before him, as a singular reward of his holiness.
And it was from their hereditary through the monarchy, at
least according to this guy. This event also comes up
(16:20):
in the work of Shakespeare, and Act four of Macbeth.
McDuff and Malcolm are standing outside Edward the Confessor's palace
and a doctor comes through and mentions that there's a
crowd of people inside seeking the king's touch. Malcolm then
explains to McDuff what is going on. Quote just called
the evil a most miraculous work in this good king,
(16:43):
which often, since my here remained in England, I have
seen him do. How he solicits heaven himself best known knows,
but strangely visited people all swollen, an ulcerous, pitiful to
the eye, the mere despair of surgery, he yours hanging
a golden stamp about their necks, put on with holy prayers,
(17:05):
and to spoken to the succeeding royalty. He leaves the
healing benediction with this strange virtue. He hath a heavenly
gift of prophecy, and sundry blessings hang about his throne
that speak him full of grace. Although this scene takes
place outside the palace of Edward the Confessor, his treatment
of this woman for scrapula seems to have been a
(17:26):
one time thing performed on one person, not a mass
ceremony with a coin involved. However, it's a really good
description of what this practice morphed into in later centuries,
as monarchs in England and France started touching large groups
of subjects at special ceremonies and holidays. Okay, even though
Shakespeare was writing about Edward the Confessor, here he was
(17:49):
describing was what was actually happening while he was living,
when people went to get cured of the king's evil.
Louis the sixth of France he ruled from eleven oh
eight to eleven thirty seven, viewed this practice as quote customary,
and he treated whole crowds with laying on of hands
(18:09):
and the sign of the cross. Edward the First of England,
who ruled from twelve seventy two to seven, touched more
than five hundred of his subjects to cure them of
scrophula in the course of a single month. By the
end of his reign, he was touching more than a
thousand people every year. People traveled great distances to the
(18:29):
court of Philip the Fourth of France, who ruled from
twelve eighty five to thirteen fourteen, and the people who
traveled the farthest to see him were also rewarded with
large sums of alms. Are the fourth of France, who
ruled from fifteen eighty nine to sixteen ten, touched up
to fifteen hundred people in one single ceremony. I'm just
(18:50):
gonna interject here that seems like a bad public health moves.
That's I was thinking about, like the germs, that how
did all of these mode arcs not constantly become ill themselves? Question?
Because they were magical? Clearly. Uh. It was Edward the
Third of England, who ruled from to thirteen seventy seven,
(19:14):
who first started presenting those he touched with a coin,
which was described in that passage that Tracy read from Macbeth.
These coins became an ongoing practice known as angels or
touch pieces, and were sometimes strung through with a ribbon
to be worn as a talisman. Edward the Third's father
Edward the Second, also started the practice of the monarch
(19:35):
donating gold or silver on Good Friday, which would be
made into cramp rings said to have healing powers. For
the most part, the first few generations of this royal
touch were viewed as an outward expression of the monarch's
personal sanctity, and f the monarch didn't have a lot
of personal sanctity and the gift would go away. For example,
(19:57):
Philip the First was Canada franks from in sixty to
eleven oh eight, and he reportedly did practice the royal
touch at first, until he became too sinful for it
to work for him. He wound up having the nickname
Philip the Amorous. But that connection to personal piety shifted
a little bit after the Protestant Reformation, and we're going
(20:19):
to talk about that after we paused one more time
for a sponsor break. Over the years, some circular logic
grew up around the king's evil and the royal touch.
Scraffula was the king's evil because kings could cure it,
and kings could could cure scraffula because it was the
(20:40):
king's evil. Following this same pattern, the monarch's practice of
the royal touch started to be used as evidence of
the monarch's legitimacy as the monarch. If the monarch did
this thing, clearly they were legitimately the monarch. It sounds
a lot like the Lord of the Rings legend from
Gondor out the hands of the king, or the hands
(21:01):
of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known.
This shows up especially in the post Reformation reign of
Queen Elizabeth the First, who was queen from fifteen fifty
eight until her death in sixteen o three. Her first
attempts at the king's touch seemed reluctant. However, after Pope
Pious the Fifth excommunicated her and declared her a pretended
(21:24):
queen and a heretic, she revived the practice in part
because her detractors claimed that God had taken the gift
away from her for her heresy, and in one account,
a Catholic woman came to her and begged to be cured,
and when Elizabeth's touch was successful, the woman announced that
the papal bull was clearly null because God was still
(21:45):
working through the queen. Today's episode of the podcast was
inspired by this description of Charles the Second's revival of
the practice during the restoration. Under the reign of Charles
the Second's father, Charles the First, a form for healing
at the hands of the king had become a part
of the Book of Common Prayer. Charles the First had
(22:08):
also had touch peace coins meanted that were inscribed and
Latin translated to quote the love of the people is
the King's protection. He got executed, so apparently love was
not enough protection for him. Charles the First was king
until he was executed for high treason and the monarchy
(22:29):
was abolished. Oliver Cromwell then became Lord Protector of England,
Ireland and Scotland. Cromwell was not a king and did
not practice the royal touch, but Charles the Second, while
in exile, continued the practice, in part as evidence of
his place on the throne. When the monarchy was restored,
Charles the Second's touch pieces were inscribed with the Latin
(22:51):
for glory to God alone. John Evelyn wrote about Charles
the Second's reinstatement of the practice of the royal touch
after the restoration of the monarchy in his diary for
July six sixty. Here's what it's said. His Majesty began
first to touch for the evil according to custom. Thus
(23:11):
his Majesty, sitting under his state in the banqueting house,
the surgeons caused 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 and his formalities, says quote,
he has he put his hands upon them, and he
(23:31):
healed them. This is said to everyone in particular. When
they have all been touched, they come up again in
the same order, and the other chaplain, kneeling and having
an angel gold strong on white ribbon on his arm,
delivers them one by one, who is Majesty who puts
them about the next of the touch as they pass,
while the first chaplain repeats, quote, this is the true
(23:54):
light who came into the world. Then follows an epistle,
at first a gospel with the with the liturgy prayers
for the sick, with some alteration. Lastly the blessing, then
the Lord Chamberlain and the Controller of the household bring
a basin your towel for his majesty to wash. Samuel
Peeps wrote about it as well on April thirteenth, sixteen
(24:17):
sixty one, writing quote, I went to the banquet house
and there saw the King heel the first time that
I ever saw him do it, which he did with
great gravity, and it seemed to me to be an
ugly office and a simple one. Apparently, Charles the Second
also had to set up a system to keep people
from coming back for seconds. Basically, Charles the Second used
(24:40):
the King's touch on ninety thousand subjects between sixteen sixty
and sixteen eighty two. He and his court also tried
to put a stop to anyone else treating scrapula through
the laying on of hands. Charles the First had taken
similar steps in his reign, and they had both also
taken steps to keep people from coming back repeatedly. In
sixteen thirty seven, a father and his seventh son were
(25:04):
investigated for their use of the son's purported healing powers.
A neighbor had had scrophula, and the child's grandmother had
held the baby's hand up to the neighbor's neck, who
had been reportedly been cured. Father and son went on
to treat many more people, but were told to stop it.
They were, however, spared for their punishment because folks were
(25:25):
basically afraid that their followers were would be angered if
they were treated too harshly. Similarly, Valentine Great Rakes, also
known as the Stroker, had been a lieutenant in Oliver
Cromwell's army, but went on to become something of a
faith healer. In sixteen sixty two, he was suddenly struck
(25:46):
by the knowledge that he had the power to heal
the king's evil. He started healing people with prayers and
laying on of hands, and eventually his fame spread far
enough that he was summoned before the court in order
to stop. After repeated orders from increasingly more powerful figures
within the church failed to get him to stop, the
ecclesiastical Court decided that they were risking the ire of
(26:09):
his followers, and they gave up. He finally wound up
being summoned to Whitehall to appear before Charles the Second,
the results of which did not make it into the
historical record. It's it's there are so many different ways
that conversation could have gone because he and Charles the
Second were both touching a whole lot of people to
try to hear their scrappula. So it's it's not clear
(26:31):
whether Charles the Second was like, dude, you gotta lay off,
this is my territory, or whether it was more like
a meeting of the faith healers, or maybe they touched
each other an event horizon opened up and things got
really crazy. No. So, the idea of the royal touch
(26:53):
as being evidence for who was the legitimate ruler appeared
once again during the Laurious Revolution and the Jacobite attempts
to return the Stewarts to the throne. William the Third,
also known as William of Orange, and his wife Mary
became joint monarchs in six nine. William only only performed
the royal touch once, saying afterward quote God give you
(27:17):
better health and more sense. Meanwhile, the exiled Stewart's, including
Bonnie Prince Charlie, kept up the habit, and Queen Anne,
last monarch of the House of Stewart, touched hundreds of subjects.
One was writer Samuel Johnson, who she touched when he
was just two years old. In the words of John
(27:37):
Kent three treatise on Scraffla, which we read from earlier
in the show quote, it appears that Queen Anne was
the last sovereign who practiced such a ridiculous and superstitious imposition,
and successor George the first put an end to the
practice in England after becoming king in seventeen fourteen because
(27:58):
he thought it was just a superstitiou. In in France,
the France Revolution put an end to the practice by
overthrowing the monarchy in see what you did and how
we can't have the King's touch? Uh. There is of
course lots of debate about what was really going on here,
from both a medical and a religious sense. There were
(28:20):
doctors and clergy alike who viewed the practice with a
lot of skepticism. It wasn't like everybody believed that this
was a legitimate healing practice. Uh. In spite of the
fact that speaking out against the royal touch got at
least one person convicted for treason, much like all of
the other people who were told to stop being faith
(28:41):
healers with scrapula, this guy was ultimately pardoned because they
were afraid of angering his followers. One common cause of
scrapula and medieval and early modern Europe was contracting a
bovine form of tuberculosis through drinking contaminated milk. And this
comes up a whole lot modern treatments of this whole phenomenon.
(29:02):
This form of the condition didn't typically lead to other
symptoms of tuberculosis, and it often resolved itself later, giving
the patient a heightened immunity to pulmonary tuberculosis as well.
So there are a lot of people who were like,
maybe because so many people were getting this bovine form
of tuberculosis through contaninated milk and then it was resolving
(29:24):
coincidentally after the monarch touched them, maybe that explains it all.
But that's really not uh really not quite an adequate
explanation for something that went on for that many centuries.
It's a very long time and thousands of people. Yeah,
(29:45):
I wonder, um if there's much on the record about
the timeline of the healing, right, like, other than the
one where there's discussion of the pressing of the abscesses
and draining them. You know, it's is it as though
people magically walked away with unswollen necks and we're instantly
(30:07):
healed according to the record. Or is it a case
where it probably was just it running its course and
they're like, the King touched me three weeks ago, and
I feel much better now, yeah, Or are people selectively
remembering the people who got better, right, and not remembering
the folks who didn't. Uh. Like I said at the
top of the show, I knew that this was a
(30:29):
thing among medieval marks. I had no idea that it
continued on and on and on all the way until
the French Revolution. That's just uh through me for a
little bit of a loop. Hey, if you liked today's
episode of our show, you might also like a podcast
I love a whole lot called saw Bones. Saw Bones
(30:50):
is a show about medical history that is not medical opinion.
It is very fun by Justin and Dr Sidney McIlroy. Um.
Really it's Dr Sidney McIlroy who is the doctor and
Justin is kind of her comedic foil. I love them
so yeah. This month you might notice on the Internet
(31:13):
there are a lot of podcasts talking about trying other podcasts.
It is a rising Tide Lifts all boat kind of
initiative called tripod, I said, all boats as and we're
all in the same one, which we kind of are. Uh.
So we will on our Twitter. Uh, we will tweet
(31:33):
out a little bit about say Bones with a hashtag tripod.
You can learn more about them. Check out their show.
I really really enjoy it. They have done a lot
of stuff that is both very funny, very informative, sometimes
very gross, which is when Justin is like mmmmmmm uh.
And you also can participate in all of this. You
(31:55):
can tell your friends about podcasts you enjoy and hashtag
them tripods. So folks can find all of these cool
recommendations in one place. How about listener mail, Tracy, I
do have listener mail. First, I'm gonna thank you. I'm
gonna thank listener Nicole, who sent us a card and
a postcard and some Laura c. Cord chocolates. I ate them.
(32:18):
They were delicious. Thanks so, thank you so much for
sending them. And then I also have an actual email. Uh.
And this is from Renee. And Renee has written about
Executive Order nineties sixty six and the internment of Japanese
Americans during World War Two. Renee says, Hello, Tracy and Holly,
(32:38):
I'm finally writing in to share an interesting family story
that connects to the recent podcast on Japanese internment. Growing up,
my grandfather always told my dad, if anyone asks what
you are or where you're from, tell them you're an American.
We my father, my brother, and myself assumed that my
grandfather insisted on being called an American because of the
(32:58):
discrimination he faced as a Mexican American mechanical engineer in
the nineteen fifties. Many of the companies that hired him
only did so because his white colleagues vouched for him.
It was not until about ten years ago that my
family learned that my paternal grandfather was half Mexican and
half Japanese. We were shocked, to say the least. My
(33:19):
father spent the first fifty years of his life thinking
that his family ancestry was Mexican in German, the German
ancestry coming from his mother's side. In addition to this astonishment,
my father and I learned more about our family history
at my great uncle's one birthday. There, my father and
I spoke with family members about this secret of being Japanese.
(33:39):
We learned that during World War Two, the family had
changed their surname for the sake of privacy. It was
originally a hyphenated surname that contained a part that's recognizably
Mexican and a part that's recognizably Japanese, and they changed
it to just being the part that is more Mexican
in origin. Additionally, the family story goes that the Mexican
(34:00):
mother and her ten children were actually taken to a
processing center to be sent to a concentration camp. However,
the mother and children lived in a Mexican neighborhood in
Los Angeles, and the Japanese father was deceased long before
the war. Supposedly, the Mexican neighbors rallied and support and
wrote letters and signed a petition that the family had
no connection to Japan or Japanese culture. After this, the
(34:23):
family was released from custody and returned to their Mexican
enclave and changed their last name. My grandfather and one
of his brothers went on to serve in World War Two.
That my grandfather was the only one to see combat.
And then she goes on to talk about his being
wounded and sent back into the field. Uh and then
his medical discharged papers are clearly stamped with race Mexican.
(34:46):
I apologize for the drawing out anecdate. However, I'm fascinated
by the story of a mixed race family during World
War Two. I haven't verified the story of being taken
to a processing center and their eventual release. It maybe
an exaggerated story of elderly family members for all I know.
What I do know is that my grandfather and the
majority of his siblings refused to acknowledge their Japanese ancestry
(35:07):
until very recently due to prejudice. Many of them were
called derogatory slurs, spat on, and beat up. It was
apparently particularly hard on the sisters. Also, I think this
is a particularly illustrative example of how immigrants and the
American born children navigate what it means to be an American,
which many times means denying their cultural heritage and changing
their names. I've been a constant listener at Stephine miss
(35:30):
In history class since when I worked in a university
library archive, where I spent our scanning newspapers into an
online database. Leaveless to say I needed some mental stimulation
to get through the monotony. I truly appreciate the research
and heart you put into the podcast. I hope you
find this story interesting and feel free to use it
on the podcast. All the best renew Renee. Thank you
Renee for that story. We talked a little bit about
(35:55):
people who um who were biracial or multiracial, but not
a not a whole lot, and we definitely did not
get into um people who had shared Mexican and Japanese ancestry,
So thank you so much for writing to us about that.
We also have gotten quite a number of people who
have told us how to say Tuley Lake Yes, which
(36:16):
if we had been able to see Allegiance before we
recorded those shows, we would have known. It is one
of the many things that I looked up and did
not find in any of the sources that we normally
use how to say so uh. If you would like
to write to us about this or any other podcast
where History podcasts at how Stuffworks dot com. We're also
(36:39):
on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash miss in History
and on Twitter at miss in History. Our tumblers miss
in History dot tumbler dot com, or on panterest at
pinterest dot com slash missed in History, and our instagram
is missed in History One more time. If you want
to try out some new podcast Recommend some new podcasts
to folks, hashtag them tripod uh, and check out saw Bones.
(37:02):
I super enjoy them, and we should say that is
t r y d YEP t r y p o D.
You can come to our parent company's website, which is
how stuff works dot com to find out all kinds
of information about strange medical conditions from the past, weird
practices that used to be classified as medicine that aren't anymore.
And you can come to our website, which is missed
(37:23):
in History dot com and you will find an archive
of every episode we have ever done, which is searchable,
and you will also find our show notes for the
episodes Holly and I have done. So you can do
all that and a whole lot more at how stuff
works dot com or missed in History dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, is it
(37:44):
how stuff works dot com
Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy Wilson and I'm Holly Crying. Today's podcast was
originally supposed to be about afro ben uh, and don't
(00:24):
worry if you are one of the many many people
who asked for that one and are disappointed by the
words supposed to be uh. That episode is still in
the works, but very early on in researching it, a
book that I was reading was sort of setting the
stage with a description of life during the Restoration that
was the return of the British monarchy in sixteen sixty
(00:46):
in the years that followed it. And one bit of
this description was that when he was restored to the throne,
Charles the Second brought back a customary treatment for quote
the king's evil, also known as scrofula, and that treatment
was for the to touch people. I love it. You know, medicine. Yeah, yeah,
(01:07):
I knew. I knew that the practice of the monarch
laying on hands to cure sick people had been around
during the medieval period, but uh, I did not know
it had gone all the way into the Restoration. And
I definitely did not know that a particular illness was
so connected to it that people literally called it the
King's evil. So that was compelling enough to put off
(01:30):
Afriban until a little later, which conveniently also gives me
time to get through the immensely large book. Holly saw
that book last week while I was in Atlanta. It
was quite big. I did. Tracy was here visiting for work,
and she held up the book and said, how am
I ever going to get through this time? Because it
(01:51):
is really a serious tone it is it is, so
I'm glad that you'll have more time to work on
that one. Me too, because I was having that moment
where like when you're in middle school and you put
off your paper to the last minute. Except I didn't
put off the paper till the last minute. I just
didn't realize until I got into it how colossal the
(02:14):
research was. I like, how you think that's a middle
school thing and not say, in your forties working thing.
It could be that too. It is for me sometimes
not on purpose, but you know, we do lots of stuff,
so sometimes things fill in and I don't get as
much time as I would like to write a thing. Um,
(02:36):
But today we know that scraphula is caused by the
same bacteria as tuberculosis, and tuberculosis has been around for
at least nine thousand years. It is one of the oldest,
if not the oldest, infectious diseases still existing on Earth,
and most people are probably familiar with tuberculosis in its
pulmonary form, which has also been known as consumption or thysis.
(03:00):
The huge list of historical figures who were either known
or believed to have had pulmonary tuberculosis is huge. It
includes people like John Keats, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Bronte,
and many, many, many others. It's come up a lot
in episodes of our show that Holly and I have
worked on, including the history of the Grove Park in
(03:22):
to Rare, the New England vampire panic, Alan L. Hart,
and then of course Salmon Waxman, and the development of streptomycin,
which was the first drug successfully used to cure it. Scrapula,
which comes from the Latin term for brood sow, is
extra pulmonary tuberculosis, so it affects the body outside of
the lungs. Specifically, it's an infection of the lymph nodes
(03:45):
that's caused by tuberculosis, although lymph nodes all over the
body can be affected. In general, scrawfula has been used
to describe an infection in the neck, and when untreated,
it causes swellings, sores, and sometimes abscesses, in particular around
the lymph nodes at the top of the neck and
under the jaw. There's a little bit of debate about
(04:07):
why a word for sal came to be used to
describe scrawcula, and some accounts it's because pigs were prone
to having tumors in their throats, and others it's because
scrawfula makes your neck look thick and swollen like a pig's.
Cassius Felix, who was writing in the year four or
forty seven, said it looked quote, just like the swollen
neck of a sal. And some thought that maybe it
(04:30):
was that the swellings and the sores brought on by
scrawpula looked like pigs themselves. That one seems like the
most unlikely to me, but it weirdly, I read a
lot of old medical documents of people theorizing about why
it was called that, from like the seventeen hundreds. You know,
(04:54):
it's worth examination. But today we have diagnostic tests to
confirm a tuberculosis in section, and thankfully we have the
drugs to treat it, especially in places with reliable access
to modern medicine. It's really rare for scrophula to become
a serious problem, with the exception of patients whose immune
systems are compromised or occasionally in a drug resistant strain
(05:17):
of the disease, and when treated quickly, the symptoms are
usually limited to painless swelling in the lymph nodes. But
before the development of antibiotics, scrophula could become incredibly painful
and disfiguring. It was also often mistaken for other conditions
that also caused swelling or sores in the throat or neck,
(05:38):
or those conditions were mistaken for scrophula, and these included mumps,
glandular disorders, various skin conditions, and cancer. Prior to the
germ theory of disease, physicians had all kinds of other
ideas about what caused scrophula. Under the ancient Greek idea
of the body being regulated by four humors, rahula was
(06:00):
caused by an excess of phlegm. Charles, the seconds Royal
Surgeon wrote that scrawfula came from the glands filling up
with humor. Some physicians in history believed it was inherited
and not communicable. In eighteen thirteen, William Curon described it
as quote a genuine idiopathic hereditary disease, and in eighteen
(06:21):
thirty three John Can't called it quote an hereditary taint.
Can't went on to say, quote, the other causes of
this disease are bad and unwholesome diet, insufficient clothing, neglect
of exercise, and want of proper cleanliness. I may also
observe that it frequently makes its first appearance after an
(06:42):
attack of measles, smallpox, rheumatic fever, or other debilitating affections,
and it is often excited into obvious existence by blows, sprains, bruises,
or other accidents. According to Thomas Fern, who wrote a
treatise on scraphula in seventeen o nine, mine, it was
quote a preternatural malignant tumor or humor produced by a
(07:05):
particular acidity of the serum of the blood, either in gland,
muscle or membrane, which it both coagulates and indurates, or
in the marrow, which it always dissolves and also putrifies
the bone. Mm hmmm, I don't nobody's eating breakfast while
they listen to this. There are several parts of this
(07:25):
episode where if if this were an episode of Saw Bones,
it would be the part where Justin is going, we
can move on, Like you can tell he just wants
Sydney to stop saying the gross part, Yeah, I don't.
I don't want to. And just occurs to me that
if somebody is a little bit delicate of tummy to
these types of things, this move maybe pause until you're
(07:48):
done with your meal. But Inferns treatise children whose parents
had scrawfula, especially if their mother did while nursing, were
more likely to develop it themselves, and quote here, I
cannot omit one observation by the by that children also
who are begotten at improper times of the moon have
been often subject to be afflicted with this evil and
(08:11):
to the last degree to a virulency. Let this be
a warning to married people. To let this be a
warning to marry people. Made me laugh a lot the
first a lot. It just loves the idea that, depending
on what time of the lunar cycle of baby is made,
(08:34):
might make it more um, you know, likely to contract this. Yeah.
Ferd went on to list others who were more prone
to scrawl pula, including people whose blood was naturally too acidic,
children who had rickets, people who were generally weak, people
whose bodies didn't have enough quote heat for good digestion,
(08:55):
living in places with air that was too thin or
too thick or was bad uh, And also quote salt, sour,
slimy meats or drinks. Not getting enough exercise, according to him,
was yet another way you could develop scrawfula. Okay, putrefying
bone is not a problem, but slimy meats is like,
we're creeping up to the edge of my like copability here. Um.
(09:19):
Some physicians did conclude that scrapula and tuberculosis were related,
even if all their other ideas about it were completely
off base. John Kent, for example, who had named its
cause quote and hereditary taint, also wrote that consumption was
quote neither more nor less than scrawpula of the lungs
in an eighteen thirty three edition of a text on
(09:41):
scrawpula and cancer. But it wasn't until eighteen eighty two
that medical science pinpointed the bacterial cause of tuberculosis and
confirmed that scrawpulo was caused by the same thing. Even then,
there were naysayers who argued that scrawfula was unrelated and
not transmissible. Over the centuries, a wide range of treatments
(10:03):
were used to relieve scrawfula, or try to. Because the
glands in question we're usually in the next surgeries could
be particularly dangerous, although some doctors did attempt them while
still in the world of four humor theory. Treatments were
often meant to balance the humors or drain excess through purgatives, diuretics,
(10:25):
and bleeding compresses. Poultices and topical bombs were applied to
the swellings as well, and for those who thought that
too much salt or too thin air, those sorts of
things where the problems, the treatment would include a change
of diet or a change of scenery. And we're going
to talk about how scrawfula came to be known as
the king's evil that could be cured if the king
(10:47):
touched it. Uh, But first we're going to pause for
a little sponsor break. In medieval England, the name the
king's voll eventually came to be directly connected to scrapula,
but the basic idea goes back earlier than that and
also connects to other diseases. In ancient Rome, the Latin
(11:11):
morbius regius, or royal disease, was used to describe a
number of different diseases, including jaundice and leprosy, which today
is known as Hanson's disease. It's not entirely clear where
either of these associations came from. One is that royal
was a reference to gold, so jaundice being called the
royal disease is because the color of the patient's skin.
(11:34):
Another theory is that particular royal or noble families were
prone to certain diseases long after the time we're talking
about today, and in other parts of the world, epilepsy
and hemophilia have been described as royal diseases because of
their connections to royal families. There's some suggestion that people
thought Hanson's disease could be cured through a royal touch,
(11:57):
but there's the very little evidence of a king actually
trying that, Although of course there are biblical and other
religious references that are not about a monarch. There are
a few very spotty references to monarchs in England and
France curing people through touch prior to the tenth and
eleven centuries. The first was Clovis, King of the Franks,
(12:19):
who reigned from four eight one to five eleven, although
the record on that one is very sparse. There are
also reports of miraculous cures at the hands of Robert
the Second of France, also known as Robert the Pious
or Robert the Pious, who was co ruler of the
Franks with his father from seven to nine six, and
then he was the Soul Monarch until his death in
(12:39):
ten thirty one. But the first widely chronicled event of
the royal touch was under Edward the Confessor, who lived
from one thousand three to ten sixty six, and he
ruled England from ten forty two until his death. He's
called the Confessor because of his reputation for being a
deeply pious man, and he's the only king of England
(13:02):
ever to have been canonized. Edward the Confessor reportedly cured
a woman of scrawfula. The woman had an infection under
her jaw that was causing swelling, a bad smell, and
multiple sores. She had a dream that if the king
washed her with water she would be cured, so she
went to the court and asked to be given an audience.
(13:23):
This might sound odd to today's ears, but asking for
an audience with the king for something like this at
the time was definitely not unheard of. Edward the Confessor,
along with other monarchs, distributed alms and alfered offered comfort
to the poor and the sick, particularly on religious holidays,
and in this case, when the woman was brought before
the king, he asked for a bowl of water. There's
(13:47):
some variation in exactly what happened next as described in
later accounts, but in general it was more than just
a laying on of hands or an anointing with water.
Combining the miraculous with the medical. Edward dipped his fingers
in the water and touched the woman's abscesses, which opened
up and drained, with some of the descriptions of what
(14:07):
came out being far grosser than others. He kept dipping
his fingers and washing and pressing until all of the
putrescence was gone, and then he ordered the woman to
be fed and cared for out of the royal purse
until she recovered. I will repeat that if you go
read up about this on the Internet. Some of the
(14:28):
descriptions are incredibly graphic. I originally had more graphics stuff
in here, and then I was like, you know what,
we're going to read this at ten o'clock in the morning,
when we're both a little you know, still getting used
to the day. Maybe this is a little too intense.
I'm okay with the abscess draining. I'm still back on
(14:52):
slimy meat and oh no. So there's some debate about
whether this woman's uh symptoms were really scrawfula or whether
it was some other condition, but regardless, this one event
solidified the connection between the King's Evil and scrawfula, and
(15:12):
soon the royal ability to cure through touch was connected
pretty much only to scrawfula. Thomas Fern, who's treatise on
Scrawfula we referenced in part one, wrote quote, but I
beg leave here to make one digression, by the way,
about our English term for the struma or scrawfula, as
at it as as it is now commonly called the
(15:35):
King's evil and everybody's mouth before I begin to define
what I have hitherto only been describing by name. And
some writers think that this name was given to any
scraw fulis or streamist disease long before Edward the Confessor's time.
But however, all agree at least that from his reign
it was called nothing else generally, and I may say
(15:56):
vulgarly too, but the king's evil in England. Fern also
wrote that the ability to heal it through touch was
quote a particular gift to him at first, and to
nobody before him, as a singular reward of his holiness.
And it was from their hereditary through the monarchy, at
least according to this guy. This event also comes up
(16:20):
in the work of Shakespeare, and Act four of Macbeth.
McDuff and Malcolm are standing outside Edward the Confessor's palace
and a doctor comes through and mentions that there's a
crowd of people inside seeking the king's touch. Malcolm then
explains to McDuff what is going on. Quote just called
the evil a most miraculous work in this good king,
(16:43):
which often, since my here remained in England, I have
seen him do. How he solicits heaven himself best known knows,
but strangely visited people all swollen, an ulcerous, pitiful to
the eye, the mere despair of surgery, he yours hanging
a golden stamp about their necks, put on with holy prayers,
(17:05):
and to spoken to the succeeding royalty. He leaves the
healing benediction with this strange virtue. He hath a heavenly
gift of prophecy, and sundry blessings hang about his throne
that speak him full of grace. Although this scene takes
place outside the palace of Edward the Confessor, his treatment
of this woman for scrapula seems to have been a
(17:26):
one time thing performed on one person, not a mass
ceremony with a coin involved. However, it's a really good
description of what this practice morphed into in later centuries,
as monarchs in England and France started touching large groups
of subjects at special ceremonies and holidays. Okay, even though
Shakespeare was writing about Edward the Confessor, here he was
(17:49):
describing was what was actually happening while he was living,
when people went to get cured of the king's evil.
Louis the sixth of France he ruled from eleven oh
eight to eleven thirty seven, viewed this practice as quote customary,
and he treated whole crowds with laying on of hands
(18:09):
and the sign of the cross. Edward the First of England,
who ruled from twelve seventy two to seven, touched more
than five hundred of his subjects to cure them of
scrophula in the course of a single month. By the
end of his reign, he was touching more than a
thousand people every year. People traveled great distances to the
(18:29):
court of Philip the Fourth of France, who ruled from
twelve eighty five to thirteen fourteen, and the people who
traveled the farthest to see him were also rewarded with
large sums of alms. Are the fourth of France, who
ruled from fifteen eighty nine to sixteen ten, touched up
to fifteen hundred people in one single ceremony. I'm just
(18:50):
gonna interject here that seems like a bad public health moves.
That's I was thinking about, like the germs, that how
did all of these mode arcs not constantly become ill themselves? Question?
Because they were magical? Clearly. Uh. It was Edward the
Third of England, who ruled from to thirteen seventy seven,
(19:14):
who first started presenting those he touched with a coin,
which was described in that passage that Tracy read from Macbeth.
These coins became an ongoing practice known as angels or
touch pieces, and were sometimes strung through with a ribbon
to be worn as a talisman. Edward the Third's father
Edward the Second, also started the practice of the monarch
(19:35):
donating gold or silver on Good Friday, which would be
made into cramp rings said to have healing powers. For
the most part, the first few generations of this royal
touch were viewed as an outward expression of the monarch's
personal sanctity, and f the monarch didn't have a lot
of personal sanctity and the gift would go away. For example,
(19:57):
Philip the First was Canada franks from in sixty to
eleven oh eight, and he reportedly did practice the royal
touch at first, until he became too sinful for it
to work for him. He wound up having the nickname
Philip the Amorous. But that connection to personal piety shifted
a little bit after the Protestant Reformation, and we're going
(20:19):
to talk about that after we paused one more time
for a sponsor break. Over the years, some circular logic
grew up around the king's evil and the royal touch.
Scraffula was the king's evil because kings could cure it,
and kings could could cure scraffula because it was the
(20:40):
king's evil. Following this same pattern, the monarch's practice of
the royal touch started to be used as evidence of
the monarch's legitimacy as the monarch. If the monarch did
this thing, clearly they were legitimately the monarch. It sounds
a lot like the Lord of the Rings legend from
Gondor out the hands of the king, or the hands
(21:01):
of a healer, and so shall the rightful king be known.
This shows up especially in the post Reformation reign of
Queen Elizabeth the First, who was queen from fifteen fifty
eight until her death in sixteen o three. Her first
attempts at the king's touch seemed reluctant. However, after Pope
Pious the Fifth excommunicated her and declared her a pretended
(21:24):
queen and a heretic, she revived the practice in part
because her detractors claimed that God had taken the gift
away from her for her heresy, and in one account,
a Catholic woman came to her and begged to be cured,
and when Elizabeth's touch was successful, the woman announced that
the papal bull was clearly null because God was still
(21:45):
working through the queen. Today's episode of the podcast was
inspired by this description of Charles the Second's revival of
the practice during the restoration. Under the reign of Charles
the Second's father, Charles the First, a form for healing
at the hands of the king had become a part
of the Book of Common Prayer. Charles the First had
(22:08):
also had touch peace coins meanted that were inscribed and
Latin translated to quote the love of the people is
the King's protection. He got executed, so apparently love was
not enough protection for him. Charles the First was king
until he was executed for high treason and the monarchy
(22:29):
was abolished. Oliver Cromwell then became Lord Protector of England,
Ireland and Scotland. Cromwell was not a king and did
not practice the royal touch, but Charles the Second, while
in exile, continued the practice, in part as evidence of
his place on the throne. When the monarchy was restored,
Charles the Second's touch pieces were inscribed with the Latin
(22:51):
for glory to God alone. John Evelyn wrote about Charles
the Second's reinstatement of the practice of the royal touch
after the restoration of the monarchy in his diary for
July six sixty. Here's what it's said. His Majesty began
first to touch for the evil according to custom. Thus
(23:11):
his Majesty, sitting under his state in the banqueting house,
the surgeons caused 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 and his formalities, says quote,
he has he put his hands upon them, and he
(23:31):
healed them. This is said to everyone in particular. When
they have all been touched, they come up again in
the same order, and the other chaplain, kneeling and having
an angel gold strong on white ribbon on his arm,
delivers them one by one, who is Majesty who puts
them about the next of the touch as they pass,
while the first chaplain repeats, quote, this is the true
(23:54):
light who came into the world. Then follows an epistle,
at first a gospel with the with the liturgy prayers
for the sick, with some alteration. Lastly the blessing, then
the Lord Chamberlain and the Controller of the household bring
a basin your towel for his majesty to wash. Samuel
Peeps wrote about it as well on April thirteenth, sixteen
(24:17):
sixty one, writing quote, I went to the banquet house
and there saw the King heel the first time that
I ever saw him do it, which he did with
great gravity, and it seemed to me to be an
ugly office and a simple one. Apparently, Charles the Second
also had to set up a system to keep people
from coming back for seconds. Basically, Charles the Second used
(24:40):
the King's touch on ninety thousand subjects between sixteen sixty
and sixteen eighty two. He and his court also tried
to put a stop to anyone else treating scrapula through
the laying on of hands. Charles the First had taken
similar steps in his reign, and they had both also
taken steps to keep people from coming back repeatedly. In
sixteen thirty seven, a father and his seventh son were
(25:04):
investigated for their use of the son's purported healing powers.
A neighbor had had scrophula, and the child's grandmother had
held the baby's hand up to the neighbor's neck, who
had been reportedly been cured. Father and son went on
to treat many more people, but were told to stop it.
They were, however, spared for their punishment because folks were
(25:25):
basically afraid that their followers were would be angered if
they were treated too harshly. Similarly, Valentine Great Rakes, also
known as the Stroker, had been a lieutenant in Oliver
Cromwell's army, but went on to become something of a
faith healer. In sixteen sixty two, he was suddenly struck
(25:46):
by the knowledge that he had the power to heal
the king's evil. He started healing people with prayers and
laying on of hands, and eventually his fame spread far
enough that he was summoned before the court in order
to stop. After repeated orders from increasingly more powerful figures
within the church failed to get him to stop, the
ecclesiastical Court decided that they were risking the ire of
(26:09):
his followers, and they gave up. He finally wound up
being summoned to Whitehall to appear before Charles the Second,
the results of which did not make it into the
historical record. It's it's there are so many different ways
that conversation could have gone because he and Charles the
Second were both touching a whole lot of people to
try to hear their scrappula. So it's it's not clear
(26:31):
whether Charles the Second was like, dude, you gotta lay off,
this is my territory, or whether it was more like
a meeting of the faith healers, or maybe they touched
each other an event horizon opened up and things got
really crazy. No. So, the idea of the royal touch
(26:53):
as being evidence for who was the legitimate ruler appeared
once again during the Laurious Revolution and the Jacobite attempts
to return the Stewarts to the throne. William the Third,
also known as William of Orange, and his wife Mary
became joint monarchs in six nine. William only only performed
the royal touch once, saying afterward quote God give you
(27:17):
better health and more sense. Meanwhile, the exiled Stewart's, including
Bonnie Prince Charlie, kept up the habit, and Queen Anne,
last monarch of the House of Stewart, touched hundreds of subjects.
One was writer Samuel Johnson, who she touched when he
was just two years old. In the words of John
(27:37):
Kent three treatise on Scraffla, which we read from earlier
in the show quote, it appears that Queen Anne was
the last sovereign who practiced such a ridiculous and superstitious imposition,
and successor George the first put an end to the
practice in England after becoming king in seventeen fourteen because
(27:58):
he thought it was just a superstitiou. In in France,
the France Revolution put an end to the practice by
overthrowing the monarchy in see what you did and how
we can't have the King's touch? Uh. There is of
course lots of debate about what was really going on here,
from both a medical and a religious sense. There were
(28:20):
doctors and clergy alike who viewed the practice with a
lot of skepticism. It wasn't like everybody believed that this
was a legitimate healing practice. Uh. In spite of the
fact that speaking out against the royal touch got at
least one person convicted for treason, much like all of
the other people who were told to stop being faith
(28:41):
healers with scrapula, this guy was ultimately pardoned because they
were afraid of angering his followers. One common cause of
scrapula and medieval and early modern Europe was contracting a
bovine form of tuberculosis through drinking contaminated milk. And this
comes up a whole lot modern treatments of this whole phenomenon.
(29:02):
This form of the condition didn't typically lead to other
symptoms of tuberculosis, and it often resolved itself later, giving
the patient a heightened immunity to pulmonary tuberculosis as well.
So there are a lot of people who were like,
maybe because so many people were getting this bovine form
of tuberculosis through contaninated milk and then it was resolving
(29:24):
coincidentally after the monarch touched them, maybe that explains it all.
But that's really not uh really not quite an adequate
explanation for something that went on for that many centuries.
It's a very long time and thousands of people. Yeah,
(29:45):
I wonder, um if there's much on the record about
the timeline of the healing, right, like, other than the
one where there's discussion of the pressing of the abscesses
and draining them. You know, it's is it as though
people magically walked away with unswollen necks and we're instantly
(30:07):
healed according to the record. Or is it a case
where it probably was just it running its course and
they're like, the King touched me three weeks ago, and
I feel much better now, yeah, Or are people selectively
remembering the people who got better, right, and not remembering
the folks who didn't. Uh. Like I said at the
top of the show, I knew that this was a
(30:29):
thing among medieval marks. I had no idea that it
continued on and on and on all the way until
the French Revolution. That's just uh through me for a
little bit of a loop. Hey, if you liked today's
episode of our show, you might also like a podcast
I love a whole lot called saw Bones. Saw Bones
(30:50):
is a show about medical history that is not medical opinion.
It is very fun by Justin and Dr Sidney McIlroy. Um.
Really it's Dr Sidney McIlroy who is the doctor and
Justin is kind of her comedic foil. I love them
so yeah. This month you might notice on the Internet
(31:13):
there are a lot of podcasts talking about trying other podcasts.
It is a rising Tide Lifts all boat kind of
initiative called tripod, I said, all boats as and we're
all in the same one, which we kind of are. Uh.
So we will on our Twitter. Uh, we will tweet
(31:33):
out a little bit about say Bones with a hashtag tripod.
You can learn more about them. Check out their show.
I really really enjoy it. They have done a lot
of stuff that is both very funny, very informative, sometimes
very gross, which is when Justin is like mmmmmmm uh.
And you also can participate in all of this. You
(31:55):
can tell your friends about podcasts you enjoy and hashtag
them tripods. So folks can find all of these cool
recommendations in one place. How about listener mail, Tracy, I
do have listener mail. First, I'm gonna thank you. I'm
gonna thank listener Nicole, who sent us a card and
a postcard and some Laura c. Cord chocolates. I ate them.
(32:18):
They were delicious. Thanks so, thank you so much for
sending them. And then I also have an actual email. Uh.
And this is from Renee. And Renee has written about
Executive Order nineties sixty six and the internment of Japanese
Americans during World War Two. Renee says, Hello, Tracy and Holly,
(32:38):
I'm finally writing in to share an interesting family story
that connects to the recent podcast on Japanese internment. Growing up,
my grandfather always told my dad, if anyone asks what
you are or where you're from, tell them you're an American.
We my father, my brother, and myself assumed that my
grandfather insisted on being called an American because of the
(32:58):
discrimination he faced as a Mexican American mechanical engineer in
the nineteen fifties. Many of the companies that hired him
only did so because his white colleagues vouched for him.
It was not until about ten years ago that my
family learned that my paternal grandfather was half Mexican and
half Japanese. We were shocked, to say the least. My
(33:19):
father spent the first fifty years of his life thinking
that his family ancestry was Mexican in German, the German
ancestry coming from his mother's side. In addition to this astonishment,
my father and I learned more about our family history
at my great uncle's one birthday. There, my father and
I spoke with family members about this secret of being Japanese.
(33:39):
We learned that during World War Two, the family had
changed their surname for the sake of privacy. It was
originally a hyphenated surname that contained a part that's recognizably
Mexican and a part that's recognizably Japanese, and they changed
it to just being the part that is more Mexican
in origin. Additionally, the family story goes that the Mexican
(34:00):
mother and her ten children were actually taken to a
processing center to be sent to a concentration camp. However,
the mother and children lived in a Mexican neighborhood in
Los Angeles, and the Japanese father was deceased long before
the war. Supposedly, the Mexican neighbors rallied and support and
wrote letters and signed a petition that the family had
no connection to Japan or Japanese culture. After this, the
(34:23):
family was released from custody and returned to their Mexican
enclave and changed their last name. My grandfather and one
of his brothers went on to serve in World War Two.
That my grandfather was the only one to see combat.
And then she goes on to talk about his being
wounded and sent back into the field. Uh and then
his medical discharged papers are clearly stamped with race Mexican.
(34:46):
I apologize for the drawing out anecdate. However, I'm fascinated
by the story of a mixed race family during World
War Two. I haven't verified the story of being taken
to a processing center and their eventual release. It maybe
an exaggerated story of elderly family members for all I know.
What I do know is that my grandfather and the
majority of his siblings refused to acknowledge their Japanese ancestry
(35:07):
until very recently due to prejudice. Many of them were
called derogatory slurs, spat on, and beat up. It was
apparently particularly hard on the sisters. Also, I think this
is a particularly illustrative example of how immigrants and the
American born children navigate what it means to be an American,
which many times means denying their cultural heritage and changing
their names. I've been a constant listener at Stephine miss
(35:30):
In history class since when I worked in a university
library archive, where I spent our scanning newspapers into an
online database. Leaveless to say I needed some mental stimulation
to get through the monotony. I truly appreciate the research
and heart you put into the podcast. I hope you
find this story interesting and feel free to use it
on the podcast. All the best renew Renee. Thank you
Renee for that story. We talked a little bit about
(35:55):
people who um who were biracial or multiracial, but not
a not a whole lot, and we definitely did not
get into um people who had shared Mexican and Japanese ancestry,
So thank you so much for writing to us about that.
We also have gotten quite a number of people who
have told us how to say Tuley Lake Yes, which
(36:16):
if we had been able to see Allegiance before we
recorded those shows, we would have known. It is one
of the many things that I looked up and did
not find in any of the sources that we normally
use how to say so uh. If you would like
to write to us about this or any other podcast
where History podcasts at how Stuffworks dot com. We're also
(36:39):
on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash miss in History
and on Twitter at miss in History. Our tumblers miss
in History dot tumbler dot com, or on panterest at
pinterest dot com slash missed in History, and our instagram
is missed in History One more time. If you want
to try out some new podcast Recommend some new podcasts
to folks, hashtag them tripod uh, and check out saw Bones.
(37:02):
I super enjoy them, and we should say that is
t r y d YEP t r y p o D.
You can come to our parent company's website, which is
how stuff works dot com to find out all kinds
of information about strange medical conditions from the past, weird
practices that used to be classified as medicine that aren't anymore.
And you can come to our website, which is missed
(37:23):
in History dot com and you will find an archive
of every episode we have ever done, which is searchable,
and you will also find our show notes for the
episodes Holly and I have done. So you can do
all that and a whole lot more at how stuff
works dot com or missed in History dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, is it
(37:44):
how stuff works dot com
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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