[analphilosopher] Keith Burgess-Jackson: Ambrose Bierce

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Posted by Keith Burgess-Jackson:
Ambrose Bierce
http://www.analphilosopher.com/posts/1158780884.shtml


   King's Evil, n. A malady that was formerly cured by the touch of the
   sovereign, but has now to be treated by the physicians. Thus "the most
   pious Edward" of England used to lay his royal hand upon the ailing
   subjects and make them whole--

     a crowd of wretched souls
     That stay his cure: their malady convinces
     The great essay of art; but at his touch,
     Such sanctity hath Heaven given his hand,
     They presently amend,

   as the "Doctor" in Macbeth hath it. This useful property of the royal
   hand could, it appears, be transmitted along with other crown
   properties; for according to "Malcolm,"

     'tis spoken
     To the succeeding royalty he leaves
     The healing benediction.

   But the gift somewhere dropped out of the line of succession: the
   later sovereigns of England have not been tactual healers, and the
   disease once honored with the name "king's evil" now bears the humbler
   one of "scrofula," from scrofa, a sow. The date and author of the
   following epigram are known only to the author of this dictionary, but
   it is old enough to show that the jest about Scotland's national
   disorder is not a thing of yesterday.

     Ye Kynge his evill in me laye,
     Wh. he of Scottlande charmed awaye.
     He layde his hand on mine and sayd:
     "Be gone!" Ye ill no longer stayd.
     But O ye wofull plyght in wh.
     I'm now y-pight: I have ye itche!

   The superstition that maladies can be cured by royal taction is dead,
   but like many a departed conviction it has left a monument of custom
   to keep its memory green. The practice of forming a line and shaking
   the President's hand had no other origin, and when that great
   dignitary bestows his healing salutation on

     strangely visited people,
     All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
     The mere despair of surgery,

   he and his patients are handing along an extinguished torch which once
   was kindled at the altar-fire of a faith long held by all classes of
   men. It is a beautiful and edifying "survival"--one which brings the
   sainted past close home in our "business and bosoms."

   (Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)