SCROFULA, or SCROPHULA, was, until the last quarter of a century, regarded as essentially of indolent glandular tumors, occurring frequently in tin/ neck, ; 'rating slowly and imperfectly, and healing with difficulty. Recent pathologists, have given a more extended meaning to the word According to them it signifies a certain disease or defect of the constitution, in which there is a tendency to the production and deposition of a substance called tubercle in various tissues and organs; and must thus lie regarded as the essential element of scrofula. It does nut follow, however, that a deposit of tubercle should actually occur in every case of scrofula. The tendency is present, and the absence or presence of the deposit depends upon the extent of the affection, and is determined by various causes.
Sir James Pager, one of our most eminent pathologists, very clearly sums up what is generally understood by scrofula in the following paragraph: It is a state of constitu tion distinguished in some measure by peculiarities of appearance even during health, but much more by peculiar liability to certain diseases, including pulmonary phthisis. Th 3 chief of these '-scrofulous" diseases are various swellings of the lymphatic glands, arising from causes which would be inadequate to produce them in ordinary healthy. persons. The swellings are due sometimes to mere enlargement, as from an increase of natural structure, sometimes to chronic inflammation, sometimes to an acute inflammation or abscess, sometimes to tuberculous disease of the glands. But besides these, it is usual to reckon as "crofulous" affections certain chronic inflammations of the joints; slowly pro gressive " carious" ulcerations of bones; chronic and frequent ulcers on the cornea, oph thalmia (q.v.), attended with extreme intolerance of light2but with little, if any, of the ordi nary consequences of inflammation; frequent chronic abscesses; pustules,or other cutane 0115 eruptions, frequently appearing upon slight affection of the health or local irritation; habitual swelling and catarrh of the mucous membrane of the nose; habitual swelling of the upper lip." It is obvious that although the above-named forms of disease are often more or less coincident, they have nothing sufficiently in common to justify the general appellation of scrofulous. They are certainly not all tuberculous diseases, and hence sir James Paget doubts whether the proposal to make scrofulous and tuberculous commensurate terms is practical, since the former, as generally employed, Las a much wider significance than the latter.
The word is derived from the Lat. scrofa, a sow, it being supposed that this animal was especially liable to tumors such as occur in this disease. The Greek and Arabic
names for the disease are similarly derived from the words signifying "swine" in these languages. While scrofula was the popular, stemma (supposed to be derived from stryo, I heap up) used by Celsus, Pliny, and other Latin writers, was the classical name for the disease. The vulgar English name, the king's evil, is derived from the long-cherished belief that scrofulous tumors and abscesses could be cured by the royal touch.
tudes of patients were submitted to this treatment, and, as the old historians assert, with perfect success, from the time of Edward the confessor to the reign of queen Anne. The writer of the article "scrofula" in the English. Cyclopedia, mentions the curionS historical facts that "the old Jacobites considered that this power did not descend to Mary, Will iam, or Anne, as they did not possess a full hereditary title, or, in other words, did not reign by divine right. The kings of the house of Brunswick have, we believe, never put this power to the proof;. and the office for the ceremony, which appears in our liturgy as late as 1719, has been silently omitted. The exiled princes of the house of Stuart were supposed to have inherited this virtue. Carte, in the well-known note to 'the first vol ume of his History of England, mentions the case of one Christopher Lowel, who, in. 1716, went to Avignon, where the court was then held, and received a temporary cure• and when prince Charles Edward was at Holyroodhouse in Oct., 1745, he, although only claiming to be prince of 'Wales and regent, touched a female child for the king's evil, who iu 21 days is said to have been perfectly cured." The practice was introduced by Henry VII. of presenting the patient with a small coin (gold or silver). The French kings also touched for the "evil." the practice being traced back to Clovis, 481 A,D. On Easter Sunday, 1686, Louis XIV. is said to have touched 1600 persons using the words: Le roll to touche ; Dieu to guerisse (the king touches thee; may God cure :bee). See Chambers's Book of Days, i. 89. The literature of this curious subject is somewhat extensive. The reader who wishes to pursue the inquiry further is referred to Tooker's Charisma, sive Donum Sanctionis, etc., 1597; Browne's Charisma Bad'icon, or the 1?oyal Gift of Healing &pumas, etc., 1684; and Beckett's Free and Impartial Inquiry into the Antiquity and Efficacy of Touching for the King's Evil, 1722. The subject is also ex amined by bishop Douglas in his Criterion, or Miracles Examined, 1754; by Colquhoun, in his Ms Rerelata, 1836 (who attributes the cure to animal magnetism); and by llowitt in his History of the Supernatural in all Ages and _Nations, 1863.