SCROFULA, or SCROPHULA, the technical name for tho disease that is popularly called " the King's Evil :" the origin of the latter term will be explained presently ; that of the former is very obscure and uncertain. We find the word scrofula, or rather scrofula' in the plural, employed for the first time to signify tho present disease, or one supposed analogous to it in cattle, by Vegetius De Re Veterin.', lib. IL, cap. 23, ed. Schneider). It. is generally admitted to be derived' from the Latin serofa, or scropha," a sow," although the reason of the derivation is by no means clear. The same analogy, whatever it may have been, influenced also the Greek and Arabic writers in naming the disewe,as the former call it xelp.s, or xeipciScs; and the latter khandsir (Avicenna, tons 1., p. 154;1. 36, p.194;1. 30, vol. ii., p. 73,1. 12, ed. Rom., 1593, fol ; Albucasis, De Chirurg.,' lib. i., cap. 22, p. 50, cd. Oxon., 1778, 4to.), both of which words are intimately connected with swine. The classical Latin term for the disease is struma' (Celsus, ' De Medic.; lib. v., cap. 28, § 7; Pliny, ' Hint. Nat.', lib. sill, cap. 77), or strumie' in the plural (Celsus, lib. d., cap. 9 ; Pliny, lib. xxii., cap. 16), which is also a word of which no satisfactory derivation has been given, as probably few persons will agree with Dr. Good in deriving it from avis7sua, ' congestion,' or coacervation,' as of straw in a litter, feathers in a bed, or tumours in the body." The vulgar English name applied to it, namely, "the King's Evil," commemorates the virtues of the royal touch, to which, from the time of Edward the Confessor till the reign of Queen Anne, multitudes of persons afflicted with scrofula were subjected. A similar custom pre vailed in France; and miraculous powers for the cure of scrofula were likewise claimed for different !loutish saints, for the heads of certain noble families, for the seventh son, and for many consecrated springs. The royal touch requires some further notice. That the kings of England for several centuries actually exercised their touch for the cure of scrofulous complaints is proved by abundant historical authority ; and scarcely any of our old historians, who wrote during a period of at least five hundred years, have omitted taking notice of this strange and unaccountable fact. We have not room here to give the evidence fully, and must refer those who wish to inquire more deeply into the subject to ' A Free and Impartial Inquiry into the Antiquity and Efficacy of Touching for the King's Evil,' 1722, by William Beckett, an eminent surgeon ; Charisma, sive Doman Sam tionis sett Explicatio toting Qurestionis de Mirabilium Sanitatuna Gratin, in qua priecipud agitur de solenni et sacra cui lieges Anglia, rit) inaugurati, divinitus medicati aunt,' &c. &c., 1597, by William
Tooker, afterwards dean of Lichfield; Charisma 13asilicon, or the Royal Gift of Healing Strumres, &c.' 8vo., Lond., 1684, by J. Browne; ' Several Chirurgical Treatises,' Lond., 1676, fol., and'I719, 8vo., 2 vols., by Richard Wiseman, principal surgeon in the army of Charles I., and serjeantssurgeon to Charles IL, whom Haller (' Biblioth. Medic. Pract.; tom, iv., p. 399) calls " insignis certe et peritissimus chirurgus." The question is examined at some length by Bishop Douglas, in his Crite rion; or Miracles Examined,' &c. S:c., p. 191, cd. 1754, who, while he denies the alleged miraculous powers, fully admits the reality of the cures. See also Colquhoun's Isia Revelata : an Inquiry into the Origin, Progress, and Present State of Animal Magnetism,' Edin., 1836, 2 vols. 8vo., who also allows (vol. i., p. 87) " the sanative efficacy of the proems" but connects it with the phenomena of animal magnotiorn. Among the most curious parts of the subject, it may be mentioned that the old Jacobites considered that this power did not descend to Mary, William, 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 lionae 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 volume of his' History of England,' mentions the case of one Christopher Level, who, in 1716, went to Avignon, where the court was then held, and received a temporary cure ; and when Prince Charles Edward was at Holyrood Hourie,in October, 1745, lie, although only claiming to be prince of Wales and regent, touched a female child for the king's evil, who in twenty-one days is said to have been perfectly cured.