The status of the medical science of the day is well reflected in the comment of Henry Stubbe, physician at Stratford upon Avon, from whose contemporary account our knowledge of Greatrakes is obtained. For explanation of the cures, he suggests "that God had bestowed upon Mr. _Greatarick_ a peculiar Temperament, or composed his Body of some particular Ferments, the _Effluvia_ whereof, being introduced sometimes by a light, sometimes by a violent Friction, should restore the Temperament of the Debilitated parts, reinvigorate the Blood, and dissipate all heterogeneous Ferments out of the Bodies of the Diseased, by the Eyes, Nose, Mouth, Hand and Feet." However crude may seem this cure by the "Precipitation of the Morbifique Ferment," the theoretical position of Mesmer is not less hypothetical, dogmatic, and gratuitous. Indeed, to Greatrakes's and his biographer's credit, it should be noted that they recognized the distinction between functional and organic complaints; that Mr. Greatarick "meddles" only with such diseases as "have their Essence either in the masse of Blood and Spirit (or nervous liquors) or in the particular Temperament of the parts of the Body," that he cures no disease "wherein there is a decay of Nature." "This is a confessed truth by him, he refusing still to touch the Eyes of such as their sight has quite perished." None the less his cures were regarded as miraculous, and Dr. Stubbe tells us that "as there is but one Mr. Greatarick, so there is but one Sunne"; and to dispel incredulity in regard to these wonders, he adds: "We are all Indians and Salvages in what we have not accustomed our senses: What was conjuring in the last age is Mathematiques in this. And if we do but consider the sole effects of Gun-powder, as it is severally to be used, and revolve with ourselves what we would have thought if we had been told those Prodigies, and not seen them; will we think it strange if men think the actions of extraordinary Ferments impossible?" But to leave the "Ferments" for the recorded account of what was done, we can only note that Greatrakes's methods consisted mainly of strokings and passes and in driving the pains from one point to another until they went out at the fingers or toes. There is nothing recorded that definitely suggests the production of the hypnotic state; but direct suggestion, reinforced by manipulations, obviously had much to do with the cures. They clearly approximate more closely to the faith-cure methods of to-day than to the phenomena of hypnotism.