‘Quin et annulus ille, de quo diximus, magna in Westmonasteriensi Londini coenobio postea reverentia reservatus, adversus comitialem morbum multis profuit: indeque etiam ortum, ut ad sacram parasceuen Reges Angliae certos annulos statis quibusdam precibus et caerimoniis consecrare consueverint, adversus eundem morbum salutares. Quae consuetudo et ad nostra usque tempora perducta est, multique huiusmodi annulorum beneficium, nostra etiam aetate, senserunt.’ [And further the above-mentioned ring was reverently preserved afterwards in the monastery of Westminster in London, and relieved many of epilepsy. That too was the origin of the custom of the Kings of England on Good Friday consecrating certain rings with set prayers and ceremonies, for the cure of the same disease. Which custom has persisted even down to our own times, and many even in our own lifetimes have derived benefit from rings of this kind.] Nicholas Harpsfield, though he did not write till the reign of Elizabeth, was born as early as A.D. 1519, so that his words are consistent with discontinuance of the ceremony after the time of Queen Mary. It remains to consider what diseased states were embraced by the term ‘cramp’. Epilepsy, convulsions, and rheumatism certainly. All these terms have in common the idea of muscular contraction or spasm, and their relation in usage to one another may be represented graphically as under: Convulsion \ Cramp ═ Rheumatism. / Epilepsy Confusion of these terms is far more marked in medical than in lay writers; but at the same time there is little doubt that the conservative sentiment inspired by the royal ceremonial kept the term ‘cramp’ alive in a sense that was all but obsolete in the common diction. Chaucer applies ‘crampe’ to muscular spasm: But wel he felte about his herte crepe ... The crampe of death, to streyne him by the herte.[259] Linacre, as we have seen, speaks of cramp-rings, in 1518, as a charm against _spasms_, while about the same year Polydore Vergil speaks of the royal cramp-rings as a cure for the _morbus comitialis_. Each of these two writers clearly indicates epilepsy. In 1526 Magnus speaks definitely of cramp-rings as relieving a man lying in the _falling-sickness_, a term habitually applied to epilepsy. Nicholas Harpsfield too, writing in the middle of the reign of Elizabeth, speaks of cramp-rings blessed by the kings as remedies for the _morbus comitialis_. In all probability royal cramp-rings were used for epilepsy and epilepsy only, but it is quite possible, and I am inclined to think probable, that other cramp-rings had a less exclusive use. Bacon’s description of cramp in his _Natural and Experimental History_ is fairly explicit and obviously does not embrace epilepsy: ‘The cramp cometh of contraction of sinews, which is manifest, in that it comes either by cold or dryness.’