The Doctor in History, Literature, Folk-Lore, Etc.
History
The Doctor in History, Literature, Folk-Lore, Etc.
Literature and medicine; Physicians; Physicians in literature
Its virtues were brought into operation by dropping the stone in water
which was afterwards given to the diseased to drink, washing at the same
time the part affected. No words were used in dipping the stone, or money
permitted to be taken by the servants of Lee. People came from all parts
of Scotland, and many places in England, to carry away the water to give
to their cattle.
Some interesting information respecting this amulet appears in an account
of the Sack and Siege of Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1644. "As one of the natural
sequences," says the writer, "of prolonged distress, caused by this brave
but foolhardy defence against overwhelming odds, the plague broke out
with fatal violence in Newcastle and Gateshead, as well as Tynemouth and
Shields, during the following year. Great numbers of poor people were
carried off by it; while tents were erected on Bensham Common, to which
those infected were removed; and the famous Lee Penny was brought out of
Scotland to be dipped in water for the diseased persons to drink, and the
result said to be a perfect cure. The inhabitants (that is to say, the
Corporation, we presume), gave a bond for a large sum in trust for the
loan; and they thought the charm did so much good, that they offered to
pay the money down, and keep the marvellous penny with a stone in which it
is inserted; but the proprietor, Lockhart of Lee, would not part with it."
We are told that many years ago a remarkable cure is alleged to have been
performed on Lady Baird of Sauchton Hall, near Edinburgh, who, having been
bitten by a mad dog, was seized with hydrophobia. The Lee Penny was sent
for, and she used it for some weeks, drinking and bathing in the water it
had been dipped in, and she quite recovered.
"The most remarkable part of the history," as Sir Walter Scott says,
"perhaps was, that it so especially escaped condemnation when the Church
of Scotland chose to impeach many other cures which savoured of the
miraculous, as occasioned by sorcery, and censured the appeal of them,
'excepting only the amulet called the Lee Penny, to which it pleased God
to annex certain healing virtues, which the Church did not presume to
condemn.'"
The Lee Penny is preserved at Lee House, in Lanarkshire, the residence of
the present representative of the family.
How Our Fathers were Physicked.
BY J. A. LANGFORD, LL.D.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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