What Is the King's Evil?

The king's evil is another name for the disease known as scrofula, scrophula or struma. Scrofula is a common name for tuberculous cervical lymphadenitis, the condition in which a tuberculosis infection occurs in the lymph nodes of the neck. In France and England in the Middle Ages, it was thought that this disease could be cured by a touch from the king, referred to as the royal touch. Special ceremonies were arranged to cure the king's evil, in which hundreds of people were touched by kings. In modern times, kings have been replaced by antibiotics as the treatment of choice.

Normally, tuberculosis infects the lungs, but in patients whose immune systems are weakened, it can sometimes occur outside the lungs, in places such as lymph nodes. The terms the king's evil and scrofula specifically refer to tuberculosis affecting lymph nodes in the neck, rather than lymph nodes elsewhere in the body. In almost all cases, the disease in adults is caused by the bacterium known as Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Of all infectious diseases, tuberculosis is the oldest recorded type, and the king's evil is thought to have affected people since ancient times.

Edward the Confessor of England and Philip I of France were the first kings to touch scrofula patients in order to supposedly cure the king's evil. Those who took part in ceremonies to receive the royal touch were given gold coins, which were commonly believed to hold magical powers. Once the practice of using the royal touch for king's evil patients had begun, later kings were thought to inherit the special ability.

Some monarchs touched many people who had been afflicted by the king's evil. It is thought that Louis XV may have touched in excess of 2,000 sufferers. Charles X was the last of the French kings to carry out the practice, in 1825. The last of the English kings to bestow the royal touch on their scrofulous subjects was actually a queen, Queen Anne, whose reign lasted until 1714.

Eventually, the power required to cure the king's evil was believed to have transferred itself to coins which had been touched by a king. This occurred in the 1400s, and the coins were known as angels. Even when production of angels ceased, people believed that touching a similar-looking gold medallion would have the same magical effect. More modern treatment for scrofula commonly involves taking several different antibiotics for up to a year.