Quote:
Originally Posted by Inziladun
Kingsfoil probably would have gotten its name because it was used by the kings in healing, and they probably usually kept it on hand. The commoners would have had access to it as well, but any association with healing to those in Gondor (or Arnor) could naturally have also led to an association with the kings.
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Just as a trivial aside, "the hands of a king are the hands of a healer" has a long historical basis in both England and France. Anointed kings and queens would lay their hands on long lines of commoners in a yearly ceremony (usually at Easter). Kings like Louis IX (St. Louis) and Louis XIV, and queens like Elizabeth I and Anne, were notable monarchs who patiently applied their "God-given" gift to up to 1600 peasants and villeins at a sitting. They had an alleged ability to cure scrofula (a form of tuberculosis), a dread disease that became known as "Kings-evil".
There are no statistics on how many people were cured, but given the deplorable state of medicine in the Middle Ages and early modern times, the laying of hands was probably more efficacious than mercury-laced medicines and blood letting. At least one didn't die of the cure.
