Word: scrofula
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Scrofula, in the middle ages, was called the King's Evil, because the touch of a royal finger, generally accompanied by the gift of gold coin bearing an angel's likeness, was supposed to cure that disease. But no textbook on pathology describes the ailment which Washingtonians sometimes refer to as ''the disease of Presidents." Neither gold coins nor Presidential touch cures it, for it is something that Presidents themselves contract. Last week as newshawks filed into a White House press conference they found Franklin Roosevelt looking rather brighter-eyed than usual. He began to talk...