Welsh Journals

been made in the prevention and cure of contagious diseases'.27 He derided the overblown claims of quack doctors and often quoted the tale of a quack at Porth-y-waun who, having closely examined a consumptive patient, loudly declared: 'his lungs and liver are all rotten to pieces, but I shall restore them anew'.28 Like modern practitioners of homeopathy, he was a great believer in herbal lore and made extensive use of fresh herbs to concoct potions and ointments. The Llangadfan Vestry Books bear witness to his care for the poor and the sick by purging, blood-letting, excising tumours, extracting teeth and dealing with a variety of malignant fevers and agues.29 When the rich not only poured scorn on his uncouth methods and his faith in the healing power of nature but also questioned his competence to minister to the sick and disabled, Jones used to pull up his shirt and point to the scars which bore witness to his success in conquering scrofula.30 He recounted his own successes with considerable pride in his letters to his friends: While I mention Wm. Rowld of Peniarth, give me leave to puff a little. His son Will. is now perfectly cured by my advice, after he had been deem'd to be incurable but by amputation, by three Surgeons, one of 'em (a first rate in his profession) who was so ungenerous as to insist on half a Guinea for his good will to the men carpenters in advising the poor lad to have his foot cut off.31 With no hint of false modesty, he circulated advertisements which proclaimed to all and sundry his prodigious gifts for healing not only the King's Evil but also 'Fistulous and running Ulcers, the Fistula Lachrymalis and other Disorders of the Eyes, glandulous Tumours, Aedematous and dropsical swellings, white Swellings of the Joints, Rheumatick, fixt and wandering Pains'.32 His blossoming career in medicine, however, was cut short by the Medicine Act of 1785 which obliged him to apply for a licence to operate as a quack, thereby enabling him, as he cynically observed, to kill as many patients as he pleased 'cum privilegio Regis'. His stubborn pride, however, would not permit him to acquire a licence and place himself on the same footing as every ignorant quack: 'I own', he insisted, 'I am above it.'33 Fortunately, William Jones had (almost literally, given his prowess as a violinist and harpist) another string to his bow. He offered his services, "N.L.W. MS. 1806E, f. 788. "Llangadfan Parochial Records, no. 4. JOThe Cambrian Register, II (1796), 244: "N.L.W. MS. 1806E, f. 796. "British Library, Add. MS. 15031, f. 15; Llangadfan Parochial Records, no. 1, f. 127v. For the background on 'fringe' practitioners, see W. F. Bynum and Roy Porter (eds.), Medical Fringe and Medical Orthodoxy, 1750- 1850 (London, 1987). "N.L.W. MS. 13221E, f. 343; 1806E, f. 789.