Greatrakes, Valentine
secondary literature · 1890
LINK
SUMMARY
The Dictionary of National Biography's original (1890) entry on Valentine Greatrakes, fetched directly from its Wikisource transcription. Confirmed details used in this case, quoted or paraphrased directly from the fetched page: his healing formula (invoking God's mercy in a short blessing); the mechanism he described, driving the disease matter into the patient's fingers, toes, nose, or tongue until sensation and the distemper both vanished (itself sourced by the DNB to Greatrakes's own Brief Account, p. 34); the entry's own observation that his failures could not be satisfactorily explained; that his treatment was gratuitous except for Lady Conway, from whom he demanded and received a large sum framed as travel and hazard expenses; that he returned to Ireland at the end of May 1666 with an income of 1,000l. as a country gentleman; and his death at Affane on 28 Nov. 1683. Exact verbatim wording for all of these is quoted in the case body and logged in the grounding log's verify-quotes block for this page.
NOTES
Fetched directly (2026-07-20) from the Wikisource transcription of the original Dictionary of National Biography (1885-1900), volume 23, article “Greatrakes, Valentine,” signed “W. A. G.” The DNB is a standard 19th-century reference work still cited in modern Greatrakes scholarship. Every fact drawn from it in this case is quoted or paraphrased directly from this fetched page; no additional corroboration from other, unread sources is claimed or required.