Mender of Eyes Quack

For this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie (2 Thessalonians 2:11).

Queen Anne’s favorite physicians were quacks. She had always suffered from weak eyes and at that time the specialty known as ophthalmology did not exist. Anybody could pose as a specialist in eye diseases and one of these was William Reed, a tailor who “having failed as a mender of garments, set up as a mender of eyes.” According to historians he was illiterate, but so convincing was his sales talk and so gullible was the queen that she would have nobody else treat her eyes. In the end, she knighted him for his valuable services to royalty.