Thomas Emes (died 1707), known as "the prophet", was a

quack doctor Quackery, often synonymous with health fraud, is the promotion of fraudulent or ignorant medical practices. A quack is a "fraudulent or ignorant pretender to medical skill" or "a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, k ...

and millenarian who practiced as a surgeon among the poorer classes of England. In the hope of obtaining notoriety he allied himself with the

Camisard Camisards were Huguenots (French Protestants) of the rugged and isolated Cévennes region and the neighbouring Vaunage in southern France. In the early 1700s, they raised a resistance against the persecutions which followed Louis XIV's Revocation ...

s. He died at Old Street Square, London, 22 December 1707, and was buried on Christmas Day in

Bunhill Fields Bunhill Fields is a former burial ground in central London, in the London Borough of Islington, just north of the City of London. What remains is about in extent and the bulk of the site is a public garden maintained by the City of London Cor ...

Resurrection prophesy

"Under the operation of the Spirit" his brethren were enabled to prophesy that he would rise from his grave between twelve at noon and six in the evening of 25 May 1708. No clothing was to be provided, for rising "pure and innocent", it would not, they declared, "be esteem'd indecency for him to walk naked unto his habitation". Three days before the pretended resurrection the government, fearing disturbances, and to prevent any tricks being played, placed guards at the grave and about the cemetery.

Works

*''A Dialogue between Alkali and Acid … wherein a late pretended new hypothesis, asserting Alkali the cause, and Acid the cure of all diseases, is proved groundless and dangerous. Being a specimen of the immodest self-applause, shameful contempt, and abuse of all physicians, gross mistakes and great ignorance of the pretender John Colbatch''. *''A Letter to a Gentleman concerning Alkali and Acid. Being an answer to a late piece, intituled A Letter to a Physician concerning Acid and Alkali. To which is added, a Specimen of a new Hypothesis, for the sake of Lovers of Medicine'', 1700 *''The Atheist turn'd Deist, and the Deist turn'd Christian: or, the Reasonableness and Union of Natural and the True Christian Religion'', London, 1698.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Emes, Thomas Year of birth missing 1707 deaths 17th-century births English medical writers 17th-century English writers 17th-century English male writers 18th-century English non-fiction writers 18th-century English male writers