A late discourse ... by Sir Kenelme Digby.... Rendered into English by
R. White. London, 1658, 12mo.
On this work see _Notes and Queries_, 2d series, vii. 231, 299, 445, viii.
190. It contains the celebrated sympathetic powder. I am still in much
doubt as to the connection of Digby with this tract.[191] Without entering
on the subject here, I observe that in Birch's _History of the Royal
Society_,[192] to which both Digby and White belonged, Digby, though he
brought many things before the Society, never mentioned the powder, which
is connected only with the names of Evelyn[193] and Sir Gilbert
Talbot.[194] The sympathetic powder was that which cured by anointing the
weapon with its salve instead of the wound. I have long been convinced that
it was efficacious. The directions were to keep the {109} wound clean and
cool, and to take care of diet, rubbing the salve on the knife or
sword.[195] If we remember the dreadful notions upon drugs which prevailed,
both as to quantity and quality, we shall readily see that any way of _not_
dressing the wound would have been useful. If the physicians had taken the
hint, had been careful of diet etc., and had poured the little barrels of
medicine down the throat of a practicable doll, _they_ would have had their
magical cures as well as the surgeons.[196] Matters are much improved now;
the quantity of medicine given, even by orthodox physicians, would have
been called infinitesimal by their professional ancestors. Accordingly, the
College of Physicians has a right to abandon its motto, which is _Ars
longa, vita brevis_, meaning _Practice is long, so life is short_.