Sir KENELM proceeds, in this discourse, to relate that he obtained the secret of the Powder from a Carmelite who had learnt it in the East. Sir KENELM says that he told it only to King JAMES and his celebrated physician, Sir THEODORE MAYERNE(1573-1655). The latter disclosed it to the Duke of MAYERNE, whose surgeon sold the secret to various persons, until ultimately, as Sir KENELM remarks, it became known to every country barber.
However, DIGBY'S real connection with the Powder has been questioned. In an Appendix to Dr NATHANAEL HIGHMORE'S(1613-1685) _The History of Generation_, published in 1651, entitled _A Discourse of the Cure of Wounds by Sympathy_, the Powder is referred to as Sir GILBERT TALBOT'S Powder;nor does it appear to have been DIGBY who brought the claims of the Sympathetic Powder before the notice of the then recently-formed Royal Society, although he was a by no means inactive member of the Society. HIGHMORE, however, in the Appendix to the work referred to above, does refer to DIGBY'S reputed cure of HOWELL'S wounds already mentioned; and after the publication of DIGBY'S _Discourse_ the Powder became generally known as Sir KENELM DIGBY'S Sympathetic Powder. As such it is referred to in an advertisement appended to _Wit and Drollery_(1661) by the bookseller, NATHANAEL BROOK.[1]
[1] This advertisement is as follows: "These are to give notice, that Sir _Kenelme Digbies_ Sympathetical Powder prepar'd by Promethean fire, curing all green wounds that come within the compass of a Remedy;and likewise the Tooth-ache infallibly in a very short time:
Is to be had at Mr _Nathanael Brook's_ at the Angel in _Cornhil_."The belief in cure by sympathy, however, is much older than DIGBY'Sor TALBOT'S Sympathetic Powder. PARACELSUS described an ointment consisting essentially of the moss on the skull of a man who had died a violent death, combined with boar's and bear's fat, burnt worms, dried boar's brain, red sandal-wood and mummy, which was used to cure (?) wounds in a similar manner, being applied to the weapon with which the hurt had been inflicted.
With reference to this ointment, readers will probably recall the passage in SCOTT'S _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ (canto 3, stanza 23), respecting the magical cure of WILLIAM of DELORAINE'Swound by "the Ladye of Branksome":--
"She drew the splinter from the wound And with a charm she stanch'd the blood;She bade the gash be cleans'd and bound: No longer by his couch she stood;But she had ta'en the broken lance, And washed it from the clotted gore And salved the splinter o'er and o'er. William of Deloraine, in trance, Whene'er she turned it round and round, Twisted as if she gall'd his wound.
Then to her maidens she did say That he should be whole man and sound Within the course of a night and day.
Full long she toil'd; for she did rue Mishap to friend so stout and true."FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626) writes of sympathetic cures as follows:--"It is constantly Received, and Avouched, that the _Anointing_ of the _Weapon_, that maketh the _Wound_, wil heale the _Wound_ it selfe.
