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Those too large to oe entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hend corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Lea cartas, planches, tableaux, etc.. peuvent etre filmis A des taux da reduction diff Arents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour itre reproduit en un soul cliche, il est filmS A partir da Tangle supirieur gauche, de gauche A droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'imagea nAcessaira. Las diagrammes suivants illustrant la mAthoda. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS STANDARD REFERENCE MATERIAL 1010a (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) \^ ' ! i ■: 'S i: 1 ' If 1 "'- 1 Sir Kenelm Digby and His Powder of Sympathy V \ f BY WILLIAM RKNWICK RIDDELL, LL.D., TORONTO. FF.LK -V, ROYAL HISTOEICAI. SOCIITY, KTC. Reprinted ffom The New York Medical Journal for February 19, I9i^- Keprintcd from th.' .V*«. Y.rk Mfdic4i Journal for Ftbruary 19. '9'^- SIR KENELM DIGBY AND HIS POWDER OF SYMPATHY. By William Renwick Riddell, LL. D., Toronto. Fellow, Royal Historical Socit-j ^tc. Of the many singular theories in •«]<■■ history of medicine, not the least curious is that of the Powder of Sympathy associated with the name ot bir Kenelm Digby. , . , j »^ ,» Dieby (1603-1665) was thoroughly educated, as education was then understood in,En?la"d; was a mathematician of note and well skilled m the natural sciences. He was a man of fine presence, great stature, and bodily strength; gifted, too, with a graceful courtesy of manner and fluency of speec which won him many friends. A successful naval commander, he got his country into trouble by his too great success as a privateersman. An expen swordsman, he never hesitated to give and never refused a challenge, although by no means quarre- some A Royalist, he was employed by Cromwell on foreign missions, and on the Restoration was re- ceived into favor He is most celebrated for his powder of sympathy ; this was used to apply to the weapon which had caused a wound (the wound itseU receiving no treatment, except to be kept cool and clean), and wondrous cures were the result, ihese cures were as well vouched for as the most striking cures bv Christian science, faith cure, new thought, or other methods not acknowledged by the regular profession; and in manv instances the proot is overwhelming. ^, „• tt- Dieby. in a formal address at Montpelher, France, in i6«;7 (not 1658 as the Encyclopedia Bntanmca and the Dictionary of Natiotial Biography have it), explained the theory of the powder. This was al- Copyright, 1916, by A. R. Elliott PiiblisliinK Company. I. Fi^itU: Dighy »*** W** Powdtr. most at once printe ' in London, and twelve years afterward appeared a volume before me as I write, in which fifty-nine pages are a reprint of this ad- dress. The title page reads: "/ Discourse m a Solemn Assembly at Montpellier, made in French by Sir Kenelm Digby, Knight. 1657. Lx)ndon. Printed for John Williams. 1669." There is a sub- title, A Discourse of the Cure of Wounds by the Powder of Sympathy. The secret of the powder, he says, he got from a Carmelite friar, who had been in China, Persia, and tne Indies, and had done many marvelous cure, 'th it. It was simply powdered "vitriol," i. e., tmp.ire iron or copper sulphate.* The theory, Digby bases on seven propositions: 1 . The whole air is filled with light, and he says he can prove that light is a material and corporeal substance— Sir Isaac Newton's "corpuscular theory," which did not receive its quietus till a century and a half after Digby 's time. 2. The light when it strikes any body makes some small incisions, and, separating small atoms from the body, carries them away with it when reflected. This is the real basis of the whole theory, and it is demonstrably false. 3. The air is therefore full of small bodies or atoms— this is not far from the truth, but not from the reason Digby assigns. 4. Every body, however small, is divisible ad in- finitum. This is pretty much the basis of our atomic theory and the theory of molecules, and, within moderately wide limits, is true. . , „ . 5. Small bodies or atoms are "drawn aside, 1. e., attracted "to a road altogether differing from that which their universal causes should make them hold." Leaving aside the metaphysics, this means that they are subiect to attraction, which is un- doubtedly true. The examples given show the state of physics at the time. Magnetic and electric attrac- >Tlie reaction when a sword wa» immeried in a »l.utioti of thf powder, indicates that it was copper sulphate, blue vitriol. h It 1 1 Riddfll: Dujby and His I'owder. tion are well enough ; but when our author instances sucking and the siphoii as cases of attraction rather than of vis a tergo, he is far astray The state of medical science, too. is illustrated by some of the examples of "drawing" which are given at this staee- " 'Tis upon this foundation that Physicians ordain the application of Pigeons or Puppy s or some other hot Animals to the soles of the feet, or the hand wrists or the stomachs or the "avils of their Patients, to extract out of their bodies the wind or ill vapours which infect them. The celebrated Doctor Sydenham (whom his biographer accuses of "having obtained a medical degree- with little or no knowledge of medicine ) about this time in cases of the "iliac passion (vol- vulu<«) was accustomed to "order a live kit.ing to be always upon the naked belly": and the still more celebrated John Wesley, three quarters of a century later, recommended to "hold a live puppy constantly on the belly." I ventured to suggest that this treat- ment might be quite reasonable as supplying a steady heat, at t;-.e same time giving the patient something to think of beside his abdomen ;'-' but the theory was quite JifTerent. , . ^ Digby then gives the case of a """ (;:«PO\%« .^ Pctrus Servius, phvsician to Pope Urban ViU), who bv excessive fasting, etc.. had so wasted her body that she seemed all one fire. This heat drew into her body the air; the air got '"to that part where theie is *;he most "serosity." i. e., the bladder. There the air was rendered into water among ner urine" in an incredible quantity, and she for som^ weeks voided more than 200 pounds ot water every twenty-four hours. Twenty gallons a day was not bad • but the extraordinary features of the story are the ideas that fire or heat cjuld draw air, that air could be transformed into water, and that, tv; .he bladder. Of course Malpighi had not yet published his irmnorta l discoveries as to "glands." •Weiley-s System of Medicine, New Yo.k Medical Jou.kai., Janu- »ry 10, I9U. HiddiH Diiibv and Hit Pou-der. ll 6. The sixth principle follows. When fire or heat draws air, and the air has in it any atom of the same nature as the drawing body, such atoms are more powerfully attracted than if they were of a different substance; and "they stay, stick, and mingle more willingly with the body which draws them. " because of "their Resemblance and Sympathy they have one with the other." The loves and hates of the dif- ferent forms of matter were a constant study and a constant puzzle to the alchtmists ; they could not un- derstand why wate' should refuse to unite with olive oil and yet eagerly unite with oil of vitriol. The pseudoscience of Digby was equally helpless but greatly daring. Crystallization he makes an effect of "resemblance of figure." "Ordinary salt forms itself alwaies in cubes of four square faces ; salt-peter in forms of six faces ; Ammoniac-salt in Hexagons, as the Snow doth, which i? sexangular. Whereto Mr. Davison attributes the pentagonary form of every- one '^'' hose stones which were found in the bladder of . ^.-.sir Peltier to the number of fourscore." When one has burned his hand, it la an ordinary thing to hold the hand near the tire — the ignited atoms of the fire and of the hand draw one another, "the fire being the stronger, has the mastery and draws out the fire of the hand, which is thereby eased. Tis an usual course though a nasty one of those who have ill breaths to hold their mouths open over the Privy as long as they can ; and by the reiteration of this remedy they find themselves cured at last, the greater stink of the Privy -Irawing to it and carrying away the lesse, which is that of the mouth." On the same principle the head of a viper or scorpion is placed over a wound caused by its bite ; the humble and inoffensive toad (as it is now known to be) was then supposed to be f"" of poison ; accordingly "The Farcy is a venemous and contagious humour within the body of a Horse: hang a toad about the neck of the Horse in a little bag and he will be cured infallibly : the Toad which is the stronger poyson drawing to it the venome Hidden : Oujby and Hit I'ouder. Which wa, within the Horse." ^^«j;J:.^*J.^S makes a kind of fermentation w»^«", ** Xlries ox flower, and a table cloth "spoted ^'th Mu1^«ti« J*^ r«l Wine is easily whitened again at the beason Tk;* T-. P LtT flower." This forms an easy ex- Sji^o^ oSe'Tnd birthmarks generally, as well as of the contagiousi..ss of yawning.' yet%r;^-?n £cra°n7n°i sf mSevil b tten SX craw to .c the malignant spirUs of the fij rr«'n,..K of .he flesh of ,,h.r men p.«:c^ itaian surgeon and professor of anatomy and sur- ELfeiit'orSp£v*.i»3sj| ?is-,sr„"ol^T*rii".;^^^^ '"^^"triSuni'of Brux*. who in a comto. •An example. •:in.er.«in,i,truc.^^ whitens it so that it «:"« »fP«?'LSiu„"* .and Anger it w th Mvs "Take then a apoonful of Mercury ■. • '; "^m beJome whitr "Vhand: if you have a Gold nng ^l^^l°''^y\T ,^Vt a leaf or and coverr< with Mercury. . . • rO'"!"/ one of your toes in a Tcrowr u! Gold in your ™outh »»d PUt but^one o^^y^^ »ip^,^;'.^e^rcIo^-'4"ifaii%'"a1,n^^^^^^^^ •tter. „._^ , . ,„, _.,.«• it seems to me distinctly inferior "" Ifevss »s.-. SW" -■•••• :! Riddell: Digby and His Powder. (Bologna, Italy), that he might procure a new one; and when he feared the incision of his own arm, he hired a Porter to admit it, out of whose arm, hav- ing first given the reward agreed on, at length he dig'd a new nose. About thirteen months after his return to his own country, in a sudden the ingrrafted nose grew cold, putrified, and within a few days dropt off. To those of his friends that were curious in the explanation of the cause of this unexpected misfortune, it was discovered that the Porter ex- pired, neer about the same punctilio of time wherein the nose grew frigid and cadaverous. There are at Bruxels yet surviving some of good repute, that were eye witnesses of these occurrences." Samuel Butler gives this in a poetic form, but with the facts (?) a little different : So learned Taliacotius from The brawny part of porter's bum Cut supplemental noses which Would last as long as parent breech ; But when the date of Nock was out Off drop'd the sympathetic snout. Hudibras, Canto i, 281-286. Every one knows the amusing story on the same theme by Edmond About, Le nes d'un notaire? 7. The source of those atoms not only attracts them to itself but also all that accompanies, sticks to or is united with them. This explains the common custom of throwing salt on the cinders when milk has boiled over. When the milk is burning, the cow's udder whence it came attracts the atoms of the milk and the accompanying fire ; unless some precaution is taken, the udder will become hard and ulcerated, the cow will suffer from hematuria (Digby uses plain Saxon terms), and she will be in danger to die. Now, salt is "of a nature clean contrary to fire, the one being hot and volatil, the other cold and fixed, in so much that where they use to encounter, the salt, as it were, knocks down the fire" — ^and there you are. •See A Seventeenth Century Surgeon and His Fee, New York Medical Journal. March 2, 191 2. ^ItimtmnhiaUimlUlktM RiddelL Digby and His Powdir. So both in France and England, physicians in sdertin^a foster mother, test her milk ^Yj^^^^f' tormented m their f aps, wnuc luc boiling that having once endured this pain they wouW never consent" a^in to this test Tn like manner take the excrement of a dog ana ,hX iUnr*e "re ; he be.comes heated ^i mo«d %rHe' r.S'. has .he same example (A Ternary SrS: London-: .650). This .s what he says ■ "HMh anyone with his excrements defiled th< ,h"e*o,dTthy do- and .ho„ ^nten e. - ^^^Z tl utS,"Se 'e-Jcrterand t'"ln%. ,^-n ;'"J '«*trri?;S| ^r-S^^eS and^V Zril I'gneSm driX V acrimony of the hum- '"Kby'^veTa'SncXcas. o. the child of a neSS ta EngUnd; he had a burning fever, was SS all ovfr, •■strove .0 go '» '"'j'-^'^'^'^'^ ,ln little and that ttle covered with blooa , ne re ?2sed the b,«,st," and his parents were most bitTf thS^g'r i£^^' L:^£i: u Riddell: Digby and His Powder. one of the most illustrious Magistrates of the Parlia- ment of Paris." The appropriate treatment was ob- vious ; the excrements were "put into a bason of cold water and set in a cool place." The inevitable re- sult followed ; "the child began to amend the very same hour and within four or five daies became per- fectly well recover'd." Overfat cattle whose hoof has swollen and has a putrefied core are cured on the same principle. Put a turf upon which some of the corrupt matter from the hoof has been pressed out, "exposed in some proper place to receive the dry cold blasts of the northern wind," and the trick is done and a cure effected. Now comes the complete theory of the operation of the sympathetic powder : "Vitriol is composed of two parts, the one fixed, the other volatil ; the fixed, which IS the salt, is sharp and biting'and caustique in some degree ; the volatil is smooth, soft, balsamical and astringent . . . they who well know how to draw the sweet oyl of Vitriol, which is the pure volatil part thereof, know also th: in the whole closet of Nature there is no balm IIkc oyl." Easv SirKenehn! ^ ^' Now take some vitriol (Vitriol of Rome or Cy- prus preferred, and some add Gum of Tragacanth), dissolve it in fountain, or better, rain water; into this water "put a clowt or rag embrued with the blood of the party" if the rag was dry; "if the rag was still wet and moist with the reaking blood, there was no need but to sprinkle it with the powder of the same vitriol." Keep the rag in a cool place, renewing the water or the powder from time to time. The explanation is simplicity itself, granting Sir Kenelm his premises. The light strikes the vitriol and the blood, tears off atoms of both, the wound attracts the atoms of blood and with them the atoms ^i vitriol, "the spirits of the vitriol which is of a balsamical virtue," enters the wound ard it "thereby is immediately refresht and eas'd." The same cure is effected "b^- ipplying the remedy to the 8 Hidden : Digby and His I'owdir. Blade ot a Sword which has wounded a body, so the sword be not too much heated by the fire." Any one can easily see that "in this Sympathetica! Cure there is no need to admit of an action distant from the Patient," for there is "a real communica- tion 'twixt the one and the other., viz. of a Bal- samical substance which corporally mingles with the wound . Nee Deus intersit, nisi dtgnus vtndice nodus incident:' Here Digby definitely parts com- pany with Van Helmont and his kind, who all in- sisted on action of one body upon another at a dis- tance and in whose theory God was constantly ai>- pearing— the Deus ex machina always in evidence. The very great comparative success of the sym- pathetic powder will excite no astonishment with those who know the villainous treatment secundum artem of the regular surgeons of tb** time. . With a belief not dead till Lister killed it, and in full vigor in my day as a medical student, that pus was a good thing in itself, so long as it was laud- able pus" and not too abundant, the faculty of the seventeenth century used every effort to bnng it forth-and many times, indeed, thought it sufficient to cure the wound if the surgeon had the skill or good fortune to excite a sufficient quantity of this laudable which some therefore called also healthy and benign pus ; so the surgeons applied a digest- ive " But they were not content to rely upon the pus-exciting medicament alone, but often applied a most celebrated vulnerary balsam which was ap- proved by Paulus Barbette, an acknowledged master of the art of surgery— and this balsam was com- posed of many ingredients, turpentine, gum galbani. gum elemi and hederae, frankincense, gum mastich. mvrrh, aloes, galingal, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cubebs. And this ointment was considered both "digestive, sarcotic, and epulotic"— for the turpen- tine gum elemi, frankincense, and mastich are digestive, the gum galbani, gum elemi, myrrh, a oes, cloves, and nutmeg were thought sarcotic, and aloes, myrrh, and mastich to be also epulotic. I I Riddell: Digby and His Powder. This foul mess applied to the wound, the surgeons firmly believed had much virtue ; but the result of such an application can be contemplated only with a shudder by one trained in the ultracleanly methods of modern surgery. In Digby 's method there was no topical application to the wound; all that was doni to it, was to wash it carefully from time to time with fair clean water, cover it with a clean, soft linen cloth, and cleanse it once a day from pus and other impurities — the purer the water, the cleaner the cloth, the better. And the beneficial result which Digby referred to the vitriol followed from vis medi- catrix Natura, old Dame Nature's own remedy. OsGOODE Hall. }