Powder of Sympathy
A remedy which, by its application to the weapon which had caused a wound, was supposed to cure the hurt. This method was in vogue during the reigns of James I. and Charles I., and its chief exponent was a gentleman named Sir Kenelm Digby. An abstract of his theory, contained in an address given before an assembly of nobles and learned men at Montpellier in France, may be seen in Pettigrew's Superstitions connected with Medicine and Surgery. The following is the recipe for the powder :-" Take Roman vitriol six or eight ounces, beat it very small in a mortar, sift it through a fine sieve when the sun enters Leo; keep it in the heat of the sun by day, and dry by night." This art has been treated by some authors with belief, and by others with unbelieving wit: Wrenfels says:-" If the superstitious person be wounded by any chance, he applies the salve, not to the wound, but, what is more effectual to the weapon by which he received it." 66