i 5 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



serious and acrimonious discussion arose as to "whether it was neces- 

 sary that the moss should grow absolutely on the skull of a thief who 

 had hung on the gallows, and whether the ointment, while compound- 

 ing, was to be stirred with a murderer's knife." The mode of applica- 

 tion was this : The wound was first washed, bandaged, and ordered to 

 be kept at rest, and then the offending weapon was anointed with the 

 salve, carefully wrapped up, and placed in a safe position. If the weap- 

 on was left undisturbed the wound healed in a few days, but, if anything 

 happened to the anointed weapon the wound would break out afresh. 

 In Dryden's version of Shakespeare's " Tempest," he makes Ariel say, 

 in reference to the wound received by Hippolito from Ferdinand : 



" He must be dressed again, as I have done it : 

 Anoint the sword which pierced him with this weapon-salve ; 

 Wrap it close from air, till I have time to visit him again." 



In Glapthorne's comedy, "The Hollander," the doctor says, "The same 

 salve will cure at any distance, as if a person hurt should be at York, 

 the weapon dressed at London, on which the blood is." That the be- 

 lief in this salve was not universal is proved by an attack made on it 

 by John Hales, of Eton, in a letter "to an honorable person" in 1630. 

 He declares it is a child of but yesterday's birth, one among the 

 pleasant fantasies of the Rosicrucians ; and, as for the cures it has 

 worked, " the effect is wrought by one thing, and another carries off 

 the glory," etc.* 



The sympathetic ]?owder was much the same kind of remedy, and 

 was introduced into England by Sir Kenelm Digby, a gentleman of 

 the bedchamber of Charles I. It is said that a Carmelite friar, re- 

 turning from the East, brought the recipe for this powder with him. 

 Sir Kenelm did him some service, and was rewarded by obtaining the 

 secret of the sympathetic powder. It consisted merely of blue vitriol 

 prepared with mysterious ceremonies. Digby revealed the secret to 

 James I, who disclosed it to Dr. Mayerne, his physician. The latter 

 sold it to many distinguished persons, and then it soon ceased to be a 

 secret. A solution of the powder was made, and some of the wounded 

 man's blood-stained garments immersed in it, the wound at the same 

 time being washed and bandaged, and strict abstinence being enjoined 

 on the patient. As may be inferred, the sympathetic powder, like the 

 weapon-salve, was quite as efficacious at a distance as near by. These 

 remedies did one good : they taught people how soon wounds heal if 

 kept clean and undisturbed, and, in fact, opened the way to our pres- 

 ent method of treating wounds. Surgeons learned that, in their healing, 

 Nature was a powerful factor, and must be aided, not interfered with.f 



* Chambers's " Book of Days," vol. ii. 



f A somewhat similar superstition exists in many parts of the country to this day. 

 I well remember, when a child, that, having my hands full of warts, they were rubbed by 

 my nurse with a piece of raw meat ; the meat was then placed under a stone, and I was 

 told (and this was generally believed) that as the meat decayed the warts would disap- 



