Ointment (for Experiments sake,) hath been wiped off the Weapon, without the knowledge of the Party Hurt, and presently the Party Hurt, hath been in great Rage of Paine, till the Weapon was Reannointed.  Sixthly, it is affirmed, that if you cannot get the Weapon, yet if you put an Instrument of Iron, or Wood, resembling the Weapon, into the Wound, whereby it bleedeth, the Annointing of that Instrument will serve, and work the Effect.  This I doubt should be a Device, to keep this strange Forme of Cure, in Request, and Use; Because many times you cannot come by the Weapon it selve.  Seventhly, the Wound be at first Washed clean with White Wine or the Parties own Water; And then bound up close in Fine Linen and no more Dressing renewed, till it be whole."[1]

[1] FRANCIS BACON:  Sylva Sylvarum:  or, A Natural History . . .  Published after the Authors death . . .  The sixt Edition ù . . (1651), p. 217.

Owing to the demand for making this ointment, quite a considerable trade was done in skulls from Ireland upon which moss had grown owing to their exposure to the atmosphere, high prices being obtained for fine specimens.

The idea underlying the belief in the efficacy of sympathetic remedies, namely, that by acting on part of a thing or on a symbol of it, one thereby acts magically on the whole or the thing symbolised, is the root-idea of all magic, and is of extreme antiquity.  DIGBY and others, however, tried to give a natural explanation to the supposed efficacy of the Powder.  They argued that particles of the blood would ascend from the bloody cloth or weapon, only coming to rest when they had reached their natural home in the wound from which they had originally issued.  These particles would carry with them the more volatile part of the vitriol, which would effect a cure more readily than when combined with the grosser part of the vitriol.  In the days when there was hardly any knowledge of chemistry and physics, this theory no doubt bore every semblance of truth.  In passing, however, it is interesting to note that DIGBY’S Discourse called forth a reply from J. F. HELVETIUS (or SCHWETTZER, 1625-1709), physician to the Prince of Orange, who afterwards became celebrated as an alchemist who had achieved the magnum opus.[1]

[1] See my Alchemy:  Ancient and Modern (1911), SESE 63-67.

Writing of the Sympathetic Powder, Professor DE MORGAN wittily argues that it must have been quite efficacious.  He says:  “The directions were to keep the wound clean and cool, and to take care of diet, rubbing the salve on the knife or sword.  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