ENELM DIGBY appears to have delivered a discourse dealing with the
famous Powder before a learned assembly at Montpellier in France; at
least a work purporting to be a translation of such a discourse was
published in 1658,(1) and further editions appeared in 1660 and 1664.
KENELM was a son of the Sir EVERARD DIGBY (1578-1606) who was executed
for his share in the Gunpowder Plot. In spite of this fact, however,
JAMES I. appears to have regarded him with favour. He was a man of
romantic temperament, possessed of charming manners, considerable
learning, and even greater credulity. His contemporaries seem to have
differed in their opinions concerning him. EVELYN (1620-1706), the
diarist, after inspecting his chemical laboratory, rather harshly speaks
of him as "an errant mountebank". Elsewhere he well refers to him as "a
teller of strange things"--this was on the occasion of DIGBY'S relating
a story of a lady who had such an aversion to roses that one laid on her
cheek produced a blister!

(1) _A late Discourse... by Sir_ KENELM DIGBY, _Kt.&c. Touching the Cure
of Wounds by the Powder of Sympathy...rendered... out of French into
English by_ R. WHITE, Gent. (1658). This is entitled the second edition,
but appears to have been the first.

To return to the _Late Discourse_: after some preliminary remarks, Sir
KENELM records a cure which he claims to have effected by means of
the Powder. It appears that JAMES HOWELL (1594-1666, afterwards
historiographer royal to CHARLES II.), had, in the attempt to separate
two friends engaged in a duel, received two serious wounds in the hand.
To proceed in the writer's own words:--"It was my chance to be lodged
hard by him; and four or five days after, as I was making myself ready,
he (Mr Howell) came to my House, and prayed me to view his wounds; for
I understand, said he, that you have extraordinary remedies upon such
occasions, and my Surgeons apprehend some fear, that it may grow to a
Gangrene, and so the hand must be cut off....

"I asked him then for any thing that had the blood upon it, so he
presently sent for his Garter, wherewith his hand was first bound: and
having called for a Bason of water, as if I would wash my hands; I took
an handfull of Powder of Vitrol, which I had in my study, and presently
dissolved it. As soon as the bloody garter was brought me, I put it
within the Bason, observing in the interim what Mr _Howel_ did,
who stood talking with a Gentleman in the corner