iety through an accident to a distinguished person. Mr.
James Howell, the well-known author of the Dendrologia, in endeavoring
to part two friends in a duel, received a severe cut on the hand.
Alarmed by the accident, one of the combatants bound up the cut with
his garter and conveyed him home. The king sent his own surgeon to
attend Mr. Howell, but in four or five days the wound was not
recovering very rapidly and he made application to Sir Kenelm. The
latter first inquired whether he possessed anything that had the blood
upon it, upon which Mr. Howell produced the garter with which his hand
had been bound. A basin of water in which some powder of vitriol had
been dissolved was procured, and the garter immediately immersed in
it, whereupon, to quote Sir Kenelm, Mr. Howell said, "I know not what
ails me, but I find that I feel no more pain. Methinks that a pleasing
kind of freshness, as it were a wet cold napkin, did spread over my
hand, which hath taken away the inflammation that tormented me
before." He was then advised to lay away all plasters and keep the
wound clean and in a moderate temperature.

To prove conclusively the efficacy of the powder of sympathy, after
dinner the garter was taken out of the basin and placed to dry before
the fire. No sooner was this done than Mr. Howell's servant came
running to Sir Kenelm saying that his master's hand was again
inflamed, and that it was as bad as before. The garter was again
placed in the liquid and before the return of the servant all was well
and easy again. In the course of five or six days the wound was
cicatrized and a cure performed.

This case excited considerable attention at court, and on inquiry Sir
Kenelm told the king that he learned the secret from a much-travelled
Carmelite friar who became possessed of it while journeying in the
East. Sir Kenelm communicated it to Dr. Mayerne, the king's physician,
and from him it was known to even the country barbers. Even King
James, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Buckingham, and many other
noble personages believed in its efficacy.

It would be a waste of time, had we space, to present fully Sir
Kenelm's profound and lengthy explanation of the cure. He tried to
make the cure more reasonable and acceptable by bringing forth certain
alleged phenomena which he thought proved sympathy, and were therefore
analogous in character. Surgeon-General Hammond calls attention to the
fact that these inferences were invariably