Sympathetic Powder.--After the weapon ointment, the best known of the nostrums of older times is probably Sir Kenelm Digby's famous Sympathetic {56} Powder, which Dr. Holmes talks of as even better known than its great therapeutic predecessor. This, too, was a wonderworker. Unlike the Unguentum Armarium, however, its composition was simple. It was nothing else than copper sulphate which had been allowed to deliquesce to a white powder. This powder would cure any injury as infallibly as the weapon ointment. It, too, was not applied to the wound, but to the _bloodstained_ garments (Van Helmont's distinctions between the bloody and the bright weapon should be recalled) of the wounded person. The patient did not need to be present at the time the application was made. He might be far away and yet its efficacy was, according to many very intelligent and highly educated persons, quite assured. For the sympathetic powder we have one of the stories of far-fetched discovery that have since become so familiar. A missionary, traveling in the East, was said to have brought the recipe to Europe about the middle of the seventeenth century. The Grand Duke of Tuscany, in whose dominions the missionary took up his residence, heard of the cures performed by him and tried by offers of money and favor to obtain the missionary's secret, but without success. Sir Kenelm Digby, however, who was traveling in Italy, happened by good fortune to do a favor for the missionary, and put him under such deep obligations that he felt the only way he could properly repay his benefactor was to confide to him the composition of this wonderful remedy. Sir Kenelm Digby was at this time one of the best known of English scholars. After having reached distinction in the English navy, he had devoted himself to literature, to philosophy, and to politics. He had devoted much time to the old books of alchemy. Therefore, the offer of this precious piece of information especially appealed to him. On his return to England he proceeded to use it for the benefit of his friends, and it created a sensation. The French dictionary of the Medical Sciences tells the story of the application of the powder for the first time in England and of the subsequent use of it, especially on the nobility of England: