The salve changed into a powder in the hands of Sir Kenelm Digby, the son of Sir Edward Digby who was executed for his participation in the Gunpowder Plot. Sir Kenelm was an accomplished scholar and an able man, but at the same time a most extravagant defender of the powder of sympathy for the healing of wounds. This powder came into sudden and public notoriety 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.