Dr. Sylvester Rattray, author of the treatise on sympathy and antipathy, Glasgow, 1658 / by James Finlayson.

  • Finlayson, James, 1840-1906.
Date:
[1900]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Dr. Sylvester Rattray, author of the treatise on sympathy and antipathy, Glasgow, 1658 / by James Finlayson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Hip. Yes, Yes, upon the sudden, all the pain Is leaving mo: Sweet heaven, how I am eased!” Dryden’s Tempest, Act. V. 2. The next extract, from a celebrated physician of his time, gives very circumstantial details of the marvellous influence on wounds exerted by the Powder of Sympathy applied to the patient's garter. The extract is from Sir Kenelm Digby, Of the Sympathetic Powder. A discourse hi a solemn assembly at Montpellier. London, 1G69, pp. 145—149. \A certain Mr. Iloivel had been cat in his hand by a sword and the wound bound by his garter.] “I ask’d him, then, for anything that had the blood upon it; so he presently sent for his Garter, wherewith his hand was first bound; and as I call’d for a Basin of water, as if I would wash my hands, I took a handful of Powder of Vitriol [Iron Sulphate] which I had in my Study, and presently dissolv’d it. As soon as the bloody Garter was brought me, I put it in the Basin, observing the while what Mr. Ilowel did; who stood talking with a Gentleman in a corner of my Chamber, not regarding at all what I was doing: But he started sud- denly as if he had found some strange alteration in himself. I ask’d him what he ail’d? I know not what ails me, said he, but I find, that I feel no more pain: methinks, a pleasing kind of freshness, as it were a wet cold napkin spread itself over my hand: which hath taken away the inflammation that tormented me before. I reply’d, since then you feel already so good an effect of my medicament I advise you to cast away all your plaisters; only keep the wound clean, and in a moderate temper ‘twixt heat and cold. After dinner, I took the Garter out of the water, and put it to dry before a great fire. It was scarce dry, but Mr. Ilowel's servant came running, to tell me that his Master felt as much burning as ever he had done, if not more; for the heat was such, as if his hand were betwixt coales of fire. ... I put again the Garter into the water: thereupon, he found his Master without any pain at all. To he brief, there was no sense of pain afterward: but, within five or six days the wounds were cicatriced, and entirely healed.” The third extract is from no less a philosopher than Lord Bacon, who details from experience in his own person, this sympathetic treatment as applied to warts with which he was affected, the remar- kable success still remaining in his mind after many years. “I had from my childhood a wart upon one of my fingers; afterwards, when T was about sixteen years old, being then at Paris, there grew upon both my hands a number of warts, at least a hundred in a month’s space. The English ambassador’s lady, who was a woman far from super- stition, told me one day, she would help me away with my warts; where