Powder of sympathy was a form of early pseudoscientific medicine and alchemy in seventeenth-century Europe, in which a remedy was applied not to the wound itself but to the weapon that had caused it, with the intention of healing the injury from a distance. A related preparation, weapon salve, was applied to the weapon in the same way but was based on material taken from the wounded patient rather than on any remedy for the wound itself.
Facts
Classification
StatusDiscontinued or Obsolete 1 FAQs
Who claimed to have invented the powder of sympathy?
Sir Kenelm Digby claimed priority for the powdered form in 1658, but historian Elizabeth Hedrick argues that claim was false.
Sir Kenelm Digby published a 1658 work, A Late Discourse Touching the Cure of Wounds by the Powder of Sympathy, in which he claimed priority for a powdered version of the sympathetic cure, the weapon-salve having been the earlier form. In a 2008 article in the British Journal for the History of Science, the historian Elizabeth Hedrick argues that a close examination of Digby's claims, set beside his own earlier work and that of his contemporaries, shows his priority claim to have been false, and that his most knowledgeable associates recognized it as such. The question of who first devised the powder is therefore disputed in the scholarship, not settled in Digby's favor.
Sources
1. Wikipedia
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia Foundation
Powder of sympathy (Wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_of_sympathy, lead sectionQuote, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_of_sympathy, lead section
Powder of sympathy was a form of early pseudoscientific navigation and alchemy, in the 17th century in Europe, whereby a remedy was applied to the weapon that had caused a wound with the aim of healing the injury it had made. Weapon salve was a preparation, again applied to the w
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