DIGBY Sir Kenelme Discours fait en une célèbre assemblée, par le chevalier Digby, chancelier de la Reine de la Grande Bretagne, touchant la guérison des playes par la poudre de sympathie.

Caillet no. 3124: ‘Alongside his main subject, the author recounts a host of extraordinary facts, the origins of numerous legends and sayings prevalent in rural areas, which often conceal a profound meaning that is now little known’ – Yves-Plessis, 1012 – not listed in Dorbon – Guaïta, 1314.

A rare first edition of this medical-alchemical treatise.

Delivered before a learned assembly in Montpellier in 1657, this discourse explains the principle of the ‘powder of sympathy’: healing a wound from a distance or by treating the object that caused it.

“Il faut avouer que c”est une chose merveilleuse, que la playe d’une personne blessée puisse estre guérie, ou son inflammation & douleur augmentée, par l’application d’un remède appliqué à un morceau de linge ou à une épée mesme en une grande distance” (pp. 21-22).

Kenelm Digby (1603–1655), a chemist and philosopher, explains that he purchased the secret of this preparation—based on powdered vitriol and gum—from an Italian monk. He attempts a semi-rational justification and, to explain its effects, invokes vital spirits, radiation, fermentation and odours.

Digby’s social standing—as a courtier close to the Stuarts and a diplomat travelling through the courts of Europe—undoubtedly enabled this “fantastical” treatise to achieve great success and be frequently reprinted.

Provenance: unidentified armorial bookplate, with library call number; Sir Irvine Masson (1887–1962), a chemist of Scottish origin born in Australia; he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield from 1938 to 1953 (handwritten bookplate, 1926); Robert S. Pirie (1934–2015) (Sotheby’s 2–4 Dec. 2015, lot 246, which cites the following provenance: Sotheby’s, 21 April 1958, lot 10) (bookplate).

Spine lightened, slight wear to the cover. Tears without loss to the endpapers.