* book of the prolongation of life.' In spite of what is written on his Janssen hermit portrait — Saber morir la mayor hazanza — Digby loved life. His whole exuberant career is a psean to life, for itself and its great chances, and because "it giveth the leave to vent and boyle away the unquietnesses and turbulences that follow our passions." To prolong life, fortify it, clarify it, was a noble pursuit, and he set out on it as a youth under the tuition of the * good parson of Lindford. His Physick and Chirur- gery receipts, published by Hartman, are many of them incredible absurdities, not unfrequently re- pulsive ; but when we compare them with other like books of the time, they fit into a natural and not too fantastic place. Sir Thomas Browne was laughing at Digby, but not at Digby alone, in the passage in Vulgar Errors — " when for our warts we rub our hands before the moon, or commit any maculated part unto the touch of the dead." Sir Kenelm gath- ered his receipts on all his roads through Europe, noted them down, made them up with his own hands, and administered them to his friends. In Hartman's Family Physician is given "An experi- enced Remedy against the Falling Sicknes, where- with Sir K. Digby cur'd a Minister's Son at Franck- fort in Germany, in the year 1659." It begins, " Take the Skull of a Man that died of a Violent Death." (Hartman says he helped to prepare the ghastly concoction.) I have already noted how he doctored his beautiful wife's complexion ; and how xlii INTRODUCTIO^N^ he was called In to cure Howell's wound. In a poetic tribute he is referred to as : " Hee, that all med'cines can exactly make, And freely give them." Evelyn records how Digby *' advised me to try and digest a little better, and gave me a water which he said was only raine water of the autumnal equinox exceedingly rectified, and smelt like aquafortis.'" Here, at last, we have come to the end of Sir Kenelm the amateur. If he was an empiric, so were all the doctors of his time; and he maybe described as a professional unpaid physician who carried on a frequently interrupted practice. That he did not publish his receipts himself does not reflect on his own idea of their importance. They had a wide circulation amonghisfriends. And,asIhavepointed out, he never showed great eagerness to publish. Such works as appeared in his lifetime were evi- dently printed at the request of learned societies, or by friends to whom they were dedicated, or by White. The distance between the healer and the cook has grown to be immense in recent times. The College of Physicians and Mary Jane in the kitchen are not on nodding terms — though one sees faint signs of an effort to bridge the wide gap. But in the seven- teenth century the gap can hardly be said to have existed at all. At the back of the doctor is plainly seen the figure of the herbalist and simpler, who appear again prominently in the still-room and the kitchen, by the side of great ladies and great gentle- INTRODUCTION^ xliii

AI-modernized reading of the original text

* book of the prolongation of life.' In spite of what is written on his Janssen hermit portrait — Saber morir la mayor hazanza — Digby loved life. His whole exuberant career is a psean to life, for itself and its great chances, and because "it giveth the leave to vent and boyle away the unquietnesses and turbulences that follow our passions." To prolong life, fortify it, clarify it, was a noble pursuit, and he set out on it as a youth under the tuition of the * good parson of Lindford. His Physick and Chirurgery receipts, published by Hartman, are many of them incredible absurdities, not unfrequently repulsive ; but when we compare them with other like books of the time, they fit into a natural and not too fantastic place. Sir Thomas Browne was laughing at Digby, but not at Digby alone, in the passage in Vulgar Errors — " when for our warts we rub our hands before the moon, or commit any maculated part unto the touch of the dead." Sir Kenelm gathered his receipts on all his roads through Europe, noted them down, made them up with his own hands, and administered them to his friends. In Hartman's Family Physician is given "An experienced Remedy against the Falling Sicknes, wherewith Sir K. Digby cur'd a Minister's Son at Franckfort in Germany, in the year 1659." It begins, " Take the Skull of a Man that died of a Violent Death." (Hartman says he helped to prepare the ghastly concoction.) I have already noted how he doctored his beautiful wife's complexion ; and how xlii INTRODUCTION he was called In to cure Howell's wound. In a poetic tribute he is referred to as : " Hee, that all med'cines can exactly make, And freely give them." Evelyn records how Digby *' advised me to try and digest a little better, and gave me a water which he said was only raine water of the autumnal equinox exceedingly rectified, and smelt like aquafortis.'" Here, at last, we have come to the end of Sir Kenelm the amateur. If he was an empiric, so were all the doctors of his time; and he maybe described as a professional unpaid physician who carried on a frequently interrupted practice. That he did not publish his receipts himself does not reflect on his own idea of their importance. They had a wide circulation amonghisfriends. And,asIhavepointed out, he never showed great eagerness to publish. Such works as appeared in his lifetime were evidently printed at the request of learned societies, or by friends to whom they were dedicated, or by White. The distance between the healer and the cook has grown to be immense in recent times. The College of Physicians and Mary Jane in the kitchen are not on nodding terms — though one sees faint signs of an effort to bridge the wide gap. But in the seventeenth century the gap can hardly be said to have existed at all. At the back of the doctor is plainly seen the figure of the herbalist and simpler, who appear again prominently in the still-room and the kitchen, by the side of great ladies and great gentle- INTRODUCTION xliii

The closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight opened