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 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 _aqua fortis_."

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 may be 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 among his
friends. And, as I have pointed 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.