Van Helmont’s intended month in England stretched to years via Conway’s migraines

Evidence

Francis Mercury Van Helmont, the wandering “scholar gypsy,” was introduced to Anne Conway quite fortuitously in 1670. He had come to England in order to deliver to Henry More several letters from Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia and to discuss with him their mutual interest in the Cabala, an esoteric occult and mystical tradition stemming from the Middle Ages. He had only planned to remain in England one month, but through the joint efforts of More and Viscount Edward Conway he was finally persuaded to travel to Ragley to visit the learned Lady Anne Conway, in order to attempt a cure of her incessant and intolerable migraine headaches. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 936