CHAPTER XVI.
DOCTRINE OF SIGNATURES.
The old medical theory, which supposed that plants by their external
character indicated the particular diseases for which Nature had
intended them as remedies, was simply a development of the much
older notion of a real connection between object and image. Thus, on this
principle, it was asserted that the properties of substances were
frequently denoted by their colour; hence, white was regarded as
refrigerant, and red as hot. In the same way, for disorders of the blood,
burnt purple, pomegranate seeds, mulberries, and other red ingredients
were dissolved in the patient's drink; and for liver omplaints yellow
substances were recommended. But this fanciful and erroneous notion
"led to serious errors in practice," [1] and was occasionally productive of
the most fatal results. Although, indeed, Pliny spoke of the folly of the
magicians in using the catanance (Greek: katanhankae, compulsion) for
love-potions, on account of its shrinking "in drying into the shape of the
claws of a dead kite," [2] and so holding the patient fast; yet this
primitive idea, after the lapse of centuries, was as fully credited as in the
early days when it was originally started. Throughout the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, for instance, it is noticed in most medical works,
and in many cases treated with a seriousness characteristic of the
backward state of medical science even at a period so comparatively
recent. Crollius wrote a work on the subject; and Langham, in his
"Garden of Health," published in the year 1578, accepted the doctrine.
Coles, in his "Art of Simpling" (1656), thus describes it:--
"Though sin and Satan have plunged mankind into an ocean of infirmities, yet
the mercy of God, which is over all His workes, maketh grasse to growe upon
the mountains and herbes for the use of men, and hath not only stamped upon
them a distinct forme, but also given them particular signatures, whereby a
man may read even in legible characters the use of them."
John Ray, in his treatise on "The Wisdom of God in Creation," was
among the first to express his disbelief of this idea, and writes:--"As for
the signatures of plants, or the notes impressed upon them as notices of
their virtues, some lay great stress upon them, accounting them strong
arguments to prove that some understanding principle is the highest
original of the work of Nature, as indeed they were could it be certainly
made to appear that there were such marks designedly set upon them,
because all that I find mentioned by authors seem to be rather fancied by