MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 71 
11. Pinaz theatris botanici of Gaspard Bauhin, 16238, con- 
tains the first complete concordance of names of plants deal- 
ing with about 6,000 species, and is even yet indispensable for 
the history of individual species. 
12. Paradisi in Sole by John Parkinson, London, 1629. In 
1640 Parkinson followed this work with a much larger volume 
entitled “The theatre of plants or An herbal of a large ex- 
tent.’’? The virtues of herbs were dealt with in great detail, 
although not infrequently he displays an imagination truly 
mediaeval. 
Contemporaneous with the herbals of the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries there appeared a series of books devoted 
to the superstitions with which herb collecting was associated. 
These centered about the so-called ‘‘doctrine of signatures’’ 
and astrological botany, giving attention to the dangers attend- 
ing the collection of certain plants such as the mandrake. 
That the writers themselves did not altogether believe every- 
thing printed is evidenced by one who naively remarked con- 
cerning certain notions and observations recorded: “most of 
which I am confident are true and if there be any that are not 
so, yet they are very pleasant.’’ One of the most famous of 
these writers was Philippus Aeroulius Theophrastus Bom- 
bastus, better known by the name of Paracelsus (1493-1541). 
He was a physician who contemptuously disregarded the work 
of all physicians who had preceded him by burning their writ- 
ings. Browning’s poem gives perhaps the best outline of his 
career. The virtues of plants, according to Paracelsus, de- 
pended upon their containing the three fundamental prin- 
ciples of sulphur, salt, and mercury, and he believed that 
most medicinal herbs were signed with a clear indication of 
their uses. To quote: ‘‘I have ofttimes declared how by the 
outward shapes and qualities of things we may know their 
inward virtues which God hath put in them for the good of 
man, so in St. John’s wort we may take notice of the form of 
the leaves and flowers; the porosity of the leaves and the veins. 
The porosities or holes in the leaves signify to us that this 
herb helps both inward or outward holes or cuts in the skin, 
and the flowers of St. John’s wort when they are purified 
are like blood, which teaches us that this herb is good for 
wounds, to close them and fill them up.”’ 
