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known as the May apple. It is interesting to note that the Euro- 
pean mandrake is not now in the U. S. Pharmacopoeia, but the 
rootstock of the American mandrake yields an important drug, 
— 
podophyillin, in the form of a poisonous, resinous substance, called 
Resina Podophylli, employed as a cathartic. 
Porta’s Phytognomonica, a learned exposition, in Latin, of the 
doctrine of signatures with interesting and clear wood cuts of the 
plants, and nearby, the bodily members they resembled, was pub- 
lished in 1589. Among the illustrations is one of a youth with a 
luxuriant head of hair, and above, a hair-cap moss with its thick 
crop of hair-like stems, with recommendations for its use in cases 
of alopecia. But it is significant that a likeness of the author, pre- 
sumably, appears on the frontispiece, and it is quite evident that he 
has hardly a spear of hair on his head! Hair of the hare, swine, 
cattle, or other hairy beasts was also recommended for curing bald- 
ness, for animals too had a place in this fantastic doctrine. 
Another curious superstition was the idea of a sympathetic 
remedy. This was the notion that in the case of a wound the 
remedy was to be applied not to the wound itself but to the object 
that caused the wound. The wound was bandaged, it is true; but 
the axe, knife, or other instrument responsible for the cut was 
treated with salve or some curative ointment. Somewhat as we 
say to our little children, when they run against a post or are 
thrown from their sled, “Naughty post! Naughty sled!” ete. 
Paracelsus, who popularized the sympathetic remedy, believed “that 
the anointment of the weapon acted upon the wound by a magnetic 
current through the air.” 
A superstition, persisting to the present time in some parts of 
the country, was that if one is poisoned by a plant, for example 
poison ivy, another plant (in this case, Touch-me-not (/impatiens ) 
or Lobelia), a remedy for the poison, will be found growing in 
close proximity to the poisonous plant; docks will be found grow- 
ing near stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) for the poison of which 
they are said to be a cure. 
With the beginning of-the colonization of America (Jamestown, 
1607; Plymouth, 1620) the practice of medicine and pharmacy 
commenced in this country. “There were some fine educated 
