CHAPTER XIII. 



Ufte ©octriae of QPaat ^igna'Ture/', 



ILLIAM COLES, in his 'Art of Simpling ' (a 

 work published in the year 1656), abandoning for 

 awhile practical instruction, moralises thus : — 

 "Though sin and Sathan have plunged mankinde 

 into an Ocean of Infirmities, yet the mercy of 

 God, which is over all His workes, maketh 

 Grasse to grow upon the Mountaines, and Herbes 

 for the use of men ; and hath not only stamped 

 upon them a distinct forme, but also given them particular Signa- 

 tures, whereby a man may read, even in legible characters, the use 

 of them." This ancient Doctrine of Signatures was an ingenious 

 system elaborated for discovering from certain marks or appear- 

 ances on the various portion of a plant's structure, the supposed 

 medicinal virtue attached to it. A good illustration is to be found 

 in the following passage, translated from P. Lauremberg's 

 Apparatus Plantarum : — " The seed of Garlic is black ; it obscures 

 the eyes with blackness and darkness. This is to be understood 

 of healthy eyes, but those which are dull through vicious humidity, 

 from these Garlic drives this viciousness away. The tunic of Garlic 

 is ruddy; it expels blood. It has a hollow stalk, and it helps 

 affedlions of the wind-pipe." 



Many curious details of the system of Plant Signatures are to 

 be found in the works of Porta, Grollius, Schroder, and Kircher : 

 these authorities tell us that there are given, not only in animals, 

 but also in vegetables, certain sure marks, signs, and indications 

 from which their virtues and powers can be inferred by the 

 sagacious and painstaking student. Kircher is of opinion that the 

 Egyptians derived their first knowledge of the elements of medicine 

 from these signs, which they had patiently and closely studied ; 

 and in one of his works he enunciates his views in the following 

 passage : — " Since one and all of the members of the human body, 

 under the wise arrangement of Nature, agree or differ with the 

 several objecfts in the world of creation, by a certain sympathy or 

 antipathy of nature, it follows that there has been implanted by 

 the providence of Nature, both in the several members and in 



