218 SIMPLES AND SIMPLERS. 



influences in a much greater degree than those of the 

 same classes in this country, a profound respect is still 

 paid to the holy herbs ; and bands of simplers — believ- 

 ers in the panaceas of tlie field and garden — still con- 

 tinue their avocation and are in popular repute in many 

 old English towns. 



During tlie infancy of modern science, when theology 

 was mingled with all the exercises of the mind, and when 

 it was believed that everything was created for man's 

 especial use, all plants were supposed, as a doctrine of 

 religious faith, to contain some qualities, discovered or 

 undiscovered, which were intended by Providence for the 

 sustenance, protection, and clothing of man, or for the 

 cure of his diseases. The flowerless plants, now known 

 to be without any curative properties, were then exten- 

 sively used in medicine, from the pious supposition that, 

 as they are useless for food or for employment in practical 

 arts, they must be intended by Divine Providence for 

 medicines. In that romantic era, pillows were filled with 

 the substance of a kind of moss which was supposed to 

 be useful for procuring sleep. The family of mosses from 

 which this substance was obtained, in accordance M'ith 

 the use made of it,' received from the early botanists the 

 name of hypnum, from a Greek word that signifies 

 " sleep." Tliis was afterwards combined with other pro- 

 ducts, sucli as poppy leaves, wormwood, the petals of the 

 peony, and the floM^ers of hops, and used for similar pur- 

 poses in the form of quilts. These substances were placed 

 between two pieces of cotton or linen, and quilted into a 

 cap to be worn on the head for the headache. They were 

 made also in other forms, to be laid upon any part affected 

 with inflammation or nervous pains. 



The doctrine of signatures, believed by the whole 

 Christian world in the Middle i^ges, was a theory of 

 religious philosophy, and shows the intimate connection 



