Medical Properties of Flowers 



or the brain, and the fern, from its absence of 

 flowers and apparent want of seed, was the chief 

 or only ingredient in making invisible garments. 



We now laugh at the doctrine of signatures ; 

 and in this, as in many other matters, we flatter 

 ourselves that we are better and wiser than our 

 fathers. But with them it was no laughing matter ; 

 it was held in all sober seriousness, and was freely 

 quoted as a striking proof of the love and good- 

 ness of the Creator. And now it is found that 

 though they were wrong in the working out of 

 the principle, yet that the principle itself is not 

 altogether wrong, for the modern botanical arrange- 

 ment of plants, the natural system, has clearly 

 established the fact that a knowledge of the 

 structure of plants, and even a very limited know- 

 ledge, will go a long way in determining whether 

 a plant is wholesome or baleful. This was not 

 the intention of those who worked out the system, 

 nor is it an essential part of it ; but it has arisen 

 naturally, and the result has been that certain 

 families of plants, and those among the largest, 

 carry in their outward structure distinct marks of 

 their medical values and other useful or hurtful 

 properties. A very short glance at some of the 

 principal botanical families will show what I 

 mean. 



The first great family with which an English 



botanical student has to make himself acquainted 



is the large family of the Ranunculaceae. The 



family is very easily distinguished by the many 



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