PLANT NAMES 33 



MEDICINAL 



There is quite a large class of plants which in times 

 long past received their names from their medicinal 

 qualities, real or supposed. Just as the ancient 

 astronomers studied the heavenly bodies because 

 they believed that they influenced the destinies of 

 mankind, so the interest that botanists took in 

 plants to a large extent arose from their use as 

 medicines. The value of a plant was estimated by 

 its usefulness to man, either as food in health or as 

 medicine in sickness, and it was beheved that as 

 the Creator had afflicted His creatures with divers 

 diseases, He had equally provided for each disease 

 some plant which formed its remedy.' The business 

 of science was to discover for each ailment the 

 corresponding plant to cure it, and we can imagine 

 how many lives were sacrificed in the search. But 

 they went farther than this, and held that in each 

 plant there was some visible indication of the part 

 of the human body whose disease it was designed to 

 cure. This was the curious doctrine of Signatures, 

 and it was firmly believed by the herbalists of those 

 times. The spotted leaf of one plant reminded them 

 of the lungs. They thus inferred that it must be 

 a remedy for consumption, and called it Ptdmonaria. 

 A plant with swellings at the joints must be good 

 for gout. The Mistletoe grew downwards. It was 

 therefore plain that it was marked out as a specific 



