viii] Doctrine of Signatures 207 



one of his works, after contemptuously dismissing all the 

 great physicians who had preceded him — Galen, Avicenna 

 and others — he remarks, "I shall be the Monarch and mine 

 shall the monarchy be 1 ." The conclusion that he was 

 something of a quack can hardly be avoided, but at the 

 same time it must be confessed that his writings were 

 occasionally illumined with real scientific insight, and that 

 he infused new life into chemistry and medicine. 



Paracelsus' actual knowledge of botany appears to have 

 been meagre, for not more than a couple of dozen plant 

 names are found in his works. To understand his views 

 on the properties of plants it is necessary to turn for a 

 moment to his chemical theories. He regarded "sulphur," 

 "salt," and "mercury" as the three fundamental principles 

 of all bodies. The sense in which he uses these terms is 

 symbolic, and thus differs entirely from that in which they 

 are employed to-day. " Sulphur " appears to embody the 

 ideas of change, combustibility, volatilisation and growth ; 

 "salt," those of stability and non-inflammability; "mercury," 

 that of fluidity. The "virtues" of plants depend, according 

 to Paracelsus, upon the proportions in which they contain 

 these three principles. 



The medicinal properties of plants are thus the outcome 

 of qualities that are not obvious at sight. How, then, is 

 the physician to be guided in selecting herbal remedies to 

 cure the several ailments of his patients ? The answer to 

 this question given by Paracelsus is summed up in what is 

 known as the Doctrine of Signatures. 



According to this doctrine, many medicinal herbs are 

 stamped, as it were, with some clear indication of their 

 uses. This may perhaps be best understood by means 

 of a quotation from Paracelsus himself (in the words of 

 a seventeenth-century English translation). " I have oft- 

 times declared, how by the outward shapes and qualities of 

 things we may know their inward Vertues, which God hath 

 put in them for the good of man. So in St Johns wort, 

 we may take notice of the form of the leaves and flowers, 

 the porosity of the leaves, the Veins. 1. The porositie or 



1 " Ich wirdt Monarcha, unnd mein wird die Monaichey sein." Vorred in 

 das Buch Paragranum. [Theophrastus Paracelsus, 'Das Buch Paragranum,' 

 Herausgegeben...von Dr phil. Fr. Strunz, Leipzig, 1903.] 



