COLOUR IN MY GARDEN 



have been so named because they bloomed near the days 

 which are dedicated to the same saints. 



"Once whatever was scientific in the art of medicine was 

 centred in the study of herbs and the materials of the 

 healing art were wholly vegetable." Thus it is not sur- 

 prising that many plants acquired their names through a 

 real or fancied power to alleviate certain human ills. The 

 little Pansy was deemed a potent heart remedy or cordial 

 and so received its name of Heartsease, and so also we have 

 Lungwort, Throatwort, Consumption Root, Ague-weed, 

 Palseywort, Pleurisy-root, Eye-bright and Woundwort. 

 Some were believed to be so universal in their curative 

 powers that they received the name of All-heal or Cure-all. 



To the curious old cult called the Doctrine of Signatures, 

 which at one time certainly won the credulity of suffering 

 humanity, is traceable many plant names. "This was a 

 system for discovering the medical uses of a plant from 

 something in its external appearance that resembled the 

 disease it would cure" or the portion of the body to be 

 cured. In "The Art of Simpling" we read "Though Sin 

 and Satan have plunged mankind into an Ocean of Infirm- 

 aties, yet the mercy of God, which is over all His works, 

 maketh Grasse to grow upon the Mountains and Herbes, 

 for the use of men, and hath not only stamped upon them 

 a distinct form, but also give them particular signatures, 

 whereby a man may read, even in legible characters the 

 use of them." Imaginations must have run riot in the 

 compilation of a pharmacopoeia based upon this wild 

 theory, and even after a lapse of several centuries one must 

 feel pity for the poor creatures treated with Quaking Grass 



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