Proceedings of the Ohio State Academy of Science. 267 



shapes to^ leaves and flowers plainly taught our credulous ances- 

 tors for what diseases they were especially useful. A heart- 

 shaped leaf was a cure for diseases of the heart; a leaf resem- 

 bling the liver was for liver complaints ; a bright-eyed flower was 

 for the eyes ; a foot-shaped flower was a certain cure for gout, 

 etc. It was thus a clear conclusion that a plant with invisible 

 reproductive organs would if properly used confer the property 

 of invisibility. Shakespeare refers to this belief in the first part 

 of King Henry IV., Act II., Scene i : "We have the receipt of 

 fernseed ; we walk invisible." Ben Johnson alludes to the same 

 superstition, as follows : 



"I had no medicine, Sir, to go invisible, 

 No fern seed in my pocket." 



Butler, in Hudibras, Part III., Canto 3, refers to the fern 

 in a more scientific manner : 



'Who would believe what strange bugbears 

 Mankind creates itself of fears. 

 That spring, like fern, that insect weed, 

 Equivocally, without seed. 

 And have no possible foundation 

 But merely in th' imagination?" 



It was ctistomary in the seventeenth century to set fire to 

 growing ferns under the belief that the practice would produce 

 rain. The smoke of ferns was also believed to drive away 

 snakes and other noxious creatures. In some places it was be- 

 lieved that by taking a bite from the leaf of the first fern that 

 appeared in Spring the toothache would depart for a year. In 

 the Tyrol, Osmunda is placed over the door for good luck. In 

 some parts of England there was a practice of cutting the 

 rhizome of a fern slantwise, when a picture of an oak tree could 

 be made out ; and the saying was that the more perfect the repre- 

 sentation the more lucky the person would be who cut it. A 

 certain species of spleenwort was supposed to make the spleen 

 wither away. Thus in the Island of Crete the flocks and herds 

 were said to be without spleens because they browsed on this 



