In My Vicarage Garden 



religious faith that though man was subject to 

 endless diseases, there was for every disease a 

 certain remedy ; and more than that, it was 

 believed that the Creator, in His pity for suffering 

 man, had so marked different plants that every 

 sufferer could easily discover for himself the plant 

 that would meet his special need. This was the 

 doctrine of signatures, of which a great deal was 

 written that was both silly and false, but which 

 was firmly held not only by those who were them- 

 selves silly or false, but also by many who were 

 really good and learned men. According to this 

 doctrine you had only to look at a plant, and if 

 you could find anything that in shape or colour 

 resembled the part of the body that was diseased 

 or the disease itself, that was at once a proof that 

 the plant was good for you ; it was nature's own 

 prescription, which could be safely followed ; for 

 in every plant there was good or evil or both ; 

 they were all " baleful weeds or precious-juiced 

 flowers," and by their signatures each could be 

 placed in its proper rank. Without going into 

 this at any length it will be enough to say that a 

 heart-shaped leaf was supposed to be good for 

 heart disease, a spotted leaf (like pulmonarid) was 

 good for diseased lungs, a plant with swellings at 

 the joints was good for gout, while the extremes 

 were reached in the walnut and the fern : the 

 walnut, with its outer skin, its hard, brittle shell, 

 and its peculiar kernel was a sure remedy for all 

 diseases of the head, whether of the skin, the skull, 



