VAGARIES OF PHYSIC. 
581 
and in whom “ there is no more faith than stewed prunes,” 
it would be worth while to trace the path of some one of 
those — and their name is legion — who, wise in their genera- 
tion, have yet been led away by their own chosen and fami- 
liar will-o’-the wisp. How have plain earnest men some- 
times plunged headlong into quagmires through following 
the ignis fatuus of some particular traditionary mysticism, till, 
by the force of that very earnestness, they have succeeded in 
<c driving the grossness of the foppery into a received belief, 
in spite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason !” How for 
centuries have our fathers before us given to some old for- 
mula a full measure of simple credence heaped up and brim- 
ming over ; till we, in our later generation, are tempted to 
cry out indignantly : “ Have we laid our brains in the sun 
and dried them, that they want matter to prevent such gross 
o’er-reaching as this?” Where now is our faith in the 
“ simples” gathered beneath the moon, or plucked at some 
witching-hour under the (i fiery trigons ?” How far have we 
wandered from the pastures of old father “ thyme,” lost our 
relish for iC sauce-alone, or Jack-by-the-hedge-side,” and dis- 
carded the safe companionship of f4 Gill-go-over-the-ground !” 
How have we, degenerate, waged war in a crusade against 
“ Saracen’s Confound,” and withheld from our gaping wrnunds 
the gentle succour of Teutonic “stab-w 7 ort !” How 7 have we 
set up new idols for our worship, and, like true iconoclasts, 
broken dowrn the mysterious image from the inner sanctuary, 
the holy of holies, of physic ! In medical traditionary lore, 
this same icon, as all searchers into bygone authorities well 
know, w 7 as the image or likeness of a particular disease, said to 
be impressed on root, leaf, or flower, suggesting its specific 
virtue as a curative agent applied to the disease so indicated. 
It w as called the signature of the plant. That prince of her- 
balists, Nicholas Culpeper, says : “ I wonder in my heart 
how the virtues of herbs came first to be known, if not by 
their signatures .” Now, as thou art a true man, O Nicholas, 
confide to us wherein it is fitting to put a bound to our cre- 
dulity. In sober seriousness, if the “ signature” be all- 
powerful, may there not be also — in spite of the poet — 
something in a name? May w 7 e not hope to “ put money in 
our purse” by imbibing an infusion of “ money-wort or herb- 
tw 7 opence or tame a quarrelsome w ife by means of ee loose- 
strife or grass-polly ?” Might not Ci ashen-keys” be applied 
with effect to alocked-jaw; or a habit of early rising induced 
— under Morpheus — by an admixture of pot-herbs, boiled 
with an old cock /” 
Have you a mote in your eye, O my brother! search dili- 
xxx. 77 
