Text-fig. 91. “Rautten” Text-fig. 91. “Rautten” = Botrychium, Moonwort [Bock, Kreuter Bůch, 1546]. Fuchs’ gratitude to his assistants is expressed in the preface to ‘De historia stirpium,’ where he makes some remarks upon the illustrations, which may be translated as follows:—

“As far as concerns the pictures themselves, each of which is positively delineated according to the features and likeness of the living plants, we have taken peculiar care that they should be most perfect, and, moreover, we have devoted the greatest diligence to secure that every plant should be depicted with its own roots, stalks, leaves, flowers, seeds and fruits. Furthermore we have purposely and deliberately avoided the obliteration of the natural form of the plants by shadows, and other less necessary things, by which the delineators sometimes try to win artistic glory: and we have not allowed the craftsmen so to indulge their whims as to cause the drawing not to correspond accurately to the truth. Vitus Rudolphus Specklin, by far the best engraver of Strasburg, has admirably copied the wonderful industry of the draughtsmen, and has with such excellent craft expressed in his engraving the features of each drawing, that he seems to have contended with the draughtsman for glory and victory.”

How dull and colourless the phrases of modern scientific writers appear, beside the hot-blooded, arrogant enthusiasm of the sixteenth century!

Fuchs’ wood-cuts were extensively pirated, especially those on a reduced scale, which were published in his edition of 1545. As we have mentioned on p. 55, Hieronymus Bock [or Tragus] undoubtedly made use of them in the second edition of his ‘Kreuter Bůch’ (1546) which was the next important, illustrated botanical work to appear after Fuchs’ herbal. An examination of the wood-cuts in Bock’s herbal seems, however, to show that his illustrations have more claim to originality than is often supposed. The figures of Wintergreen (Text-fig. 90), Moonwort (Text-fig. 91), and Strawberry (Text-fig. 27), here reproduced, are markedly different from those of Fuchs, although, in the case of the first, Fuchs’ wood-cut may have been used to some extent. The artist employed by Bock, as he himself tells us, was David Kandel, a young lad, the son of a burgher of Strasburg. His drawings are often of interest, apart from their botanical aspect. For instance, the picture of an Oak tree includes, appropriately enough, a swine-herd with his swine, the Chestnut tree gives occasion for a hedgehog (Text-fig. 92) and, in another case, a monkey and several rabbits are introduced, one of the latter holding a shield bearing the artist’s initials. The wood-cut of Trapa, the Bull-nut (Text-fig. 29), is a highly imaginative production which clearly shows that neither the artist nor the author had ever seen the plant in question.

In general character, Bock’s illustrations are neater and more conventional than those of Brunfels or Fuchs. The crowns of the trees are often made practically square so as to fit the block (Text-fig. 92). The figures in earlier works, such as the ‘Ortus Sanitatis,’ are recalled in Kandel’s disregard of the proportion between the size of the tree, and that of the leaves and fruits.

In point of time, the illustrations to the early editions of Mattioli’s Commentaries on the Six Books of Dioscorides follow fairly closely on those of Fuchs, but they are extremely different in style (Text-figs. 41, 42, 93, 94). Details such as the veins and hairs of the leaves are often elaborately worked out, while shading is much used, a considerable mastery of parallel lines being shown. The general effect is occasionally somewhat flat and dull. Some of the drawings suggest that they may have been done from dried plants, and in others the treatment is over-crowded. But, in spite of these defects, they form a markedly individual contribution, which is of great importance in the history of botanical illustration.

Numerous editions of Mattioli’s work appeared in various languages. In its earlier form the book had only small figures (e.g. Text-figs. 41, 42, 93, 94), but in some later editions, notably that which appeared at Venice in

1565, there are large illustrations which are reproduced on a reduced scale in Text-figs. 43, 44, 95. These wood-cuts resemble the smaller ones in character, but are more decorative in effect, and often remarkably fine. Whereas in the work of Brunfels and Fuchs, the beautiful line of a single stalk is often the key-note of the whole drawing, in the work of Mattioli, the eye most frequently finds its satisfaction in the rich massing of foliage, fruit and flowers, suggestive of southern luxuriance. Many of his figures would require little modification to form the basis of a tapestry pattern.

Another remarkable group of wood-engravings consists of those published by Plantin in connection with the work of the three Low Country herbalists, Dodoens, de l’Écluse and de l’Obel. In the original edition of Dodoens’ herbal (‘Crǔÿdeboeck,’ published by Vanderloe in 1554), more than half the illustrations were taken from Fuchs’ octavo edition of 1545. But eventually, as we have pointed out in Chapter IV, Vanderloe parted with Fuchs’ blocks. After this, Plantin took over the publication of Dodoens’ books, and in his final collected works (‘Stirpium historiæ pemptades sex,’ 1583) the majority of the illustrations were original, and were carried out under the author’s eye (Text-figs. 37, 38, 96, 97). A few (namely those marked in the Pemptades, “Ex Codice Cæsareo”) are copied from Juliana Anicia’s manuscript of Dioscorides to which we have more than once referred. Some are also borrowed from the works of de l’Écluse and de l’Obel, since Plantin was publisher to all three botanists, and the wood-blocks engraved for them were regarded as, to some extent, forming a common stock. In fact it is often difficult to decide to which author any given figure originally belonged. This difficulty is enhanced by the fact that some were actually made for one and then used for another, before the work for which they had been originally destined was published.

There is little to be said about de l’Obel’s figures, which partook of the character of the rest of the wood-cuts for which Plantin made himself responsible. The Yellow Waterlily (Text-fig. 67) is given here as an example.

The wood-cuts illustrating the comparatively small books of de l’Écluse are perhaps the most interesting of the figures associated with this trio of botanists. The Dragon Tree (Text-fig. 98), “Sedum majus” (Text-fig. 59) and Job’s Tears (Text-fig. 39) are examples from his book on the plants of Spain, which appeared in 1576.

The popularity of the large collection of blocks got together by the publishing house of Plantin is shown by the frequency with which they were copied. Dr B. Daydon Jackson has pointed out that the wood-cut of the Clematis, which first appeared in Dodoens’ ‘Pemptades’ of 1583, reappears, either in identical form, or more or less accurately copied, in works by de l’Obel, de l’Écluse, Gerard, Parkinson, Jean Bauhin, Chabræus and Petiver. The actual blocks themselves appear to have been used for the last time when Johnson’s edition of Gerard’s herbal made its final appearance in London in 1636.

Another school of plant illustration is represented in the work of Gesner and Camerarius. As we mentioned on p. 92, Gesner’s drawings were not published during his life-time, but some of them were eventually produced by Camerarius, with the addition of figures of his own, to illustrate his ‘Epitome Matthioli’ of 1586 (Text-figs. 72 and 99) and also his later work. In 1751, C. J. Trew published a collection of Gesner’s drawings, many of which had never been seen before; but even then, it proved impossible to separate the work of the two botanists with any completeness, since Gesner’s drawings and blocks had passed through the hands of Camerarius, who had incorporated his own with them. A few wood-cuts however, which appeared as an appendix to Simler’s Life of Gesner, are undoubtedly Gesner’s own work. One of these is reproduced in Text-fig. 48.

Professor Treviranus, whose work on the use of wood-engravings as botanical illustrations is so well known, considered that some of the drawings published by Camerarius in connection with his last work (‘Hortus medicus et philosophicus,’ 1588) were among the best ever produced. Examples are shown in Text-figs. 34, 35, 71, 100. Treviranus pointed out that one of their great merits lay in the selection of good, typical specimens as models. These figures are very much more botanical than those of any previous author; in fact—as Hatton has pointed out in ‘The Craftsman’s Plant-Book’—they are beginning to become too botanical for the artist! Camerarius often gives detailed analyses of the flowers and fruit on an enlarged scale (Text-fig. 99). Among the illustrations here reproduced will be seen one (Text-fig. 100) in which the seedling of the Rose of Jericho is drawn side by side with the mature plant, and another (Text-fig. 35) in which the structure of a germinating Date is shown with great clearness. This interest in seedlings gives a modern touch to the work of Camerarius.

A number of wood-blocks were cut at Lyons to illustrate d’Aléchamps’ great work, the ‘Historia generalis plantarum,’ 1586-7. Many of these figures were taken from the herbals of Fuchs, Mattioli and Dodoens, but they were often embellished with representations of insects, and detached leaves and flowers, scattered over the block with no apparent object except to fill the space. This peculiarity, which is shown in the engraving of Ornithogalum reproduced in Text-fig. 51, appears also in the illustrations of a book on Simples, by Joannes Mesua, published in Venice in 1581. In certain other wood-cuts in d’Aléchamps’ herbal, solid black is used in an effective fashion. This is the case for instance in Text-fig. 101, which is also interesting since two of the leaves bear the initials “M” and “H,” which were possibly those of the artist.

Among less important botanical wood-engravings of the sixteenth century we may mention those in the works of Pierre Belon, such as ‘De arboribus’ (1553). In this book there are some graceful wood-cuts of trees, one of which is reproduced in Text-fig. 102. The initial letters used in the present volume are taken from another of Belon’s books35.

Some specimens of the quaint little illustrations to Castor Durantes ‘Herbario Nuovo’ of 1585 are shown in Text-figs. 45, 68 and 103. It is interesting to compare his drawing of the Waterlily (Text-fig. 68) with those of the Venetian edition of the Latin ‘Herbarius’ of 1499 (Text-fig. 65), ‘The Grete Herball’ (Text-fig. 21), Brunfels’ ‘Herbarum vivæ eicones’ of 1530 (Text-fig. 66) and de l’Obel’s ‘Kruydtbœck’ of 1581 (Text-fig. 67).

The engravings in Porta’s ‘Phytognomonica’ (1588) and in Prospero Alpino’s little book on Egyptian plants (1592) are of good quality. Some curious examples of the former, which will be discussed at greater length in the next chapter, are shown in Text-figs. 109 and 110, and the Glasswort, one of the best wood-cuts among the latter, is reproduced in Text-fig. 47.

Passing on to the seventeenth century, we find that the ‘Prodromos’ of Gaspard Bauhin (1620) contains a number of original illustrations, but they are not very remarkable, and often have rather the appearance of having been drawn from pressed specimens. Two examples of these wood-cuts will be found in Text-figs. 49 and 62. The former is interesting as being an early representation of the Potato.

Parkinson’s ‘Paradisus Terrestris’ of 1629 contains a considerable proportion of original figures, besides others borrowed from previous writers. The engravings were made in England by Switzer. They are poor in quality, and the innovation of representing a number of species in one large wood-cut is not very successful. Text-fig. 55 shows a twig of Barberry, which is but a single item in one of these large illustrations.

Among still later wood-engravings, we may mention the large, rather coarse cuts in Aldrovandi’s ‘Dendrologia’ of 1667, one of which, the figure of the Orange, or “Mala Aurantia Chinensia,” is reproduced in Text-fig. 104, on a greatly reduced scale.

In the present chapter no attempt has been made to discuss the illustrations of those herbals (e.g. the works of Turner, Tabernæmontanus, Gerard, etc.) in which most of the wood-cuts are copied from previous books. In the majority of such cases, the source of the figures has already been indicated in Chapter IV.

This brief review of the history of botanical wood-cuts leads us to the conclusion that between 1530 and 1630, that is to say during the hundred years when the herbal was at its zenith, the number of sets of wood-engravings which were pre-eminent—either on account of their intrinsic qualities, or because they were repeatedly copied from book to book—was strictly limited. We might almost say that there were only five collections of wood-cuts of plants of really first-rate importance—those, namely, of Brunfels, Fuchs, Mattioli, and Plantin, with those of Gesner and Camerarius, all of which were published in the sixty years between 1530 and 1590. The wood-blocks of the two botanists last mentioned cannot be considered apart from one another; from the scientific point of view they show a marked advance, in the introduction of enlarged sketches of the flowers and fruit, in addition to the habit drawings. Plantin’s set included those blocks which were engraved for the herbals of de l’Obel, de l’Écluse, and the later works of Dodoens.

At the close of the sixteenth century, wood cutting on the Continent was distinctly on the wane, and had begun to be superseded by engraving on metal. The earliest botanical work, in which copper-plate etchings were used as illustrations, is said to be Fabio Colonna’s ‘Phytobasanos’ of 1592. These etchings, two of which are shown in Text-figs. 46 and 105, are on a small scale, but are extremely beautiful and accurate. The details of the flowers and fruit are often shown separately, the figures, in this respect, being comparable with those of Gesner and Camerarius, though, owing to their small size, they do not convey so much botanical information. In a later book of Colonna’s, the ‘Ekphrasis,’ analyses of the floral parts are given in even greater detail than in the ‘Phytobasanos.’ Colonna expressly mentions that he used wild plants as models wherever possible, because cultivation is apt to produce alterations in the form. The decorative border, surrounding each of the figures reproduced, was not printed from the copper.

In the seventeenth century, a large number of botanical books, illustrated by means of copper-plates, were produced. The majority of these were published late in the century, and thus scarcely come within our purview. A few of the earlier ones may, however, be referred to at this point. In 1611 Paul Renaulme’s ‘Specimen Historiæ Plantarum’ was published in Paris, but though this work was illustrated with good copper-plates, the effect was somewhat spoilt by the transparency of the paper. Two years later appeared the ‘Hortus Eystettensis,’ by Basil Besler, an apothecary of Nuremberg. It is a large work with enormous illustrations, mostly of mediocre quality. In the succeeding year, 1614, a book was published which has been described, probably with justice, as containing some of the best copper-plate figures of plants ever produced. This was the ‘Hortus Floridus’ of Crispian de Passe, a member of a famous family of engravers. Like Parkinson’s ‘Paradisus Terrestris,’ into which some of the figures are copied, it is more of the nature of a garden book than a herbal.

In 1615 an English edition of Crispian de Passe’s work was published at Utrecht, under the title of ‘A Garden of Flowers.’ The plates are the same as those in the original work. The artist is particularly successful with the bulbous and tuberous plants, the cultivation of which has long been such a specialty of Holland. Plate XIX is a characteristic example, but only part of the original picture is here reproduced. The soil on which the plants grow is often shown, and the horizon is placed very low, so that they stand up against the sky. This convention seems to have been characteristic, not only of the plant drawings of the Dutch artists, but also of their landscapes. In the paintings of Cuyp and Paul Potter, the sky-line is sometimes so low that it is seen between the legs of the cows and horses. This treatment was no doubt suggested by life in a flat country, but it was carried to such an extreme that the artist’s eye-level must have been almost on the ground!

The purchaser of ‘The Garden of Flowers’ receives detailed directions for the painting of the figures, which he is expected to carry out himself. The book is divided into four parts, appropriate to the four seasons, and each part is preceded by an encouraging verse intended to keep alive the owner’s enthusiasm for his task. The stanza at the beginning of the last section seems to show some anxiety on the part of the author, lest the reader should have begun to weary over the lengthy occupation of colouring the plates. It reads as follows:—

As we have already mentioned, it is not our intention to deal with the books published in the latter part of the seventeenth century. We may, however, for the sake of completeness, mention two or three examples in order to show the kind of work that was then being done. Paolo Boccone’s ‘Icones et Descriptiones’ of 1674 was illustrated with copper-plates, some of which were remarkably subtle and delicate, while others were rather carelessly executed. Among slightly later works, we may refer to a quaint little Dutch herbal by Stephen Blankaart, and to the ‘Paradisus Batavus’ of Paul Hermann, both of which belong to the last decade of the century. The latter, which is an “Elzevir” with very good copper-plates, was published after the author’s death, and dedicated, by his widow, to Henry Compton, Bishop of London.

In the plates which illustrate Blankaart’s herbal, a landscape and figures are often introduced to form a background, and the low horizon, to which we referred in speaking of the ‘Hortus Floridus,’ is a very conspicuous feature. The picture of the Winter Cherry is here reproduced as an example (Text-fig. 106). As showing the complete revolution in the style of plant illustration in two hundred years, it is interesting to compare this drawing with that of the same subject in the German ‘Herbarius’ of 1485 (Text-fig. 78). It must be confessed that the fifteenth-century wood-cut, though far less detailed and painstaking, seizes the general character of the plant in a way that the seventeenth-century copper-plate somewhat misses.

Etching and engraving on metal are well adapted to very delicate and detailed work, but from the point of view of book-illustration, wood-engraving is generally more effective. In the latter the lines are raised, and the method of printing is thus exactly the same as in the case of type, while in the former the process is reversed and the lines are incised. As a result, there is a harmony about a book illustrated with wood-cuts which cannot, in the nature of things, be attained, when such different processes as printing from raised type, and from incised metal, are brought together in the same volume.

CHAPTER VIII
THE DOCTRINE OF SIGNATURES AND ASTROLOGICAL BOTANY

DURING the preceding chapters, we have restricted our discussion to those writings which may be credited with having taken some part, however slight, in advancing the knowledge of plants. We have, as it were, confined our attention to the main stream of botanical progress, and its tributaries. But before concluding, it may be well to call to mind the existence of more than one backwater, connected indeed with the main channel, but leading nowhere.

The subject of the superstitions, with which herb collecting has been hedged about at different periods, is far too wide to be dealt with in detail in the present book. We have referred in earlier chapters to the observances with which the Greek herb-gatherers surrounded their calling (p. 7) and to the mysterious dangers which are described in the ‘Herbarium’ of Apuleius as attending the uprooting of the Mandrake (p. 36). There is comparatively little reference to such matters in the works of the German Fathers of Botany or those of the greatest of their successors; indeed, as we have previously mentioned (pp. 55-58, 103, 104), Bock’s famous ‘Kreuter Bůch’ and William Turner’s herbal contain definite refutations of various superstitions.

Contemporaneously, however, with the fine series of herbals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there appeared a succession of books about plants, which had as their subjects one or both of two topics—the “doctrine of signatures,” and “astrological botany.” These works cannot be said to have furthered the science to any appreciable extent, but they have considerable interest, rather on account of the curious light which they throw upon the attitude of mind of their writers (and presumably their readers also) than from any intrinsic merit. One of these authors, in his preface, speaks of the “Notions” and “Observations” contained in his work, “most of which I am confident are true, and if there be any that are not so, yet they are pleasant.” The excuse that the “Notions,” cherished by the botanical mystics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, were “pleasant,” even if untrue, may perhaps be offered in extenuation of the very brief discussion of their salient points, which we propose to undertake in the present chapter.

The most famous of those mystical writers who turned their attention to botany was undoubtedly Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus of Hohenheim, better known by the name of Paracelsus (1493-1541). His portrait is shown in Text-fig. 108. He was a doctor, as his father had been before him, and in 1527 he became professor at Basle. Here he gave great offence by lecturing in the vulgar tongue, burning the writings of Avicenna and Galen, and interpreting his own works instead of those of the ancients. His disregard of cherished traditions, and his personal peculiarities led to difficulties with his colleagues, and he only held his post for a very short time. For the rest of his life he was a wanderer on the face of the earth, and he died in comparative poverty at Salzburg in 1541.

The character and writings of Paracelsus are full of the strangest contradictions. Browning’s poem perhaps gives a better idea of his career than any prose account aiming at historical accuracy. His life was so strange that the imagination of a poet is needed to revitalise it for us to-day. His almost incredible boastfulness is the main characteristic that everyone remembers—the word “bombast” being, in all probability, coined from his name. In 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 be36.” 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 holes in the leaves, signifie to us, that this herb helps both inward and outward holes or cuts in the skin.... 2. The flowers of Saint Johns wort, when they are putrified they are like blood; which teacheth us, that this herb is good for wounds, to close them and fill them up” etc.

It is sometimes held that the real originator of the theory of signatures, in any approximation to a scientific form, was Giambattista Porta, who was probably born at Naples shortly before the death of Paracelsus. He wrote a book about human physiognomy, in which he endeavoured to find, in the bodily form of man, indications as to his character and spiritual qualities. This study suggested to him the idea that the inner qualities, and the healing powers of the herbs might also be revealed by external signs, and thus led to his famous work, the ‘Phytognomonica,’ which was first published at Naples in 1588.

Porta developed his theory in detail, and pushed it to great lengths. He supposed, for example, that long-lived plants would lengthen a man’s life, while short-lived plants would abbreviate it. He held that herbs with a yellow sap would cure jaundice, while those whose surface was rough to the touch would heal those diseases that destroy the natural smoothness of the skin. The resemblance of certain plants to certain animals opened to Porta a vast field of dogmatism on a basis of conjecture. Plants with flowers shaped like butterflies would, he supposed, cure the bites of insects, while those whose roots or fruits had a jointed appearance, and thus remotely suggested a scorpion, must necessarily be sovereign remedies for the sting of that creature. Porta also detected many obscure points of resemblance between the flowers and fruits of certain plants, and the limbs and organs of certain animals. In such cases of resemblance he held that an investigation of the temperament of the animal in question would determine what kind of disease the plant was intended to cure. It will be recognised from these examples that the doctrine of signatures was remarkably elastic, and was not fettered by any rigid consistency.

The illustrations of the ‘Phytognomonica’ are of great interest as interpreting Porta’s point of view. The part of man’s body which is healed by a particular herb, or the animal whose bites or stings can be cured by it, are represented in the same wood-cut as the herb. For example, the back view of a human head with a thick crop of hair is introduced into the block with the Maidenhair Fern, which is an ancient specific for baldness; a Pomegranate with its seeds exposed, and a plant of “Toothwort,” with its hard, white scale-leaves, are represented in the same figure as a set of human teeth; a drawing of a scorpion accompanies some pictures of plants with articulated seed-vessels (Text-fig. 109) and an adder’s head is introduced below the drawing of the plant known as the “Adder’s tongue.”

It would serve little purpose to deal in detail with the various exponents of the doctrine of signatures, such, for example, as Johann Popp, who in 1625 published a herbal written from this standpoint, and containing also some astrological botany. We will only now refer to one of the later champions of the signatures of plants, an English herbalist of the seventeenth century, who made the subject peculiarly his own. This was William Cole37, a Fellow of New College, Oxford, who lived and botanised at Putney in Surrey. He seems to have been a person of much character, and his vigorous arguments would often be very telling, were it possible to admit the soundness of his premisses.

William Cole carried the doctrine of signatures to as extreme a point as can well be imagined. His account of the Walnut, from his work ‘Adam in Eden,’ 1657, may be quoted as an illustration: “Wall-nuts have the perfect Signature of the Head: The outer husk or green Covering, represent the Pericranium, or outward skin of the skull, whereon the hair groweth, and therefore salt made of those husks or barks, are exceeding good for wounds in the head. The inner wooddy shell hath the Signature of the Skull, and the little yellow skin, or Peel, that covereth the Kernell of the hard Meninga and Pia-mater, which are the thin scarfes that envelope the brain. The Kernel hath the very figure of the Brain, and therefore it is very profitable for the Brain, and resists poysons; For if the Kernel be bruised, and moystned with the quintessence of Wine, and laid upon the Crown of the Head, it comforts the brain and head mightily.”

In Cole’s writings we meet with instances of a curious confusion of thought, which characterised the doctrine of signatures. The signature in some cases represents an animal injurious to man, and is taken to denote that the plant in question will cure its bites or stings. For instance, “That Plant that is called Adders tongue, because the stalke of it represents one, is a soveraigne wound Herbe to cure the biting of an Adder.” In other cases, the signature represents one of the organs of the human body, and indicates that the plant will cure diseases of that organ. For example, “Heart Trefoyle is so called, not onely because the Leafe is Triangular like the Heart of a Man, but also because each Leafe containes the perfect Icon of an Heart, and that in its proper colour, viz. a flesh colour. It defendeth the Heart against the noisome vapour of the Spleen.”

Cole seems to have possessed a philosophic mind, and to have endeavoured to follow his theories to their logical conclusion. He was much exercised because a large proportion of the plants with undoubted medicinal virtues have no obvious signatures. He concluded that a certain number were endowed with signatures, in order to set man on the right track in his search for herbal remedies; the remainder were purposely left blank, in order to encourage his skill and resource in discovering their properties for himself. A further ingenious argument is that a number of plants are left without signatures, because if all were signed, “the rarity of it, which is the delight, would be taken away by too much harping upon one string.”

Our author was evidently a keen and enthusiastic collector of herbs. In his book ‘The Art of Simpling’ (1656) he complains bitterly that physicians leave the gathering of herbs to the apothecaries, and the latter “rely commonly upon the words of the silly Hearb-women, who many times bring them Quid for Quo, then which nothing can be more sad.”

Another strong supporter in this country of the doctrine of signatures was the astrological botanist, Robert Turner. He definitely states that “God hath imprinted upon the Plants, Herbs, and Flowers, as it were in Hieroglyphicks, the very signature of their Vertues.”

It is interesting to find that the doctrine of signatures was repudiated by the best of the sixteenth-century herbalists. Dodoens, for instance, wrote in 1583 that “the doctrine of the Signatures of Plants has received the authority of no ancient writer who is held in any esteem: moreover it is so changeable and uncertain that, as far as science or learning is concerned, it seems absolutely unworthy of acceptance38.”

A later writer, Guy de la Brosse, criticised the theory very acutely, pointing out that it was quite easy to imagine any resemblance between a plant and an animal that happened to be convenient. “C’est comme des nuées,” he writes, “que l’on fait ressembler à tout ce que la fantaisie se represente, à une Gruë, à une Grenoüille, à un homme, à une armee, et autres semblables visions39.”

Both Paracelsus and Porta deprecate the use of foreign drugs, on the ground that in the country where a disease arises, there nature produces means to overcome it. This idea is one which constantly recurs in the herbals. In 1664 Robert Turner wrote, “For what Climate soever is subject to any particular Disease, in the same Place there grows a Cure.” There is ample evidence of the survival of this theory even in the nineteenth century; for instance, in the preface to Thomas Green’s ‘Universal Herbal’ of 1816 we find the remark, “Nature has, in this country, as well as in all others, provided, in the herbs of its own growth, the remedies for the several diseases to which it is most subject.” The notion persists indeed to the present day; there is a wide-spread belief among children, for example, that Docks always grow in the neighbourhood of Stinging Nettles, in order to provide a cure in situ! Whether this view contains any grain of truth or not, it certainly deserves our gratitude, since it led to Dr Maclagan’s discovery of Salicin as a cure for rheumatic fever. On the ground that in the case of malarial diseases “the poisons which cause them and the remedy which cures them are naturally produced under similar climatic conditions,” Maclagan sought and found, in the bark of the Willow, which inhabits low-lying, damp situations, this drug, which has proved so valuable in the treatment of rheumatism40.

The doctrine of signatures is not the only piece of botanical mysticism associated with the name of Paracelsus. He was also a firm believer in the influence of the heavenly bodies upon the vegetable world, or, in other words, in botanical astrology. He considered that each plant was under the influence of some particular star, and that it was this influence which drew the plant out of the earth when the seed germinated. He held each plant to be a terrestrial star, and each star, a spiritualised plant. Giambattista Porta also believed in a relation between certain plants and corresponding stars or planets. A figure in his ‘Phytognomonica’ here reproduced (Text-fig. 110) shows a number of “lunar plants.”