and in many cases
treated with a seriousness characteristic of the backward state of
medical science even at a period so comparatively recent. Crollius wrote
a work on the subject; and Langham, in his "Garden of Health," published
in the year 1578, accepted the doctrine. Coles, in his "Art of Simpling"
(1656), thus describes it:--

"Though sin and Satan have plunged mankind into an ocean of infirmities,
yet the mercy of God, which is over all His workes, maketh grasse to
growe upon the mountains and herbes for the use of men, and hath not
only stamped upon them a distinct forme, but also given them particular
signatures, whereby a man may read even in legible characters the use
of them."

John Ray, in his treatise on "The Wisdom of God in Creation," was among
the first to express his disbelief of this idea, and writes:--"As for
the signatures of plants, or the notes impressed upon them as notices of
their virtues, some lay great stress upon them, accounting them strong
arguments to prove that some understanding principle is the highest
original of the work of Nature, as indeed they were could it be
certainly made to appear that there were such marks designedly set upon
them, because all that I find mentioned by authors seem to be rather
fancied by men than designed by Nature to signify, or point out, any
such virtues, or qualities, as they would make us believe." His views,
however, are somewhat contradictory, inasmuch as he goes on to say that,
"the noxious and malignant plants do, many of them, discover something
of their nature by the sad and melancholick visage of their leaves,
flowers, or fruit. And that I may not leave that head wholly untouched,
one observation I shall add relating to the virtues of plants, in which
I think there is something of truth--that is, that there are of the wise
dispensation of Providence such species of plants produced in every
country as are made proper and convenient for the meat and medicine of
the men and animals that are bred and inhabit therein."
Indeed, however much many of the botanists of bygone centuries might try
to discredit this popular delusion, they do not seem to have been wholly
free from its influence themselves. Some estimate, also, of the
prominence which the doctrine of signatures obtained may be gathered
from the frequent allusions to it in the literature of the period. Thus,
to take one illustration, the euphrasia or eye-bright (_Euphrasia
officinalis_),