Doctrine of signatures
Encyclopedia
The doctrine of signatures is a philosophy shared by herbalist
s from the time of Dioscurides and Galen
. This doctrine states that herbs that resemble various parts of the body can be used to treat ailments of that part of the body. Examples include the plants liverwort
; snakeroot
, an antidote for snake venom; lungwort
; bloodroot
; toothwort
; and wormwood, to expel intestinal parasites. A theological justification was made for this philosophy: "It was reasoned that the Almighty must have set his sign upon the various means of curing disease which he provided." The concept is still reflected in the common names of some plants whose shapes and colors reminded herbalists of the parts of the body where they were thought to do good. Scientists see the doctrine of signatures as superstition
. There is no scientific evidence that plant shapes and colors help in the discovery of medical uses of plants.
(1491–1541) and published in his writings. During the first half of the 16th century, Paracelsus traveled throughout Europe and to the Levant and Egypt, treating people and experimenting with new plants in search of more treatments and solutions. As a professor of medicine at the University of Basel, he dramatically burned classical medical texts by Theophrastus
, Galen
, Dioscorides and Avicenna
, but not Hippocrates
.
The doctrine of signatures was further spread by the writings of Jakob Böhme
(1575–1624), who suggested that God marked objects with a sign, or "signature", for their purpose. A plant bearing parts that resembled human body parts, animals, or other objects were thought to have useful relevance to those parts, animals or objects. The "signature" may also be identified in the environments or specific sites in which plants grew.
Europe
an metaphysics
expanded this philosophy in theology. According to the Christian version, the Creator
had so set his mark upon Creation, that by careful observation, one could find all right doctrines represented (see the detailed application to the Passionflower) and even learn the uses of a plant from some aspect of its form or place of growing.
A theological justification was made for this philosophy: "It was reasoned that the Almighty must have set his sign upon the various means of curing disease which he provided."
For the late medieval viewer, the natural world was vibrant with images of the Deity: "as above, so below," a Hermetic
principle expressed as the relationship between macrocosm and microcosm
; the principle is rendered sicut in terra. Michel Foucault
expressed the wider usage of the doctrine of signatures, which rendered allegory
more real and more cogent than it appears to a modern eye:
Jakob Böhme
(1575–1624), a shoemaker of Görlitz
, Germany
, claimed to have had a profound mystical vision as a young man, in which he saw the relationship between God and man signaled in all things. He wrote Signatura Rerum (1621), translated into English as The Signature of All Things, and the spiritual doctrine was applied to the medicinal uses that plants' forms advertised.
s from the time of Dioscurides and Galen
. This doctrine states that herbs that resemble various parts of the body can be used to treat ailments of that part of the body. Although the doctrine of signatures was formalized in early modern times, the theme of natural objects' shapes having significance is a very old one and is not confined to Western thought. Examples include the plants liverwort
; snakeroot
, an antidote for snake venom; lungwort
; bloodroot
; toothwort
; and wormwood, to expel intestinal parasites. The occasional resemblance of mandrake root
to a human body has led to its being ascribed great significance (and supernatural powers) since ancient times and in many places. The 17th-century botanist and herbalist William Coles
(1626–1662), author of The Art of Simpling and Adam in Eden, stated that walnuts were good for curing head ailments because in his opinion, "they Have the perfect Signatures of the Head". Regarding Hypericum
, he wrote, "The little holes whereof the leaves of Saint Johns wort are full, doe resemble all the pores of the skin and therefore it is profitable for all hurts and wounds that can happen thereunto." Nicholas Culpeper
's often-reprinted Complete Herbal takes the doctrine of signatures as common knowledge, and its influence can still be detected in modern herbal lore.
. The links are not causal
, and are consequently widely regarded as purely coincidental. There is no evidence that plant signatures helped in the discovery of medical uses of the plants. The signatures are described as post hoc attributions
and mnemonics. Their mnemonic status is of value in creating a system for remembering actions attributed to medical herbs.
Herbalist
An herbalist is:#A person whose life is dedicated to the economic or medicinal uses of plants.#One skilled in the harvesting and collection of medicinal plants ....
s from the time of Dioscurides and Galen
Galen
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamon , was a prominent Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher...
. This doctrine states that herbs that resemble various parts of the body can be used to treat ailments of that part of the body. Examples include the plants liverwort
Marchantiophyta
The Marchantiophyta are a division of bryophyte plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like other bryophytes, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of genetic information....
; snakeroot
Snakeroot (disambiguation)
Snakeroot may refer to different plant taxa that have been used as a folk remedy against snakebites:* Ageratina – a genus with species native to the warm and temperate Americas* Certain plants in the temperate Northern Hemisphere genus Eupatorium...
, an antidote for snake venom; lungwort
Lungwort
The lungworts are the genus Pulmonaria of flowering plants in the family Boraginaceae, native to Europe and western Asia, with one species east to central Asia...
; bloodroot
Bloodroot
Bloodroot is a perennial, herbaceous flowering plant native to eastern North America from Nova Scotia, Canada southward to Florida, United States...
; toothwort
Toothwort
Toothwort is a small genus of five to seven species of flowering plants, native to temperate Europe and Asia. They are parasitic plants on the roots of other plants, and are completely lacking chlorophyll. They are classified in the family Orobanchaceae. In addition, Cardamine concatenata is also...
; and wormwood, to expel intestinal parasites. A theological justification was made for this philosophy: "It was reasoned that the Almighty must have set his sign upon the various means of curing disease which he provided." The concept is still reflected in the common names of some plants whose shapes and colors reminded herbalists of the parts of the body where they were thought to do good. Scientists see the doctrine of signatures as superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
. There is no scientific evidence that plant shapes and colors help in the discovery of medical uses of plants.
History
The concept was developed by ParacelsusParacelsus
Paracelsus was a German-Swiss Renaissance physician, botanist, alchemist, astrologer, and general occultist....
(1491–1541) and published in his writings. During the first half of the 16th century, Paracelsus traveled throughout Europe and to the Levant and Egypt, treating people and experimenting with new plants in search of more treatments and solutions. As a professor of medicine at the University of Basel, he dramatically burned classical medical texts by Theophrastus
Theophrastus
Theophrastus , a Greek native of Eresos in Lesbos, was the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He came to Athens at a young age, and initially studied in Plato's school. After Plato's death he attached himself to Aristotle. Aristotle bequeathed to Theophrastus his writings, and...
, Galen
Galen
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamon , was a prominent Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher...
, Dioscorides and Avicenna
Avicenna
Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā , commonly known as Ibn Sīnā or by his Latinized name Avicenna, was a Persian polymath, who wrote almost 450 treatises on a wide range of subjects, of which around 240 have survived...
, but not Hippocrates
Hippocrates
Hippocrates of Cos or Hippokrates of Kos was an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles , and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine...
.
The doctrine of signatures was further spread by the writings of Jakob Böhme
Jakob Böhme
Jakob Böhme was a German Christian mystic and theologian. He is considered an original thinker within the Lutheran tradition...
(1575–1624), who suggested that God marked objects with a sign, or "signature", for their purpose. A plant bearing parts that resembled human body parts, animals, or other objects were thought to have useful relevance to those parts, animals or objects. The "signature" may also be identified in the environments or specific sites in which plants grew.
In Christianity
ChristianChristianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
expanded this philosophy in theology. According to the Christian version, the Creator
Creator deity
A creator deity is a deity responsible for the creation of the world . In monotheism, the single God is often also the creator deity, while polytheistic traditions may or may not have creator deities...
had so set his mark upon Creation, that by careful observation, one could find all right doctrines represented (see the detailed application to the Passionflower) and even learn the uses of a plant from some aspect of its form or place of growing.
A theological justification was made for this philosophy: "It was reasoned that the Almighty must have set his sign upon the various means of curing disease which he provided."
For the late medieval viewer, the natural world was vibrant with images of the Deity: "as above, so below," a Hermetic
Hermeticism
Hermeticism or the Western Hermetic Tradition is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus...
principle expressed as the relationship between macrocosm and microcosm
Macrocosm and microcosm
Macrocosm and microcosm is an ancient Greek Neo-Platonic schema of seeing the same patterns reproduced in all levels of the cosmos, from the largest scale all the way down to the smallest scale...
; the principle is rendered sicut in terra. Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
expressed the wider usage of the doctrine of signatures, which rendered allegory
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
more real and more cogent than it appears to a modern eye:
- "Up to the end of the sixteenth century, resemblance played a constructive role in the knowledge of Western culture. It was resemblance that largely guided exegesisExegesisExegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially a religious text. Traditionally the term was used primarily for exegesis of the Bible; however, in contemporary usage it has broadened to mean a critical explanation of any text, and the term "Biblical exegesis" is used...
and the interpretation of texts; it was resemblance that organized the play of symbols, made possible knowledge of things visible and invisible, and controlled the art of representing them." (The Order of Things , p. 17)
Jakob Böhme
Jakob Böhme
Jakob Böhme was a German Christian mystic and theologian. He is considered an original thinker within the Lutheran tradition...
(1575–1624), a shoemaker of Görlitz
Görlitz
Görlitz is a town in Germany. It is the easternmost town in the country, located on the Lusatian Neisse River in the Bundesland of Saxony. It is opposite the Polish town of Zgorzelec, which was a part of Görlitz until 1945. Historically, Görlitz was in the region of Upper Lusatia...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, claimed to have had a profound mystical vision as a young man, in which he saw the relationship between God and man signaled in all things. He wrote Signatura Rerum (1621), translated into English as The Signature of All Things, and the spiritual doctrine was applied to the medicinal uses that plants' forms advertised.
In herbalism
The doctrine of signatures is a philosophy shared by herbalistHerbalist
An herbalist is:#A person whose life is dedicated to the economic or medicinal uses of plants.#One skilled in the harvesting and collection of medicinal plants ....
s from the time of Dioscurides and Galen
Galen
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamon , was a prominent Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher...
. This doctrine states that herbs that resemble various parts of the body can be used to treat ailments of that part of the body. Although the doctrine of signatures was formalized in early modern times, the theme of natural objects' shapes having significance is a very old one and is not confined to Western thought. Examples include the plants liverwort
Marchantiophyta
The Marchantiophyta are a division of bryophyte plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like other bryophytes, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of genetic information....
; snakeroot
Snakeroot (disambiguation)
Snakeroot may refer to different plant taxa that have been used as a folk remedy against snakebites:* Ageratina – a genus with species native to the warm and temperate Americas* Certain plants in the temperate Northern Hemisphere genus Eupatorium...
, an antidote for snake venom; lungwort
Lungwort
The lungworts are the genus Pulmonaria of flowering plants in the family Boraginaceae, native to Europe and western Asia, with one species east to central Asia...
; bloodroot
Bloodroot
Bloodroot is a perennial, herbaceous flowering plant native to eastern North America from Nova Scotia, Canada southward to Florida, United States...
; toothwort
Toothwort
Toothwort is a small genus of five to seven species of flowering plants, native to temperate Europe and Asia. They are parasitic plants on the roots of other plants, and are completely lacking chlorophyll. They are classified in the family Orobanchaceae. In addition, Cardamine concatenata is also...
; and wormwood, to expel intestinal parasites. The occasional resemblance of mandrake root
Mandrake (plant)
Mandrake is the common name for members of the plant genus Mandragora, particularly the species Mandragora officinarum, belonging to the nightshades family...
to a human body has led to its being ascribed great significance (and supernatural powers) since ancient times and in many places. The 17th-century botanist and herbalist William Coles
William Coles
William Edward Coles was a British bobsledder who competed in the late 1940s. At the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, he finished fifth in the two-man and seventh in the four-man events.-References:***...
(1626–1662), author of The Art of Simpling and Adam in Eden, stated that walnuts were good for curing head ailments because in his opinion, "they Have the perfect Signatures of the Head". Regarding Hypericum
Hypericum
Hypericum is a genus of about 400 species of flowering plants in the family Hypericaceae ....
, he wrote, "The little holes whereof the leaves of Saint Johns wort are full, doe resemble all the pores of the skin and therefore it is profitable for all hurts and wounds that can happen thereunto." Nicholas Culpeper
Nicholas Culpeper
Nicholas Culpeper was an English botanist, herbalist, physician, and astrologer. His published books include The English Physician and the Complete Herbal , which contain a rich store of pharmaceutical and herbal knowledge, and Astrological Judgement of Diseases from the Decumbiture of the Sick ,...
's often-reprinted Complete Herbal takes the doctrine of signatures as common knowledge, and its influence can still be detected in modern herbal lore.
Some -wort plants and their signatures
- LousewortLousewortPedicularis is a genus of perennial green root parasite plants belonging to the broomrape family Orobanchaceae. Between 350 and 600 species are accepted by different authorities, mostly from the wetter northern temperate zones, as well as from South America...
, Pedicularis - thought to be useful in repelling lice - Spleenwort, Asplenium - thought to be useful in treating the spleen
- LiverwortMarchantiophytaThe Marchantiophyta are a division of bryophyte plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like other bryophytes, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of genetic information....
, Marchantiophyta - thought to be useful in treating the liver - ToothwortCardamineCardamine , is a large genus in the family Brassicaceae. It contains more than 150 species of annuals and perennials. The genus grows worldwide in diverse habitats, except in the Antarctic. Genus Dentaria is a synonym for Cardamine.The leaves can have different forms, going from minute to...
, Dentaria - thought to be useful in treating tooth ailments - Hedge woundwort, thought to have antiseptic qualities
- LungwortLungwortThe lungworts are the genus Pulmonaria of flowering plants in the family Boraginaceae, native to Europe and western Asia, with one species east to central Asia...
- thought to be useful in treating pulmonary infections
Scientific skepticism
Scientists generally interpret the doctrine of signatures as superstitionSuperstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
. The links are not causal
Causality
Causality is the relationship between an event and a second event , where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first....
, and are consequently widely regarded as purely coincidental. There is no evidence that plant signatures helped in the discovery of medical uses of the plants. The signatures are described as post hoc attributions
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
Post hoc ergo propter hoc, Latin for "after this, therefore because of this," is a logical fallacy that states, "Since that event followed this one, that event must have been caused by this one." It is often shortened to simply post hoc and is also sometimes referred to as false cause,...
and mnemonics. Their mnemonic status is of value in creating a system for remembering actions attributed to medical herbs.
External links
- The doctrine of signatures: a defense of theory in medicine - Scott Milross Buchanan, first published 1938