"
Footnotes:
1. Laing's "History of Scotland," 1800, ii. p. II.
2. "Flower-lore," p. 46.
CHAPTER XVI.
DOCTRINE OF SIGNATURES.
The old medical theory, which supposed that plants by their external
character indicated the particular diseases for which Nature had
intended them as remedies, was simply a development of the much older
notion of a real connection between object and image. Thus, on this
principle, it was asserted that the properties of substances were
frequently denoted by their colour; hence, white was regarded as
refrigerant, and red as hot. In the same way, for disorders of the
blood, burnt purple, pomegranate seeds, mulberries, and other red
ingredients were dissolved in the patient's drink; and for liver
complaints yellow substances were recommended. But this fanciful and
erroneous notion "led to serious errors in practice," [1] and was
occasionally productive of the most fatal results. Although, indeed,
Pliny spoke of the folly of the magicians in using the catanance
(Greek: katanhankae, compulsion) for love-potions, on account of its
shrinking "in drying into the shape of the claws of a dead kite," [2] and
so holding the patient fast; yet this primitive idea, after the lapse of
centuries, was as fully credited as in the early days when it was
originally started.
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