Editing Doctrine of signatures (section)

== History ==
[[File:Illustration_of_doctrine_of_signatures_from_Ars_Magna_Lucis_Et_Umbrae.jpg|thumb|253x253px|Diagram by [[Athanasius Kircher]] describing the relationship of the human body, constellations, and plants with signatures for medical use]]
The origins of the doctrine of signatures are debated by historians.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kruse |first=Steven |date=2022-08-02 |title=Doctrine of Signatures Exhibition online |url=https://www.whipplemuseum.cam.ac.uk/news/doctrine-signatures-exhibition-online |access-date=2025-04-18 |website=www.whipplemuseum.cam.ac.uk |language=en}}</ref> The concept of the doctrine of signatures dates back to Hippocratic medicine and the belief that "cures for human ills were divinely revealed in nature, often through plants."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Schmidt |first=Richard Penrose |date=1982 |title=Brief Comment on the Doctrine of Signatures |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/376928/pdf |journal=Literature and Medicine |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=53–54 |doi=10.1353/lm.2011.0208 |issn=1080-6571|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The concept would be further developed by [[Pedanius Dioscorides|Dioscorides]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Porter |first=Roy |title=The greatest benefit to mankind: a medical history of humanity |date=1999 |publisher=W.W. Norton |isbn=978-0-393-31980-4 |location=New York}}</ref> Dioscorides would provide ample descriptions of plant medications through various drawings, detailing the importance of their look, name, shelf life, how to tell when plants have gone bad, and how to properly harvest the crop for medical use.<ref name=":2" /> [[Paracelsus]] (1493–1541) developed the concept further, writing that "nature marks each growth ... according to its curative benefit", and it was further developed by [[Giambattista della Porta]] in his Phytognomonica (1588).<ref name="ScienceMus" />

The writings of [[Jakob Böhme]] (1575–1624) coined the term "doctrine of signatures" within his book ''The Signature of All Things (or Signatura Rerum)'', published in 1621.<ref name="ScienceMus">{{cite web |url=http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/techniques/doctrine.aspx |title=Doctrine of Signatures |publisher=Science Museum |access-date=February 8, 2014 |archive-date=January 3, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140103201719/http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/techniques/doctrine.aspx |url-status=dead }}</ref> He suggested that God marked objects with a sign, or "signature", for their purpose,<ref name=Pearce>{{cite journal |url=http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Aktion=ShowPDF&ArtikelNr=131714&Ausgabe=237347&ProduktNr=223840&filename=131714.pdf |journal=European Neurology |date=May 16, 2008
| author=Pearce, J.M.S. |publisher=karger.com |title=The Doctrine of Signatures |access-date=August 31, 2008 |doi=10.1159/000131714 |pmid=18520149 |volume=60 |issue=1 |pages=51–52|s2cid=207742334 |doi-access=free }}</ref> specifically that "to that Signature, his inward form is noted in the form of his face; and thus also is a beast, an herb, and the trees; every thing as it is inwardly [in its innate virtue and quality] so it is outwardly signed".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bohme |first=Jakob |title=Signatura Rerum |year=1621 |location=London |publication-date=1652 |language=Latin |translator-last=Ellistone |translator-first=John |trans-title=The Signature of All Things}}</ref> Plants 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" could sometimes also be identified in the environments or specific sites in which plants grew. 

The English physician-philosopher Sir [[Thomas Browne]], in his discourse ''[[The Garden of Cyrus]]'' (1658), uses the [[quincunx]] pattern as an archetype of the 'doctrine of signatures' pervading the design of gardens and orchards, botany, and the macrocosm at large.

The 17th-century botanist William Coles supposed that God had made "Herbes for the use of men, and hath given them particular Signatures, whereby a man may read the use of them."<ref name=ScienceMus/> Coles's ''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."<ref name=Pearce/>

In the late 19th century, [[Andrew Dickson White]] published his book ''History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom'', which pushed back against the doctrine of signatures.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=White |first=Andrew Dickson |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924022599330/page/n5/mode/1up |title=A history of the warfare of science with theology in Christendom |date=1896 |publisher=New York, D. Appleton and company |others=Cornell University Library}}</ref> White explains the connectiveness between Christianity and the doctrine of signatures as its increased presence and significance in the orthodox faith as theological pseudoscience.<ref name=":4" /> White further explains how the doctrine of signatures developed into the church as a justification to "[disgust] the demon with the body which he tormented" and how "the patient was made to swallow or apply to himself various unspeakable ordures", with various uses of animal organs as medications to protect against demons.<ref name=":4" />

For the late medieval viewer, the natural world was vibrant with images of the Deity: '[[as above, so below]]', a [[Hermeticism|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:
{{blockquote|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 [[exegesis]] 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)}}Late 20th-century mentions of the doctrine of signatures include five cited publications in the 1996 Economic Botany Index (1947–1996).<ref name=":1" /> In the early 21st century, Amots Dafni and Efraim Lev conducted a survey and used literature to understand how the doctrine of signatures has evolved in the Middle East.<ref name=":11" /> Their studies show that the doctrine of signatures evolved into four main categories: "similarity of the plant or plant organ to the damaged human organ, similarity to animal shape or behavior, similarity of plant color to the color of the disease's symptoms or the medical phenomena, and similarity of plant habitat or characteristic to human features."<ref name=":11">{{Cite journal |last1=Dafni |first1=Amots |last2=Lev |first2=E. |date=2002 |title=The Doctrine of Signatures in Present-Day Israel |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4256605 |journal=Economic Botany |volume=56 |issue=4 |pages=328–334 |doi=10.1663/0013-0001(2002)056[0328:TDOSIP]2.0.CO;2 |jstor=4256605 |issn=0013-0001|url-access=subscription }}</ref>