In physic by some signature Nature herself doth point us out a cure.
Heaven hath made me for thy cure, Both the physician and the signature.
Drayton’s _Hermit_ pursued a development of this theory. He merely accepted the conclusions of earlier authorities who had made discoveries about the properties of plants and had named them accordingly.
Some (herbs) by experience, as we see, Whose _names express their natures_.
It was, naturally, more simple to administer all-heal, for a wound; hore-hound, for “mad dogge’s biting,” and so on, than to decipher the signature from the plant, himself, and so he and many others, prescribed the herbs, with more reference to their names, than unprejudiced attention to results.
The planets were another determining factor in the choice of remedies. Each plant was dedicated to a planet and each planet presided over a special part of the body, therefore, when any part was affected, a herb belonging to the planet that governed that special part must, as a rule, be used. Thus, Mercury presided over the brain, so for a headache or “Folly and Simplicity (the Epidemicall diseases of the Time)” one of Mercury’s herbs must be chosen. Mercurial herbs were, as a rule, refreshing, aromatic and of “very subtle parts.” The planets seem usually to have caused, as well as cured the diseases in their special province, and therefore their own herbs, brought about the cure “by sympathy.” But sometimes, a planet would cause a disorder in the province ruled by another planet, to whom the first was in opposition, and in this case the cure must be made “by antipathy.” Thus the lungs are under Jupiter, to whom Mercury is opposed, therefore in any case of the lungs being affected, the physician must first discover whether Jupiter or Mercury were the agent and if the latter, the remedy must be “antipathetical”; it must be from one of Mercury’s herbs. Sometimes where a planet had caused a disease in the part it governed, an “antipathetical” cure, by means of an adversary’s herbs, was advised; for instance Jupiter is opposed to Saturn, so Jupiter’s herbs might be given for toothache or pains in the bones caused by Saturn, for the bones are under Saturn’s dominion. An antipathetical remedy, however, Culpepper does not recommend for common use, for “sympathetical cures strengthen nature; antipathetical cures, in one degree or another, weaken it.” Besides this, the position of the planet had to be considered, the “House” that it was in, and the aspect in which it was to the moon and other planets.