Melanie’s Herb Diaries

I just used this photo of Lungwort as the new cover photo on my facebook page. When I visited a friend for dinner yesterday, we sat out in her lovely garden and this plant was practically taking over the shrubbery! It is traditionally considered a medicinal herb, but is not one I currently use. However, it is a good example of something called the doctrine of signatures. Starting in the time of the ancient Greeks, physicians and herbalists believed that you could tell by a plant’s appearance which part of the body it could treat. So for example, Lungwort’s spotty, mottled appearance reminded people of lungs, and so an infusion made from the leaves was used for coughs and catarrh. Of course, this doctrine had its imperfections and did not always hold true (!), but in the case of Lungwort, when science progressed to allow more detailed analysis of the plant’s chemical constituents, it turned out that the leaves were in fact rich in mucilage, and therefore could be of benefit to soothe coughs etc. Can you guess some of the other plants or parts of plants to which our ancestors might have applied this doctrine?