Phytognomonica

PHYTOGNOMICS.

which are hot by the nature of the heavens, the location blunts; it can make them moist, or humidify those that are dry. The inhabitant of higher mountains is meager and of a "sad" appearance, with a short body, twisted and thorny, having small, finely-cut leaves and tasty fruit of a more excellent power. Field plants have a "cheerful" look, with a round stem, smooth and shining, frequent round leaves, and more abundant, tasty fruit; these almost coincide with the plants nurtured in the middle regions. The offspring of shady valleys has a pale and, as it were, sickly aspect, with a swollen form; it rises with a tall, smooth stem that is tender and knotless, with a rich production of foliage—the leaves being large, fleshy, soft, and blunt—and large, insipid, and odorless fruit with a large, spongy root; but its powers are ineffective, being of a moist and cold quality.

CHAPTER VII. QUALITIES EMANATING FROM THE PRIMARY QUALITIES.

Decorative woodcut initial 'E' featuring a seated scholar or saint at a desk within a landscape.

From these primary qualities The four basic qualities of ancient medicine: hot, cold, moist, and dry. others follow, just as we have said our ancestors taught. An argument from our Phytognomonics Phytognomonics The science of discovering the hidden medicinal properties of plants by observing their physical appearance. provides help here: following the doctrine of Aristotle, one can infer and conjecture certain passions from two or more others; for example, if a man is poor, he is therefore a flatterer. If we recognize a man who is sad, angry, and stubborn, we can immediately infer that he is not without the mark of envy, even if no marks of envy appear on his face. The logicians adopted this method: for those three traits act as the "priors" or antecedents, and from them a conclusion is later inferred. Likewise, when the Phytopta From the Greek for "plant-observer"; a specialist who studies the appearances of plants. recognizes a herb to be hot through other conjectures, and sees that it is fragrant and composed of thin parts, he will be able to infer instantly that it can "move urine" act as a diuretic. For hot things are easy to concoct original: "concoctu"; the process of ripening or digesting fluids in the body, scent carries no heavy substance, and things easy to concoct can most easily stir the urine; or, a very hot thing possesses the power of heating and promoting urine. Those plants which possess a heat very similar to our own are suitable for purging and for working on the maturation of undigested humors: for they neither increase nor diminish the natural humor of the body, but nourish it, and they digest foreign matter received into the body's spaces—and other things with which the books of physicians are filled, which we shall wisely omit here.

CHAPTER VIII. ON SIMILARITY, BY WHICH THE HIDDEN PROPERTIES OF THINGS CAN BE RECOGNIZED.

Decorative woodcut initial 'I' depicting a figure in a classical or biblical scene against a background of mountains and buildings.

Now we have arrived at a point hitherto unattempted, and which we most especially intend to address: how anyone, as if a partner in the secrets of nature, can attain her hidden gifts through the similarities apparent in the "face" of things. For in human Physiognomy The art of judging character from facial features. there was a way of judging through apparent behavior; whatever habits a person displayed through practice, they pronounced such habits to be inherent in him. For instance, if someone very often turned their eyes upward, they judged him lustful, because those in the act of coitus lift their eyes upward; and if someone naturally displays the expression that angry people usually do, he will be judged irascible. Thus, by the cheerful, the sorrowful, the severe, or the austere, they will judge men to be sad or playful. Those with beautiful faces they called beautiful in soul and character; conversely, they called those with deformed or monstrous bodies deformed and monstrous in soul. The likeness of the face is the index of the heart. In the face appears the likeness of magnificence, greed, honesty, wickedness, vigilance, laziness, anxiety, and diligence. From the similarity of the parts of animals, we used to take judgment of internal character, as we have seen; and finally, the entire foreknowledge of the science of human Physiognomy depended on the similarity of the face and the parts of animals. It must be thought no different in this science of Phytognomonics: that the internal character of plants—regarding their leaves, fruits, roots, stems, actions, and habits—is revealed, as far as they can, through conspicuous allusion and similarity...