Doctrine of signatures

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The doctrine of signatures, also known as the doctrine of correspondences or signaturism, is a biomedicinal theory of pseudoscience. It states that herbs or animals have physical or behavioral traits that mirror the ailment it can successfully treat. Theological justifications, such as that of botanist William Cole, were that God would want to show men what plants would be useful for. The doctrine of signatures has a debated origin. Many historians believe it begins with primitive thinking methods, while other historians believe it originated with Dioscorides and was popularized in the 16th and 17th centuries after Jakob Böhme coined the doctrine of signatures in his book The Signature of All Things. A holder of this doctrine was formarly called a signaturist. This theory is a possible explanation for the ancient discovery of medicinal properties; however, there is no definitive proof as to whether the medicinal property or the connection in physical/behavioral traits was realized first...

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