Doctrine of Signatures

Level 3 students are working on a colour project at the moment using resin and acrylic. Whilst talking to one of our students (E L) about a piece she was making – I remarked that her samples looked very similar to microscopic images of cancer cells specifically bowel cancer that I was exploring for new jewellery. She joked about how the resin looks like cancer and can also cause cancer if too much of it is inhaled. This conversation reminded me of how we often make connections between things that resemble each other.

There is a long history of this kind of reasoning particularly in herbal medicine. For example in medieval times a particular plant was believed to cure disorders of the blood because its roots were red and crimson like blood hence its name bloodroot. Many plant names are derived from this approach and include the suffix wort -meaning root- in their name for example lungwort, liverwort, toothwort etc. The belief that a plants appearance is directly related to its medicinal use is called the Doctrine of Signatures and demonstrates the unity that was perceived in nature.

The doctrine of signatures is considered to be superstition, as there would appear to be no evidence that plant signatures ever led to the discovery of medicinal properties - any positive results being coincidence. I suspect that any visual connection between resin and cancer imagery is also a coincidence. Despite this are there any advantages in making connections between things that resemble each other? I certainly feel that this is one of the fundamental ways in which we create meaning and that this is something we shouldn’t loose.