earliest times plants have been most extensively used in the
cure of disease, although in days of old it was not so much their
inherent medicinal properties which brought them into repute as their
supposed magical virtues. Oftentimes, in truth, the only merit of a
plant lay in the charm formula attached to it, the due utterance of
which ensured relief to the patient. Originally there can be no doubt
that such verbal forms were prayers, "since dwindled into mystic
sentences." [1] Again, before a plant could work its healing powers, due
regard had to be paid to the planet under whose influence it was
supposed to be; [2] for Aubrey mentions an old belief that if a plant "be
not gathered according to the rules of astrology, it hath little or no
virtue in it." Hence, in accordance with this notion, we find numerous
directions for the cutting and preparing of certain plants for medicinal
purposes, a curious list of which occurs in Culpepper's "British Herbal
and Family Physician." This old herbalist, who was a strong believer in
astrology, tells us that such as are of this way of thinking, and none
else, are fit to be physicians. But he was not the only one who had
strict views on this matter, as the literature of his day
proves--astrology, too, having held a prominent place in most of the
gardening books of the same period. Michael Drayton, who has chronicled
so many of the credulities of his time, referring to the longevity of
antediluvian men, writes:--

"Besides, in medicine, simples had the power
That none need then the planetary hour
To help their workinge, they so juiceful were."

The adder's-tongue, if plucked during the wane of the moon, was a cure
for tumours, and there is a Swabian belief that one, "who on Friday of
the full moon pulls up the amaranth by the root, and folding it in a
white cloth, wears it against his naked breast, will be made
bullet-proof." [3] Consumptive patients, in olden times, were three times
passed, "Through a circular wreath of woodbine, cut during the increase
of the March moon, and let down over the body from head to foot." [4] In
France, too, at the present day, the vervain is gathered under the
different changes of the moon, with secret incantations, after which it
is said to possess remarkable curative properties.

In Cornwall, the club-moss, if properly gathered, is considered "good
against all diseases of the eye." The mode of procedure is this:--"On
the third day of the moon,