Lungwort and the Doctrine of Signatures

Lungwort - Pulmonaria officianalis

There is a small patch of lungwort in my garden. It arrived as an interloper with a plant that I bought at a Scoottish Garden Scheme Plant Sale, but I'm very pleased to have it. Lungwort is an interesting plant because it is a much quoted example of the Doctrine of Signatures which dominated European medical thinking in the 16th and 17th Centuries. It was made popular during the European Renaissance by Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 1493-1541), a Swiss alchemist, physician, and astronomer who wrote about its virtues. According to this medieval Doctrine, which held that a plant's appearance pointed to the ailment it treated, lungwort was effective for chest ailments because its spotted leaves were thought to resemble diseased lung tissue.