Wantage Community Hospital, Vale and Downland Museum, and King Alfred's School
Doctrine of Signatures
‘The doctrine of signatures’ held that many minerals, plants and animals have ‘signatures’, i.e. visible resemblance to human organs, bodily fluids or disease symptoms, and that these signatures indicate the curative effects of natural things for instance, a walnut looks like a brain, and therefore could cure brain diseases.
Using medical vessels from the museum's handling collection, eyebaths, sample jars, and measuring jugs participants drew a container and an imaginary plant which related to an illness or part of the body.
// Completed Panels (1.50m x 1.50m)
Each drawing is presented within a 'medical cabinet' and hung on the corridors leading to the hospital's waiting room. Pparticular attention is paid to one design, based on the iris flower, which is sited near the Ophthalmology department.
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