Photo, above: A Klebs Incunabula Herbal, 1492.  This book is a translation into Low German and enlargement of the Gart der Gesundheit of 1485, the first illustrated herbal to be printed. (Klebs helped Cushing to obtain the Library’s copy of this 1485 incunabule). The text includes 519 hand-colored woodcuts of plants, animals, and medical scenes. Gaerde der suntheit . [Garden of Health] 
Lu ̈beck : Steffen Arndes, 1492.  See below,  Hour 4, Blocks C & D: The Language of Plants: A Guide to the Doctrine of Signatures by Julia Graves 

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Saturday 19 April  2014 / Hour 1, Block A: The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now by Meg Jay (1 of 2)

Saturday 19 April  2014 / Hour 1, Block B: The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now by Meg Jay (2 of 2)

Saturday 19 April  2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Michael Nielsen, in re: reinventing discovery (1 of 2)

Saturday 19 April  2014 / Hour 1, Block D: Michael Nielsen, in re: reinventing discovery (2 of 2)

Hour Two

Saturday 19 April  2014 / Hour 2, Block A: Brain Bugs: How the Brain's Flaws Shape Our Lives by Dean Buonomano (1 of 2)

Saturday 19 April  2014 / Hour 2, Block B: Brain Bugs: How the Brain's Flaws Shape Our Lives by Dean Buonomano (2 of 2)

Saturday 19 April  2014 / Hour 2, Block C: The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life by Robert Trivers (1 of 2)

Saturday 19 April  2014 / Hour 2, Block D: The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life by Robert Trivers (2 of 2)

Hour Three

Saturday 19 April  2014 / Hour 3, Block A: Cain's Legacy: Liberating Siblings from a Lifetime of Rage, Shame, Secrecy, and Regret by Jeanne Safer (1 of 2)

Saturday 19 April  2014 / Hour 3, Block B: Cain's Legacy: Liberating Siblings from a Lifetime of Rage, Shame, Secrecy, and Regret by Jeanne Safer (2 of 2)

Saturday 19 April  2014 / Hour 3, Block C: Michael Phillips, WSJ, in re: The Lobotomy Files. (1 of 2)  Roman Tritz’s memories of the past six decades are blurred by age and delusion. But one thing he remembers clearly is the fight he put up the day the orderlies came for him.  “They got the notion they were going to come to give me a lobotomy,” says Mr. Tritz, a World War II bomber pilot. “To hell with them.”

The orderlies at the veterans hospital pinned Mr. Tritz to the floor, he recalls. He fought so hard that eventually they gave up. But the orderlies came for him again on Wednesday, July 1, 1953, a few weeks before his 30th birthday.  This time, the doctors got their way.

The U.S. government lobotomized roughly 2,000 mentally ill veterans—and likely hundreds more—during and after World War II, according to a cache of forgotten memos, letters and government reports unearthed by The Wall Street Journal. Besieged by psychologically damaged troops returning from the battlefields of North Africa, Europe and the Pacific, the Veterans Administration performed the brain-altering operation on former servicemen it diagnosed as depressives, psychotics and schizophrenics, and occasionally on people identified as homosexuals.  The VA doctors considered themselves . . .  [more]

Saturday 19 April  2014 / Hour 3, Block D: Michael Phillips, WSJ, in re: The Lobotomy Files.  (2 of 2)  The VA’s practice, described in depth here for the first time, sometimes brought veterans relief from their inner demons. Often, however, the surgery left them little more than overgrown children, unable to care for themselves. Many suffered seizures, amnesia and loss of motor skills. Some died from the operation itself.  Mr. Tritz, 90 years old, is one of the few still alive to describe the experience. “It isn’t so good up here,” he says, rubbing the two shallow divots on the sides of his forehead, bracketing wisps of white hair.

The VA’s use of lobotomy, in which doctors severed connections between parts of the brain then thought to control emotions, was known in medical circles in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and is occasionally cited in medical texts. But the VA’s practice, never widely publicized, long ago slipped from public view. Even the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs says it possesses no records detailing the creation and breadth of its lobotomy program.

When told about the program recently, the VA issued a written response: “In the late 1940s and into the 1950s, VA and other physicians . . . [more]

Hour Four

Saturday 19 April  2014 / Hour 4, Block A: Growing Up Jung: Coming of Age as the Son of Two Shrinks by Micah Toub (1 of 2)

Saturday 19 April  2014 / Hour 4, Block B: Growing Up Jung: Coming of Age as the Son of Two Shrinks by Micah Toub (2 of 2)

Saturday 19 April  2014 / Hour 4, Block C: The Language of Plants: A Guide to the Doctrine of Signatures by Julia Graves (1 of 2) “Fully illustrated, The Language of Plants reads like a story book. First of its kind, this comprehensive compilation of all known signatures includes an introduction to the history, an explanation of the “grammar rules,” detailed descriptions of what is a signature and what is not, etc. This book empowers the reader to look up the meaning of every characteristic of a plant, which pieces together the totality of its healing properties. It explains each of them, such as colour, shapes of the different parts, smells, tastes, and the environment it grows in, and includes examples from all cultures.”  

A powerful and unique book, The Language of Plants is without doubt the most in-depth discussion of plant signatures available to us today. A brilliant medical herbalist, Julia has drawn from ancient and modern sources and blended this knowledge with her own rich experience and personal wisdom to create a marvelous resource, designed to take us deeply into the healing energetics of plants. While reading it, I felt a modern alchemist at work.” —Rosemary Gladstar, herbalist and author of Rosemary Gladstar’s Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health and The Herbalist’s Way

It is only in the age of technology that human beings have lost a sense of nature being alive. Throughout history, people spoke to nature, and nature communicated with them. During the Middle Ages, reading the “book of nature” was called the doctrine of signatures, which had always been an important part of interacting with nature for traditional healers and herbalists.

“As a child, I just knew which plant to pick up and hold to my head for a headache to go away. Once I heard about the concept of a ‘doctrine of signatures,’ I would just stand silently, in awe of nature talking to me, talking and talking in her silent, direct speech. The book of nature seemed so obviously spelled out, and in oddest contrast to what I learned in medical school. My professors seemed never to have heard of nature being vibrant and alive and brimming with patterns of energy that are right there for us to understand and use.... This direct and primordial experience of being part of nature's omnipresent, cyclic course taught me more in the realm of no-words than any university ever could have.” —Julia Graves

The Language of Plants covers all aspects of the doctrine of signatures in an easily accessible format, so that everyone, whether nature lovers or healers, can learn to read the language of plants in connection with healing.

Saturday 19 April  2014 / Hour 4, Block D: The Language of Plants: A Guide to the Doctrine of Signatures by Julia Graves (2 of 2)  Brief bio: Julia Graves grew up in Germany in close communion with nature. She trained in anthroposophic massage therapy, herbalism, and medicine from an early age. Julia has traveled around the globe, from Northern America to the Himalayas, to study the relevance of the doctrine of signatures in the world. She is a practicing herbalist, maker of flower essences, and a naturopathic doctor. Julia organized a naturopathic relief clinic in response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and currently lives on her farm in a remote area of France.

. . . Julia became even more interested in the Doctrine after years in medical school, where she observed the similarities and analogies between human and plant tissues. For example, the human kidney is exactly like a cross-sectional slice of cucumber. The cucumber stores water in the fruit and the kidneys are the water organ in the body. As a teenager, Julia read the work of Wilhelm Pelikan in his volumes Heilpflanzenkunde. “Eventually,” Julia says, “this actually led to my demise as a medical student. It didn’t line up with what I was taught in school, and I quit medical school after four years.”
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