It was once said that people came to use oats in treating eczema because rolled oats have the dry, cracked appearance that all us eczema sufferers know only too well. In times gone by it was thought that this same principle applied to a whole host of plants that god had created in the shape or form of certain conditions to give man a clue to their use. Although this theory has been so often denigrated and taken as evidence of the ridiculous, hocus pocus nature of herbal medicine, I think it may have some reality in the reverse theory: people knew the properties of a plant, and created a story of it looking similar as a simple visual memory aid.