The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[Jorge_Stolfi]

These aren’t characters either, but symbols. One is definitely a plough

Why are the plough arms drawn that way, with flared ends with two sharp points?  The VMS Scribe had poor artistic skills, granted; but surely he could have been able to draw a plough that looked like a plough?

has something to do with farming, as can also be seen in Quire 13.

I can't see anything in Quire 13 (or in the whole VMS) that has anything to do with farming.  

Maybe some of the plants in Herbal and Pharma are crops, but there is no drawing of seeding, harvesting, ploughing, irrigation, etc.

The other is an ancient symbol of medicine and pharmacies.

Sure, if you set the criteria of similarity loose enough, you could say that the top weirdo is the symbol for veterinary(?!) medicine (with the horizontal bar representing the word "veterinary").

But it would still be more similar to a Chinese character like 冬, upside down...

All the best, --stolfi