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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78150 ***
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Notes:
+
+  Underscores “_” before and after a word or phrase indicate _italics_
+    in the original text.
+  Equal signs “=” before and after a word or phrase indicate =bold=
+    in the original text.
+  Small capitals have been converted to SOLID capitals.
+  Illustrations and footnotes have been moved so they do not break up
+    paragraphs.
+  Deprecated spellings have been preserved.
+  Typographical and punctuation errors have been silently corrected.
+
+
+
+
+ASTROLOGY IN MEDICINE
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+                       MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
+                       LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
+                               MELBOURNE
+
+                         THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+                      NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
+                         DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO
+
+                   THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
+                                TORONTO
+
+
+
+
+                         ASTROLOGY IN MEDICINE
+
+                        THE FITZPATRICK LECTURES
+                            DELIVERED BEFORE
+                    THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS
+                                   ON
+                        NOVEMBER 6 AND 11, 1913
+                            WITH ADDENDUM ON
+                            SAINTS AND SIGNS
+
+                                   BY
+                      CHARLES ARTHUR MERCIER, M.D.
+                         FELLOW OF THE COLLEGE
+
+                       MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
+                      ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
+                                  1914
+
+                              _COPYRIGHT_
+
+                               Cambridge:
+                       PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
+                        AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
+
+                                   TO
+                   SIR THOMAS BARLOW, BART., K.C.V.O.
+         PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF LONDON
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                         PAGE
+    LECTURE I              1
+
+    LECTURE II            39
+
+    SAINTS AND SIGNS      80
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE I
+
+
+The position of Astrology among the Sciences is quite unique. Its
+origin is so remote as to antecede all written records: it has formed
+an important part of the life of every nation that has advanced beyond
+barbarism: it has been studied with enthusiasm not only by every
+European nation, but also by the Egyptians, the natives of India,
+the Chinese, the Arabs, the Jews, and by the Babylonians and the
+Chaldeans. It was studied in one long unbroken effort for thousands
+of years, and engaged the most strenuous endeavours of some of the
+greatest intellects in every age. Albertus Magnus was a convinced
+astrologer, and even Roger Bacon, that very great man, projected a
+universal medicine founded upon Astrology. A knowledge of Astrology was
+a necessary part of the equipment of all educated men; and Astrological
+terms form to this day an integral part of every European language. We
+still _consider_; we still find persons and things _in opposition_;
+we still suffer _disaster_; we still find some things _exorbitant_;
+and others in the _ascendent_; some persons are still fortunate enough
+to be born _under a lucky star_; we still deal in _merchandise_; with
+_merchants_; we are all familiar with the _martial_ cloak of Sir J.
+Moore; we still describe dispositions and persons as _Saturnine_,
+_Jovial_, _Martial_ or _Mercurial_; we still retain the names of
+_Saturday_, _Sunday_ and _Monday_; in Medicine we retain the terms
+_Lunatic_ and _Venereal disease_, and in the latter we still prescribe
+_Mercury_; and we still begin our prescriptions with the sign of
+_Jupiter_.
+
+Yet these are the only remaining remnants of a science and an art that
+were once of paramount importance; and even medical men are ignorant of
+the very terminology of a science and an art that have been declared,
+by authority after authority, to be so necessary to the proper practice
+of medicine, that without them medicine could not be efficiently
+practised, and no medical practitioner was fully equipped for his task.
+Astrology is now utterly extinct. It began to decay at the renaissance;
+it languished in the seventeenth century; the last man of high
+distinction who practised it in this country was John Dryden[1]; but
+though Peter Woulfe, a F.R.S., maintained the truth of Astrology at
+the beginning of the nineteenth century, it had really expired when it
+received its deathblow from the biting humour of Jonathan Swift. Yet
+when Walter Scott, less than a century afterwards, introduced into one
+of his novels the terms of the art, there was no one then living, nor
+has there been since any commentator of sufficient knowledge, to expose
+the blunders that he made.
+
+[Footnote 1: In a letter to his sons John and Charles, dated Sept. 3,
+1697, Dryden says ‘Towards the latter end of this month, September,
+Charles will begin to recover his perfect health according to his
+nativity, which, casting it myself, I am sure is true, and all things
+hitherto have happened according to the very time that I predicted
+them.’ See also the Preface to his Fables, and the lines
+
+        The utmost malice of the stars is past—
+        Now frequent trines the happier lights among,
+        And high raised Jove, from his dark prison freed,
+        Those weights took off that on his planet hung,
+        Will gloriously the new-laid works succeed.
+
+]
+
+To such a record there is no parallel in the history of human
+endeavour. There are indeed two subjects of study that afford an
+approximation, but an approximation only, to the history of Astrology.
+The first of these is Alchemy, which really included what we now call
+Chemistry, and is therefore very far from extinct. Alchemy is usually,
+however, understood to mean solely, what it did in fact include as its
+principal objects, the search for the philosopher’s stone, and the
+search for the elixir of life. The philosopher’s stone was desired, not
+as an end in itself, but as a means to the transmutation of metals,
+which were not then known to be elements. I need not remind this
+audience that this endeavour, which has been the object for the finger
+of scorn for so many years, is now almost within sight of success.
+Certain elements are now transmuted, or transmute themselves; and one
+at least of the metals known to the ancient Alchemists is now made
+in the laboratory. Nor need I remind you that one eminent physician
+discovered, a few years ago, the elixir of life in orchidian extract;
+while another has still more recently made the surprising discovery
+that the elixir of life is neither more nor less than sour milk. He
+was more fortunate than a predecessor, who first isolated alcohol, and
+having drunk freely of the newly discovered elixir of life, died, by
+the irony of fate, of acute alcoholic poisoning.
+
+A nearer parallel to the fate of Astrology is to be found in that of
+Aristotelian Logic; but the parallel is still not quite complete. It
+is true that Logic was once cultivated with the same universality and
+the same fervour as Astrology; that it was aforetime, like Astrology,
+a necessary part of the equipment of every man who pretended to be
+educated; and that it is now fallen into neglect and contempt that
+are well-nigh as universal as its former cultivation; but, unlike
+Astrology, Logic is not yet quite extinct. It is dying, indeed: it
+is in the very agony of death; but it still breathes. The lamp of
+Astrology is utterly gone out, but the expiring flame of Logic still
+flickers precariously in some of the dark places of the earth. We might
+still find, by diligent search, professors who know the meaning of
+Barbara and Celarent, of Bocardo and Baralipton, and can even subject
+them to the orthodox manipulations of logical art; but who now knows
+the meaning of a triplicity or a horoscope? or could cast a geniture,
+or rectify a nativity? Logic is moribund, it is true, but Astrology
+is already dead. It has been dead so long that it no longer stinks;
+perhaps because it is embalmed in the writings of so many men that
+were eminent in their day. We have even forgotten how conspicuous
+and important a position it occupied among the sciences, the arts,
+and the crafts of our forefathers; and it is because the long sleep
+of medicine, its stagnation and want of progress through so many
+centuries, was due in no small degree to the shackles of Astrology,
+and of the humoral pathology, which Astrology countenanced and
+corroborated, that I think it seemly and proper to bring before this
+College the elementary principles of Astrology, and the ways in which
+they were applied to medicine.
+
+Astrology had a known history of nearly six thousand years. Its
+beginning seems to have been in Chaldea about 4000 B.C.: it was
+diffused throughout all nations and peoples that had any pretence to
+civilisation; and it engaged, throughout that immense time and that
+enormous area, the attention of innumerable votaries, among whom were
+some of the greatest intellects that have adorned the human race. It
+had consequently attained to a degree of elaboration and complexity
+which renders it difficult to give, within any reasonable compass,
+a clear account of its voluminous details, expressed as they are in
+highly technical terminology, and conveyed in Latin so canine and so
+extraordinarily abbreviated as to be obscure, often to the point of
+unintelligibility. In preparing the account that I shall give, I have
+had the advantage of appealing on different points, to a Latin scholar
+of rare attainments, to a Professor of Astronomy, and to a Professor of
+Ancient History, and I rejoice to say that one and all have been unable
+to solve some of the problems that had puzzled myself. Where such solar
+luminaries have failed to illuminate, it is no disgrace to my farthing
+candle if it gives no light.
+
+The main factors in Astrology are three:—the Signs of the Zodiac, the
+Seven Planets, and the Houses of Heaven[2].
+
+[Footnote 2: A House has two meanings in Astrology. It may mean a
+twelfth part of the heavens, as will be shown presently, or it may mean
+a Sign of the Zodiac specifically appropriated to a particular Planet,
+which is its Lord.]
+
+In Medical Astrology there is yet another factor, which is equally
+important, and without which Medical Astrology cannot be understood.
+This factor consists of the four Elementary Qualities, Heat, Cold,
+Dryness and Moisture; which correspond with the four elements, Fire,
+Earth, Air and Water; with the four humours, Yellow Bile, Black Bile,
+Blood and Phlegm; and with many other things.
+
+Since there are twelve Signs of the Zodiac, Seven Planets, and twelve
+Houses of Heaven, it will be easily seen that the merely numerical
+combinations of any one of these with the others are indefinitely
+multitudinous; and when it is known that each may be combined with
+the others in many different ways, the complications become too great
+for the human intellect to follow; and since many of the combinations
+depend on considerations that are both vague and arbitrary, it is not
+surprising that scarcely any two Astrologers should combine them in the
+same way, or draw the same conclusions from the same disposition of the
+heavens.
+
+Every Sign of the Zodiac, every Planet, and every House has certain
+special powers and influence, not only over mankind generally, but
+specially over individual men and women, according to the moment
+of their birth, according to their complexion, disposition and
+temperament, according to the place in which they live, and so forth;
+and in addition, every Sign, Planet, and House has special powers at
+certain times of life, and every Sign and Planet has its own elementary
+qualities, as hot and dry, cold and moist, and so forth, and has
+special power over some part of the body and some faculty of mind.
+Moreover, these powers, both general and special, are reinforced or
+diminished in so many ways that the memory can scarcely retain them;
+and since neither the reinforcement nor the diminution is susceptible
+of any exact computation, the result, even if all were to be allowed
+their proper weight, must always be dubious.
+
+
+THE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC.
+
+These, of course, are twelve in number. In Astronomy they are disposed
+in the order in which the sun successively occupies them, Aries,
+Taurus and Gemini being the Signs of Spring; Cancer, Leo and Virgo
+those of Summer; Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius those of Autumn; and
+Capricornus, Aquarius and Pisces the Signs of Winter. In Astrology,
+however, they are differently arranged, according to their several
+qualities or properties. They are still in groups of three, but each
+group forms, not a season of the year, but a Triplicity, thus:
+
+Aries, the first month of Spring, Leo, the second month of Summer, and
+Sagittarius, the third month of Autumn, form the first Triplicity;
+every sign in which is hot and dry, regulates the Bilis flava, is
+masculine, diurnal, and is influential in youth. Its Lord is Sol by day
+and Jupiter by night.
+
+[Illustration: =Fig. 1.=]
+
+The second Triplicity consists of Taurus, the second Sign of Spring,
+Virgo, the third Sign of Summer, and Capricornus, the first of Winter.
+These Signs are cold and dry; their corresponding humour is Bilis atra;
+they are feminine, nocturnal, and preside over decrepitude. Their
+Lords are Venus by day and Luna by night.
+
+The third Triplicity is composed of Gemini, Libra and Aquarius; the
+third of Spring, the first of Autumn, and the second of Winter. These
+are hot and moist in complexion, their humour is Sanguis, they are
+masculine and diurnal; they preside over our childhood, and their Lords
+are Saturn by day and Mercury by night.
+
+The Signs of the fourth Triplicity are Cancer, the first of Summer,
+Scorpio, the second of Autumn, and Pisces, the third of Winter. They
+are cold and moist; their humour is Pituita; they are feminine and
+nocturnal; they regulate the middle period of life; and their Lords are
+Venus by day and Mars by night.
+
+It is also important to know that some signs are mobile, such are
+Cancer, Libra, Capricornus and Pisces; others are stable, and such are
+Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius; while a third group is mediocre with
+respect to mobility, as Aries, Gemini, Virgo and Sagittarius.
+
+A masculine Sign is so called because a child conceived under the
+influence of that Sign will be a male; and children conceived under
+feminine Signs are female. (Yet it is a fixed rule that all children
+are born under Aries, just as by the common law, all children born at
+sea are parishioners in Stepney.)
+
+A Sign is diurnal or nocturnal according as its power is greater by day
+or by night.
+
+In addition, every Sign has an aspect towards some particular part of
+the human body.
+
+Aries is the principal and most important sign of all. In whatever
+scheme the Signs are reckoned, Aries comes first: consequently its
+aspect is to the head. Taurus relates to the neck and shoulders,
+because a bull is in these parts very robust. Gemini relates to the
+arms and hands, because the twins are represented as embracing, and
+the quality of embracing is in the arms and hands. Cancer pertains to
+the chest and the adjacent parts, because a crab is very robust in the
+chest and thereabouts. Leo pertains to the heart and the mouth of the
+stomach, because the whole virtue of a lion is in his courage. Virgo
+relates to the intestines, the base of the stomach and umbilicus,
+because the virtue of a virgin resides therein. Libra relates to the
+kidneys, because they lie equally balanced, one on each side of the
+spine. Scorpio refers to the genitals, because the whole virtue of the
+scorpion is in his tail, and these are the caudalia of man. The aspect
+of Sagittarius is to the hips, of Capricornus to the knees, of Aquarius
+to the legs, and of Pisces to the feet, these being the parts of the
+body, as those are the Signs, that come next in order.
+
+
+THE PLANETS.
+
+It is scarcely necessary to remind this audience that in the time when
+Astrology came into being, the earth was the centre of the universe,
+and the Planets were seven in number, Uranus and Neptune being then as
+unknown as Pallas and Ceres, while the sun and moon differed from the
+other wandering stars only in their greater size and lustre, and in the
+greater regularity of their movements.
+
+There was a certain conventional order, the origin of which cannot now
+be traced, in which the Planets were always enumerated; an order that
+does not correspond with their relative size and importance, for then
+the Sun would come first. It is Saturn, however, that takes precedence,
+and is followed by Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury and Luna, in the
+order in which I have named them.
+
+The range of influence of the Planets over matters terrestrial was
+plenary. On the whole, the term influence best conveys the meaning of
+the Astrological term ‘aspect,’ which is more than ‘corresponds with,’
+a term that is sometimes substituted for ‘aspect.’ Though as to some
+things which they aspected, or with which they corresponded, such as
+the Zodiacal signs and the four elements, the Planets were neither
+productive nor regulative, yet with respect to most things, they were
+at least regulative, and as to many were actually originating. For
+instance, Guy de Chauliac, called by Fallopius the father of Surgery,
+as Hippocrates is the father of Medicine, attributed the great plague
+of 1345 to the conjunction of the three planets, Saturn, Jupiter and
+Mars, in Aquarius on March 24th of that year.
+
+Torella, physician to Caesar Borgia and Pope Alexander VI, attributed
+syphilis to a peculiar conjunction of the Planets. So does Basil
+Valentinus, and so does Petrus Maynardus, who was able, moreover, to
+predict that it would come to an end in 1584. The College of Physicians
+of Paris attributed the Black Death of 1349 to a vapour or fog
+generated by the struggle between the constellations, which combated
+the rays of the sun and the warmth of the heavenly fire, struggling
+violently with the waters of the great sea. ‘This vapour,’ they said,
+‘will continue to spread as long as the sun is in Leo.... We are of
+opinion that the constellations with the aid of nature strive by virtue
+of their divine might to protect and heal the human race.’
+
+Taken together, the Planets had jurisdiction over everything, but not
+indiscriminately. Each Planet had its own peculiar jurisdiction over
+some things, while other Planets divided between them the jurisdiction
+over other things of that kind. Like the Signs of the Zodiac, each of
+the Planets had a jurisdiction over some part of the human body, but
+this was only a small region of its sway. Every Planet aspected its own
+element, and its own complexion, or pair of elementary qualities, so
+that Saturn, for instance, was cold and dry, Jupiter hot and moist, and
+so forth. Each Planet had its own colour, odour and taste; each its own
+groups of animals and plants; each its own metal, and we still speak
+of Saturnine poisoning, of crocus Martis, and of the metal Mercury;
+each has its own plants, its own day of the week and hour of the day;
+and what is more germane to the present purpose, every Planet had its
+corresponding humour, part of the body, sense, faculty, part of the
+mind, bodily configuration and mental temperament, its time of life,
+and its peculiar diseases and mode of death.
+
+One or two instances will be enough to exemplify the way in which
+sublunary affairs are apportioned among the Planets. Take for instance
+animals: of these, Saturn has jurisdiction over the camel, the bear,
+the ass, the cat, the owl, the bat, the tortoise, the mouse, the
+beetle; and generally, over beasts of evil omen or of slow movement.
+The aspect of Jupiter is to the wise, the swift, and the strong: to the
+elephant, the stag and the bull. Mars aspects the horse, the wolf, the
+bee, the dog, the ostrich, venomous snakes, scorpions and spiders; all
+either fighters or noxious to human beings. Sol presides over regal
+and dominant animals, the lion, the eagle and the cock. Venus has
+jurisdiction over the goat, the sheep, the pheasant, the partridge, the
+pigeon, the dove and the sparrow; all amatory, and either polygamous or
+otherwise prolific. The aspect of Mercury is to the fox, the ape, the
+serpent, the parrot, the spider, the bee and the ant, and generally, to
+animals that are reputed wise or cunning. Luna influences the hare, the
+swan, the nightingale, the frog, fish, landsnails, crabs and shellfish,
+and generally, animals that are nocturnal or aquatic.
+
+Of plants, Saturn has jurisdiction over the oak, the mespilus, the
+rue, the hellebore, and generally over those of slow growth, of
+narcotic virtue, and of crass substance. Jupiter over the laurel, the
+sandal-wood, the cinnamon, the balsam and the incense tree. Mars over
+pepper, ginger, mustard, jalap, scammony, colocynth, euphorbium, and
+generally over all bitter plants and hot poisons. Sol aspects the palm,
+rosemary, heliotrope, crocus, and all aromatics. Venus the olive, the
+pine, the lily, the rose and the pea; Mercury the corylus and the
+millefoil; and Luna the cucumber, the gourd, pepin fruits, _i.e._
+apples and pears, and lettuce.
+
+The minerals of Saturn are lead and all black stones; of Jupiter, tin,
+the sapphire, and the amethyst; of Mars, iron, jasper, and magnesia;
+of Sol, gold, carbuncles, and crysolite; of Venus, copper, smaragdus,
+turquoise, and coral; of Mercury, quicksilver, chalcedony, and
+cornelian; and of Luna, silver, crystals, beryl, and the diamond.
+
+I defer to the next lecture the consideration of those planetary
+aspects that have a special bearing upon medicine, but this is perhaps
+the proper place to make the very important distinction between the
+benevolent, propitious, or fortunate Planets and those that are
+malevolent, unpropitious, or unlucky. The fortunate, or benevolent,
+or propitious Planets are Jupiter, Sol, and Venus, of which the first
+and last are lucky in the highest degree. Saturn, Mars, and Luna are
+malevolent, unpropitious, and unlucky. Mercury is variable in this
+respect. He has scarcely any character of his own, but he reinforces
+the benevolence or the malevolence, as the case may be, of whatever
+Planet may be in conjunction with him, or may be favourably aspected by
+him.
+
+It is evident, if these premises are granted, that the course and
+termination of every malady in every sick person depend on the relative
+power, with respect to other Planets, of the particular Planet or
+Planets that have jurisdiction in the matter. They will depend, in the
+first place, on the Planet that has jurisdiction over the temperament,
+as Saturn if he is saturnine, Jupiter if he is jovial, Mars if he
+is martial, and so forth. They will depend also on the Planet that
+presides over the humour that is peccant, as yellow bile, black bile,
+blood or phlegm. They will depend on the Planet that governs the part
+of the body that is diseased; on that which governs the disease; on
+that which has jurisdiction at the time of life at which the sick
+person is arrived; on that which presided over his nativity, and so
+forth. Here are at least six circumstances to be taken into account,
+and of course, the Planet that governs one of these circumstances
+may not be the same, and in fact must be different from those which
+govern others. So that seven Planets may all be influencing the disease
+and the sick person at once, and may all be pulling in different
+directions, some towards health and some towards death, some towards
+acuteness and some towards chronicity of the disease. It is evident,
+therefore, that his fate must depend on the relative powers of the
+propitious and unpropitious Planets, and that it is of the utmost
+importance to determine the factors on which the powers of the Planets
+depend, and to estimate their strength in any particular case.
+
+This is by no means easy, for the factors are very numerous. It will be
+enough to obtain an approximate estimate, however, if we confine our
+consideration to the ten in the following enumeration.
+
+The power of a Planet at any given moment depends on:
+
+     1. The Sign of the Zodiac in which it is situated at that moment.
+     2. The Sign of which the Planet is Lord.
+     3. The Sign in which the Planet rejoices.
+     4. The Signs in which the Planet ascends or descends.
+     5. The House in which the Planet is situated.
+     6. The House in which the Planet rejoices.
+     7. The position or aspect of the Planet towards other Planets.
+     8. The aspect of the Planet to the Ascendent.
+     9. The motion of the Planet, as fast or slow, direct or retrograde.
+    10. The day and hour.
+
+In this estimation of the powers of the Planets, much depends on the
+Houses of Heaven, and these must be described before we can proceed.
+
+
+THE HOUSES OF HEAVEN.
+
+We all recognise that, while the stars have an apparent motion from
+the eastern horizon up to the vertical meridian, and down again to
+the western horizon, yet the horizons and the vertical meridian keep
+their places with respect to us, and do not move. The eastern horizon
+and the vertical meridian enclose between them a fourth part of the
+heavens, whose content is continually changing, as the stars rise above
+the eastern horizon and reach and pass the meridian. Similarly, from
+the meridian to the western horizon is another fourth part; and the
+two remaining fourths are beneath the horizon, and are divided from
+one another by the inferior vertical meridian, all these fourth parts
+remaining stationary, while the stars occupy them each in turn in
+the daily revolution of the heavens. Now imagine each of these fixed
+quarters of heaven to be divided by three equidistant meridians: the
+heavens will then be divided into twelve parts, six above the horizon
+and six below, whose starry contents are continually changing. These
+twelve divisions are the twelve Houses of Heaven.
+
+That is to say, they are so if the meridians which divide them meet
+at the north and south poles of the horizon of the place; and it
+was the usual rule in Astrology so to consider them; but it was not
+the invariable rule. Some astrologers put the meeting places at the
+celestial poles, and then the Houses were divided by the ordinary
+meridians. Others put the meeting places at the Zenith and the Nadir
+of the place. It is manifest that those astrologers who computed the
+positions of the Planets in one set of Houses, must arrive at very
+different results from those who computed the positions in another set;
+for a Planet might be in one House according to one computation, and in
+a different House according to another.
+
+That House which is immediately below the eastern horizon, so that the
+stars therein are the next to rise above the horizon, is the first
+House, which is also called the Ascendent House, or shortly, the
+Ascendent. It is the principal House, the most powerful House, and
+takes rank over all the others. The Planet or Planets that occupy the
+Ascendent chiefly determine the fate of the native. The rest of the
+Houses are known by numbers, and follow one another widdershins, that
+is, in the order reverse to the movement of the hands of a clock.
+The second and third are between the Ascendent and the lower vertical
+meridian; the fourth, fifth and sixth between the lower vertical
+meridian and the western horizon; and so on until the twelfth house
+meets the first at the eastern horizon.
+
+The anterior boundary of each House, the meridian which the stars in
+that House will cross next, is called the cusp of that House; and
+from the cusp the position of the Planets in the House is measured in
+degrees and minutes. The cusp of the Ascendent House is called the
+horoscope; and I may here correct a prevalent error with respect to
+this term. It is customary to speak of casting a horoscope, as if that
+were a possible and usual operation in Astrology. What is meant by the
+expression is casting a nativity or geniture; that is to say, setting
+out, on a plan of the Houses of Heaven, the position of the Signs
+of the Zodiac and of the Planets in the respective Houses that they
+occupied at the moment of birth. Similarly, we may cast a decumbiture,
+that is, we may set out a similar plan for the moment a disease begins;
+and such an operation was as necessary in the daily routine of a
+physician as is now the taking the temperature of the patient: but
+it is manifest that we cannot in this sense cast a horoscope, for the
+horoscope is but the cusp of the Ascendent.
+
+[Illustration: =Fig. 2.=]
+
+This is the most obvious method of setting out the Houses, but it
+was not usually adopted, perhaps because compasses were not common,
+and circles not so easy to draw as straight lines. The conventional
+figure, on which the positions of the heavenly bodies were always set
+out, was thus:
+
+[Illustration: =Fig. 3.=]
+
+Each House of Heaven, like each Sign of the Zodiac and each Planet, has
+its special aspect, jurisdiction, or influence over human affairs; but
+unlike the Signs and the Planets, the Houses are not complexionate:
+they are neither hot nor cold, neither moist nor dry.
+
+Just as Aries is the first, the most powerful and important of the
+Signs, and Luna the most powerful and important of the Planets, so the
+Ascendent is the most powerful and important of the Houses. When a
+Planet is in the Ascendent, its power is paramount over all the other
+Planets, wherever they may be; still, it may be strongly influenced
+by them. The Ascendent is the House of projects, of the beginnings of
+things, especially of journeys; it is the House of life, of movement,
+and of questions and answers.
+
+The second House is the House of riches, and of servants; and signifies
+the end of youth, and the lessening of the years of life.
+
+The third House is the House of brothers and sisters; of acquaintances
+and friends; of heirs; of changes; of continuance of journeys; of quiet
+of kingdoms; of religion, and ministers of religion.
+
+The fourth House is the House of parents; of heredity; of towns in
+which the native lives, and in which he is born, and of his fate after
+death.
+
+The fifth House is the House of children; of eating and drinking; of
+games; of fighting; of pictures, vessels and money.
+
+The sixth House is the House of sickness and health; of servants; of
+domestic animals; and of receiving.
+
+The seventh House is the House of women; of marriage; of contentions
+and strife; of saints; and of thieves; and signifies the middle of life.
+
+The eighth House is the House of Death; of fear; of riches; and of the
+last years of life.
+
+The ninth House is of pilgrimages and journeys; of faith; of wisdom and
+philosophy; of books; of rumours; and of sleep.
+
+The tenth House is the Royal House. It is the House of dignities; of
+laws; of princes and magistrates; of memories; of mothers; and of half
+of the years of life.
+
+The eleventh House is the House of fortune; of good faith; of friends
+and allies.
+
+The twelfth House is the House of unfriends, and of bad faith; of
+labour; of battles; of sadness; and of beasts and birds.
+
+The strongest House of all is the Ascendent. Next to this are the other
+_angulares_, which immediately precede the other cardinal points,
+viz.—the fourth, seventh and tenth, all powerful and propitious Houses.
+The next in succession are called the successors of the _angulares_,
+and are less powerful than the _angulares_, but still disposed to be
+good, or propitious. The remaining Houses, the third, sixth, ninth and
+twelfth, are called _ab angulis cadentes_, and are unpropitious, and
+disposed to evil.
+
+We are now in a position to discover the ways in which the power of a
+Planet is increased or diminished.
+
+In the first place, every Planet is related to certain Signs of the
+Zodiac in three different ways. First, it has a Sign or Signs peculiar
+to itself, which are called the houses of the Planet, and of this
+house, or of these houses, the planet is Lord. Second, every Planet has
+a Sign in which it rejoices. When situated in any of these Signs, and
+especially when in its house, the power of the Planet is augmented.
+Third, every Planet is exalted in a certain Sign, and depressed in
+that which is diametrically opposite, and the power of the Planet is
+increased or diminished according as the one or the other of these
+Signs is in the Ascendent.
+
+For instance, Saturn is Lord of Capricorn essentially, and of Aquarius
+accidentally; he rejoices in Aquarius, is exalted in Libra, and
+depressed in Aries. Consequently, his power is at its maximum when
+he is in Capricorn, and is augmented when he is in Aquarius. It is
+increased when Libra is in the Ascendent, and subdued when Aries is
+in that House. Saturn (chronos) regulates the beginnings of things,
+especially of things relating to the earth, such as planting, sowing,
+ploughing, and other operations of agriculture. Such operations ought
+therefore to be begun when Saturn has power, as when he is in the
+Ascendent, or in Capricorn or Aquarius, provided that Aries is not
+in the Ascendent. If Libra should be in the Ascendent, however, such
+operations can scarcely fail to be successful.
+
+A hot Planet in a hot Sign will have its heat augmented; but in a
+cold Sign its heat will be reduced; and so of the other elementary
+qualities. A moist Planet in a humid Sign will be dripping wet, and
+will aggravate diseases due to moisture.
+
+We have seen that certain Houses are more propitious than others,
+those, namely, whose cusp is on the horizon or on one of the vertical
+meridians. A benevolent Planet will be doubly so when in a propitious
+House, but will have little power to benefit when it is in an
+unpropitious House.
+
+The House in which it is situated influences a Planet in more ways than
+this. Every Planet has not only a Sign, but a House also in which it
+rejoices; and when it is in this House its power is augmented. Mercury
+rejoices in the Ascendent, Luna in the third House, Mars in the sixth,
+Sol in the ninth, Jupiter in the eleventh, and Saturn in the twelfth.
+
+Perhaps the most important factor in modifying the power of the
+Planets, and certainly the factor to which the most importance is
+attached, is their relative position or aspect with respect to one
+another, and to the Ascendent.
+
+The first aspect of Planets to one another is Conjunction, which, like
+other terms in Astrology, and in its congener, Logic, is not always
+used in the same sense. Planets are said by some authorities to be in
+conjunction when they are within 2° of one another; by others, when
+they are within 15° of each other; by others, when they are in the
+same Sign, and by others when they are in the same House. All are
+agreed, however, that whenever a Planet is within 15° of Sol, it is
+combust, and its powers are for the time abolished. Otherwise, when
+Planets of the same qualities are in conjunction, they corroborate and
+reinforce one another; but when Planets of opposing qualities are in
+conjunction, each cancels a part of the power of the other; so that
+when a good Planet is conjoined with an evil one, the malice of this
+is tempered, and the benevolence of that is debilitated. One of my
+authorities, Arnaldus de Villanova, gives the following instance. ‘When
+you are anxious to begin some good work, you should see that Luna makes
+junction with benevolent Planets, or at any rate, is well separated
+from bad ones; but he who wants to do evil, as for example, to poison a
+little girl, or anything of that kind, ought to choose a time when Luna
+is conjoined with bad, or is separated from good Planets.’
+
+The second aspect is Sextile. This is when two Planets are separated
+by a sixth part of the Zodiac, or by two Signs. Such an aspect is
+moderately friendly—not manifestly, but occultly, or of hidden
+benevolence.
+
+The third aspect is Quartile, and is when a Planet aspects another
+through three Signs, which is a fourth part of the Zodiac. Such an
+aspect is of moderate or occult unfriendliness or conflict.
+
+The fourth aspect is Trine, when a Planet aspects another from a
+distance of four Signs, or a third part of the Zodiac. This is the
+aspect of warm friendship, and perfect benevolence.
+
+The last aspect is Opposition, when one Planet is distant from another
+by half the Signs of the Zodiac. This is the most hostile aspect of
+all; it is the aspect of open unfriendliness, hatred, and perdition.
+
+Every Planet has two movements. First, it partakes of the general
+movement of the heavenly bodies, rising in the East and setting in
+the West, a movement due to the _primum mobile_; and second, it has
+its own proper motion among the stars, which varies in rapidity, and
+is sometimes direct, sometimes retrograde, and sometimes abolished,
+so that the Planet is stationary among the stars. The speed of this
+proper motion varies greatly, Luna completing her course in 28 days, or
+thereabouts, and Saturn requiring 29 years. The motion of the Planets
+is of much importance in medicine, for acute diseases, whose course is
+rapid, are governed by the moon, whose motion is rapid, while chronic
+diseases, whose course is slow, are governed by the sun, whose course
+is likewise slow. If any Planet that is regulating the course of a
+disease should become retrograde in its motion, the patient will of
+course get worse.
+
+Lastly, every Planet has its hour, in which it is dominant; and,
+subject to the dominance of the Planet that rules the hour, every
+Planet dominates that day of the week of which its hour is the first.
+Thus, Saturn dominates completely the first hour of Saturday, and in
+a less degree, and subject to the influence of the other Planets,
+the whole of the _dies Sabbathum_. Jupiter rules the second hour of
+Saturday, Mars the third, and so on until Luna dominates the seventh
+hour, and then Saturn again takes up the tale, and rules the eighth.
+The rotation is then continued, so that Saturn comes in again at the
+fifteenth and twenty-second hours; Jupiter follows at the twenty-third;
+Mars at the twenty-fourth, which completes the day. The next Planet
+on the rota is Sol, which therefore takes the first hour, and in less
+degree the whole, of the following day, which is accordingly _Dies
+Solis_, or Sunday.
+
+It is scarcely necessary to point out that every undertaking to which
+any given Planet is propitious ought to be begun in the hour in which
+that Planet is dominant, and if possible on his day. So all operations
+of husbandry should be begun on Saturday, or if on any other day, then
+in the hour of Saturn. When written directions are given as to any
+undertaking, the Planet that is propitious to that undertaking should
+be signified, so that the undertaking, whatever it may be, may be
+begun in the hour of that Planet. If we give written directions for
+sowing seed, or planting, or any of the operations of husbandry, we
+should preface our directions with the sign of Saturn. If we write to a
+commercial correspondent instructions to buy or sell, we should remind
+him of the hour and day propitious to the transaction by placing at
+the head of our instructions the sign of the Planet Mercury. Now, the
+Planet that is most propitious to the operation of letting blood, and
+to taking medicine, is Jupiter, and therefore all written directions
+for letting blood or administering medicine should bear the sign of
+Jupiter; and the sign of Jupiter is ♃ = ℞, which still heads all our
+prescriptions, and testifies to the intimate connexion that existed
+aforetime between Astrology and Medicine.
+
+If we keep at our fingers’ ends the knowledge we have now gained of
+the rudiments of Astrological lore, we shall be in a position to turn
+that knowledge to practical use, to erect a scheme of the heavens at
+the nativity of any given person, and to interpret that scheme so as
+to predict at least the general course of his life, and, if we have
+sufficient skill, the individual incidents therein. For this purpose it
+is convenient to select a person whose career is closed, because this
+gives us the double advantage of ascertaining whether our predictions
+are correct, and of keeping an eye on his career during the course of
+our interpretations, so that they may not go too wide of the mark. I
+select therefore a distinguished man, Charles XII of Sweden, whose
+career is familiar to you all.
+
+As is usual, the pole of the Houses is at the horizontal north of the
+place, Stockholm, and not at the celestial pole, and therefore the
+latitude is given, and the Houses do not correspond with the Signs
+of the Zodiac. Taurus, for instance, occupies the whole of the fifth
+House, with six degrees of the fourth, and twenty of the sixth; while
+Aquarius lies wholly within the second, which includes also seven
+degrees of Capricorn and five of Pisces.
+
+The first omen that attracts our attention is that Mars, the military
+planet, occupies the twelfth House, the House of battles and of
+enemies. We predict, therefore, that
+
+        No joys to him pacific scepters yield,
+        War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field;
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+        Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain;
+        ‘Think nothing gain’d,’ he cries, ‘till nought remain!’
+
+[Illustration: =Fig. 4. Nativitas Caroli Duodecimi, Regis Sueciæ.=]
+
+Venus, in the second House, does not aspect the native, and exerts no
+influence over him; and Charles XII was notoriously insusceptible to
+the charms of love. He was a neglecter and despiser of women—
+
+        O’er love, o’er fear extends his wide domain,
+        Unconquer’d lord of pleasure and of pain.
+
+Sol, in the Ascendent, predicts for the native an illustrious and
+glorious career, and equips him with the necessary qualities—
+
+        A frame of adamant, a soul of fire,
+        No dangers fright him, and no labours tire;
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+        Behold surrounding kings their pow’r combine,
+        And one capitulate, and one resign.
+
+But Mars is an unpropitious Planet, a Planet of ill omen, and
+his presence in the House of battles cannot but signify military
+disaster: Luna, in sextile to the Ascendent, exerts an evil influence,
+which Jupiter, sequestered in the second House from exerting any
+counteracting sway, is powerless to restrain. What is the inevitable
+consequence?—
+
+        He comes, not want nor cold his course delay;—
+        Hide, blushing Glory, hide Pultowa’s day:
+        The vanquish’d hero leaves his brok’n bands,
+        And shews his miseries in distant lands;
+        Condemn’d a needy supplicant to wait,
+        While ladies interpose, and slaves debate.
+
+Finally, Saturn, a very malevolent Planet, is most ominously situated
+in the eighth House, the House of Death, a certain indication that
+death will come early and in disastrous circumstances. How true the
+indication let the poet testify:
+
+        But did not Chance at length her error mend?
+        Did no subverted empire mark his end?
+        Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound?
+        Or hostile millions press him to the ground?
+        His fall was destin’d to a barren strand,
+        A petty fortress, and a dubious hand;
+        He left a name, at which the world grew pale,
+        To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
+
+
+
+
+LECTURE II
+
+
+Having discovered in the last Lecture the general principles of
+Astrology, we are now in a position to discuss their application to
+medicine. We have already found that every Zodiacal Sign and every
+Planet has its own complexion, or pair of elementary qualities, as
+hot and dry, hot and moist, cold and dry, or cold and moist, and that
+each has, accordingly, power over the corresponding humour—yellow
+bile, blood, black bile or phlegm. We must now remark that among the
+powers of the Signs and the Planets are some, specially appertaining to
+medicine, that were omitted in the previous review.
+
+Each Planet has its own peculiar power over the developing fœtus, and
+exercises this power at a certain period of pregnancy. Saturn has power
+in the first month after conception, and by its own frigidity (Saturn
+being cold and dry) infrigidates the fœtus, coagulates it, and drys it
+up, so causing early abortions. Jupiter is potent in the second month,
+and bestows on the embryo the _spiritus naturalis_. Mars, in the third
+month, supplies the concept with bones, and generally composes, or, as
+we should say, differentiates, the various internal organs. Sol, in
+the fourth month, supplies the concept with blood, and perfects the
+heart and liver. Venus, in the fifth month, gives to the concept ears,
+eyebrows and pudenda. Mercury, in the sixth month, opens the nose and
+mouth; and Luna, in the seventh month, causes the development of the
+lungs, and divides the fingers and toes according to their places.
+
+After birth, each Planet takes under its jurisdiction certain organs
+and tissues of the body, and certain faculties of the mind; and has,
+moreover, jurisdiction over certain diseases and certain modes of death.
+
+Saturn, which is cold and dry, and therefore regulates the black bile,
+presides also over the bones, teeth, cartilages, the right ear, the
+spleen and the bladder; and over the memory. It has power, of course,
+over the diseases of these parts, and in addition, over quartan
+fever, scabies, lepra, tabes, melancholia, paralysis, icterus niger,
+dropsy, cancer, cough, asthma, phthisis, deafness of the right ear,
+and hernia. Under Saturn occur sudden and violent deaths by falls,
+precipitation, ship-wreck, suffocation, hanging, lead-poisoning, and
+death at the hands of the public executioner.
+
+Jupiter has jurisdiction over the radical moisture, over the blood,
+the liver, the pulmonary veins, the diaphragm, and the muscles of the
+trunk; over the senses of touch and smell; over the judgment, and
+the _appetitus concupiscibilis_; over the diseases of these parts
+and faculties, and in addition over small-pox, angina, inflammation,
+pleurisies and peripneumonias. Deaths due to the influence of Jupiter
+occur in war, in duels, and by the command of Princes.
+
+Mars has power over the yellow bile, the gall-bladder, the left ear,
+the pudenda and the kidneys. He prompts the _appetitus irascibilis_.
+The diseases due to his influence are acute fevers, plague, yellow
+jaundice, convulsions, hæmorrhages, carbuncles, erysipelas, ulcers,
+and phagedæna. He causes death by weapons of steel, from fire, from
+projectiles, by beheading, mutilation, bites of animals, especially
+venomous animals, by the slaughters and blood-letting of ignorant
+surgeons, and death from burns.
+
+Sol regulates the heart, the arteries, the right eye, the right side
+in men and the left side in women; the vital spirits and the bilious
+blood; the sight of the right eye in men, and of the left in women,
+and all good desires. The diseases due to the influence of the sun are
+ephemeral fevers, syncope, spasm, catarrhs, and diseases of the eyes.
+When Sol causes death, it is by plague, by syncope, or on the field of
+battle.
+
+Venus presides over the pituitous blood and semen: over the throat,
+the breasts, the abdomen, the uterus and genitalia; over taste and
+smell, touch and the pleasurable sensations, and the _appetitus
+concupiscibilis_. The diseases due to Venus are lues venerea,
+gonorrhœa, priapism, barrenness from cold and moisture (Venus being
+cold and moist), lientery, and abscesses. Deaths due to her influence
+are those from poison and from sexual excess.
+
+Mercury has jurisdiction over the animal spirits, over the legs and
+feet, the hands and fingers, the tongue, the nerves, and the ligaments;
+over taste and hearing, common sense, imagination and reason. The
+diseases that he influences are erratic and relapsing fevers, mania,
+phrenitis, deliria, insanity, epilepsy, convulsion, balbuties, and
+cough with profuse expectoration. Under his influence occur deaths by
+poison, by witchcraft, and by process of law for perjury, forgery, and
+false money.
+
+Finally, Luna presides over the phlegm, the brain, the left eye,
+the right side in women and the left in men, the stomach, and the
+membranes; over the sight of the right eye in women and of the left in
+men; over fear; over quotidian fevers, epilepsy, apoplexy, fatuity,
+vomiting, fluxes, such as diarrhoea and menorrhagia, dropsy, and cold
+abscesses. She brings those deaths that occur from superpurgation and
+from drowning.
+
+It would seem, from the several jurisdictions here assigned to Mercury
+and Luna, that those whom we call lunatics ought properly to be
+called Mercurials, for though the moon rules the brain, Mercury has
+jurisdiction, as we have seen, over mania, phrenitis, delirium, and
+insanity; and, strictly speaking, no one with any of these maladies
+ought to be called a lunatic. Lunacy in the strict sense is fatuity
+interrupted by lucid intervals, as we shall find further on, and this
+is the sense that it had in law down to the passing of the Lunacy Acts.
+Until these enactments, the legal meaning of a lunatic was a fatuous
+or demented person who had, nevertheless, intervals of lucidity;
+and though in common speech the meaning became generalised, and the
+term was used to include all insane persons, whatever the nature of
+their insanity, and whether it was interrupted or continuous, yet
+lawyers, who are always both more precise and more conservative in the
+application of terms than other men, continued to use the term lunacy
+in its strict sense till the middle of the last century.
+
+With respect to the corporature, or the bodily configuration, which,
+with the corresponding mental disposition, is aspected by the several
+Planets, there is much misapprehension; and the true doctrine is
+corrupted, and attenuated to a mere remnant. We are apt to consider
+that a Saturnine person is taciturn, cynical, and disposed to be
+malevolent; that a Jovial person is good-humoured and hilarious; that a
+Mercurial person is restless and vagrant, not continuing in one stay;
+that a Martial person has a soldierly bearing; and that a Lunatic is
+out of his mind; and although we should not be wrong in attributing
+these mental dispositions to the persons so denominated, we should
+give them but a tithe of the mental qualities the names actually
+connote; and we have forgotten altogether, not only that there is a
+corporature, or bodily configuration, that accompanies and indicates
+each mental temperament, but also that there are persons of Solar and
+Venereal temperament as well as those that are Jovial, Saturnine, and
+so forth. The corporature, and the mental disposition that accompanies
+and is signified by it, are precise and detailed, so that the expert
+astrologer can tell at a glance what sort of person he has to deal
+with, and what Planet has jurisdiction over that person’s life,
+fortunes, and health.
+
+Those, for instance, who are Saturnine, may be known by the following
+physical signs: they are moderately fleshy, of medium height, their
+countenances are long, their eyes large and black, their teeth very
+large; they are of dark complexion, have scanty straight black hair,
+thin beards, are pigeon-toed, and of truculent bearing. When well
+affected by the Planet, persons of such a corporature are profound
+thinkers, investigators of mysteries, prudent, reticent, inclined
+to solitude, suspicious, laborious, patient, persevering, lovers
+of work, eager for gain, and masterful. When ill affected by the
+Planet, they are sad, melancholy, austere, timid, miserly, querulous,
+taciturn, solitary, followers of the Black Art, suspicious, untruthful,
+malevolent, untrustworthy to the point of fraudulence, treacherous, and
+often suffer the penalties of the law for their misdeeds.
+
+The favoured of Jupiter are, in configuration, fleshy, with rounded
+knees; they are of medium stature, elegant and majestic in bearing.
+In complexion they are rosy; their eyes are dark and rather large.
+They are prone to baldness, and have thick reddish beards. When
+well affected by the Planet, such persons are simple, just, pious,
+religious, faithful, humane, merciful, hilarious, gracious, open,
+affable, liberal, splendid, magnanimous and law-abiding. When ill
+affected, they have these qualities in excess. They are superstitious,
+sentimental, humanitarian, prodigal and vain-glorious.
+
+The subjects of Mars are thin and well-proportioned; they are pale,
+with blue eyes and abundant curly hair, not only on the head but on
+the body. They are of middle stature, with large heads, round faces,
+small eyes, large nostrils, long teeth and military bearing. When well
+affected, they are strong, robust, brave, greedy of fame, irascible,
+given to hunting and games, vindictive, impatient of control,
+domineering, delighting in war and battles, contemptuous of danger,
+agile, ready, hasty, self-confident, and indifferent to religion. When
+ill affected, they are impious, unjust, arrogant, merciless, seditious,
+foolhardy, quarrelsome, brawlers, homicides, tyrants, incendiaries,
+robbers, thieves and bandits.
+
+Those under the jurisdiction of Luna are tall, pale, good-looking, with
+light hair and eyes, and with becoming beards. When well affected, they
+are ingenious, subtle, sincere, open, honest and well-mannered; when
+ill affected, they are stupid even to fatuity, timid and restless. It
+is very important to know that, as might be expected, it is when the
+moon is waxing that they are well affected, and they are ill affected
+when she is on the wane. Here we see the origin of the legal doctrine,
+already alluded to, that a lunatic is a demented person who has lucid
+intervals, these intervals being when the moon is in the first two of
+her phases, while the periods of fatuity are the last two phases, when
+she is past the full, and her light is waning.
+
+The votaries of Mercury are characterised by medium stature, a
+well-proportioned body, pleasing complexion, and yellow hair. They
+are graceful, with very small hands, feet and teeth; they have scanty
+beards, thin voices, and are rapid in their movements. When well
+affected, they are witty, studious, quick to learn, even without
+being taught; they are disputatious, wise, cautious, prudent, easily
+accommodating themselves to persons and circumstances; sociable and
+inquisitive. When ill affected, they are unstable, forgetful, apt to
+have hallucinations and to talk nonsense, liars, parasites, flatterers,
+deceitful, perfidious, perjurers, calumniators, forgers of wills,
+coiners of false money, meddlers in things that do not concern them,
+and dangerous counsellors.
+
+Under the jurisdiction of Venus are those of medium stature, succulent,
+with delicate and fair complexions, good-looking, with crisp brown or
+blackish hair, dark eyes, narrow eyebrows, narrow chests, and thick
+thighs. When well affected, they are indolent, bland, pious, religious,
+merciful, peaceful, sociable, lovers of the arts of singing and of
+music, elegant and graceful, and given to delicacies and pleasures.
+They are lucky in love and in friendship, forgiving, and impatient
+under misfortune. When ill affected, they are timid, imprudent,
+effeminate, lecherous, and betrayers of women.
+
+Lastly, the characters of those who are ruled by the Sun are a large
+head, a round and glowing face, large eyes, long hair which at length
+falls out and leaves them bald, and a sallow complexion. When well
+affected, they are pious, just, upright, faithful, open, chaste,
+worldly-wise, apt to anger, but magnanimous, honourable, splendid and
+magnificent, warm in friendship, and lovers of their wives and children.
+
+It will have been noticed that the descriptions of the bodily
+configurations are not very definite, and we are warned by Maninius to
+be very careful of judging of the dominant Planet by the configuration
+of the body. This, he says, is a part of the science in which many
+fail; and it is not yet fully ascertained. The knowledge is to be
+attained by long experience only. Maninius had, indeed, good reason
+to inculcate caution in interpreting the indications obtained from
+Astrological lore, for he sought to clench the arguments with which he
+was defending Astrology from the attacks of Gassendi, by predicting
+the death of the sceptic upon a certain date. When the date came round
+in due course, Gassendi unexpectedly refused to die, and Maninius then
+discovered a mistake in his calculation which had led him to antedate
+the event. He corrected the error, revised his prediction, and fixed
+another and later date, beyond which Gassendi could not survive.
+He seems, however, to have overlooked a second time some material
+factor, for his opponent lived on, and laughed him to scorn, giving
+much occasion to the enemy to blaspheme. Maninius, unfortunately,
+lacked the resource of Dean Swift, who was confronted with the same
+difficulty by the survival of the astrologer Partridge. Swift, under
+the pseudonym of Isaac Bickerstaff, predicted that Partridge would die
+“on the twenty-ninth of March next, about eleven at night, of a raging
+fever”; and, when the date was past, published a circumstantial account
+of the death, with a confession by Partridge of the imposture of his
+predictions. In vain Partridge denied the facts, for Bickerstaff gave
+five conclusive reasons for disbelieving these protestations, and for
+holding that Partridge was in fact dead, and in denying the fact had
+carried beyond the grave his proclivity for telling lies.
+
+When it is remembered that any Sign of the Zodiac may be in any of
+the Houses of Heaven; that any Planet may be in any House, and may
+have any aspect, sextile, quartile, trine, or opposition, towards the
+Ascendent and towards the other Planets; and that the various Planets
+have by these means their powers reinforced or attenuated in the most
+various degrees; and when we remember further the different powers that
+different Planets have over different persons and different diseases,
+it will easily be seen that the variations are virtually infinite, and
+the whole scheme far too complicated to put to practical application.
+
+In practice, however, the calculations of the physician were narrowed
+down to a small number of factors. Arnaldus de Villanova, a physician
+of great repute in the thirteenth century, limits these as follows:—A
+perfect physician, he says, should constantly bear in mind eight
+Astrological factors; and then we are disappointed to find that he
+enumerates only seven. It is no doubt the want of the eighth factor
+that has falsified the predictions that I have ventured to make in
+accordance with his rules. Be that as it may, the factors that he
+enumerates, as necessary for the perfect physician to consider, are
+these:
+
+    1. The thing concerning which the inquiry is made.
+
+    2. The Sign that is in the Ascendent.
+
+    3. The Lord of it. (Whether of the Sign or of the
+          Ascendent is not clear.)
+
+    4. The Sign that is in the House of the thing inquired
+          about. (In the case of sickness, this may be either
+          the first House, the House of Life; or the eighth,
+          the House of Death; or the sixth, the House of
+          Diseases.)
+
+    5. The Lord of it. (Again, whether of the Sign or of
+          the House is not clear.)
+
+    6. Its (?) relation to the Ascendent.
+
+    7. Its relation to the Moon.
+
+These are to be interpreted in the following manner:
+
+    1. The Ascendent and the Lord of it signify the sick
+          man.
+
+    2. The middle of Heaven (the tenth House) signifies
+          his physician.
+
+    3. The sixth House and the Lord of it signify his
+          disease.
+
+    4. The fourth House and the Lord of it signify his
+          physic.
+
+The consequences are these:
+
+If there is evil in the Ascendent, or if the Lord of the Ascendent is
+subject to adverse influences, the patient will do badly; but if these
+are propitious, he will do well.
+
+If there should be a benevolent or propitious Lord of the tenth House,
+which signifies the physician, then his treatment will do the patient
+good; but if the Lord should be evil, then the patient will be injured
+by the treatment.
+
+If there should be a powerful influence for good in the eighth House,
+which is the House of Death, the patient will be quickly cured; but if
+there should be an evil influence in this House, he will go from bad to
+worse.
+
+Similarly, if there is good fortune in the fourth House, which is the
+House of Remedies, his medicine will do him good, but if evil fortune,
+the medicine will make him worse.
+
+If the Sign in the Ascendent should be mobile, and Luna should be in a
+mobile Sign, such as Aries, Cancer, Libra, or Capricorn, and the Lord
+of the Ascendent should also be in a mobile Sign, the illness will soon
+terminate, either well or badly, especially if Luna is in swift motion.
+If, however, it happens contrarily, it signifies a long illness,
+especially if Luna is in a stable Sign, as Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or
+Aquarius.
+
+If the Lord of the Ascendent should be propitious, and free from
+adverse influences of other Planets, and Luna likewise, the illness
+will end favourably, especially if Luna and the Lord of the Ascendent
+should aspect favourably the Lord of the eighth House, which is the
+House of Death—that is, if they should be in sextile, and especially if
+they should be in trine, to that House.
+
+But if Luna, or the Lord of the Ascendent, or the Lord of the House
+of Sickness, which is the sixth, should be combust and retrograde,
+or if the Lord of the Ascendent should be in the House of Death in
+conjunction with Mars or Saturn, both of them malevolent Planets, then
+there is no hope.
+
+Also, if the moon should be in conjunction with a propitious Planet in
+the Ascendent, and should be moving forward and her light waxing, and
+both should be free from adverse influences, then the disease will be
+quickly cured; but if the moon should be in the House of Death, the
+patient cannot be saved.
+
+And generally, whenever Luna and the Lord of the Ascendent are subject
+to adverse influences, it is a mortal sign, and we must fear death, or
+relapse, or long illness; but when they are fortunately situated, and
+aspected by well-disposed powers, as when Luna and the Lord are in the
+Ascendent, then it is a good sign, and _ad vitam_.
+
+But if the House of Death, and the Lord of the House of Infirmity,
+or the Lord of the House of Death, are fortified by situation or by
+aspect, especially when they aspect the moon adversely, then it is a
+bad sign, and _ad mortem_; but when they are impeded or weakened, it is
+a good sign.
+
+Now the position of the heavenly bodies in the Houses of Heaven alters
+from hour to hour, and a fatal disposition of them now may alter to a
+favourable one in a couple of hours, and _vice versâ_. Luna, which is
+now in the Ascendent, and therefore smiles upon the patient, will, in
+fourteen or fifteen hours’ time, be in the eighth House, and condemn
+him to death. It is manifestly of the utmost importance, therefore,
+to fix upon the correct hour and minute for setting up the _tabula
+cælestiarum_. It is to be feared, however, that in this matter
+astrological physicians allowed themselves a good deal of latitude.
+There are two fixed moments, one or other of which should be taken as
+that on which the scheme should be erected. One of these is the moment
+of birth; the other is the decumbiture.
+
+It will be seen that the scheme of the nativity of Charles XII sets
+forth the year, the month, the day, hour, and minute of birth,
+and the scheme is erected accordingly, and admits of no doubt or
+variation. There was, however, a process known to Astrologers by the
+name of Rectification of the Nativity, a process the rules of which
+are difficult to discover, but the practical result was to shift the
+heavenly bodies from positions that were inconvenient to the Astrologer
+to positions more suitable to his purpose. I should never myself
+make an alteration of this nature, which does not seem to me quite
+justifiable, but, emboldened by this established astrological practice,
+I have ventured to make a trifling alteration in the scheme of nativity
+that I have placed before you as that of Charles XII. As originally
+erected, it referred not to the year 1682 but to the year 1594, and
+to the moment of birth, not of Charles XII, but of a previous King
+of Sweden, namely, Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North, and the
+Bulwark of the Protestant Faith. In working it out, I found that by no
+ingenuity and by no artifice could I make the predictions to be drawn
+from this scheme of nativity fit in with the known career of that great
+and successful commander. They suited, however, with such surprising
+accuracy and appropriateness the career of his successor Charles XII
+that I felt it was a pity to allow myself to be fettered, in applying
+them to him, by a punctilio of needless scrupulosity. I did not venture
+to take that liberty with the facts that astrologers were accustomed to
+take, by altering the positions of the heavenly bodies in the Houses
+of Heaven; I merely altered the date by less than a century, and
+substituted the name of one King of Sweden for another.
+
+In estimating the scheme of the heavens relating to the illness of
+a patient, it is always advisable to compare it with the scheme of
+his nativity. If that Planet which was Lord of the Ascendent in the
+nativity is favourably placed and fortunately aspected in the scheme
+of the decumbiture, and is neither combust nor retrograde, the patient
+will be strengthened and live, and _vice versâ_.
+
+These are the considerations that should weigh with a perfect
+physician; but the authority I am now quoting from lived seven
+centuries ago, and the world was very different then from what it is
+now. It would appear that in those remote and benighted times there
+actually were physicians who were not perfect, and to temper the
+difficulties of astrological practice to these weaker brethren, they
+were taught a method of procedure that is shorter and easier, but less
+accurate. It will have been noticed how prominent a place is assigned
+to the moon in the explanations that have been given, although in
+setting up the scheme no separate mention was made of her, but she was
+just lumped in together with the other Planets, which had presumably
+equal value, except in as far as their power was subdued or enhanced by
+their position. In the modified and abbreviated scheme that was drawn
+up for the guidance of the general practitioner, the whole burden lay
+upon the moon. It was recognised that a busy practitioner could not be
+expected to have the correct positions of the Planets always at his
+fingers’ ends; but he could scarcely be ignorant of the phase in which
+the moon was, of whether she was waxing or waning, or even of the Sign
+she occupied. Consequently, except to the very expert—to the dwellers
+in the Harley Street and Wimpole Street of that day—the moon alone was
+the guide to treatment and prognosis.
+
+I must now go back for a moment, and call your attention to certain
+_Facultates Naturales_ possessed by the human body, and governed by
+the Planets. These are the Retentrix, the Coctrix, the Expultrix, the
+Attractrix, the Vegatatrix and the Generatrix; and each has, of course,
+its corresponding complexion. Retention, for instance, is favoured by
+cold and drought, Digestion by heat and moisture, Expulsion by cold and
+moisture, and Attraction by heat and drought.
+
+It follows, of course, that retentive medicines, given to check fluxes
+of any kind, should be administered either when Luna is in a sign that
+is cold and dry, such as Taurus, Virgo or Capricorn, or when one of
+these signs is in the Ascendent; and at such times retentive drugs
+should be not only administered but prepared, for their virtues are
+not in themselves, but are part of the celestial virtue communicated
+from the celestial bodies, from which all virtues are derived. So that
+retentive medicines, such as sugar of roses, diaciton and diapapaver,
+should be prepared as well as administered when one of these cold
+and dry signs is in the Ascendent, or when the moon is in one of
+them. If, however, we wish to reinforce the expulsive faculty, as
+for instance in constipation or amenorrhœa, the medicament must be
+prepared and administered when Luna is in Cancer, Scorpio or Pisces,
+or when one of them is in the Ascendent; for these Signs are cold and
+moist. In this case we must be careful, however; for if a purgative
+is given when the motion of Luna is retrograde, the expulsion will be
+retrograde, and instead of purgation we shall cause vomiting; but if we
+are so incautious and ignorant as to give purgatives when the moon is
+retrograde in Leo, which has an aspect to the heart and blood, we shall
+produce vomiting of blood.
+
+Diseases of plethora are very dangerous when a man is taken sick upon
+a full moon, and diseases of wasting are most dangerous when he is
+taken sick upon a waning moon. Let me entreat you therefore to give
+physic for inanition when the moon is near the full, and for plethora
+when she has lost her light; and remember that a humour can scarcely be
+diminished but when the moon is waning, nor increased except when she
+is waxing.
+
+It is very bad when, in the beginning of a sickness, the moon is in a
+Sign of the nature of the peccant humour, as in the hot and dry Signs
+Aries, Leo or Sagittarius, when the peccant humour is choler; the cold
+and dry Signs Taurus, Capricorn or Virgo, when it is melancholy; the
+hot and moist Signs Gemini, Libra or Aquarius, when it is blood; or the
+cold and moist signs Cancer, Scorpio or Pisces, when it is phlegm.
+
+Naturally, when she is in a fiery Sign, it is easy to amend a disease
+of phlegm, but if choler abound, wait until she is in a watery Sign.
+
+We see, therefore, how very important it is to consider the aspect of
+the heavens before we begin our treatment; and though it is true that
+patients do sometimes recover under the care of ignorant physicians who
+take no account of these things, yet in such cases, says my authority,
+the patient recovers by accident, and not by the skill of the
+physician.
+
+An additional reason for studying the motion of the moon in illness is
+because this motion regulates the critical days. A crisis is defined as
+a swift and vehement motion of a disease, leading to recovery or death.
+Strictly speaking, those only are true crises which lead to recovery,
+but inaccuracy and corruption have crept into the meaning, until some
+authors enumerate six kinds of crisis, which I need not enumerate here;
+but all authorities are agreed, and their agreement seems to me to
+arise from everyone copying the words of his predecessor, that for a
+true and perfect crisis six conditions must be fulfilled.
+
+In the first place, the crisis must be complete, that is to say, the
+whole of the _materia peccans_ must be evacuated; for instance, all the
+bile in tertian fever, and all the phlegm in quotidian fever. If the
+whole of the _materia peccans_ is not evacuated, it is evident that the
+patient may relapse.
+
+The second condition is that none of the peccant material should
+remain. This is evidently quite as important as the first, that all of
+it should be evacuated.
+
+The third condition is that health must be completely regained, and
+there must be no terrible accidents or pernecabilibus, such as running
+of the eyes.
+
+The fourth condition is that the crisis must be manifest; that is to
+say, there must be a sensible evacuation of the _materia peccans_.
+
+The fifth condition is that the crisis must make indication, and as to
+the meaning of this, I have come, after long and careful study, to the
+conclusions on another subject arrived at by my authority, and piously
+expressed by him in the words, _Deus solus cognoscit, quia habet neque
+caput neque caudam_.
+
+The sixth condition is that the crisis must occur on a critical day.
+
+The critical days are governed entirely by the motion and positions
+of the moon. It is clear that there can be no crisis for good except
+_materiâ peccante coctâ_, and it is evident that the _materia peccans_
+cannot be digested in as short a time as two days; consequently the
+first and second days of a disease cannot be critical. The third day
+is intercadent, and the fourth is indicative, because, manifestly,
+whatever happens on the fourth day will happen with exaggerated
+force on the seventh. The fifth day again is intercadent, and of
+no significance, nor is the sixth of any. The seventh is the first
+critical day, for then the moon is in quartile to the decumbiture,
+and is necessarily in a Sign of opposite nature in all respects to
+that in which she was at the decumbiture. If she was in Aries at the
+decumbiture, she will be on the seventh day in Cancer. Now, Aries
+is hot and dry, Cancer cold and moist; Aries is masculine, Cancer
+feminine; Aries diurnal, Cancer nocturnal. The quartile aspect is
+thus thoroughly hostile, and whatever process Luna favours at the
+decumbiture she will oppose when she reaches the quartile. At the
+decumbiture she favoured the disease, for otherwise the disease would
+not have occurred; at the quartile, therefore, she opposes the disease,
+and makes for a favourable crisis.
+
+The eighth day is neutral, the ninth intercadent, the tenth neutral,
+and the eleventh indicative, for whatever happens on the eleventh
+will happen with exaggerated force on the fourteenth, which is the
+second and most critical day, for then the moon is in opposition to
+the decumbiture, and with all her might counteracts all that took
+place at the decumbiture. The next critical day is, of course, the
+twenty-first, when she is again in quartile, and finally, between the
+twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth she comes into conjunction. If the
+disease has not been ended by crisis on one of the three critical
+days, the reinforcement that it now receives from the conjunction of
+the moon converts the acute disease into a chronic, and henceforth it
+is governed no longer by the positions of the moon, but is regulated,
+according to the same laws, by the sun. The next crisis will not take
+place therefore for two months, when the sun will be in quartile to the
+decumbiture.
+
+Of course, the favourable or unfavourable character of the crisis
+will depend largely upon whether, on the critical day, the moon is
+favourably aspected by good Planets, or unfavourably influenced by bad
+ones.
+
+It will be seen that all of these influences and dates depend upon
+the moment of the decumbiture, which is described as the first punct
+of time of the invasion of the disease; and this, as Galen says, is
+very hard to find. It is easy, indeed, to find the decumbiture in the
+literal sense, that is to say, the time when the patient takes to his
+bed; but when the beginning of the sickness is, that, says Culpeper,
+is the question; ‘for a lusty stout man bears the disease longer
+before he takes to his bed than a puny sickly man: a meer suspition of
+sicknesse will send a faint-hearted man to bed; you may perswade him he
+is sick whether he is or no. Notwithstanding, in most acute diseases,
+as also in many others, as Falling Sickness, Palsies, Apoplexies, and
+Pleurisies, ’tis an easy thing to find the precise time of the invasion
+of a disease. The best opinion is that that moment of time is to be
+taken in which a man finds a manifest paine or hurt in his body; for
+instance, when a man hath got a Fever, usually the head akes certain
+dayes before; this is not the Fever, but a messenger or forerunner of
+the Fever; the true beginning is when a horrour or trembling invades
+the Sick.’
+
+Certain objections to these doctrines did not escape the notice of the
+astrologers who taught them. ‘If,’ says one, ‘the crisis depends on the
+motion of the moon and her aspect to the other Planets, what is the
+reason, if two men be taken ill at one and the same time, that yet the
+crisis of one falls out well, and not so the other?’ The reasons are
+manifold. The virtue working is changed according to the diversity of
+the virtue receiving; for you all know the sun makes the clay hard and
+the wax soft, it makes the cloth white and the face black; so then, if
+one be a child, whose nature is hot and moist, the other a man in the
+prime of life, whose nature is hot and dry, and the third an old man,
+whose nature is cold and dry, the crisis works diversely because their
+natures are different.
+
+Secondly, in the Spring time, diseases are most obnoxious to a child,
+because his nature is hot and moist. A disease works most violently
+with a choleric man in Summer, with a melancholy man in Autumn, and
+with a phlegmatic man in Winter.
+
+Thirdly, if at the decumbiture the moon was aspected by Mars, whose
+nature is hot and dry, if the disease be of heat and drought it is
+mightily aggravated: not so if it be cold.
+
+Fourthly, the complexions of the patients may be different; the one hot
+and dry, the other cold and moist. If the disease be hot and dry, it
+will not be so violent upon a cold and moist body as on a hot and dry.
+
+Fifthly, their nativities may not agree. If the moone be aspected by
+Saturne or Mars at the nativity, the disease is dangerous; not so
+if she be aspected by Jupiter or Venus; or Saturn may be Lord of one
+nativity and not of the other, and then he may hurt the one and not
+the other, for the Devil will not hurt his own. If you can possibly
+get the nativities, you shall not err. ‘For example, I know,’ says my
+authority, ‘three children born at one and the same time. At five years
+of age they all three had convulsion, whereby they were all three lame
+of one leg, the boyes on the right, and the girl on the left. At 14
+they dyed altogether on one and the same day of the small-pox.’
+
+To us, with our present knowledge, and requirements of evidence, and
+our ways of thought, all this appears such a farrago of tomfoolery
+that it is difficult to understand how it can have been seriously
+entertained by men of ordinary intelligence; and yet we know that it
+was in fact believed by the rarest intellects of their time, some of
+them, like Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus, among the rarest intellects
+of all time; and it is an interesting exercise to try and carry our
+minds back and put ourselves as far as we can in the position of our
+forefathers. We shall then find it easy to understand why the system
+was maintained, and not difficult to discover how it originated. The
+first is explained by the overwhelming power of authority, the last by
+the belief that was overthrown by Copernicus.
+
+In the first place, we must imagine ourselves living on an earth that
+is the centre of the universe, and that to the earth, and especially
+to its human inhabitants, the rest of the universe is subservient. The
+universe was created to serve a certain purpose, ‘the diapason closing
+full in man.’ That anything could exist for any other purpose than the
+service of mankind was not conceived, was probably not conceivable, by
+our forefathers. At a time almost within the memory of some now living,
+one of our leading philosophers declared that in the world there is
+nothing great but man. If he had expressed all that was in his mind,
+no doubt he would have said in the world there is nothing great but
+Scotchmen; but taking the declaration as he made it, it summarises
+effectively the attitude of our ancestors towards the cosmos. It was
+made for their benefit. To them there was no greater paradox than that
+
+        Full many a gem of purest ray serene
+          The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear,
+        Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
+          And waste (mark the word) its sweetness on the desert air.
+
+This being so, of what use are the heavenly bodies? The overpowering
+and incalculable value to man of the sun is evident enough. By its
+daily transit through the sky it makes the difference between the day,
+the time of man’s activity, and night, the time of his repose. By its
+annual transit through the Signs of the Zodiac it makes the differences
+among the seasons, and so regulates his food supply, whether animal or
+vegetable, his comfort, and his welfare in a thousand particulars. Here
+we have the root of the whole matter; but to understand it fully we
+must remember that the sun was but one of seven Planets, all resembling
+him in so many important respects that it was impossible not to
+attribute to them powers corresponding with his, if different from his.
+So that, if the sun had power over the affairs of men, so had the other
+Planets; if his power varied according to the Sign he occupied, so did
+theirs; if his power altered with his height above the horizon, so did
+theirs. In a world in which natural law was unknown, and everything
+seemed to happen by chance, the mind clutched at anything that offered
+an explanation of the ways in which things happen. Here was an
+explanation ready to hand, and needing only study and interpretation.
+
+The moon is evidently complementary to the sun. Her power is greatest
+when she is in opposition, and at this time she antagonises the sun
+by producing a colourable imitation of daylight at night, and thus
+interfering with his power of regulating light and darkness. This is
+naturally taken as an instance of a general law, that opposition means
+antagonism, a meaning that is now become fixed and general; and since
+opposition is but one of several differences of position, it follows
+that every such difference—trine, quartile and sextile—means some
+difference of influence. Again, the moon, as far as her power extends,
+antagonises the sun, and works against him. But the sun is manifestly
+and immensely beneficial to the human race, and is a benevolent power;
+consequently, the moon is malevolent and injurious. Both sun and moon
+are but samples and members of the family of Planets, and whatever
+characters they possess must be shared by the rest of the family.
+The other Planets, therefore, must be benevolent or malevolent in
+their degree, and must exercise their powers, as the sun and moon do,
+according to their position above the horizon, that is in the Houses of
+Heaven, or in the Signs of the Zodiac.
+
+As the sun undoubtedly by its position and movements produces the
+seasons, and as the moon has faculties and qualities of like kind,
+though inferior in power, it follows that she too regulates some
+natural phenomena of minor importance to the seasons. Such minor
+natural phenomena are displayed by the weather; and the belief that the
+moon regulates the weather is the one astrological doctrine that still
+displays vitality. The other Planets are irregular in their movements,
+being now rapid, now slow, now direct, now retrograde; clearly,
+therefore, their influence will be exerted upon those great natural
+events that are irregular and occasional in their incidence; and thus
+it is that Saturn produces intense frost, inundations and tempests;
+that Mars regulates thunder and lightning and the invasion of pirates;
+that Venus brings beneficial floods, rains, and mists; that under
+Mercury occur droughts and squalls, and so forth.
+
+All these catastrophes have their effects on the welfare and fortunes
+of men, and consonantly with the belief already stated, were
+conclusively presumed to take place for no other purpose than to
+affect, in one direction or other, the lives and fortunes of men. It
+would be strange if, after being credited with these powers for this
+purpose, the Planets were not further endowed with the power of causing
+those catastrophes, equally inexplicable otherwise, and still more
+affecting human welfare, plague, pestilence, and all other diseases.
+
+In order to produce diseases, the Planets must influence the humours
+by whose defect or excess diseases were produced; and since _entia
+non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem_, the Planets could
+not influence these humours except by themselves possessing and
+distributing the same elementary qualities, heat, cold, drought, and
+moisture, that characterise the humours. This doctrine was the easier
+to establish since it was already known that these four qualities
+pervade all things in nature. The very elements themselves, out of
+which all things are compounded, are but embodiments of the four
+elementary qualities in their four possible combinations. Fire is hot
+and dry, Air is hot and moist, Earth is cold and dry, Water is cold
+and moist. When it is remembered that the four humours are similarly
+compounded, yellow bile being hot and dry, blood hot and moist, black
+bile cold and dry, and phlegm cold and moist, it becomes evident, even
+if it were not already certain from the universal prevalence of these
+qualities, that corresponding pairs must be possessed by the several
+Planets to give them those powers over disease that they undoubtedly
+exercise. This useful method of the _circulus in probando_ is not the
+only device that our forefathers have bequeathed to us, and that still
+serves our purposes with all its original efficacy.
+
+When we have got thus far, the remaining doctrines of medical astrology
+follow naturally by the development and elaboration of those we already
+possess, aided by further analogies, more or less far-fetched, and by
+chance coincidences, such as that already mentioned which led Guy de
+Chauliac to attribute the great plague of 1345 to the conjunction of
+Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in Aquarius in March of that year.
+
+We should take a very superficial view of Astrology, however, if we
+failed to recognise that beneath all its strange doctrines, and under
+all its monstrous assumptions, lies the insatiable craving of the human
+mind for explanation. Every event that happens before us throws down an
+irresistible challenge to us to explain it. We are so constituted that
+we cannot rest until it is explained; but we are also so constituted
+that we are apt to accept as sufficient anything that purports to be
+an explanation, even if it rests upon no reasonable ground, or even
+if it is a mere verbal explanation that explains nothing. We have
+discarded Astrology as a garment that we have outgrown, even as the
+snake wriggles itself out of its skin, and the crab withdraws itself
+from a rigid envelope that is too small for it; but can we assure
+ourselves that we have outgrown and discarded the mental carapace that
+renders such beliefs as Astrology possible? Do not logicians still
+teach doctrines every bit as absurd as the doctrines of Astrology? And
+even in Medicine itself, do we never take that for an explanation that
+is no explanation? Before we can cast stones at the Astrologers, have
+we no windows of our own to guard? Let those answer who explain aphasia
+by calling it a loss of memory for words; who explain ataxy by calling
+it loss of the power of coordinating movements; who explain a delusion
+by discovering a lesion in the brain; who explain feeble mindedness
+by hereditary influence; who explain hysteria entertained in middle
+age by some sexual irregularity committed in youth; or who explain an
+hypothetical increase of appendicitis by an hypothetical increase in
+the consumption of meat. Surely we have every right to despise those
+who attributed all acute diseases to the influence of the moon, and all
+chronic diseases to the influence of the sun, for we know with assured
+knowledge that acute diseases are in fact produced by intestinal
+stasis, and that chronic diseases are due to that blessed combination
+of words—alimentary toxæmia.
+
+
+ASTROLOGY IN MEDICINE.
+
+_To the Editor of_ THE LANCET.
+
+    SIR,—I trust that with your well-known love
+    of fair play you will kindly permit me to make a few
+    remarks on this subject and to ask Dr Mercier a few
+    questions of public interest.
+
+    With all respect for the learned doctor, and with
+    due acknowledgment of his candid admission that
+    astrology was believed in and seriously studied
+    ‘by the rarest intellects of their time, some of
+    them, like Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus, the
+    rarest intellects of all time,’ I wish to ask: Does
+    Dr Mercier think that such rarest intellects were
+    incapable of distinguishing truth from error, and
+    could have accepted the superstitions associated in
+    their day with astrology? Surely not. They accepted
+    _astrologia sana_ as Bacon (Lord Verulam)
+    accepted it, as a part of physics and discarded
+    superstition. One might as reasonably proclaim
+    medicine nowadays to be ‘tomfoolery,’ on the ground
+    of the superstitions connected with it formerly, as
+    Dr Mercier condemns astrology and pronounces it as
+    ‘dead’—officially. Dr Mercier’s only argument against
+    astrology on scientific grounds is the worn-out and
+    utterly unfounded assertion that it was overthrown by
+    Copernicus!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+     Dr Mercier ridicules the belief of that eminent man
+     Guy de Chauliac that the outbreak of the ‘Black Death’
+     in the middle of the fourteenth century was due to
+     the great conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in
+     _Aquarius_ on March 24th, 1345. Neptune was also
+     in the same sign at that time—a planet unknown then.
+     Such a doryphory of great planets in _Aquarius_,
+     a sign which is found to relate to epidemic diseases,
+     certainly foreshadowed the outbreak of a pandemic;
+     and if Dr Mercier will compare the periods of great
+     conjunctions in Aquarius he will find that great
+     epidemics always coincided therewith. If Dr Mercier
+     had directed attention to the immense difference made
+     by the discovery of Uranus and Neptune, he would have
+     recognised that many mistakes of ancient and mediæval
+     astrologers were due to their being unaware of the
+     existence and relative positions of these distant
+     planets.
+
+     I hope Dr Mercier will forgive me for directing
+     attention to the above points. I am sure that he
+     meant to be as fair as possible in his delineation of
+     mediæval astrology; in fact, he proved this intention
+     by the last paragraph but one of his second lecture. I
+     should be happy to meet Dr Mercier in friendly debate
+     on this important subject before any learned society
+     or private assembly.
+
+                         I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
+                                ALFRED J. PEARCE.
+
+        _Dec. 3rd, 1913._
+
+    ⁂ Mr Pearce makes an appeal for publication which we
+    have not been able to resist, but the view that the operations
+    of nature are mysterious until they are understood cannot be
+    advanced as a complete defence of mysticism.—ED. L.
+
+
+_To the Editor of_ THE LANCET.
+
+    SIR,—Like yourself, I am unable to withstand
+    the appeal that Mr Pearce makes to me. He asks me
+    whether I think that Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus
+    were incapable of distinguishing truth from error. I
+    hasten to assure him that in my opinion these eminent
+    men were as incapable of making a mistake as I am
+    myself. The experience of mankind throughout the ages
+    shows that clever men never make mistakes. No clever
+    general has ever been defeated in battle; no clever
+    judge was ever upset on appeal; no clever counsel
+    ever lost a cause; no clever theologian ever held an
+    erroneous opinion, or at any rate an opinion that was
+    held to be erroneous by other clever theologians; no
+    clever doctor ever made a wrong diagnosis; no clever
+    schoolboy ever needs to have his exercises corrected;
+    in fact ability and infallibility mean the same thing.
+
+    Mr Pearce is certainly right in pouring contempt upon
+    my argument that Copernicus overthrew astrology; at
+    least, he would have been right if I had made the
+    statement, or if I had called it an argument.
+
+    I should be most happy to accept Mr Pearce’s challenge
+    to debate this important subject before a learned
+    society were it not that I am at present immersed in
+    a much more important investigation, which absorbs my
+    whole time and attention. That Saturn, Jupiter, and
+    Mars, in conjunction in Aquarius, must have produced
+    the Black Death in the following year is patent to
+    everyone and needs no demonstration, but it required
+    the insight of genius to discover that the burning of
+    York Minster was due to the superabundance of snails
+    in a certain back garden early in the same year. It is
+    the peculiar merit of the adept, be he an astrologer
+    or merely an haruspex, to recognise the significance
+    of such coincidences. It seems to have escaped
+    altogether the observation of the vulgar that this
+    year of grace 1913 has been characterised no less
+    by the superabundance of snails in back gardens
+    than by the number of conflagrations initiated by
+    suffragettes. The causal nexus needs no proof; but
+    if it did, proof would be found in the fact that
+    in Ireland, from which snails were banished by the
+    beneficent action of St Patrick, and where there are
+    no back gardens, the backs of the houses being in
+    front, there has been no suffragette incendiarism. I
+    will not pursue the subject further in this place, but
+    if Mr Pearce wants any further information he will
+    find it in my forthcoming book, ‘De Conflagrationibus
+    et de Multitudinibus Helicidarum in Hortulis Posticis.’
+
+                           I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
+                                   CHAS. MERCIER.
+
+       _Dec. 13th, 1913._
+
+
+
+
+SAINTS AND SIGNS
+
+
+(Part of a third Lecture, which was not delivered, but was read to the
+Casual Club, _Nov. 1912_)
+
+It used to be a point of honour with me, and I believe with other
+members of this Club, never to read up the subject of the evening’s
+discussion. So to do would be to deprive the discussions of that
+casual character which is their distinctive charm, and which gives
+its name to the Club. It is with regret that I have noticed of late
+years signs that this honourable understanding is not maintained, and
+therefore I have chosen for this paper a title which will have rendered
+impracticable any attempt to acquire information of its subject from
+outside sources. If any member present has been trying to steal a march
+upon the rest by looking up the literature of miraculous signs, adduced
+in evidence of the truths of Christianity by the heroes or the victims
+of canonisation, I have the pleasure of informing him that he has been
+wasting his time; and I may further inform those members who have
+made direct inquiries of me as to the scope of the subject indicated
+by my title, that my answers, while of course strictly truthful, were
+intended to mislead, and have, I trust, served their purpose.
+
+I have here a specimen of a metallic token, which, if any of you have
+never seen one, I shall be glad to hand round—I wish I had more, so
+that I might present one to each of you as a memento of this joyful
+occasion, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer seizes upon every
+specimen with such avidity that they are becoming more and more scarce
+and difficult to obtain—a metallic token which serves in this country
+as the standard of value, and is known as the sovereign or pound
+sterling. If you will let observation with extensive view survey it on
+both aspects, you will find that on the obverse or the reverse—I never
+know which is which—it bears the image, though not the superscription,
+of St George of Cappadocia, who has abandoned the more lucrative
+occupation of army contractor in order to follow the more honourable
+calling of patron saint.
+
+He is engaged, you will observe, in his customary avocation of slaying
+the dragon, an operation which he performs in a rather surprising
+manner. Chastely attired in a helmet much too large for him, the weight
+of which has dislocated his neck, and mounted on a pony many sizes
+too small for him, the saint is in the act of kicking the dragon in
+the neck with his bare foot, while the pony simultaneously kicks the
+animal on the head with his off fore, and treads on its abdomen with
+his near hind. The triple assault so confounds the dragon that instead
+of biting the leg of the saint or of the pony, both of which are within
+easy reach, he retaliates by swearing, which any intelligent dragon
+must know would avail little against a Welsh pony (unless indeed the
+dragon should swear in Welsh, of which there is no evidence) and would
+be quite ineffectual against a saint, especially a saint who had had as
+long an experience in the army as St George of Cappadocia.
+
+George of Cappadocia was a commercial man, and a very successful
+commercial man, and no doubt it is meet and right and our bounden duty
+to place upon the standard of value in this commercial country the
+effigy of a successful commercial man. But it is not on account of his
+success in commerce that the effigy of George appears on the fronts—or
+backs—of our coins. If we wanted to typify upon our coins the highest
+development of the commercial spirit, I suppose we should stamp them
+with the image of Lord Rothschild, or of Mr Rockefeller; but we do not.
+We stamp them with the image of St George of Cappadocia, not because
+he was a prosperous and successful commissary, but because, for some
+unknown reason, he subsequently became a saint. At some remote time,
+I do not know when or why, George was chosen as the patron saint of
+this country, and it is because he is the patron saint of England that
+his image appears on those useful tokens that are collected with such
+avidity by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr Rockefeller would not be
+eligible, because he is not a saint.
+
+Patron saints were in past times much more highly valued and much more
+frequently employed than they are now. France has, or had, a patron
+in St Louis. I speak without accurate knowledge, but I believe I am
+correct in saying that, in the common phrase, he has joined the ranks
+of the unemployed. Scotland placed itself under the patronage of St
+Andrew, Ireland of St Patrick, Wales of St David, Spain of St James;
+and if I cannot adduce any other examples, it is because these are the
+only nations—if we can allow that Scotland is a nation—that remain as
+they were before the modern redistribution of the map of Europe.
+
+But nations were not the only things that had patron saints. Every
+family that aspired to county rank, and indeed, every person who
+aspired to be of consequence, had his or her patron saint. Nor was this
+all, as they say in Oxford. Every profession and calling had its patron
+saint. The patron saint of medicine was St Luke. Who was the patron
+saint of lawyers I do not know, but no doubt they chose a very powerful
+one, for their need was great; or perhaps no saint would consent to act
+for them, for of all the Inns of Court it is curious that not one is
+named after a saint. As to other callings, the sailor-men had a patron
+saint in St Botolph, ferrymen in St Christopher, fishermen in St Peter,
+shoemakers in St Crispin, butchers in St Bartholomew, huntsmen in St
+Hubert and so on. I need not remind you that to this day every church
+has its patron saint, but you may not know that every part of the human
+body, and every ailment of the human body had its patron saint. The
+head was under the patronage of St Ottila; the neck acknowledged St
+Blasius; the body, St Lawrence; the legs and feet, St Rochus and St
+John; and thereby hangs a curious tale, as we shall see presently.
+
+Except for countries and churches, patron saints are not now much
+utilised; but it is evident, from their universal employment in
+former times, that they were once of great importance. At the present
+day, a patron is a merely ornamental personage. He gives his name,
+and he is usually expected to give a subscription, but beyond this,
+his only function is to confer respectability. In former times,
+however, his functions were much more active. Patron, I may remind
+you, is correlative with client, as father with child, or master with
+servant. A child necessarily implies a father, and without a father
+can no child be. A master implies a servant, and where there is a
+servant, there must be a master. And similarly, patron and client
+are correlative. There can be no patron without a client, and no
+client without a patron. For this reason, I object to and resent the
+custom that has recently arisen, of tradesmen calling their customers
+clients, especially as in the same breath they ask their customers
+for patronage. A master might as well ask his servant for orders, or
+a father expect a tip from his child, as a patron ask his client for
+patronage.
+
+The relation of patron and client was the relation of protector and
+protected. I don’t know whether those who placed themselves under the
+patronage of a saint called themselves his clients, but undoubtedly
+they invoked and expected his protection; and it was for the sake of
+protection that they provided themselves with patron saints. We must
+remember that in the days when men provided themselves with patron
+saints, no one could afford to be without protection. We have only to
+pay attention to the litany to realise how urgent was the need. The
+litany is one long prayer for protection. We pray to be protected from
+evil and mischief, from the crafts and assaults of the devil, from the
+wrath of God, from lightning and tempest, from plague, pestilence and
+famine, from battle and murder, and from sudden death. We pray for
+protection for all that travel by land or by water, for all prisoners
+and captives, for all sick persons (against their doctors I suppose),
+and for all sorts and conditions of men.
+
+In those days, the modern conception of the reign of law, in the sense
+of the inexorableness of natural causation, had not yet been attained.
+Things happened in those days, not in obedience to natural laws, but
+according to caprice, and to whether the devil got a chance when God
+was not attending, or when the saints, his ministers, were pre-occupied
+with other affairs. The Almighty was too august to be approached
+directly. Indeed, it seems to have been assumed that he occupied the
+position of a constitutional sovereign, and acted only on the advice or
+the intercession of his ministers, the saints, so that it was of the
+first importance to have the protection and favour of a powerful and
+influential saint.
+
+When clans or nations joined battle, their war-cry was the name of
+their patron saint, who was expected to fight on the side of his
+votaries or clients, to see that they had all the luck and came out top
+dog. Not infrequently, the saint came down on purpose, and in bodily
+presence led them to the attack. Many such instances are on record, and
+it is worth notice that, whoever the saint that thus interpreted his
+obligations, he was always mounted on a white horse.
+
+Although wars were very frequent in mediæval times, it would be a
+mistake to suppose, as historians before the present generation seemed
+to suppose, that the whole time of the whole male population of the
+world was occupied in fighting, and in nothing else. No doubt, in times
+when there were no newspapers, no novels, no theatres, no cricket, no
+football, no suffragists, no divorce court, no kinematographs and no
+parliamentary debates, people must have suffered terrible boredom, and
+would have been driven now and then to do a little wholesome fighting
+from sheer vacancy of mind; and no doubt, when there were no motor
+buses, no taxi-cabs and no municipal tram-cars, the normal increase of
+population must have required some other check to keep it within the
+bounds of the means of subsistence; and so people plunged into war to
+save themselves from famine; but still, the laity did not live wholly
+on acorns and beech-mast, nor the clergy on Greek roots, and therefore
+some industrial occupations must have been followed; and we know as a
+matter of fact that some were followed; and whatever a man’s occupation
+might be, whether of war or peace, it was necessary, if he was to have
+any luck, that he should have a patron saint; and hence it was that a
+patron saint presided over every trade and calling. Not even thieving
+could prosper except under the patronage of St Nicholas.
+
+My own occupation had not then reached the perfection that it has
+now attained, and in those days there were maladies that baffled the
+resources of medical art as it then was, and defied all the drugs
+in the pharmacopœia, reinforced as that then was by many potent and
+valuable remedies that the ignorance and indifference of a later age
+has suffered to fall into disuse. Pounded earthworms, ants’ eggs,
+asses’ dung, the urine of a bull or—strange alternative—of a virgin,
+vipers’ fat, the water that had been used for washing a corpse—all
+these, incredible as it appears, sometimes failed to cure; and then
+there was no resource left but to go to the celestial Harley Street,
+and consult a specialist saint. For the celestial Harley Street had
+as many saintly specialists as its mundane successor has now of
+specialists who are, perhaps, not altogether saintly. St Apollonius
+was the leading authority on toothache; St Avertin appropriated my
+own specialty of lunacy; St Benedict practised in stone and other
+diseases of the bladder; St Hubert specialised in hydrophobia; St John
+in epilepsy; St Vitus in chorea; St Maur in gout; and St Anthony in
+erysipelas. Of course, it was not to be expected that everyone should
+know the right saint to go to in any particular malady, any more than
+the man in the street knows at the present time precisely the best
+specialist, who is not a saint, to consult for the malady with which
+he may happen to be afflicted. It would have been as absurd to go for
+one’s gout to St Apollonius, the President, if one may so put it, of
+the celestial College of Dentists, as for the toothache to St Maur,
+whose specialty was gout. In cases of difficulty, it was necessary to
+consult a priest, as one now consults a general practitioner.
+
+Of course, in those days as in these, the fee had to be considered.
+Guineas had not then been coined, and payment was usually made in
+candles, burnt at the shrine of the saint, a mode of remuneration that,
+for my own part, I am glad to say has been abandoned. This method of
+payment was rather after that of the sister profession than of modern
+medicine. The saint had a number of candles marked on his brief, as it
+were, and unless the retainer was satisfactory, he refused to look
+at the papers. No doubt there were needy saints, not too scrupulous,
+who would undertake any case for a candle or two, whether they were
+qualified to treat it or not; just as now there are sixpenny doctors,
+and surgeons who will undertake a case of mental disease; but it is to
+be hoped that the leaders of the profession had more conscience, and
+that a saint who specialised on blindness, for instance, would no more
+undertake a dislocation or a fracture than a Chancery leader would
+undertake the defence of a prisoner at the Old Bailey, or a reputable
+surgeon would treat a patient suffering from mental disorder.
+
+So far, then, our mediæval ancestors were thoroughly well provided
+with patrons. There was scarcely any occasion in life that had not a
+saint who had specialised in its requirements and was ready to supply
+them for a consideration—for a sufficient number of candles. But it is
+evident that such a complete equipment of saints could not have been
+suddenly, nor even rapidly constituted. It must have been the growth of
+years and of generations; and moreover, we must remember that there was
+a time, at the beginning of the Christian era, when, though sins were
+very many, saints were very few, and until the large additions made
+to the noble army of martyrs in the reign of Diocletian, there could
+not possibly have been saints enough to go round; and if we go further
+back, and recede from the penumbra of early A.D. to the outer darkness
+of B.C., we enter a benighted world in which there were no saints at
+all. The prospect appals! We might almost as well contemplate a world
+in which there were no barristers. The question presents itself, and
+presses upon us with irresistible force—What did our unhappy ancestors
+do in a world in which there were no saints? It is clear that patrons
+or protectors of some kind they must have had, for in pre-Christian,
+no more than in mediæval times, was there any conviction or knowledge
+of the operation of natural laws. How do we know this? We have it on
+unexceptionable authority. A contemporary writer, who is generally
+believed to have been inspired, asserts ‘He hath not dealt so with
+any nation, neither have the heathen any knowledge of his laws.’
+Consequently, there was the same lack of any rule or governance in
+the happening of events. Everything went by chance, according as the
+devil or the saints were paying attention, or got the upper hand at the
+moment. But there were no saints. Hence it would appear that the devil
+must have had it all his own way, and that the affairs of men must have
+been uniformly and invariably unfortunate. But they were not, for man
+survived. He not only survived, but he prospered and flourished. He
+increased and multiplied exceedingly. Men organised themselves into
+great nations, built great cities, and were subject to mighty kings.
+Egypt, Nineveh, Babylon, Assyria, Persia, the Empire of India and
+the greater Empire of China, all attest that, long before there were
+saints to interest themselves in him, man succeeded, somehow or other,
+in antagonising the devil and getting the better of him. It is of the
+utmost interest and importance to discover how he did this, and what
+were the means that he employed; and this brings me to the middle of my
+song, and the second part of my paper. I am now done with Saints. It
+is clear that they were not as indispensable as they made themselves
+out; and—I say it with reluctance, but—I have grave doubts whether they
+did not lay claim, if not to powers they did not possess, at any rate
+to the exclusive possession of powers by no means peculiar to them. We
+know, indeed, that on one historical occasion, St Dunstan did seize
+the devil by the nose with a pair of tongs; and we are told, on less
+unimpeachable authority, but we are told, that St Nicholas kicked him
+on a place which is described as being near the spot where the tail
+joins on to the small of the back; but with these exceptions, though
+he was constantly outwitted, and indeed he appears to be a kind of
+Simple Simon, easily gulled by the most transparent device, and no more
+astute than the victims of the confidence trick—with these exceptions,
+I say, there are few, if any, records of personal encounters with the
+devil till we come down to Martin Luther; and Martin Luther was not a
+saint. He was never, I understand, canonised, and I am informed on good
+authority, in reply to inquiry made in the highest quarters, that any
+application to Rome for his canonisation would have little or no chance
+of success.
+
+Still, whatever unaccountable prejudices may exist at Rome against the
+canonisation of this great and good man, I cannot see that we are any
+nearer a solution of the most important, and indeed vital question,
+What did men do for patrons before they had saints to fly to? This,
+gentlemen, is the great and epoch-making discovery that I have to
+announce to you on this memorable evening. This is the brilliant result
+of years of laborious research. This is the golden fruit of a lifetime
+of very insufficiently rewarded toil. Why should I repine that the
+paltry metal counters that I exhibited at the beginning of this address
+are so scarce and rare, when I have garnered so abundantly rewards so
+much more precious? What did men do for patronage and protection before
+they had saints to place themselves under? Why, this was what they did.
+Not to keep you in suspense any longer, I will at once reveal that they
+sought the protection of the Signs of the Zodiac and of the Planets;
+and as far as it is possible to judge, the protection they obtained
+therefrom was as ample, as efficient, and as abundant, as that of all
+the saints in the calendar.
+
+Many centuries before a single saint had been canonised, the system
+of patronage by the heavenly bodies was completely organised—was, if
+I may so put it, in full swing; and all the Christian hagiology did
+was to adopt this system, ousting the heavenly bodies, and filling
+their places with saints. Long before St Louis, or St Andrew, or
+that successful commissary St George, was born or thought of, every
+nation and city of antiquity had its patron Sign. Every calling had
+its own patron Sign or Planet; every part of the body its patron Sign
+or Planet: and every illness had a double process of cure, being
+remediable not only by certain drugs, but according to the position
+and movement of the Planets among the Signs when the drugs were
+collected and when they were administered. The series of saints and
+the series of Signs present a complete parallel, and it is evident
+that in this as in other things Christianity took advantage of a
+pre-existing organisation and adapted it to its own uses. It took
+the institution of patronage by celestial personages, as it took the
+institution of periodical festivals; emptied them of their previous
+contents, and filled them with Christian matter, leaving the pagan form
+unaltered. Thus it took the great annual winter festival, and altered
+it arbitrarily to Christmas day, pretending that it is the anniversary
+of the birth of Christ, for which there is not one tittle of evidence;
+but it could not, or did not, alter the minor weekly festival which
+still has its name from the greatest of the Planets. In these cases the
+supersession was either complete or none at all, but in other matters,
+and especially in the matter of patronage and protection, the struggle
+was very prolonged, and for ages the two systems of patronage existed
+side by side; and alongside the priests, who were experts in advising
+as to the appropriate saint to invoke, were the astrologers, experts in
+advising the proper conjunction or disposition of the heavenly bodies
+to wait for before beginning any undertaking or altering any course
+of action, and also for the purpose of determining whether a course
+of action was or was not judicious, and calculated to be successful.
+Between the two sets of practitioners there was a natural jealousy.
+The Church forbad recourse being had to the aid of Astrology, and
+threatened excommunication to anyone who consulted the rival expert,
+just as at present the orthodox physician boycotts the homœopath. On
+the other hand the astrologer, who was often an infidel, often a Jew or
+an Arab, despised and ridiculed the pretensions of the saints. Whatever
+faith, or want of faith, either sect had in its own ministrations,
+neither was without an uneasy feeling that the other might, after all,
+have something in it. The astrologers were not above invoking the aid
+of the saints in their own personal difficulties, and the very Popes
+who issued bulls fulminating against Astrology and its practitioners,
+yet kept their own private astrologers, whom they consulted on the
+sly. In spite of their mutual antagonism, however, the two systems
+existed side by side for many centuries, and neither can boast of a
+complete triumph over the other. Astrology is dead, it is true, but in
+Protestant countries the invocation of saints perished long before its
+rival, and the influence of the heavenly bodies was consulted by very
+many who would have scorned to invoke a saint.
+
+Very many days in the year had their patron saints, and those who are
+familiar with old chronicles know that the date of an event was never
+signalised by the day of the month, but always by the saint’s day
+that it fell upon, or, in the few cases in which the day had not been
+appropriated by some saint or other, the date was signalised as being
+on the eve of the day following, which was sure to have its patron
+saint, or the morrow of the previous day. Correspondingly, every day of
+the week had its patron Planet. The number seven was chosen for the
+days of the week, no doubt because in seven days the moon completes
+a quarter, and in 28 days completes its revolution. By a curious
+coincidence, the number of Planets known to the ancient world was also
+seven, and hence it was natural that to every Planet should be assigned
+one day in the week. By an easy transition, made at a time that I have
+not been able to identify, but that was certainly very early, the
+powers of the Planets and those of the gods became transferable, and
+with the powers the names, so that only three of the seven days of the
+week, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, are known by the names of Planets,
+the remaining four being called after the corresponding gods.
+
+As with days, so with other things. We have seen that to some saint or
+other every part of the body was apportioned; and similarly the body
+was carved up and portioned out among the Signs of the Zodiac, as we
+find in the chapter of Arnaldus de Villanova, _De quolibet signo quod
+membrum in corpore respicit_, and as is set forth in the first lecture
+in this book, so that it is clear that the heathen had as good a choice
+of celestial specialists as ever the Christians had.
+
+Time fails me to carry out the parallel in further detail, but just as
+the patron Sign of England is St George, and the effigy of St George
+appears upon our coins, so the patron Sign of Syria was Aries, and
+the effigy of the Ram appears on Syrian coins. Similarly, Palmyra was
+under the patronage of Libra, and on the coins of Palmyra appears the
+Balance. Similarly, individuals had their patron Signs before ever they
+had their patron saints. The patron Sign of Augustus was Capricorn,
+of Pythodeia Queen of Pontus, the Balance. The custom continued well
+into mediæval times and into Christian countries, and King Stephen of
+England adopted and placed on his coins the patron Sign of Sagittarius.
+
+CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78150 ***
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78150 ***</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<h1>ASTROLOGY IN MEDICINE</h1>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <img src="images/logo.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="67" >
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">MACMILLAN AND CO., <span class="smcap">Limited</span><br>
+<span class="fs_80">LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA<br>MELBOURNE</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br>
+<span class="fs_80">NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO<br>
+DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span><br>
+<span class="fs_80">TORONTO</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="f150">ASTROLOGY IN MEDICINE</p>
+
+<p class="f110">THE FITZPATRICK LECTURES</p>
+<p class="f80">DELIVERED BEFORE<br>THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS<br>
+ON<br>NOVEMBER 6 AND 11, 1913<br>WITH ADDENDUM ON</p>
+
+<p class="f120 spb2">SAINTS AND SIGNS</p>
+
+<p class="f120"><span class="fs_80">BY</span><br>CHARLES ARTHUR MERCIER, M.D.<br>
+<span class="fs_80">FELLOW OF THE COLLEGE</span></p>
+
+<p class="center spa2">MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED<br>
+ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON<br>1914</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>COPYRIGHT</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">Cambridge:<br>PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.<br>
+AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS</p>
+
+<p class="center">TO<br>SIR THOMAS BARLOW, <span class="smcap">Bart.</span>,
+K.C.V.O.<br>PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS<br> OF LONDON</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="f150"><b>CONTENTS</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<table class="spb1 smcap fs_120">
+   <tbody><tr>
+      <td class="tdl" >&nbsp;</td>
+      <td class="tdr">page</td>
+   </tr><tr>
+      <td class="tdl">Lecture I</td>
+      <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">&nbsp;1</a></td>
+   </tr><tr>
+      <td class="tdl">Lecture II</td>
+      <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_39">39</a></td>
+   </tr><tr>
+      <td class="tdl">Saints and Signs<span class="ws3">&nbsp;</span></td>
+      <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_80">80</a></td>
+   </tr>
+ </tbody>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p>
+ <h2 class="nobreak">LECTURE I</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>The position of Astrology among the Sciences is quite unique. Its
+origin is so remote as to antecede all written records: it has formed
+an important part of the life of every nation that has advanced beyond
+barbarism: it has been studied with enthusiasm not only by every
+European nation, but also by the Egyptians, the natives of India,
+the Chinese, the Arabs, the Jews, and by the Babylonians and the
+Chaldeans. It was studied in one long unbroken effort for thousands
+of years, and engaged the most strenuous endeavours of some of the
+greatest intellects in every age. Albertus Magnus was a convinced
+astrologer, and even Roger Bacon, that very great man, projected a
+universal medicine founded upon Astrology. A knowledge of Astrology was
+a necessary part of the equipment of all educated men; and Astrological
+terms form to this day an integral part of every European language. We
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span>
+still <i>consider</i>; we still find persons and things <i>in
+opposition</i>; we still suffer <i>disaster</i>; we still find some
+things <i>exorbitant</i>; and others in the <i>ascendent</i>; some
+persons are still fortunate enough to be born <i>under a lucky
+star</i>; we still deal in <i>merchandise</i>; with <i>merchants</i>;
+we are all familiar with the <i>martial</i> cloak of Sir J. Moore;
+we still describe dispositions and persons as <i>Saturnine</i>,
+<i>Jovial</i>, <i>Martial</i> or <i>Mercurial</i>; we still retain the
+names of <i>Saturday</i>, <i>Sunday</i> and <i>Monday</i>; in Medicine
+we retain the terms <i>Lunatic</i> and <i>Venereal disease</i>, and in
+the latter we still prescribe <i>Mercury</i>; and we still begin our
+prescriptions with the sign of <i>Jupiter</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Yet these are the only remaining remnants of a science and an art
+that were once of paramount importance; and even medical men are
+ignorant of the very terminology of a science and an art that have
+been declared, by authority after authority, to be so necessary to the
+proper practice of medicine, that without them medicine could not be
+efficiently practised, and no medical practitioner was fully equipped
+for his task. Astrology is now utterly extinct. It began to decay at
+the renaissance; it languished in the seventeenth century; the last man
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span>
+of high distinction who practised it in this country was John
+Dryden&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_1_1" href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>;
+but though Peter Woulfe, a F.R.S., maintained the truth of
+Astrology at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it had really
+expired when it received its deathblow from the biting humour of
+Jonathan Swift. Yet when Walter Scott, less than a century afterwards,
+introduced into one of his novels the terms of the art, there was no
+one then living, nor has there been since any commentator of sufficient
+knowledge, to expose the blunders that he made.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span>
+To such a record there is no parallel in the history of human
+endeavour. There are indeed two subjects of study that afford an
+approximation, but an approximation only, to the history of Astrology.
+The first of these is Alchemy, which really included what we now call
+Chemistry, and is therefore very far from extinct. Alchemy is usually,
+however, understood to mean solely, what it did in fact include as its
+principal objects, the search for the philosopher’s stone, and the
+search for the elixir of life. The philosopher’s stone was desired, not
+as an end in itself, but as a means to the transmutation of metals,
+which were not then known to be elements. I need not remind this
+audience that this endeavour, which has been the object for the finger
+of scorn for so many years, is now almost within sight of success.
+Certain elements are now transmuted, or transmute themselves; and one
+at least of the metals known to the ancient Alchemists is now made
+in the laboratory. Nor need I remind you that one eminent physician
+discovered, a few years ago, the elixir of life in orchidian extract;
+while another has still more recently made the surprising discovery
+that the elixir of life is neither more nor less than sour milk. He
+was more fortunate than a predecessor, who first isolated alcohol, and
+having drunk freely of the newly discovered elixir of life, died, by
+the irony of fate, of acute alcoholic poisoning.</p>
+
+<p>A nearer parallel to the fate of Astrology is to be found in that of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span>
+Aristotelian Logic; but the parallel is still not quite complete. It
+is true that Logic was once cultivated with the same universality and
+the same fervour as Astrology; that it was aforetime, like Astrology,
+a necessary part of the equipment of every man who pretended to be
+educated; and that it is now fallen into neglect and contempt that
+are well-nigh as universal as its former cultivation; but, unlike
+Astrology, Logic is not yet quite extinct. It is dying, indeed: it
+is in the very agony of death; but it still breathes. The lamp of
+Astrology is utterly gone out, but the expiring flame of Logic still
+flickers precariously in some of the dark places of the earth. We might
+still find, by diligent search, professors who know the meaning of
+Barbara and Celarent, of Bocardo and Baralipton, and can even subject
+them to the orthodox manipulations of logical art; but who now knows
+the meaning of a triplicity or a horoscope? or could cast a geniture,
+or rectify a nativity? Logic is moribund, it is true, but Astrology
+is already dead. It has been dead so long that it no longer stinks;
+perhaps because it is embalmed in the writings of so many men that
+were eminent in their day. We have even forgotten how conspicuous and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span>
+important a position it occupied among the sciences, the arts, and
+the crafts of our forefathers; and it is because the long sleep
+of medicine, its stagnation and want of progress through so many
+centuries, was due in no small degree to the shackles of Astrology,
+and of the humoral pathology, which Astrology countenanced and
+corroborated, that I think it seemly and proper to bring before this
+College the elementary principles of Astrology, and the ways in which
+they were applied to medicine.</p>
+
+<p>Astrology had a known history of nearly six thousand years. Its
+beginning seems to have been in Chaldea about 4000 <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>: it
+was diffused throughout all nations and peoples that had any pretence
+to civilisation; and it engaged, throughout that immense time and that
+enormous area, the attention of innumerable votaries, among whom were
+some of the greatest intellects that have adorned the human race. It
+had consequently attained to a degree of elaboration and complexity
+which renders it difficult to give, within any reasonable compass,
+a clear account of its voluminous details, expressed as they are in
+highly technical terminology, and conveyed in Latin so canine and so
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span>
+extraordinarily abbreviated as to be obscure, often to the point of
+unintelligibility. In preparing the account that I shall give, I have
+had the advantage of appealing on different points, to a Latin scholar
+of rare attainments, to a Professor of Astronomy, and to a Professor of
+Ancient History, and I rejoice to say that one and all have been unable
+to solve some of the problems that had puzzled myself. Where such solar
+luminaries have failed to illuminate, it is no disgrace to my farthing
+candle if it gives no light.</p>
+
+<p>The main factors in Astrology are three:—the Signs of the Zodiac, the
+Seven Planets, and the Houses of Heaven&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_2_2" href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>.</p>
+
+<p>In Medical Astrology there is yet another factor, which is equally
+important, and without which Medical Astrology cannot be understood.
+This factor consists of the four Elementary Qualities, Heat, Cold,
+Dryness and Moisture; which correspond with the four elements, Fire,
+Earth, Air and Water; with the four humours, Yellow Bile, Black Bile,
+Blood and Phlegm; and with many other things.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span></p>
+
+<p>Since there are twelve Signs of the Zodiac, Seven Planets, and twelve
+Houses of Heaven, it will be easily seen that the merely numerical
+combinations of any one of these with the others are indefinitely
+multitudinous; and when it is known that each may be combined with
+the others in many different ways, the complications become too great
+for the human intellect to follow; and since many of the combinations
+depend on considerations that are both vague and arbitrary, it is not
+surprising that scarcely any two Astrologers should combine them in the
+same way, or draw the same conclusions from the same disposition of the
+heavens.</p>
+
+<p>Every Sign of the Zodiac, every Planet, and every House has certain
+special powers and influence, not only over mankind generally, but
+specially over individual men and women, according to the moment
+of their birth, according to their complexion, disposition and
+temperament, according to the place in which they live, and so forth;
+and in addition, every Sign, Planet, and House has special powers at
+certain times of life, and every Sign and Planet has its own elementary
+qualities, as hot and dry, cold and moist, and so forth, and has special
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>power over some part of the body and some faculty of mind. Moreover,
+these powers, both general and special, are reinforced or diminished
+in so many ways that the memory can scarcely retain them; and since
+neither the reinforcement nor the diminution is susceptible of any
+exact computation, the result, even if all were to be allowed their
+proper weight, must always be dubious.</p>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Signs of the Zodiac.</span></h3>
+
+<p>These, of course, are twelve in number. In Astronomy they are disposed
+in the order in which the sun successively occupies them, Aries,
+Taurus and Gemini being the Signs of Spring; Cancer, Leo and Virgo
+those of Summer; Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius those of Autumn; and
+Capricornus, Aquarius and Pisces the Signs of Winter. In Astrology,
+however, they are differently arranged, according to their several
+qualities or properties. They are still in groups of three, but each
+group forms, not a season of the year, but a Triplicity, thus:</p>
+
+<p>Aries, the first month of Spring, Leo, the second month of Summer, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span>
+Sagittarius, the third month of Autumn, form the first Triplicity;
+every sign in which is hot and dry, regulates the Bilis flava, is
+masculine, diurnal, and is influential in youth. Its Lord is Sol by day
+and Jupiter by night.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <img src="images/fig_1.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="487" >
+    <p class="f120 spb2"><b>Fig. 1.</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The second Triplicity consists of Taurus, the second Sign of Spring,
+Virgo, the third Sign of Summer, and Capricornus, the first of Winter.
+These Signs are cold and dry; their corresponding humour is Bilis atra;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span>
+they are feminine, nocturnal, and preside over decrepitude. Their Lords
+are Venus by day and Luna by night.</p>
+
+<p>The third Triplicity is composed of Gemini, Libra and Aquarius; the
+third of Spring, the first of Autumn, and the second of Winter. These
+are hot and moist in complexion, their humour is Sanguis, they are
+masculine and diurnal; they preside over our childhood, and their Lords
+are Saturn by day and Mercury by night.</p>
+
+<p>The Signs of the fourth Triplicity are Cancer, the first of Summer,
+Scorpio, the second of Autumn, and Pisces, the third of Winter. They
+are cold and moist; their humour is Pituita; they are feminine and
+nocturnal; they regulate the middle period of life; and their Lords are
+Venus by day and Mars by night.</p>
+
+<p>It is also important to know that some signs are mobile, such are
+Cancer, Libra, Capricornus and Pisces; others are stable, and such are
+Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius; while a third group is mediocre with
+respect to mobility, as Aries, Gemini, Virgo and Sagittarius.</p>
+
+<p>A masculine Sign is so called because a child conceived under the
+influence of that Sign will be a male; and children conceived under
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>
+feminine Signs are female. (Yet it is a fixed rule that all children
+are born under Aries, just as by the common law, all children born at
+sea are parishioners in Stepney.)</p>
+
+<p>A Sign is diurnal or nocturnal according as its power is greater by day
+or by night.</p>
+
+<p>In addition, every Sign has an aspect towards some particular part of
+the human body.</p>
+
+<p>Aries is the principal and most important sign of all. In whatever
+scheme the Signs are reckoned, Aries comes first: consequently its
+aspect is to the head. Taurus relates to the neck and shoulders,
+because a bull is in these parts very robust. Gemini relates to the
+arms and hands, because the twins are represented as embracing, and
+the quality of embracing is in the arms and hands. Cancer pertains to
+the chest and the adjacent parts, because a crab is very robust in the
+chest and thereabouts. Leo pertains to the heart and the mouth of the
+stomach, because the whole virtue of a lion is in his courage. Virgo
+relates to the intestines, the base of the stomach and umbilicus,
+because the virtue of a virgin resides therein. Libra relates to the
+kidneys, because they lie equally balanced, one on each side of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>
+spine. Scorpio refers to the genitals, because the whole virtue of the
+scorpion is in his tail, and these are the caudalia of man. The aspect
+of Sagittarius is to the hips, of Capricornus to the knees, of Aquarius
+to the legs, and of Pisces to the feet, these being the parts of the
+body, as those are the Signs, that come next in order.</p>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Planets.</span></h3>
+
+<p>It is scarcely necessary to remind this audience that in the time when
+Astrology came into being, the earth was the centre of the universe,
+and the Planets were seven in number, Uranus and Neptune being then as
+unknown as Pallas and Ceres, while the sun and moon differed from the
+other wandering stars only in their greater size and lustre, and in the
+greater regularity of their movements.</p>
+
+<p>There was a certain conventional order, the origin of which cannot now
+be traced, in which the Planets were always enumerated; an order that
+does not correspond with their relative size and importance, for then
+the Sun would come first. It is Saturn, however, that takes precedence,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span>
+and is followed by Jupiter, Mars, Sol, Venus, Mercury and Luna, in the
+order in which I have named them.</p>
+
+<p>The range of influence of the Planets over matters terrestrial was
+plenary. On the whole, the term influence best conveys the meaning of
+the Astrological term ‘aspect,’ which is more than ‘corresponds with,’
+a term that is sometimes substituted for ‘aspect.’ Though as to some
+things which they aspected, or with which they corresponded, such as
+the Zodiacal signs and the four elements, the Planets were neither
+productive nor regulative, yet with respect to most things, they were
+at least regulative, and as to many were actually originating. For
+instance, Guy de Chauliac, called by Fallopius the father of Surgery,
+as Hippocrates is the father of Medicine, attributed the great plague
+of 1345 to the conjunction of the three planets, Saturn, Jupiter and
+Mars, in Aquarius on March 24th of that year.</p>
+
+<p>Torella, physician to Caesar Borgia and Pope Alexander VI, attributed
+syphilis to a peculiar conjunction of the Planets. So does Basil
+Valentinus, and so does Petrus Maynardus, who was able, moreover, to
+predict that it would come to an end in 1584. The College of Physicians
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span>
+of Paris attributed the Black Death of 1349 to a vapour or fog
+generated by the struggle between the constellations, which combated
+the rays of the sun and the warmth of the heavenly fire, struggling
+violently with the waters of the great sea. ‘This vapour,’ they said,
+‘will continue to spread as long as the sun is in Leo.... We are of
+opinion that the constellations with the aid of nature strive by virtue
+of their divine might to protect and heal the human race.’</p>
+
+<p>Taken together, the Planets had jurisdiction over everything, but not
+indiscriminately. Each Planet had its own peculiar jurisdiction over
+some things, while other Planets divided between them the jurisdiction
+over other things of that kind. Like the Signs of the Zodiac, each of
+the Planets had a jurisdiction over some part of the human body, but
+this was only a small region of its sway. Every Planet aspected its own
+element, and its own complexion, or pair of elementary qualities, so
+that Saturn, for instance, was cold and dry, Jupiter hot and moist, and
+so forth. Each Planet had its own colour, odour and taste; each its own
+groups of animals and plants; each its own metal, and we still speak of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>
+Saturnine poisoning, of crocus Martis, and of the metal Mercury; each
+has its own plants, its own day of the week and hour of the day; and
+what is more germane to the present purpose, every Planet had its
+corresponding humour, part of the body, sense, faculty, part of the
+mind, bodily configuration and mental temperament, its time of life,
+and its peculiar diseases and mode of death.</p>
+
+<p>One or two instances will be enough to exemplify the way in which
+sublunary affairs are apportioned among the Planets. Take for instance
+animals: of these, Saturn has jurisdiction over the camel, the bear,
+the ass, the cat, the owl, the bat, the tortoise, the mouse, the
+beetle; and generally, over beasts of evil omen or of slow movement.
+The aspect of Jupiter is to the wise, the swift, and the strong: to the
+elephant, the stag and the bull. Mars aspects the horse, the wolf, the
+bee, the dog, the ostrich, venomous snakes, scorpions and spiders; all
+either fighters or noxious to human beings. Sol presides over regal
+and dominant animals, the lion, the eagle and the cock. Venus has
+jurisdiction over the goat, the sheep, the pheasant, the partridge, the
+pigeon, the dove and the sparrow; all amatory, and either polygamous or
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>
+otherwise prolific. The aspect of Mercury is to the fox, the ape, the
+serpent, the parrot, the spider, the bee and the ant, and generally, to
+animals that are reputed wise or cunning. Luna influences the hare, the
+swan, the nightingale, the frog, fish, landsnails, crabs and shellfish,
+and generally, animals that are nocturnal or aquatic.</p>
+
+<p>Of plants, Saturn has jurisdiction over the oak, the mespilus, the
+rue, the hellebore, and generally over those of slow growth, of
+narcotic virtue, and of crass substance. Jupiter over the laurel, the
+sandal-wood, the cinnamon, the balsam and the incense tree. Mars over
+pepper, ginger, mustard, jalap, scammony, colocynth, euphorbium, and
+generally over all bitter plants and hot poisons. Sol aspects the palm,
+rosemary, heliotrope, crocus, and all aromatics. Venus the olive, the
+pine, the lily, the rose and the pea; Mercury the corylus and the
+millefoil; and Luna the cucumber, the gourd, pepin fruits, <i>i.e.</i>
+apples and pears, and lettuce.</p>
+
+<p>The minerals of Saturn are lead and all black stones; of Jupiter, tin,
+the sapphire, and the amethyst; of Mars, iron, jasper, and magnesia;
+of Sol, gold, carbuncles, and crysolite; of Venus, copper, smaragdus,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span>
+turquoise, and coral; of Mercury, quicksilver, chalcedony, and
+cornelian; and of Luna, silver, crystals, beryl, and the diamond.</p>
+
+<p>I defer to the next lecture the consideration of those planetary
+aspects that have a special bearing upon medicine, but this is perhaps
+the proper place to make the very important distinction between the
+benevolent, propitious, or fortunate Planets and those that are
+malevolent, unpropitious, or unlucky. The fortunate, or benevolent,
+or propitious Planets are Jupiter, Sol, and Venus, of which the first
+and last are lucky in the highest degree. Saturn, Mars, and Luna are
+malevolent, unpropitious, and unlucky. Mercury is variable in this
+respect. He has scarcely any character of his own, but he reinforces
+the benevolence or the malevolence, as the case may be, of whatever
+Planet may be in conjunction with him, or may be favourably aspected by
+him.</p>
+
+<p>It is evident, if these premises are granted, that the course and
+termination of every malady in every sick person depend on the relative
+power, with respect to other Planets, of the particular Planet or
+Planets that have jurisdiction in the matter. They will depend, in the
+first place, on the Planet that has jurisdiction over the temperament,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>
+as Saturn if he is saturnine, Jupiter if he is jovial, Mars if he
+is martial, and so forth. They will depend also on the Planet that
+presides over the humour that is peccant, as yellow bile, black bile,
+blood or phlegm. They will depend on the Planet that governs the part
+of the body that is diseased; on that which governs the disease; on
+that which has jurisdiction at the time of life at which the sick
+person is arrived; on that which presided over his nativity, and so
+forth. Here are at least six circumstances to be taken into account,
+and of course, the Planet that governs one of these circumstances
+may not be the same, and in fact must be different from those which
+govern others. So that seven Planets may all be influencing the disease
+and the sick person at once, and may all be pulling in different
+directions, some towards health and some towards death, some towards
+acuteness and some towards chronicity of the disease. It is evident,
+therefore, that his fate must depend on the relative powers of the
+propitious and unpropitious Planets, and that it is of the utmost
+importance to determine the factors on which the powers of the Planets
+depend, and to estimate their strength in any particular case.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span></p>
+
+<p>This is by no means easy, for the factors are very numerous. It will be
+enough to obtain an approximate estimate, however, if we confine our
+consideration to the ten in the following enumeration.</p>
+
+<p>The power of a Planet at any given moment depends on:</p>
+
+<ul class="index">
+<li class="isub2">1. The Sign of the Zodiac in which it is situated at that moment.</li>
+<li class="isub2">2. The Sign of which the Planet is Lord.</li>
+<li class="isub2">3. The Sign in which the Planet rejoices.</li>
+<li class="isub2">4. The Signs in which the Planet ascends or descends.</li>
+<li class="isub2">5. The House in which the Planet is situated.</li>
+<li class="isub2">6. The House in which the Planet rejoices.</li>
+<li class="isub2">7. The position or aspect of the Planet towards other Planets.</li>
+<li class="isub2">8. The aspect of the Planet to the Ascendent.</li>
+<li class="isub2">9. The motion of the Planet, as fast or slow, direct or retrograde.</li>
+<li class="isub1">&nbsp; 10. The day and hour.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>In this estimation of the powers of the Planets, much depends on the
+Houses of Heaven, and these must be described before we can proceed.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span></p>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">The Houses of Heaven.</span></h3>
+
+<p>We all recognise that, while the stars have an apparent motion from
+the eastern horizon up to the vertical meridian, and down again to
+the western horizon, yet the horizons and the vertical meridian keep
+their places with respect to us, and do not move. The eastern horizon
+and the vertical meridian enclose between them a fourth part of the
+heavens, whose content is continually changing, as the stars rise above
+the eastern horizon and reach and pass the meridian. Similarly, from
+the meridian to the western horizon is another fourth part; and the
+two remaining fourths are beneath the horizon, and are divided from
+one another by the inferior vertical meridian, all these fourth parts
+remaining stationary, while the stars occupy them each in turn in
+the daily revolution of the heavens. Now imagine each of these fixed
+quarters of heaven to be divided by three equidistant meridians: the
+heavens will then be divided into twelve parts, six above the horizon
+and six below, whose starry contents are continually changing. These
+twelve divisions are the twelve Houses of Heaven.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span></p>
+
+<p>That is to say, they are so if the meridians which divide them meet
+at the north and south poles of the horizon of the place; and it
+was the usual rule in Astrology so to consider them; but it was not
+the invariable rule. Some astrologers put the meeting places at the
+celestial poles, and then the Houses were divided by the ordinary
+meridians. Others put the meeting places at the Zenith and the Nadir
+of the place. It is manifest that those astrologers who computed the
+positions of the Planets in one set of Houses, must arrive at very
+different results from those who computed the positions in another set;
+for a Planet might be in one House according to one computation, and in
+a different House according to another.</p>
+
+<p>That House which is immediately below the eastern horizon, so that the
+stars therein are the next to rise above the horizon, is the first
+House, which is also called the Ascendent House, or shortly, the
+Ascendent. It is the principal House, the most powerful House, and
+takes rank over all the others. The Planet or Planets that occupy the
+Ascendent chiefly determine the fate of the native. The rest of the
+Houses are known by numbers, and follow one another widdershins, that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>
+is, in the order reverse to the movement of the hands of a clock. The
+second and third are between the Ascendent and the lower vertical
+meridian; the fourth, fifth and sixth between the lower vertical
+meridian and the western horizon; and so on until the twelfth house
+meets the first at the eastern horizon.</p>
+
+<p class="spb2">The anterior boundary of each House, the meridian which
+the stars in that House will cross next, is called the cusp of that
+House; and from the cusp the position of the Planets in the House is
+measured in degrees and minutes. The cusp of the Ascendent House is
+called the horoscope; and I may here correct a prevalent error with
+respect to this term. It is customary to speak of casting a horoscope,
+as if that were a possible and usual operation in Astrology. What is
+meant by the expression is casting a nativity or geniture; that is to
+say, setting out, on a plan of the Houses of Heaven, the position of
+the Signs of the Zodiac and of the Planets in the respective Houses
+that they occupied at the moment of birth. Similarly, we may cast a
+decumbiture, that is, we may set out a similar plan for the moment a
+disease begins; and such an operation was as necessary in the daily
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>
+routine of a physician as is now the taking the temperature of the
+patient: but it is manifest that we cannot in this sense cast a
+horoscope, for the horoscope is but the cusp of the Ascendent.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <img src="images/fig_2.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="481" >
+    <p class="f120 spb2"><b>Fig. 2.</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="spb2">This is the most obvious method of setting out the
+Houses, but it was not usually adopted, perhaps because compasses were
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>
+not common, and circles not so easy to draw as straight lines. The
+conventional figure, on which the positions of the heavenly bodies were
+always set out, was thus:</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <img src="images/fig_3.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="502" >
+    <p class="f120 spb2"><b>Fig. 3.</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Each House of Heaven, like each Sign of the Zodiac and each Planet, has
+its special aspect, jurisdiction, or influence over human affairs; but
+unlike the Signs and the Planets, the Houses are not complexionate:
+they are neither hot nor cold, neither moist nor dry.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p>Just as Aries is the first, the most powerful and important of the
+Signs, and Luna the most powerful and important of the Planets, so the
+Ascendent is the most powerful and important of the Houses. When a
+Planet is in the Ascendent, its power is paramount over all the other
+Planets, wherever they may be; still, it may be strongly influenced
+by them. The Ascendent is the House of projects, of the beginnings of
+things, especially of journeys; it is the House of life, of movement,
+and of questions and answers.</p>
+
+<p>The second House is the House of riches, and of servants; and signifies
+the end of youth, and the lessening of the years of life.</p>
+
+<p>The third House is the House of brothers and sisters; of acquaintances
+and friends; of heirs; of changes; of continuance of journeys; of quiet
+of kingdoms; of religion, and ministers of religion.</p>
+
+<p>The fourth House is the House of parents; of heredity; of towns in
+which the native lives, and in which he is born, and of his fate after
+death.</p>
+
+<p>The fifth House is the House of children; of eating and drinking; of
+games; of fighting; of pictures, vessels and money.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span></p>
+
+<p>The sixth House is the House of sickness and health; of servants; of
+domestic animals; and of receiving.</p>
+
+<p>The seventh House is the House of women; of marriage; of contentions
+and strife; of saints; and of thieves; and signifies the middle of life.</p>
+
+<p>The eighth House is the House of Death; of fear; of riches; and of the
+last years of life.</p>
+
+<p>The ninth House is of pilgrimages and journeys; of faith; of wisdom and
+philosophy; of books; of rumours; and of sleep.</p>
+
+<p>The tenth House is the Royal House. It is the House of dignities; of
+laws; of princes and magistrates; of memories; of mothers; and of half
+of the years of life.</p>
+
+<p>The eleventh House is the House of fortune; of good faith; of friends
+and allies.</p>
+
+<p>The twelfth House is the House of unfriends, and of bad faith; of
+labour; of battles; of sadness; and of beasts and birds.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The strongest House of all is the Ascendent. Next to this are the other
+<i>angulares</i>, which immediately precede the other cardinal points,
+viz.—the fourth, seventh and tenth, all powerful and propitious
+Houses. The next in succession are called the successors of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span>
+<i>angulares</i>, and are less powerful than the <i>angulares</i>, but
+still disposed to be good, or propitious. The remaining Houses, the
+third, sixth, ninth and twelfth, are called <i>ab angulis cadentes</i>,
+and are unpropitious, and disposed to evil.</p>
+
+<p>We are now in a position to discover the ways in which the power of a
+Planet is increased or diminished.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, every Planet is related to certain Signs of the
+Zodiac in three different ways. First, it has a Sign or Signs peculiar
+to itself, which are called the houses of the Planet, and of this
+house, or of these houses, the planet is Lord. Second, every Planet has
+a Sign in which it rejoices. When situated in any of these Signs, and
+especially when in its house, the power of the Planet is augmented.
+Third, every Planet is exalted in a certain Sign, and depressed in
+that which is diametrically opposite, and the power of the Planet is
+increased or diminished according as the one or the other of these
+Signs is in the Ascendent.</p>
+
+<p>For instance, Saturn is Lord of Capricorn essentially, and of Aquarius
+accidentally; he rejoices in Aquarius, is exalted in Libra, and
+depressed in Aries. Consequently, his power is at its maximum when he is
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span>
+in Capricorn, and is augmented when he is in Aquarius. It is increased
+when Libra is in the Ascendent, and subdued when Aries is in that
+House. Saturn (chronos) regulates the beginnings of things, especially
+of things relating to the earth, such as planting, sowing, ploughing,
+and other operations of agriculture. Such operations ought therefore to
+be begun when Saturn has power, as when he is in the Ascendent, or in
+Capricorn or Aquarius, provided that Aries is not in the Ascendent. If
+Libra should be in the Ascendent, however, such operations can scarcely
+fail to be successful.</p>
+
+<p>A hot Planet in a hot Sign will have its heat augmented; but in a
+cold Sign its heat will be reduced; and so of the other elementary
+qualities. A moist Planet in a humid Sign will be dripping wet, and
+will aggravate diseases due to moisture.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen that certain Houses are more propitious than others,
+those, namely, whose cusp is on the horizon or on one of the vertical
+meridians. A benevolent Planet will be doubly so when in a propitious
+House, but will have little power to benefit when it is in an
+unpropitious House.</p>
+
+<p>The House in which it is situated influences a Planet in more ways than
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>
+this. Every Planet has not only a Sign, but a House also in which it
+rejoices; and when it is in this House its power is augmented. Mercury
+rejoices in the Ascendent, Luna in the third House, Mars in the sixth,
+Sol in the ninth, Jupiter in the eleventh, and Saturn in the twelfth.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the most important factor in modifying the power of the
+Planets, and certainly the factor to which the most importance is
+attached, is their relative position or aspect with respect to one
+another, and to the Ascendent.</p>
+
+<p>The first aspect of Planets to one another is Conjunction, which, like
+other terms in Astrology, and in its congener, Logic, is not always
+used in the same sense. Planets are said by some authorities to be in
+conjunction when they are within 2° of one another; by others, when
+they are within 15° of each other; by others, when they are in the same
+Sign, and by others when they are in the same House. All are agreed,
+however, that whenever a Planet is within 15° of Sol, it is combust,
+and its powers are for the time abolished. Otherwise, when Planets of
+the same qualities are in conjunction, they corroborate and reinforce
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>
+one another; but when Planets of opposing qualities are in conjunction,
+each cancels a part of the power of the other; so that when a good
+Planet is conjoined with an evil one, the malice of this is tempered,
+and the benevolence of that is debilitated. One of my authorities,
+Arnaldus de Villanova, gives the following instance. ‘When you are
+anxious to begin some good work, you should see that Luna makes
+junction with benevolent Planets, or at any rate, is well separated
+from bad ones; but he who wants to do evil, as for example, to poison a
+little girl, or anything of that kind, ought to choose a time when Luna
+is conjoined with bad, or is separated from good Planets.’</p>
+
+<p>The second aspect is Sextile. This is when two Planets are separated
+by a sixth part of the Zodiac, or by two Signs. Such an aspect is
+moderately friendly—not manifestly, but occultly, or of hidden
+benevolence.</p>
+
+<p>The third aspect is Quartile, and is when a Planet aspects another
+through three Signs, which is a fourth part of the Zodiac. Such an
+aspect is of moderate or occult unfriendliness or conflict.</p>
+
+<p>The fourth aspect is Trine, when a Planet aspects another from a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span>
+distance of four Signs, or a third part of the Zodiac. This is the
+aspect of warm friendship, and perfect benevolence.</p>
+
+<p>The last aspect is Opposition, when one Planet is distant from another
+by half the Signs of the Zodiac. This is the most hostile aspect of
+all; it is the aspect of open unfriendliness, hatred, and perdition.</p>
+
+<p>Every Planet has two movements. First, it partakes of the general
+movement of the heavenly bodies, rising in the East and setting in the
+West, a movement due to the <i>primum mobile</i>; and second, it has
+its own proper motion among the stars, which varies in rapidity, and
+is sometimes direct, sometimes retrograde, and sometimes abolished,
+so that the Planet is stationary among the stars. The speed of this
+proper motion varies greatly, Luna completing her course in 28 days, or
+thereabouts, and Saturn requiring 29 years. The motion of the Planets
+is of much importance in medicine, for acute diseases, whose course is
+rapid, are governed by the moon, whose motion is rapid, while chronic
+diseases, whose course is slow, are governed by the sun, whose course
+is likewise slow. If any Planet that is regulating the course of a
+disease should become retrograde in its motion, the patient will of
+course get worse.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span></p>
+
+<p>Lastly, every Planet has its hour, in which it is dominant; and,
+subject to the dominance of the Planet that rules the hour, every
+Planet dominates that day of the week of which its hour is the first.
+Thus, Saturn dominates completely the first hour of Saturday, and in
+a less degree, and subject to the influence of the other Planets, the
+whole of the <i>dies Sabbathum</i>. Jupiter rules the second hour of
+Saturday, Mars the third, and so on until Luna dominates the seventh
+hour, and then Saturn again takes up the tale, and rules the eighth.
+The rotation is then continued, so that Saturn comes in again at the
+fifteenth and twenty-second hours; Jupiter follows at the twenty-third;
+Mars at the twenty-fourth, which completes the day. The next Planet
+on the rota is Sol, which therefore takes the first hour, and in less
+degree the whole, of the following day, which is accordingly <i>Dies
+Solis</i>, or Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>It is scarcely necessary to point out that every undertaking to which
+any given Planet is propitious ought to be begun in the hour in which
+that Planet is dominant, and if possible on his day. So all operations
+of husbandry should be begun on Saturday, or if on any other day, then
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>
+in the hour of Saturn. When written directions are given as to any
+undertaking, the Planet that is propitious to that undertaking should
+be signified, so that the undertaking, whatever it may be, may be
+begun in the hour of that Planet. If we give written directions for
+sowing seed, or planting, or any of the operations of husbandry, we
+should preface our directions with the sign of Saturn. If we write to a
+commercial correspondent instructions to buy or sell, we should remind
+him of the hour and day propitious to the transaction by placing at
+the head of our instructions the sign of the Planet Mercury. Now, the
+Planet that is most propitious to the operation of letting blood, and
+to taking medicine, is Jupiter, and therefore all written directions
+for letting blood or administering medicine should bear the sign of
+Jupiter; and the sign of Jupiter is ♃ = ℞, which still heads all our
+prescriptions, and testifies to the intimate connexion that existed
+aforetime between Astrology and Medicine.</p>
+
+<p>If we keep at our fingers’ ends the knowledge we have now gained of the
+rudiments of Astrological lore, we shall be in a position to turn that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span>
+knowledge to practical use, to erect a scheme of the heavens at the
+nativity of any given person, and to interpret that scheme so as to
+predict at least the general course of his life, and, if we have
+sufficient skill, the individual incidents therein. For this purpose it
+is convenient to select a person whose career is closed, because this
+gives us the double advantage of ascertaining whether our predictions
+are correct, and of keeping an eye on his career during the course of
+our interpretations, so that they may not go too wide of the mark. I
+select therefore a distinguished man, Charles XII of Sweden, whose
+career is familiar to you all.</p>
+
+<p>As is usual, the pole of the Houses is at the horizontal north of the
+place, Stockholm, and not at the celestial pole, and therefore the
+latitude is given, and the Houses do not correspond with the Signs
+of the Zodiac. Taurus, for instance, occupies the whole of the fifth
+House, with six degrees of the fourth, and twenty of the sixth; while
+Aquarius lies wholly within the second, which includes also seven
+degrees of Capricorn and five of Pisces.</p>
+
+<p>The first omen that attracts our attention is that Mars, the military
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>
+planet, occupies the twelfth House, the House of battles and of
+enemies. We predict, therefore, that</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">No joys to him pacific scepters yield,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field;</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain;</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">‘Think nothing gain’d,’ he cries, ‘till nought remain!’</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+    <img src="images/fig_4.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="504" >
+    <p class="f120"><b>Fig. 4.</b></p>
+    <p class="f120 spb2"><b>Nativitas Caroli Duodecimi, Regis Sueciæ.</b></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Venus, in the second House, does not aspect the native, and exerts no
+influence over him; and Charles XII was notoriously insusceptible to the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span>
+charms of love. He was a neglecter and despiser of women—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">O’er love, o’er fear extends his wide domain,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Unconquer’d lord of pleasure and of pain.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Sol, in the Ascendent, predicts for the native an illustrious and
+glorious career, and equips him with the necessary qualities—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">A frame of adamant, a soul of fire,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">No dangers fright him, and no labours tire;</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">Behold surrounding kings their pow’r combine,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And one capitulate, and one resign.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>But Mars is an unpropitious Planet, a Planet of ill omen, and
+his presence in the House of battles cannot but signify military
+disaster: Luna, in sextile to the Ascendent, exerts an evil influence,
+which Jupiter, sequestered in the second House from exerting any
+counteracting sway, is powerless to restrain. What is the inevitable
+consequence?—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">He comes, not want nor cold his course delay;—</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Hide, blushing Glory, hide Pultowa’s day:</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">The vanquish’d hero leaves his brok’n bands,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And shews his miseries in distant lands;</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Condemn’d a needy supplicant to wait,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">While ladies interpose, and slaves debate.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Finally, Saturn, a very malevolent Planet, is most ominously situated
+in the eighth House, the House of Death, a certain indication that death
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>
+will come early and in disastrous circumstances. How true the
+indication let the poet testify:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">But did not Chance at length her error mend?</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Did no subverted empire mark his end?</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound?</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Or hostile millions press him to the ground?</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">His fall was destin’d to a barren strand,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">A petty fortress, and a dubious hand;</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">He left a name, at which the world grew pale,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">To point a moral, or adorn a tale.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">LECTURE II</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Having discovered in the last Lecture the general principles of
+Astrology, we are now in a position to discuss their application to
+medicine. We have already found that every Zodiacal Sign and every
+Planet has its own complexion, or pair of elementary qualities, as
+hot and dry, hot and moist, cold and dry, or cold and moist, and that
+each has, accordingly, power over the corresponding humour—yellow
+bile, blood, black bile or phlegm. We must now remark that among the
+powers of the Signs and the Planets are some, specially appertaining to
+medicine, that were omitted in the previous review.</p>
+
+<p>Each Planet has its own peculiar power over the developing fœtus, and
+exercises this power at a certain period of pregnancy. Saturn has power
+in the first month after conception, and by its own frigidity (Saturn
+being cold and dry) infrigidates the fœtus, coagulates it, and drys it
+up, so causing early abortions. Jupiter is potent in the second month,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>
+and bestows on the embryo the <i>spiritus naturalis</i>. Mars, in the
+third month, supplies the concept with bones, and generally composes,
+or, as we should say, differentiates, the various internal organs. Sol,
+in the fourth month, supplies the concept with blood, and perfects the
+heart and liver. Venus, in the fifth month, gives to the concept ears,
+eyebrows and pudenda. Mercury, in the sixth month, opens the nose and
+mouth; and Luna, in the seventh month, causes the development of the
+lungs, and divides the fingers and toes according to their places.</p>
+
+<p>After birth, each Planet takes under its jurisdiction certain organs
+and tissues of the body, and certain faculties of the mind; and has,
+moreover, jurisdiction over certain diseases and certain modes of death.</p>
+
+<p>Saturn, which is cold and dry, and therefore regulates the black bile,
+presides also over the bones, teeth, cartilages, the right ear, the
+spleen and the bladder; and over the memory. It has power, of course,
+over the diseases of these parts, and in addition, over quartan fever,
+scabies, lepra, tabes, melancholia, paralysis, icterus niger, dropsy,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>
+cancer, cough, asthma, phthisis, deafness of the right ear, and hernia.
+Under Saturn occur sudden and violent deaths by falls, precipitation,
+ship-wreck, suffocation, hanging, lead-poisoning, and death at the
+hands of the public executioner.</p>
+
+<p>Jupiter has jurisdiction over the radical moisture, over the blood,
+the liver, the pulmonary veins, the diaphragm, and the muscles of the
+trunk; over the senses of touch and smell; over the judgment, and the
+<i>appetitus concupiscibilis</i>; over the diseases of these parts
+and faculties, and in addition over small-pox, angina, inflammation,
+pleurisies and peripneumonias. Deaths due to the influence of Jupiter
+occur in war, in duels, and by the command of Princes.</p>
+
+<p>Mars has power over the yellow bile, the gall-bladder, the left
+ear, the pudenda and the kidneys. He prompts the <i>appetitus
+irascibilis</i>. The diseases due to his influence are acute fevers,
+plague, yellow jaundice, convulsions, hæmorrhages, carbuncles,
+erysipelas, ulcers, and phagedæna. He causes death by weapons of
+steel, from fire, from projectiles, by beheading, mutilation, bites
+of animals, especially venomous animals, by the slaughters and
+blood-letting of ignorant surgeons, and death from burns.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span></p>
+
+<p>Sol regulates the heart, the arteries, the right eye, the right side
+in men and the left side in women; the vital spirits and the bilious
+blood; the sight of the right eye in men, and of the left in women,
+and all good desires. The diseases due to the influence of the sun are
+ephemeral fevers, syncope, spasm, catarrhs, and diseases of the eyes.
+When Sol causes death, it is by plague, by syncope, or on the field of
+battle.</p>
+
+<p>Venus presides over the pituitous blood and semen: over the throat,
+the breasts, the abdomen, the uterus and genitalia; over taste and
+smell, touch and the pleasurable sensations, and the <i>appetitus
+concupiscibilis</i>. The diseases due to Venus are lues venerea,
+gonorrhœa, priapism, barrenness from cold and moisture (Venus being
+cold and moist), lientery, and abscesses. Deaths due to her influence
+are those from poison and from sexual excess.</p>
+
+<p>Mercury has jurisdiction over the animal spirits, over the legs and
+feet, the hands and fingers, the tongue, the nerves, and the ligaments;
+over taste and hearing, common sense, imagination and reason. The
+diseases that he influences are erratic and relapsing fevers, mania,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>
+phrenitis, deliria, insanity, epilepsy, convulsion, balbuties, and
+cough with profuse expectoration. Under his influence occur deaths by
+poison, by witchcraft, and by process of law for perjury, forgery, and
+false money.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, Luna presides over the phlegm, the brain, the left eye,
+the right side in women and the left in men, the stomach, and the
+membranes; over the sight of the right eye in women and of the left in
+men; over fear; over quotidian fevers, epilepsy, apoplexy, fatuity,
+vomiting, fluxes, such as diarrhoea and menorrhagia, dropsy, and cold
+abscesses. She brings those deaths that occur from superpurgation and
+from drowning.</p>
+
+<p>It would seem, from the several jurisdictions here assigned to Mercury
+and Luna, that those whom we call lunatics ought properly to be
+called Mercurials, for though the moon rules the brain, Mercury has
+jurisdiction, as we have seen, over mania, phrenitis, delirium, and
+insanity; and, strictly speaking, no one with any of these maladies
+ought to be called a lunatic. Lunacy in the strict sense is fatuity
+interrupted by lucid intervals, as we shall find further on, and this
+is the sense that it had in law down to the passing of the Lunacy Acts.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span>
+Until these enactments, the legal meaning of a lunatic was a fatuous
+or demented person who had, nevertheless, intervals of lucidity;
+and though in common speech the meaning became generalised, and the
+term was used to include all insane persons, whatever the nature of
+their insanity, and whether it was interrupted or continuous, yet
+lawyers, who are always both more precise and more conservative in the
+application of terms than other men, continued to use the term lunacy
+in its strict sense till the middle of the last century.</p>
+
+<p>With respect to the corporature, or the bodily configuration, which,
+with the corresponding mental disposition, is aspected by the several
+Planets, there is much misapprehension; and the true doctrine is
+corrupted, and attenuated to a mere remnant. We are apt to consider
+that a Saturnine person is taciturn, cynical, and disposed to be
+malevolent; that a Jovial person is good-humoured and hilarious; that a
+Mercurial person is restless and vagrant, not continuing in one stay;
+that a Martial person has a soldierly bearing; and that a Lunatic is
+out of his mind; and although we should not be wrong in attributing
+these mental dispositions to the persons so denominated, we should give
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span>
+them but a tithe of the mental qualities the names actually connote;
+and we have forgotten altogether, not only that there is a corporature,
+or bodily configuration, that accompanies and indicates each mental
+temperament, but also that there are persons of Solar and Venereal
+temperament as well as those that are Jovial, Saturnine, and so
+forth. The corporature, and the mental disposition that accompanies
+and is signified by it, are precise and detailed, so that the expert
+astrologer can tell at a glance what sort of person he has to deal
+with, and what Planet has jurisdiction over that person’s life,
+fortunes, and health.</p>
+
+<p>Those, for instance, who are Saturnine, may be known by the following
+physical signs: they are moderately fleshy, of medium height, their
+countenances are long, their eyes large and black, their teeth very
+large; they are of dark complexion, have scanty straight black hair,
+thin beards, are pigeon-toed, and of truculent bearing. When well
+affected by the Planet, persons of such a corporature are profound
+thinkers, investigators of mysteries, prudent, reticent, inclined to
+solitude, suspicious, laborious, patient, persevering, lovers of work,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>
+eager for gain, and masterful. When ill affected by the Planet, they
+are sad, melancholy, austere, timid, miserly, querulous, taciturn,
+solitary, followers of the Black Art, suspicious, untruthful,
+malevolent, untrustworthy to the point of fraudulence, treacherous, and
+often suffer the penalties of the law for their misdeeds.</p>
+
+<p>The favoured of Jupiter are, in configuration, fleshy, with rounded
+knees; they are of medium stature, elegant and majestic in bearing.
+In complexion they are rosy; their eyes are dark and rather large.
+They are prone to baldness, and have thick reddish beards. When
+well affected by the Planet, such persons are simple, just, pious,
+religious, faithful, humane, merciful, hilarious, gracious, open,
+affable, liberal, splendid, magnanimous and law-abiding. When ill
+affected, they have these qualities in excess. They are superstitious,
+sentimental, humanitarian, prodigal and vain-glorious.</p>
+
+<p>The subjects of Mars are thin and well-proportioned; they are pale,
+with blue eyes and abundant curly hair, not only on the head but on
+the body. They are of middle stature, with large heads, round faces,
+small eyes, large nostrils, long teeth and military bearing. When well
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span>
+affected, they are strong, robust, brave, greedy of fame, irascible,
+given to hunting and games, vindictive, impatient of control,
+domineering, delighting in war and battles, contemptuous of danger,
+agile, ready, hasty, self-confident, and indifferent to religion. When
+ill affected, they are impious, unjust, arrogant, merciless, seditious,
+foolhardy, quarrelsome, brawlers, homicides, tyrants, incendiaries,
+robbers, thieves and bandits.</p>
+
+<p>Those under the jurisdiction of Luna are tall, pale, good-looking, with
+light hair and eyes, and with becoming beards. When well affected, they
+are ingenious, subtle, sincere, open, honest and well-mannered; when
+ill affected, they are stupid even to fatuity, timid and restless. It
+is very important to know that, as might be expected, it is when the
+moon is waxing that they are well affected, and they are ill affected
+when she is on the wane. Here we see the origin of the legal doctrine,
+already alluded to, that a lunatic is a demented person who has lucid
+intervals, these intervals being when the moon is in the first two of
+her phases, while the periods of fatuity are the last two phases, when
+she is past the full, and her light is waning.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span></p>
+
+<p>The votaries of Mercury are characterised by medium stature, a
+well-proportioned body, pleasing complexion, and yellow hair. They
+are graceful, with very small hands, feet and teeth; they have scanty
+beards, thin voices, and are rapid in their movements. When well
+affected, they are witty, studious, quick to learn, even without
+being taught; they are disputatious, wise, cautious, prudent, easily
+accommodating themselves to persons and circumstances; sociable and
+inquisitive. When ill affected, they are unstable, forgetful, apt to
+have hallucinations and to talk nonsense, liars, parasites, flatterers,
+deceitful, perfidious, perjurers, calumniators, forgers of wills,
+coiners of false money, meddlers in things that do not concern them,
+and dangerous counsellors.</p>
+
+<p>Under the jurisdiction of Venus are those of medium stature, succulent,
+with delicate and fair complexions, good-looking, with crisp brown or
+blackish hair, dark eyes, narrow eyebrows, narrow chests, and thick
+thighs. When well affected, they are indolent, bland, pious, religious,
+merciful, peaceful, sociable, lovers of the arts of singing and of
+music, elegant and graceful, and given to delicacies and pleasures.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>
+They are lucky in love and in friendship, forgiving, and impatient
+under misfortune. When ill affected, they are timid, imprudent,
+effeminate, lecherous, and betrayers of women.</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, the characters of those who are ruled by the Sun are a large
+head, a round and glowing face, large eyes, long hair which at length
+falls out and leaves them bald, and a sallow complexion. When well
+affected, they are pious, just, upright, faithful, open, chaste,
+worldly-wise, apt to anger, but magnanimous, honourable, splendid and
+magnificent, warm in friendship, and lovers of their wives and children.</p>
+
+<p>It will have been noticed that the descriptions of the bodily
+configurations are not very definite, and we are warned by Maninius to
+be very careful of judging of the dominant Planet by the configuration
+of the body. This, he says, is a part of the science in which many
+fail; and it is not yet fully ascertained. The knowledge is to be
+attained by long experience only. Maninius had, indeed, good reason
+to inculcate caution in interpreting the indications obtained from
+Astrological lore, for he sought to clench the arguments with which he
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span>
+was defending Astrology from the attacks of Gassendi, by predicting
+the death of the sceptic upon a certain date. When the date came round
+in due course, Gassendi unexpectedly refused to die, and Maninius then
+discovered a mistake in his calculation which had led him to antedate
+the event. He corrected the error, revised his prediction, and fixed
+another and later date, beyond which Gassendi could not survive.
+He seems, however, to have overlooked a second time some material
+factor, for his opponent lived on, and laughed him to scorn, giving
+much occasion to the enemy to blaspheme. Maninius, unfortunately,
+lacked the resource of Dean Swift, who was confronted with the same
+difficulty by the survival of the astrologer Partridge. Swift, under
+the pseudonym of Isaac Bickerstaff, predicted that Partridge would die
+“on the twenty-ninth of March next, about eleven at night, of a raging
+fever”; and, when the date was past, published a circumstantial account
+of the death, with a confession by Partridge of the imposture of his
+predictions. In vain Partridge denied the facts, for Bickerstaff gave
+five conclusive reasons for disbelieving these protestations, and for
+holding that Partridge was in fact dead, and in denying the fact had
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span>
+carried beyond the grave his proclivity for telling lies.</p>
+
+<p>When it is remembered that any Sign of the Zodiac may be in any of
+the Houses of Heaven; that any Planet may be in any House, and may
+have any aspect, sextile, quartile, trine, or opposition, towards the
+Ascendent and towards the other Planets; and that the various Planets
+have by these means their powers reinforced or attenuated in the most
+various degrees; and when we remember further the different powers that
+different Planets have over different persons and different diseases,
+it will easily be seen that the variations are virtually infinite, and
+the whole scheme far too complicated to put to practical application.</p>
+
+<p>In practice, however, the calculations of the physician were narrowed
+down to a small number of factors. Arnaldus de Villanova, a physician
+of great repute in the thirteenth century, limits these as follows:—A
+perfect physician, he says, should constantly bear in mind eight
+Astrological factors; and then we are disappointed to find that he
+enumerates only seven. It is no doubt the want of the eighth factor
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>
+that has falsified the predictions that I have ventured to make in
+accordance with his rules. Be that as it may, the factors that he
+enumerates, as necessary for the perfect physician to consider, are
+these:</p>
+
+<ul class="index">
+<li class="isub2">1. The thing concerning which the inquiry is made.</li>
+<li class="isub2">2. The Sign that is in the Ascendent.</li>
+<li class="isub2">3. The Lord of it. (Whether of the Sign or of the Ascendent is not clear.)</li>
+<li class="isub2">4. The Sign that is in the House of the thing inquired about.</li>
+<li class="isub5">(In the case of sickness, this may be either the first House,</li>
+<li class="isub5">the House of Life; or the eighth, the House of Death; or</li>
+<li class="isub5">the sixth, the House of Diseases.)</li>
+<li class="isub2">5. The Lord of it. (Again, whether of the Sign or of the House is not clear.)</li>
+<li class="isub2">6. Its (?) relation to the Ascendent.</li>
+<li class="isub2">7. Its relation to the Moon.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>These are to be interpreted in the following manner:</p>
+
+<ul class="index">
+<li class="isub2">1. The Ascendent and the Lord of it signify the sick man.</li>
+<li class="isub2">2. The middle of Heaven (the tenth House) signifies his physician.
+          <span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span></li>
+<li class="isub2">3. The sixth House and the Lord of it signify his disease.</li>
+<li class="isub2">4. The fourth House and the Lord of it signify his physic.</li>
+</ul>
+
+<p>The consequences are these:</p>
+
+<p>If there is evil in the Ascendent, or if the Lord of the Ascendent is
+subject to adverse influences, the patient will do badly; but if these
+are propitious, he will do well.</p>
+
+<p>If there should be a benevolent or propitious Lord of the tenth House,
+which signifies the physician, then his treatment will do the patient
+good; but if the Lord should be evil, then the patient will be injured
+by the treatment.</p>
+
+<p>If there should be a powerful influence for good in the eighth House,
+which is the House of Death, the patient will be quickly cured; but if
+there should be an evil influence in this House, he will go from bad to
+worse.</p>
+
+<p>Similarly, if there is good fortune in the fourth House, which is the
+House of Remedies, his medicine will do him good, but if evil fortune,
+the medicine will make him worse.</p>
+
+<p>If the Sign in the Ascendent should be mobile, and Luna should be in a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>
+mobile Sign, such as Aries, Cancer, Libra, or Capricorn, and the Lord
+of the Ascendent should also be in a mobile Sign, the illness will soon
+terminate, either well or badly, especially if Luna is in swift motion.
+If, however, it happens contrarily, it signifies a long illness,
+especially if Luna is in a stable Sign, as Taurus, Leo, Scorpio or
+Aquarius.</p>
+
+<p>If the Lord of the Ascendent should be propitious, and free from
+adverse influences of other Planets, and Luna likewise, the illness
+will end favourably, especially if Luna and the Lord of the Ascendent
+should aspect favourably the Lord of the eighth House, which is the
+House of Death—that is, if they should be in sextile, and especially
+if they should be in trine, to that House.</p>
+
+<p>But if Luna, or the Lord of the Ascendent, or the Lord of the House
+of Sickness, which is the sixth, should be combust and retrograde,
+or if the Lord of the Ascendent should be in the House of Death in
+conjunction with Mars or Saturn, both of them malevolent Planets, then
+there is no hope.</p>
+
+<p>Also, if the moon should be in conjunction with a propitious Planet in
+the Ascendent, and should be moving forward and her light waxing, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>
+both should be free from adverse influences, then the disease will be
+quickly cured; but if the moon should be in the House of Death, the
+patient cannot be saved.</p>
+
+<p>And generally, whenever Luna and the Lord of the Ascendent are subject
+to adverse influences, it is a mortal sign, and we must fear death, or
+relapse, or long illness; but when they are fortunately situated, and
+aspected by well-disposed powers, as when Luna and the Lord are in the
+Ascendent, then it is a good sign, and <i>ad vitam</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But if the House of Death, and the Lord of the House of Infirmity,
+or the Lord of the House of Death, are fortified by situation or by
+aspect, especially when they aspect the moon adversely, then it is a
+bad sign, and <i>ad mortem</i>; but when they are impeded or weakened,
+it is a good sign.</p>
+
+<p>Now the position of the heavenly bodies in the Houses of Heaven alters
+from hour to hour, and a fatal disposition of them now may alter to a
+favourable one in a couple of hours, and <i>vice versâ</i>. Luna, which
+is now in the Ascendent, and therefore smiles upon the patient, will,
+in fourteen or fifteen hours’ time, be in the eighth House, and condemn
+him to death. It is manifestly of the utmost importance, therefore, to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span>
+fix upon the correct hour and minute for setting up the <i>tabula
+cælestiarum</i>. It is to be feared, however, that in this matter
+astrological physicians allowed themselves a good deal of latitude.
+There are two fixed moments, one or other of which should be taken as
+that on which the scheme should be erected. One of these is the moment
+of birth; the other is the decumbiture.</p>
+
+<p>It will be seen that the scheme of the nativity of Charles XII sets
+forth the year, the month, the day, hour, and minute of birth,
+and the scheme is erected accordingly, and admits of no doubt or
+variation. There was, however, a process known to Astrologers by the
+name of Rectification of the Nativity, a process the rules of which
+are difficult to discover, but the practical result was to shift the
+heavenly bodies from positions that were inconvenient to the Astrologer
+to positions more suitable to his purpose. I should never myself
+make an alteration of this nature, which does not seem to me quite
+justifiable, but, emboldened by this established astrological practice,
+I have ventured to make a trifling alteration in the scheme of nativity
+that I have placed before you as that of Charles XII. As originally
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>
+erected, it referred not to the year 1682 but to the year 1594, and
+to the moment of birth, not of Charles XII, but of a previous King
+of Sweden, namely, Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North, and the
+Bulwark of the Protestant Faith. In working it out, I found that by no
+ingenuity and by no artifice could I make the predictions to be drawn
+from this scheme of nativity fit in with the known career of that great
+and successful commander. They suited, however, with such surprising
+accuracy and appropriateness the career of his successor Charles XII
+that I felt it was a pity to allow myself to be fettered, in applying
+them to him, by a punctilio of needless scrupulosity. I did not venture
+to take that liberty with the facts that astrologers were accustomed to
+take, by altering the positions of the heavenly bodies in the Houses
+of Heaven; I merely altered the date by less than a century, and
+substituted the name of one King of Sweden for another.</p>
+
+<p>In estimating the scheme of the heavens relating to the illness of
+a patient, it is always advisable to compare it with the scheme of
+his nativity. If that Planet which was Lord of the Ascendent in the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span>
+nativity is favourably placed and fortunately aspected in the scheme
+of the decumbiture, and is neither combust nor retrograde, the patient
+will be strengthened and live, and <i>vice versâ</i>.</p>
+
+<p>These are the considerations that should weigh with a perfect
+physician; but the authority I am now quoting from lived seven
+centuries ago, and the world was very different then from what it is
+now. It would appear that in those remote and benighted times there
+actually were physicians who were not perfect, and to temper the
+difficulties of astrological practice to these weaker brethren, they
+were taught a method of procedure that is shorter and easier, but less
+accurate. It will have been noticed how prominent a place is assigned
+to the moon in the explanations that have been given, although in
+setting up the scheme no separate mention was made of her, but she was
+just lumped in together with the other Planets, which had presumably
+equal value, except in as far as their power was subdued or enhanced by
+their position. In the modified and abbreviated scheme that was drawn
+up for the guidance of the general practitioner, the whole burden lay
+upon the moon. It was recognised that a busy practitioner could not be
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span>
+expected to have the correct positions of the Planets always at his
+fingers’ ends; but he could scarcely be ignorant of the phase in which
+the moon was, of whether she was waxing or waning, or even of the Sign
+she occupied. Consequently, except to the very expert—to the dwellers
+in the Harley Street and Wimpole Street of that day—the moon alone was
+the guide to treatment and prognosis.</p>
+
+<p>I must now go back for a moment, and call your attention to certain
+<i>Facultates Naturales</i> possessed by the human body, and governed
+by the Planets. These are the Retentrix, the Coctrix, the Expultrix,
+the Attractrix, the Vegatatrix and the Generatrix; and each has, of
+course, its corresponding complexion. Retention, for instance, is
+favoured by cold and drought, Digestion by heat and moisture, Expulsion
+by cold and moisture, and Attraction by heat and drought.</p>
+
+<p>It follows, of course, that retentive medicines, given to check fluxes
+of any kind, should be administered either when Luna is in a sign that
+is cold and dry, such as Taurus, Virgo or Capricorn, or when one of
+these signs is in the Ascendent; and at such times retentive drugs
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span>
+should be not only administered but prepared, for their virtues are
+not in themselves, but are part of the celestial virtue communicated
+from the celestial bodies, from which all virtues are derived. So that
+retentive medicines, such as sugar of roses, diaciton and diapapaver,
+should be prepared as well as administered when one of these cold
+and dry signs is in the Ascendent, or when the moon is in one of
+them. If, however, we wish to reinforce the expulsive faculty, as
+for instance in constipation or amenorrhœa, the medicament must be
+prepared and administered when Luna is in Cancer, Scorpio or Pisces,
+or when one of them is in the Ascendent; for these Signs are cold and
+moist. In this case we must be careful, however; for if a purgative
+is given when the motion of Luna is retrograde, the expulsion will be
+retrograde, and instead of purgation we shall cause vomiting; but if we
+are so incautious and ignorant as to give purgatives when the moon is
+retrograde in Leo, which has an aspect to the heart and blood, we shall
+produce vomiting of blood.</p>
+
+<p>Diseases of plethora are very dangerous when a man is taken sick upon a
+full moon, and diseases of wasting are most dangerous when he is taken
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span>
+sick upon a waning moon. Let me entreat you therefore to give physic
+for inanition when the moon is near the full, and for plethora when
+she has lost her light; and remember that a humour can scarcely be
+diminished but when the moon is waning, nor increased except when she
+is waxing.</p>
+
+<p>It is very bad when, in the beginning of a sickness, the moon is in a
+Sign of the nature of the peccant humour, as in the hot and dry Signs
+Aries, Leo or Sagittarius, when the peccant humour is choler; the cold
+and dry Signs Taurus, Capricorn or Virgo, when it is melancholy; the
+hot and moist Signs Gemini, Libra or Aquarius, when it is blood; or the
+cold and moist signs Cancer, Scorpio or Pisces, when it is phlegm.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally, when she is in a fiery Sign, it is easy to amend a disease
+of phlegm, but if choler abound, wait until she is in a watery Sign.</p>
+
+<p>We see, therefore, how very important it is to consider the aspect of
+the heavens before we begin our treatment; and though it is true that
+patients do sometimes recover under the care of ignorant physicians who
+take no account of these things, yet in such cases, says my authority,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span>
+the patient recovers by accident, and not by the skill of the physician.</p>
+
+<p>An additional reason for studying the motion of the moon in illness is
+because this motion regulates the critical days. A crisis is defined as
+a swift and vehement motion of a disease, leading to recovery or death.
+Strictly speaking, those only are true crises which lead to recovery,
+but inaccuracy and corruption have crept into the meaning, until some
+authors enumerate six kinds of crisis, which I need not enumerate here;
+but all authorities are agreed, and their agreement seems to me to
+arise from everyone copying the words of his predecessor, that for a
+true and perfect crisis six conditions must be fulfilled.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, the crisis must be complete, that is to say, the
+whole of the <i>materia peccans</i> must be evacuated; for instance,
+all the bile in tertian fever, and all the phlegm in quotidian fever.
+If the whole of the <i>materia peccans</i> is not evacuated, it is
+evident that the patient may relapse.</p>
+
+<p>The second condition is that none of the peccant material should
+remain. This is evidently quite as important as the first, that all of
+it should be evacuated.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span></p>
+
+<p>The third condition is that health must be completely regained, and
+there must be no terrible accidents or pernecabilibus, such as running
+of the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The fourth condition is that the crisis must be manifest; that is to
+say, there must be a sensible evacuation of the <i>materia peccans</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The fifth condition is that the crisis must make indication, and as to
+the meaning of this, I have come, after long and careful study, to the
+conclusions on another subject arrived at by my authority, and piously
+expressed by him in the words, <i>Deus solus cognoscit, quia habet
+neque caput neque caudam</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The sixth condition is that the crisis must occur on a critical day.</p>
+
+<p>The critical days are governed entirely by the motion and positions
+of the moon. It is clear that there can be no crisis for good except
+<i>materiâ peccante coctâ</i>, and it is evident that the <i>materia
+peccans</i> cannot be digested in as short a time as two days;
+consequently the first and second days of a disease cannot be critical.
+The third day is intercadent, and the fourth is indicative, because,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span>
+manifestly, whatever happens on the fourth day will happen with
+exaggerated force on the seventh. The fifth day again is intercadent,
+and of no significance, nor is the sixth of any. The seventh is
+the first critical day, for then the moon is in quartile to the
+decumbiture, and is necessarily in a Sign of opposite nature in all
+respects to that in which she was at the decumbiture. If she was in
+Aries at the decumbiture, she will be on the seventh day in Cancer.
+Now, Aries is hot and dry, Cancer cold and moist; Aries is masculine,
+Cancer feminine; Aries diurnal, Cancer nocturnal. The quartile aspect
+is thus thoroughly hostile, and whatever process Luna favours at the
+decumbiture she will oppose when she reaches the quartile. At the
+decumbiture she favoured the disease, for otherwise the disease would
+not have occurred; at the quartile, therefore, she opposes the disease,
+and makes for a favourable crisis.</p>
+
+<p>The eighth day is neutral, the ninth intercadent, the tenth neutral,
+and the eleventh indicative, for whatever happens on the eleventh will
+happen with exaggerated force on the fourteenth, which is the second
+and most critical day, for then the moon is in opposition to the
+decumbiture, and with all her might counteracts all that took place at
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span>
+the decumbiture. The next critical day is, of course, the twenty-first,
+when she is again in quartile, and finally, between the twenty-seventh
+and twenty-eighth she comes into conjunction. If the disease has
+not been ended by crisis on one of the three critical days, the
+reinforcement that it now receives from the conjunction of the moon
+converts the acute disease into a chronic, and henceforth it is
+governed no longer by the positions of the moon, but is regulated,
+according to the same laws, by the sun. The next crisis will not take
+place therefore for two months, when the sun will be in quartile to the
+decumbiture.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, the favourable or unfavourable character of the crisis
+will depend largely upon whether, on the critical day, the moon is
+favourably aspected by good Planets, or unfavourably influenced by bad
+ones.</p>
+
+<p>It will be seen that all of these influences and dates depend upon
+the moment of the decumbiture, which is described as the first punct
+of time of the invasion of the disease; and this, as Galen says, is
+very hard to find. It is easy, indeed, to find the decumbiture in the
+literal sense, that is to say, the time when the patient takes to his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span>
+bed; but when the beginning of the sickness is, that, says Culpeper,
+is the question; ‘for a lusty stout man bears the disease longer
+before he takes to his bed than a puny sickly man: a meer suspition of
+sicknesse will send a faint-hearted man to bed; you may perswade him he
+is sick whether he is or no. Notwithstanding, in most acute diseases,
+as also in many others, as Falling Sickness, Palsies, Apoplexies, and
+Pleurisies, ’tis an easy thing to find the precise time of the invasion
+of a disease. The best opinion is that that moment of time is to be
+taken in which a man finds a manifest paine or hurt in his body; for
+instance, when a man hath got a Fever, usually the head akes certain
+dayes before; this is not the Fever, but a messenger or forerunner of
+the Fever; the true beginning is when a horrour or trembling invades
+the Sick.’</p>
+
+<p>Certain objections to these doctrines did not escape the notice of the
+astrologers who taught them. ‘If,’ says one, ‘the crisis depends on the
+motion of the moon and her aspect to the other Planets, what is the
+reason, if two men be taken ill at one and the same time, that yet the
+crisis of one falls out well, and not so the other?’ The reasons are
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span>
+manifold. The virtue working is changed according to the diversity of
+the virtue receiving; for you all know the sun makes the clay hard and
+the wax soft, it makes the cloth white and the face black; so then, if
+one be a child, whose nature is hot and moist, the other a man in the
+prime of life, whose nature is hot and dry, and the third an old man,
+whose nature is cold and dry, the crisis works diversely because their
+natures are different.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, in the Spring time, diseases are most obnoxious to a child,
+because his nature is hot and moist. A disease works most violently
+with a choleric man in Summer, with a melancholy man in Autumn, and
+with a phlegmatic man in Winter.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly, if at the decumbiture the moon was aspected by Mars, whose
+nature is hot and dry, if the disease be of heat and drought it is
+mightily aggravated: not so if it be cold.</p>
+
+<p>Fourthly, the complexions of the patients may be different; the one hot
+and dry, the other cold and moist. If the disease be hot and dry, it
+will not be so violent upon a cold and moist body as on a hot and dry.</p>
+
+<p>Fifthly, their nativities may not agree. If the moone be aspected by
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span>
+Saturne or Mars at the nativity, the disease is dangerous; not so if
+she be aspected by Jupiter or Venus; or Saturn may be Lord of one
+nativity and not of the other, and then he may hurt the one and not
+the other, for the Devil will not hurt his own. If you can possibly
+get the nativities, you shall not err. ‘For example, I know,’ says my
+authority, ‘three children born at one and the same time. At five years
+of age they all three had convulsion, whereby they were all three lame
+of one leg, the boyes on the right, and the girl on the left. At 14
+they dyed altogether on one and the same day of the small-pox.’</p>
+
+<p>To us, with our present knowledge, and requirements of evidence, and
+our ways of thought, all this appears such a farrago of tomfoolery
+that it is difficult to understand how it can have been seriously
+entertained by men of ordinary intelligence; and yet we know that it
+was in fact believed by the rarest intellects of their time, some of
+them, like Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus, among the rarest intellects
+of all time; and it is an interesting exercise to try and carry our
+minds back and put ourselves as far as we can in the position of our
+forefathers. We shall then find it easy to understand why the system was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span>
+maintained, and not difficult to discover how it originated. The first
+is explained by the overwhelming power of authority, the last by the
+belief that was overthrown by Copernicus.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, we must imagine ourselves living on an earth that
+is the centre of the universe, and that to the earth, and especially
+to its human inhabitants, the rest of the universe is subservient. The
+universe was created to serve a certain purpose, ‘the diapason closing
+full in man.’ That anything could exist for any other purpose than the
+service of mankind was not conceived, was probably not conceivable, by
+our forefathers. At a time almost within the memory of some now living,
+one of our leading philosophers declared that in the world there is
+nothing great but man. If he had expressed all that was in his mind,
+no doubt he would have said in the world there is nothing great but
+Scotchmen; but taking the declaration as he made it, it summarises
+effectively the attitude of our ancestors towards the cosmos. It was
+made for their benefit. To them there was no greater paradox than that</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">Full many a gem of purest ray serene</div>
+      <div class="verse indent2">The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent2">And waste (mark the word) its sweetness on the desert air.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span>
+This being so, of what use are the heavenly bodies? The overpowering
+and incalculable value to man of the sun is evident enough. By its
+daily transit through the sky it makes the difference between the day,
+the time of man’s activity, and night, the time of his repose. By its
+annual transit through the Signs of the Zodiac it makes the differences
+among the seasons, and so regulates his food supply, whether animal or
+vegetable, his comfort, and his welfare in a thousand particulars. Here
+we have the root of the whole matter; but to understand it fully we
+must remember that the sun was but one of seven Planets, all resembling
+him in so many important respects that it was impossible not to
+attribute to them powers corresponding with his, if different from his.
+So that, if the sun had power over the affairs of men, so had the other
+Planets; if his power varied according to the Sign he occupied, so did
+theirs; if his power altered with his height above the horizon, so did
+theirs. In a world in which natural law was unknown, and everything
+seemed to happen by chance, the mind clutched at anything that offered
+an explanation of the ways in which things happen. Here was an
+explanation ready to hand, and needing only study and interpretation.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span></p>
+
+<p>The moon is evidently complementary to the sun. Her power is greatest
+when she is in opposition, and at this time she antagonises the sun
+by producing a colourable imitation of daylight at night, and thus
+interfering with his power of regulating light and darkness. This is
+naturally taken as an instance of a general law, that opposition means
+antagonism, a meaning that is now become fixed and general; and since
+opposition is but one of several differences of position, it follows
+that every such difference—trine, quartile and sextile—means some
+difference of influence. Again, the moon, as far as her power extends,
+antagonises the sun, and works against him. But the sun is manifestly
+and immensely beneficial to the human race, and is a benevolent power;
+consequently, the moon is malevolent and injurious. Both sun and moon
+are but samples and members of the family of Planets, and whatever
+characters they possess must be shared by the rest of the family.
+The other Planets, therefore, must be benevolent or malevolent in
+their degree, and must exercise their powers, as the sun and moon do,
+according to their position above the horizon, that is in the Houses of
+Heaven, or in the Signs of the Zodiac.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span></p>
+
+<p>As the sun undoubtedly by its position and movements produces the
+seasons, and as the moon has faculties and qualities of like kind,
+though inferior in power, it follows that she too regulates some
+natural phenomena of minor importance to the seasons. Such minor
+natural phenomena are displayed by the weather; and the belief that the
+moon regulates the weather is the one astrological doctrine that still
+displays vitality. The other Planets are irregular in their movements,
+being now rapid, now slow, now direct, now retrograde; clearly,
+therefore, their influence will be exerted upon those great natural
+events that are irregular and occasional in their incidence; and thus
+it is that Saturn produces intense frost, inundations and tempests;
+that Mars regulates thunder and lightning and the invasion of pirates;
+that Venus brings beneficial floods, rains, and mists; that under
+Mercury occur droughts and squalls, and so forth.</p>
+
+<p>All these catastrophes have their effects on the welfare and fortunes
+of men, and consonantly with the belief already stated, were
+conclusively presumed to take place for no other purpose than to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span>
+affect, in one direction or other, the lives and fortunes of men. It
+would be strange if, after being credited with these powers for this
+purpose, the Planets were not further endowed with the power of causing
+those catastrophes, equally inexplicable otherwise, and still more
+affecting human welfare, plague, pestilence, and all other diseases.</p>
+
+<p>In order to produce diseases, the Planets must influence the humours
+by whose defect or excess diseases were produced; and since <i>entia
+non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem</i>, the Planets could
+not influence these humours except by themselves possessing and
+distributing the same elementary qualities, heat, cold, drought, and
+moisture, that characterise the humours. This doctrine was the easier
+to establish since it was already known that these four qualities
+pervade all things in nature. The very elements themselves, out of
+which all things are compounded, are but embodiments of the four
+elementary qualities in their four possible combinations. Fire is hot
+and dry, Air is hot and moist, Earth is cold and dry, Water is cold
+and moist. When it is remembered that the four humours are similarly
+compounded, yellow bile being hot and dry, blood hot and moist, black
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span>
+bile cold and dry, and phlegm cold and moist, it becomes evident, even
+if it were not already certain from the universal prevalence of these
+qualities, that corresponding pairs must be possessed by the several
+Planets to give them those powers over disease that they undoubtedly
+exercise. This useful method of the <i>circulus in probando</i> is not
+the only device that our forefathers have bequeathed to us, and that
+still serves our purposes with all its original efficacy.</p>
+
+<p>When we have got thus far, the remaining doctrines of medical astrology
+follow naturally by the development and elaboration of those we already
+possess, aided by further analogies, more or less far-fetched, and by
+chance coincidences, such as that already mentioned which led Guy de
+Chauliac to attribute the great plague of 1345 to the conjunction of
+Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in Aquarius in March of that year.</p>
+
+<p>We should take a very superficial view of Astrology, however, if we
+failed to recognise that beneath all its strange doctrines, and under
+all its monstrous assumptions, lies the insatiable craving of the human
+mind for explanation. Every event that happens before us throws down an
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span>
+irresistible challenge to us to explain it. We are so constituted that
+we cannot rest until it is explained; but we are also so constituted
+that we are apt to accept as sufficient anything that purports to be
+an explanation, even if it rests upon no reasonable ground, or even
+if it is a mere verbal explanation that explains nothing. We have
+discarded Astrology as a garment that we have outgrown, even as the
+snake wriggles itself out of its skin, and the crab withdraws itself
+from a rigid envelope that is too small for it; but can we assure
+ourselves that we have outgrown and discarded the mental carapace that
+renders such beliefs as Astrology possible? Do not logicians still
+teach doctrines every bit as absurd as the doctrines of Astrology? And
+even in Medicine itself, do we never take that for an explanation that
+is no explanation? Before we can cast stones at the Astrologers, have
+we no windows of our own to guard? Let those answer who explain aphasia
+by calling it a loss of memory for words; who explain ataxy by calling
+it loss of the power of coordinating movements; who explain a delusion
+by discovering a lesion in the brain; who explain feeble mindedness
+by <span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span>
+hereditary influence; who explain hysteria entertained in middle
+age by some sexual irregularity committed in youth; or who explain an
+hypothetical increase of appendicitis by an hypothetical increase in
+the consumption of meat. Surely we have every right to despise those
+who attributed all acute diseases to the influence of the moon, and all
+chronic diseases to the influence of the sun, for we know with assured
+knowledge that acute diseases are in fact produced by intestinal
+stasis, and that chronic diseases are due to that blessed combination
+of words—alimentary toxæmia.</p>
+
+<h3>ASTROLOGY IN MEDICINE.</h3>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center"><i>To the Editor of</i> <span class="smcap">The Lancet</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—I trust that with your well-known
+love of fair play you will kindly permit me to make a few remarks
+on this subject and to ask Dr Mercier a few questions of public
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>With all respect for the learned doctor, and with due acknowledgment
+of his candid admission that astrology was believed in and seriously
+studied ‘by the rarest intellects of their time, some of them, like
+Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus, the rarest intellects of all time,’
+I wish to ask: Does Dr Mercier think that such rarest intellects were
+incapable of distinguishing truth from error, and could have accepted
+the superstitions associated in their day with astrology? Surely not.
+They accepted <i>astrologia sana</i> as Bacon (Lord Verulam) accepted
+it, as a part of physics and discarded superstition. One might as
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span>
+reasonably proclaim medicine nowadays to be ‘tomfoolery,’ on the ground
+of the superstitions connected with it formerly, as Dr Mercier condemns
+astrology and pronounces it as ‘dead’—officially. Dr Mercier’s only
+argument against astrology on scientific grounds is the worn-out and
+utterly unfounded assertion that it was overthrown by Copernicus!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Dr Mercier ridicules the belief of that eminent man Guy de Chauliac
+that the outbreak of the ‘Black Death’ in the middle of the fourteenth
+century was due to the great conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars
+in <i>Aquarius</i> on March 24th, 1345. Neptune was also in the same
+sign at that time—a planet unknown then. Such a doryphory of great
+planets in <i>Aquarius</i>, a sign which is found to relate to epidemic
+diseases, certainly foreshadowed the outbreak of a pandemic; and if
+Dr Mercier will compare the periods of great conjunctions in Aquarius
+he will find that great epidemics always coincided therewith. If Dr
+Mercier had directed attention to the immense difference made by the
+discovery of Uranus and Neptune, he would have recognised that many
+mistakes of ancient and mediæval astrologers were due to their being
+unaware of the existence and relative positions of these distant
+planets.</p>
+
+<p>I hope Dr Mercier will forgive me for directing attention to the
+above points. I am sure that he meant to be as fair as possible in his
+delineation of mediæval astrology; in fact, he proved this intention by
+the last paragraph but one of his second lecture. I should be happy to
+meet Dr Mercier in friendly debate on this important subject before any
+learned society or private assembly.</p>
+
+<p class="author">I am, Sir, yours faithfully,<br>
+<span class="smcap">Alfred J. Pearce</span>.&emsp;&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><i>Dec. 3rd, 1913.</i></p>
+
+<p class="no-indent fs_90">⁂ Mr Pearce makes an appeal for publication which
+we have not been able to resist, but the view that the operations of
+nature are mysterious until they are understood cannot be advanced as a
+complete defence of mysticism.—<span class="smcap">Ed. L.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="spa2"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span></p>
+<hr class="r10">
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="center spa1"><i>To the Editor of</i> <span class="smcap">The Lancet</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—Like yourself, I am unable to
+withstand the appeal that Mr Pearce makes to me. He asks me whether
+I think that Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus were incapable of
+distinguishing truth from error. I hasten to assure him that in my
+opinion these eminent men were as incapable of making a mistake as I am
+myself. The experience of mankind throughout the ages shows that clever
+men never make mistakes. No clever general has ever been defeated in
+battle; no clever judge was ever upset on appeal; no clever counsel
+ever lost a cause; no clever theologian ever held an erroneous opinion,
+or at any rate an opinion that was held to be erroneous by other clever
+theologians; no clever doctor ever made a wrong diagnosis; no clever
+schoolboy ever needs to have his exercises corrected; in fact ability
+and infallibility mean the same thing.</p>
+
+<p>Mr Pearce is certainly right in pouring contempt upon my argument
+that Copernicus overthrew astrology; at least, he would have been right
+if I had made the statement, or if I had called it an argument.</p>
+
+<p>I should be most happy to accept Mr Pearce’s challenge to debate
+this important subject before a learned society were it not that I
+am at present immersed in a much more important investigation, which
+absorbs my whole time and attention. That Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars,
+in conjunction in Aquarius, must have produced the Black Death in
+the following year is patent to everyone and needs no demonstration,
+but it required the insight of genius to discover that the burning
+of York Minster was due to the superabundance of snails in a certain
+back garden early in the same year. It is the peculiar merit of the
+adept, be he an astrologer or merely an haruspex, to recognise the
+significance of such coincidences. It seems to have escaped altogether
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span>
+the observation of the vulgar that this year of grace 1913 has been
+characterised no less by the superabundance of snails in back gardens
+than by the number of conflagrations initiated by suffragettes. The
+causal nexus needs no proof; but if it did, proof would be found in the
+fact that in Ireland, from which snails were banished by the beneficent
+action of St Patrick, and where there are no back gardens, the backs of
+the houses being in front, there has been no suffragette incendiarism.
+I will not pursue the subject further in this place, but if Mr Pearce
+wants any further information he will find it in my forthcoming book,
+‘De Conflagrationibus et de Multitudinibus Helicidarum in Hortulis Posticis.’</p>
+
+<p class="author">I am, Sir, yours faithfully,<br>
+<span class="smcap">Chas. Mercier.</span>&emsp;&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><i>Dec. 13th, 1913.</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span></p>
+<h2 class="nobreak">SAINTS AND SIGNS</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="f80">(Part of a third Lecture, which was not delivered,<br>
+but was read to the Casual Club, <i>Nov. 1912</i>)</p>
+
+<p>It used to be a point of honour with me, and I believe with other
+members of this Club, never to read up the subject of the evening’s
+discussion. So to do would be to deprive the discussions of that
+casual character which is their distinctive charm, and which gives
+its name to the Club. It is with regret that I have noticed of late
+years signs that this honourable understanding is not maintained, and
+therefore I have chosen for this paper a title which will have rendered
+impracticable any attempt to acquire information of its subject from
+outside sources. If any member present has been trying to steal a march
+upon the rest by looking up the literature of miraculous signs, adduced
+in evidence of the truths of Christianity by the heroes or the victims
+of canonisation, I have the pleasure of informing him that he has been
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span>
+wasting his time; and I may further inform those members who have
+made direct inquiries of me as to the scope of the subject indicated
+by my title, that my answers, while of course strictly truthful, were
+intended to mislead, and have, I trust, served their purpose.</p>
+
+<p>I have here a specimen of a metallic token, which, if any of you have
+never seen one, I shall be glad to hand round—I wish I had more, so
+that I might present one to each of you as a memento of this joyful
+occasion, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer seizes upon every
+specimen with such avidity that they are becoming more and more scarce
+and difficult to obtain—a metallic token which serves in this country
+as the standard of value, and is known as the sovereign or pound
+sterling. If you will let observation with extensive view survey it on
+both aspects, you will find that on the obverse or the reverse—I never
+know which is which—it bears the image, though not the superscription,
+of St George of Cappadocia, who has abandoned the more lucrative
+occupation of army contractor in order to follow the more honourable
+calling of patron saint.</p>
+
+<p>He is engaged, you will observe, in his customary avocation of slaying
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span>
+the dragon, an operation which he performs in a rather surprising
+manner. Chastely attired in a helmet much too large for him, the weight
+of which has dislocated his neck, and mounted on a pony many sizes
+too small for him, the saint is in the act of kicking the dragon in
+the neck with his bare foot, while the pony simultaneously kicks the
+animal on the head with his off fore, and treads on its abdomen with
+his near hind. The triple assault so confounds the dragon that instead
+of biting the leg of the saint or of the pony, both of which are within
+easy reach, he retaliates by swearing, which any intelligent dragon
+must know would avail little against a Welsh pony (unless indeed the
+dragon should swear in Welsh, of which there is no evidence) and would
+be quite ineffectual against a saint, especially a saint who had had as
+long an experience in the army as St George of Cappadocia.</p>
+
+<p>George of Cappadocia was a commercial man, and a very successful
+commercial man, and no doubt it is meet and right and our bounden duty
+to place upon the standard of value in this commercial country the
+effigy of a successful commercial man. But it is not on account of his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span>
+success in commerce that the effigy of George appears on the fronts—or
+backs—of our coins. If we wanted to typify upon our coins the highest
+development of the commercial spirit, I suppose we should stamp them
+with the image of Lord Rothschild, or of Mr Rockefeller; but we do not.
+We stamp them with the image of St George of Cappadocia, not because
+he was a prosperous and successful commissary, but because, for some
+unknown reason, he subsequently became a saint. At some remote time,
+I do not know when or why, George was chosen as the patron saint of
+this country, and it is because he is the patron saint of England that
+his image appears on those useful tokens that are collected with such
+avidity by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr Rockefeller would not be
+eligible, because he is not a saint.</p>
+
+<p>Patron saints were in past times much more highly valued and much more
+frequently employed than they are now. France has, or had, a patron
+in St Louis. I speak without accurate knowledge, but I believe I am
+correct in saying that, in the common phrase, he has joined the ranks
+of the unemployed. Scotland placed itself under the patronage of St
+Andrew, Ireland of St Patrick, Wales of St David, Spain of St James;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span>
+and if I cannot adduce any other examples, it is because these are the
+only nations—if we can allow that Scotland is a nation—that remain as
+they were before the modern redistribution of the map of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>But nations were not the only things that had patron saints. Every
+family that aspired to county rank, and indeed, every person who
+aspired to be of consequence, had his or her patron saint. Nor was this
+all, as they say in Oxford. Every profession and calling had its patron
+saint. The patron saint of medicine was St Luke. Who was the patron
+saint of lawyers I do not know, but no doubt they chose a very powerful
+one, for their need was great; or perhaps no saint would consent to act
+for them, for of all the Inns of Court it is curious that not one is
+named after a saint. As to other callings, the sailor-men had a patron
+saint in St Botolph, ferrymen in St Christopher, fishermen in St Peter,
+shoemakers in St Crispin, butchers in St Bartholomew, huntsmen in St
+Hubert and so on. I need not remind you that to this day every church
+has its patron saint, but you may not know that every part of the human
+body, and every ailment of the human body had its patron saint. The head
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span>
+was under the patronage of St Ottila; the neck acknowledged St Blasius;
+the body, St Lawrence; the legs and feet, St Rochus and St John; and
+thereby hangs a curious tale, as we shall see presently.</p>
+
+<p>Except for countries and churches, patron saints are not now much
+utilised; but it is evident, from their universal employment in former
+times, that they were once of great importance. At the present day,
+a patron is a merely ornamental personage. He gives his name, and
+he is usually expected to give a subscription, but beyond this, his
+only function is to confer respectability. In former times, however,
+his functions were much more active. Patron, I may remind you, is
+correlative with client, as father with child, or master with servant.
+A child necessarily implies a father, and without a father can no child
+be. A master implies a servant, and where there is a servant, there
+must be a master. And similarly, patron and client are correlative.
+There can be no patron without a client, and no client without a
+patron. For this reason, I object to and resent the custom that
+has recently arisen, of tradesmen calling their customers clients,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span>
+especially as in the same breath they ask their customers for
+patronage. A master might as well ask his servant for orders, or a
+father expect a tip from his child, as a patron ask his client for
+patronage.</p>
+
+<p>The relation of patron and client was the relation of protector and
+protected. I don’t know whether those who placed themselves under the
+patronage of a saint called themselves his clients, but undoubtedly
+they invoked and expected his protection; and it was for the sake of
+protection that they provided themselves with patron saints. We must
+remember that in the days when men provided themselves with patron
+saints, no one could afford to be without protection. We have only to
+pay attention to the litany to realise how urgent was the need. The
+litany is one long prayer for protection. We pray to be protected from
+evil and mischief, from the crafts and assaults of the devil, from the
+wrath of God, from lightning and tempest, from plague, pestilence and
+famine, from battle and murder, and from sudden death. We pray for
+protection for all that travel by land or by water, for all prisoners
+and captives, for all sick persons (against their doctors I suppose),
+and for all sorts and conditions of men.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span></p>
+
+<p>In those days, the modern conception of the reign of law, in the sense
+of the inexorableness of natural causation, had not yet been attained.
+Things happened in those days, not in obedience to natural laws, but
+according to caprice, and to whether the devil got a chance when God
+was not attending, or when the saints, his ministers, were pre-occupied
+with other affairs. The Almighty was too august to be approached
+directly. Indeed, it seems to have been assumed that he occupied the
+position of a constitutional sovereign, and acted only on the advice or
+the intercession of his ministers, the saints, so that it was of the
+first importance to have the protection and favour of a powerful and
+influential saint.</p>
+
+<p>When clans or nations joined battle, their war-cry was the name of
+their patron saint, who was expected to fight on the side of his
+votaries or clients, to see that they had all the luck and came out top
+dog. Not infrequently, the saint came down on purpose, and in bodily
+presence led them to the attack. Many such instances are on record, and
+it is worth notice that, whoever the saint that thus interpreted his
+obligations, he was always mounted on a white horse.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span></p>
+
+<p>Although wars were very frequent in mediæval times, it would be a
+mistake to suppose, as historians before the present generation seemed
+to suppose, that the whole time of the whole male population of the
+world was occupied in fighting, and in nothing else. No doubt, in times
+when there were no newspapers, no novels, no theatres, no cricket, no
+football, no suffragists, no divorce court, no kinematographs and no
+parliamentary debates, people must have suffered terrible boredom, and
+would have been driven now and then to do a little wholesome fighting
+from sheer vacancy of mind; and no doubt, when there were no motor
+buses, no taxi-cabs and no municipal tram-cars, the normal increase of
+population must have required some other check to keep it within the
+bounds of the means of subsistence; and so people plunged into war to
+save themselves from famine; but still, the laity did not live wholly
+on acorns and beech-mast, nor the clergy on Greek roots, and therefore
+some industrial occupations must have been followed; and we know as a
+matter of fact that some were followed; and whatever a man’s occupation
+might be, whether of war or peace, it was necessary, if he was to have
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span>
+any luck, that he should have a patron saint; and hence it was that a
+patron saint presided over every trade and calling. Not even thieving
+could prosper except under the patronage of St Nicholas.</p>
+
+<p>My own occupation had not then reached the perfection that it has
+now attained, and in those days there were maladies that baffled the
+resources of medical art as it then was, and defied all the drugs
+in the pharmacopœia, reinforced as that then was by many potent and
+valuable remedies that the ignorance and indifference of a later age
+has suffered to fall into disuse. Pounded earthworms, ants’ eggs,
+asses’ dung, the urine of a bull or—strange alternative—of a virgin,
+vipers’ fat, the water that had been used for washing a corpse—all
+these, incredible as it appears, sometimes failed to cure; and then
+there was no resource left but to go to the celestial Harley Street,
+and consult a specialist saint. For the celestial Harley Street had
+as many saintly specialists as its mundane successor has now of
+specialists who are, perhaps, not altogether saintly. St Apollonius
+was the leading authority on toothache; St Avertin appropriated my own
+specialty of lunacy; St Benedict practised in stone and other diseases
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span>
+of the bladder; St Hubert specialised in hydrophobia; St John in
+epilepsy; St Vitus in chorea; St Maur in gout; and St Anthony in
+erysipelas. Of course, it was not to be expected that everyone should
+know the right saint to go to in any particular malady, any more than
+the man in the street knows at the present time precisely the best
+specialist, who is not a saint, to consult for the malady with which
+he may happen to be afflicted. It would have been as absurd to go for
+one’s gout to St Apollonius, the President, if one may so put it, of
+the celestial College of Dentists, as for the toothache to St Maur,
+whose specialty was gout. In cases of difficulty, it was necessary to
+consult a priest, as one now consults a general practitioner.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, in those days as in these, the fee had to be considered.
+Guineas had not then been coined, and payment was usually made in
+candles, burnt at the shrine of the saint, a mode of remuneration that,
+for my own part, I am glad to say has been abandoned. This method of
+payment was rather after that of the sister profession than of modern
+medicine. The saint had a number of candles marked on his brief, as it
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span>
+were, and unless the retainer was satisfactory, he refused to look
+at the papers. No doubt there were needy saints, not too scrupulous,
+who would undertake any case for a candle or two, whether they were
+qualified to treat it or not; just as now there are sixpenny doctors,
+and surgeons who will undertake a case of mental disease; but it is to
+be hoped that the leaders of the profession had more conscience, and
+that a saint who specialised on blindness, for instance, would no more
+undertake a dislocation or a fracture than a Chancery leader would
+undertake the defence of a prisoner at the Old Bailey, or a reputable
+surgeon would treat a patient suffering from mental disorder.</p>
+
+<p>So far, then, our mediæval ancestors were thoroughly well provided
+with patrons. There was scarcely any occasion in life that had not a
+saint who had specialised in its requirements and was ready to supply
+them for a consideration—for a sufficient number of candles. But it is
+evident that such a complete equipment of saints could not have been
+suddenly, nor even rapidly constituted. It must have been the growth of
+years and of generations; and moreover, we must remember that there was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span>
+a time, at the beginning of the Christian era, when, though sins were
+very many, saints were very few, and until the large additions made
+to the noble army of martyrs in the reign of Diocletian, there could
+not possibly have been saints enough to go round; and if we go further
+back, and recede from the penumbra of early <span class="allsmcap">A.D.</span>
+to the outer darkness of <span class="allsmcap">B.C.</span>, we enter
+a benighted world in which there were no saints at all. The prospect
+appals! We might almost as well contemplate a world in which there
+were no barristers. The question presents itself, and presses upon us
+with irresistible force—What did our unhappy ancestors do in a world
+in which there were no saints? It is clear that patrons or protectors
+of some kind they must have had, for in pre-Christian, no more than in
+mediæval times, was there any conviction or knowledge of the operation
+of natural laws. How do we know this? We have it on unexceptionable
+authority. A contemporary writer, who is generally believed to have
+been inspired, asserts ‘He hath not dealt so with any nation, neither
+have the heathen any knowledge of his laws.’ Consequently, there was
+the same lack of any rule or governance in the happening of events.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span>
+Everything went by chance, according as the devil or the saints were
+paying attention, or got the upper hand at the moment. But there were
+no saints. Hence it would appear that the devil must have had it all
+his own way, and that the affairs of men must have been uniformly
+and invariably unfortunate. But they were not, for man survived. He
+not only survived, but he prospered and flourished. He increased and
+multiplied exceedingly. Men organised themselves into great nations,
+built great cities, and were subject to mighty kings. Egypt, Nineveh,
+Babylon, Assyria, Persia, the Empire of India and the greater Empire
+of China, all attest that, long before there were saints to interest
+themselves in him, man succeeded, somehow or other, in antagonising the
+devil and getting the better of him. It is of the utmost interest and
+importance to discover how he did this, and what were the means that he
+employed; and this brings me to the middle of my song, and the second
+part of my paper. I am now done with Saints. It is clear that they were
+not as indispensable as they made themselves out; and—I say it with
+reluctance, but—I have grave doubts whether they did not lay claim, if
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span>
+not to powers they did not possess, at any rate to the exclusive
+possession of powers by no means peculiar to them. We know, indeed,
+that on one historical occasion, St Dunstan did seize the devil by
+the nose with a pair of tongs; and we are told, on less unimpeachable
+authority, but we are told, that St Nicholas kicked him on a place
+which is described as being near the spot where the tail joins on
+to the small of the back; but with these exceptions, though he was
+constantly outwitted, and indeed he appears to be a kind of Simple
+Simon, easily gulled by the most transparent device, and no more astute
+than the victims of the confidence trick—with these exceptions, I
+say, there are few, if any, records of personal encounters with the
+devil till we come down to Martin Luther; and Martin Luther was not a
+saint. He was never, I understand, canonised, and I am informed on good
+authority, in reply to inquiry made in the highest quarters, that any
+application to Rome for his canonisation would have little or no chance
+of success.</p>
+
+<p>Still, whatever unaccountable prejudices may exist at Rome against
+the canonisation of this great and good man, I cannot see that we are
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span>
+any nearer a solution of the most important, and indeed vital question,
+What did men do for patrons before they had saints to fly to? This,
+gentlemen, is the great and epoch-making discovery that I have to
+announce to you on this memorable evening. This is the brilliant result
+of years of laborious research. This is the golden fruit of a lifetime
+of very insufficiently rewarded toil. Why should I repine that the
+paltry metal counters that I exhibited at the beginning of this address
+are so scarce and rare, when I have garnered so abundantly rewards so
+much more precious? What did men do for patronage and protection before
+they had saints to place themselves under? Why, this was what they did.
+Not to keep you in suspense any longer, I will at once reveal that they
+sought the protection of the Signs of the Zodiac and of the Planets;
+and as far as it is possible to judge, the protection they obtained
+therefrom was as ample, as efficient, and as abundant, as that of all
+the saints in the calendar.</p>
+
+<p>Many centuries before a single saint had been canonised, the system of
+patronage by the heavenly bodies was completely organised—was, if I
+may so put it, in full swing; and all the Christian hagiology did was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span>
+to adopt this system, ousting the heavenly bodies, and filling their
+places with saints. Long before St Louis, or St Andrew, or that
+successful commissary St George, was born or thought of, every nation
+and city of antiquity had its patron Sign. Every calling had its
+own patron Sign or Planet; every part of the body its patron Sign
+or Planet: and every illness had a double process of cure, being
+remediable not only by certain drugs, but according to the position and
+movement of the Planets among the Signs when the drugs were collected
+and when they were administered. The series of saints and the series of
+Signs present a complete parallel, and it is evident that in this as in
+other things Christianity took advantage of a pre-existing organisation
+and adapted it to its own uses. It took the institution of patronage
+by celestial personages, as it took the institution of periodical
+festivals; emptied them of their previous contents, and filled them
+with Christian matter, leaving the pagan form unaltered. Thus it
+took the great annual winter festival, and altered it arbitrarily to
+Christmas day, pretending that it is the anniversary of the birth of
+Christ, for which there is not one tittle of evidence; but it could
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span>
+not, or did not, alter the minor weekly festival which still has its
+name from the greatest of the Planets. In these cases the supersession
+was either complete or none at all, but in other matters, and
+especially in the matter of patronage and protection, the struggle was
+very prolonged, and for ages the two systems of patronage existed side
+by side; and alongside the priests, who were experts in advising as
+to the appropriate saint to invoke, were the astrologers, experts in
+advising the proper conjunction or disposition of the heavenly bodies
+to wait for before beginning any undertaking or altering any course
+of action, and also for the purpose of determining whether a course
+of action was or was not judicious, and calculated to be successful.
+Between the two sets of practitioners there was a natural jealousy.
+The Church forbad recourse being had to the aid of Astrology, and
+threatened excommunication to anyone who consulted the rival expert,
+just as at present the orthodox physician boycotts the homœopath. On
+the other hand the astrologer, who was often an infidel, often a Jew or
+an Arab, despised and ridiculed the pretensions of the saints. Whatever
+faith, or want of faith, either sect had in its own ministrations,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>
+neither was without an uneasy feeling that the other might, after all,
+have something in it. The astrologers were not above invoking the aid
+of the saints in their own personal difficulties, and the very Popes
+who issued bulls fulminating against Astrology and its practitioners,
+yet kept their own private astrologers, whom they consulted on the
+sly. In spite of their mutual antagonism, however, the two systems
+existed side by side for many centuries, and neither can boast of a
+complete triumph over the other. Astrology is dead, it is true, but in
+Protestant countries the invocation of saints perished long before its
+rival, and the influence of the heavenly bodies was consulted by very
+many who would have scorned to invoke a saint.</p>
+
+<p>Very many days in the year had their patron saints, and those who are
+familiar with old chronicles know that the date of an event was never
+signalised by the day of the month, but always by the saint’s day
+that it fell upon, or, in the few cases in which the day had not been
+appropriated by some saint or other, the date was signalised as being
+on the eve of the day following, which was sure to have its patron
+saint, or the morrow of the previous day. Correspondingly, every day of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span>
+the week had its patron Planet. The number seven was chosen for the
+days of the week, no doubt because in seven days the moon completes
+a quarter, and in 28 days completes its revolution. By a curious
+coincidence, the number of Planets known to the ancient world was also
+seven, and hence it was natural that to every Planet should be assigned
+one day in the week. By an easy transition, made at a time that I have
+not been able to identify, but that was certainly very early, the
+powers of the Planets and those of the gods became transferable, and
+with the powers the names, so that only three of the seven days of the
+week, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, are known by the names of Planets,
+the remaining four being called after the corresponding gods.</p>
+
+<p>As with days, so with other things. We have seen that to some saint or
+other every part of the body was apportioned; and similarly the body
+was carved up and portioned out among the Signs of the Zodiac, as we
+find in the chapter of Arnaldus de Villanova, <i>De quolibet signo
+quod membrum in corpore respicit</i>, and as is set forth in the first
+lecture in this book, so that it is clear that the heathen had as good
+a choice of celestial specialists as ever the Christians had.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span></p>
+
+<p>Time fails me to carry out the parallel in further detail, but just as
+the patron Sign of England is St George, and the effigy of St George
+appears upon our coins, so the patron Sign of Syria was Aries, and
+the effigy of the Ram appears on Syrian coins. Similarly, Palmyra was
+under the patronage of Libra, and on the coins of Palmyra appears the
+Balance. Similarly, individuals had their patron Signs before ever they
+had their patron saints. The patron Sign of Augustus was Capricorn,
+of Pythodeia Queen of Pontus, the Balance. The custom continued well
+into mediæval times and into Christian countries, and King Stephen of
+England adopted and placed on his coins the patron Sign of Sagittarius.</p>
+
+<p class="center spa2 spb2">CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.<br> AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="f150"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_1_1" href="#FNanchor_1_1" class="label">[1]</a>
+In a letter to his sons John and Charles, dated Sept. 3, 1697, Dryden
+says ‘Towards the latter end of this month, September, Charles will
+begin to recover his perfect health according to his nativity, which,
+casting it myself, I am sure is true, and all things hitherto have
+happened according to the very time that I predicted them.’ See also
+the Preface to his Fables, and the lines</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">The utmost malice of the stars is past—</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Now frequent trines the happier lights among,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">And high raised Jove, from his dark prison freed,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Those weights took off that on his planet hung,</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">Will gloriously the new-laid works succeed.</div>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p class="no-indent">
+<a id="Footnote_2_2" href="#FNanchor_2_2" class="label">[2]</a>
+A House has two meanings in Astrology. It may mean a twelfth part of
+the heavens, as will be shown presently, or it may mean a Sign of the
+Zodiac specifically appropriated to a particular Planet, which is its Lord.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="transnote bbox spa2">
+<p class="f120 spa1">Transcriber’s Notes:</p>
+<hr class="r10">
+<p>The cover image was created by the transcriber, and is in the public domain.</p>
+<p>Deprecated spellings or ancient words were not corrected.</p>
+<p>The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up
+      paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate.</p>
+<p>Typographical and punctuation errors have been silently corrected.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78150 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
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+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #78150
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78150)