Astrology in Medicine

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; 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.

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.

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.

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