Part 4
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.