It is the opinion of Hippocrates that astrology must be studied by physicians before they can be safely trusted to arrive at a correct prognosis, and to employ the appropriate medicines in the treatment of the cases submitted to their care.
Galen was of the same opinion. Dr. Watson says that, "Advocating the Hippocratic doctrine of critical days, he (Galen) attempts to support it on grounds purely theoretical, and drawn from the periodical changes in Nature, or the influence of the stars."
Galen said that the remedies appropriate to the cure of any malady "are only to be known and judged by the stars." Paracelsus, and Cornelius Agrippa, who was physician to the Emperor Charles V., said the same. Galen admonished his contemporaries " not to trust themselves to that physician (or rather pretender) who is not skilled in astrology."
Astrology has been discarded by the physicians of the nineteenth century (excepting among Eastern nations), yet medicine has not advanced any better without it.
Baron Liebig says: "Truly one is tempted to adopt the opinion that, among the sciences which have for their object a knowledge of Nature and of her forces, medicine as an inductive science occupies the lowest place."
Bamesey, in his work on "Astrology" (1652), remarks that, "Hippocrates and Galen farther say that a physician cannot safely give physic who is ignorant of the knowledge of the stars and superior bodies, not knowing indeed when to give purges, or vomits, or when to let blood, without much mischief, nor in what quantity—which ignorance oftentimes endangers the life of the patient, when, as those that know not the influence of the heavenly bodies, give vomits at such times as cause a purge, and purges when they become emetics, which in laxative diseases or fluxes prove very dangerous, if not deadly or totally destructive, and at other times when the physic never worketh at all. Yet you shall never find the ignorant without an excuse for their rashness; as when they administer a purge, if it cause vomiting then say they the party is of weak constitution and cannot retain the physic. And when physic is not given to be retained, it is either to work downward or upward immediately. The next day, perhaps, as it hath been often known, they give the patient a stronger potion, and then (the heavens being otherwise disposed, which they understand not) it works so violently that Nature is both weakened and overcome, which should have only helped; and also the disease increases which should have been diminished. And so, on the contrary, when an emetic is given at an unsuitable time, it causes purging, then they conclude the patient is strong, when perhaps he requires strength."
This is too often true of the adherents of the dominant or orthodox school of medicine at the present day. The homoeopathists have a law, similia similibus curantur, to guide them in their selection of remedies, and they are not in the habit of exhibiting emetics and purgatives, and do not follow the unscientific practice of mixing several medicines together, of which the physicians of the old school are still so enamoured. This accounts for the comparatively greater success of the system of medical treatment discovered by Hahnemann. Their law also agrees with the teachings of Astrology.
Every physician should provide himself with a copy of Zadkiel's "Ephemeris," and when he is called to visit a patient suffering with a serious complaint, acute or chronic, he should obtain the moment, as approximately as can be ascertained, when the patient was first seized with illness, or was compelled to take to his bed. Having ascertained this, he will soon calculate the exact longitude of the Moon, and it will be better still if he can cast a "figure of the heavens" for that moment. The approach of the first crisis may then be anticipated by calculating the hour when the Moon will arrive at 90 degrees distance in longitude (or three signs of the Zodiac), and the other crisis in like manner. [In measles, and those diseases which ran a rapid course, the crisis will determine when the Moon arrives at 45 degrees distance in longitude.] Then, if at the crisis the "aspects" formed by the Moon with the planets be fortunate, recovery, or at least a change for the better, may be looked for, and vice versa. The fact that the Moon moves more swiftly at one part of her orbit than at another, explains the reason why crises in disease sometimes determine quickly, and at other times come on very slowly.
Of the medicines in daily use by physicians, Saturn rules—aconite, assafoetida, belladonna, Indian hemp, colchicum, conium, spurge olive, black henbane, hyoscyamus, saw palmetto, lead compounds, mullein, white veratrum, American hellebore, poison ivy, comfrey, etc.
Jupiter governs pleurisy root, wild horehound, yellow jessamine, stramonium, dandelion, etc.
Mars rules antimony, arnica, arsenic, bryonia, aloes, capsicum, gentian, iron, sarsaparilla, squills, sulphur, lobelia, strong scented lettuce, etc.
Sol governs gold, garden marigold, tetterwood, chamomile, sundew, saffron, ruta, etc.
Venus rales silver, copper, digitalis, European elder, pulsatilla, zinc, etc.
Mercury governs purging agaric, cherry-laurel, bittersweet, marsh-tea, mercury, valerian, etc.
Luna governs silver, opium, blue flag, moon wort, and all herbs that turn to the Moon.
By observing the aspects of the Moon at the decumbiture and at the crisis, the appropriate remedies may be discovered.
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