Sabbath, to comply with such demands of nature. But whether the call of
nature always yielded to these rather far-reaching requirements of the
law, or how the believer helped himself when the extremely disagreeable
dissension between nature and faith caused too much uneasiness, is not
reported either by Josephus or by Porphyrius. Besides, the Essenians
had their troubles even on week-days in attending to final phases of
the digestive process, in that it was incumbent upon them to conceal
the termination of the act of digestion from the view of the Supreme
Being by covering themselves with a cloak.
Subsequently, during the first century of the Christian era, appeared
Neo-Pythagorism, an attempt to combine monotheism with the ancient
fantastic cult of subordinate gods and demons. Then followed a period
of momentous importance for medicine; for the attempt to displace the
physico-mechanical conception of corporeal phenomena by various ideas
of theosophic caprice, and to bring therapeutics once more under the
domination of the metaphysic methods, prevalent in the days when the
theistic theory of life held undisputed sway in medicine and natural
sciences, became more and more apparent. The Neo-Pythagoreans acted
upon the principle that the practise of medicine was absolutely
indispensable to the true philosopher, and that every one, therefore,
provided he had attained the required fitness by his intercourse with
demons, was able to act as a physician. It is quite obvious that such
ideas were bound to pave the way for the most abominable abuse and
superstitions, and, naturally, what the Neo-Pythagoreans offered as the
art of healing to the patients was nothing but a mixture of mysterious
customs, conjurations, and witchcraft. On the other hand, the followers
of this school of philosophy did much to promote the bodily welfare of
their fellow men, in that they urged them to lead a pure and temperate
life, while they themselves appear to have adhered strictly to this
régime.
The chief representative of Neo-Pythagorism was Apollonius, of
Tyana, in Cappodocia, probably one of the most fantastic personages
of all Greek and Roman antiquity. Venerated as a god by some of his
contemporaries, such as Damis and Philostratus, his biographers, on
account of his wisdom and of his extraordinary works, he is considered
by others, on the other hand, as a magician engaged, like a common
charlatan, in conjuring tricks. The opinions which posterity, down to
modern times, has passed on Apollonius are of a similar nature. There
are some who consider the Tyanian to be a crafty magician, whereas
others declare that he is an important personality in the history of
religion. Among these latter is Baur, who attempts to explain the life
and the deeds of the wonder-working Neo-Pythagorean by citing as a
parallel the impression created by Christianity upon some enlightened
minds.
Personally, I consider this high estimate of a trickster to be
perfectly absurd. Apollonius, as we meet him in the celebrated
description of Philostratus, is a purely poetical idealization,
prompted by a desire to delay the downfall of ancient religion,
pointing to the reform which has been instituted in its moral
tendencies (Gregorovius, page 413).
Apollonius flourished in the first Christian century, during the
reigns of Nero and of the succeeding emperors up to Nerva, who
appears to have been in very close relations with him. The accounts
of Philostratus regarding the adventures of our hero, based as they
are upon the early authorities accessible to him, absolutely create
the impression that heathen antiquity meant in Apollonius to set a
counterpart of Christ. According to ancient reports, a supernatural
apparition visited his mother, apprizing her that she would bear a god,
and after his death Apollonius appeared to his disciples to announce
to them the immortality of the soul. The time between the birth and
death of the Tyanian was spent by him in restless wanderings over
the then known world. Wherever he went he conversed on the deepest
subjects with priests and cultured laymen, and upon request he also
performed miracles of various kinds. Naturally, we are only interested
in the medical performances of the wandering philosopher, and of these
he is credited with a considerable number. He cured the lame simply
by stroking the affected limbs; with equal facility he gave sight to
the blind—in fact, he even attended to obstetrical cases without fear
and trepidation. For instance, when the husband of a woman who had
borne seven children, but always with the greatest difficulty, came
to Apollonius, sadly telling him that his wife was again in labor and
nobody was able to help her, the man of miracles told him to be of good
cheer. Without even examining the woman for a possible narrow pelvis,
or for some other obstacle to birth, he simply advised the husband to
procure, as soon as possible, a living hare, and, with this hare in his
arms, to walk round and round the woman in labor, and then allow the
hare to run away. This one sample of his medical activity is sufficient
to characterize Apollonius as a charlatan of the most contemptible
class. When we learn, further, that he raised the dead without any
difficulty, nobody will probably accuse us of an unjust opinion if we
pronounce this philosopher, who was revered as a god by the heathen, a
magician of the worst kind.
In order duly to enhance his authority Apollonius arrogated to himself
certain mysterious powers. Thus, he pretended that he was able to
speak all languages without having ever learned them; in fact, this
philological talent even extended to the languages of the animals,
which he undertook to master. We are scarcely surprised to learn, when
we consider the powers bestowed upon him, that he knew the future, and
was thoroughly aware of what happened at the same time at the most
distant parts of the world. He also endeavored to bear witness to his
vocation as a man of God by his manner of living and of dressing. Thus
he was always attired in white linen garments, and walked about with
long, flowing hair, followed by his disciples. He never ate meat, never
partook of wine, and disdained love. It would seem, however, that in
the last particular he was not quite consistent—at least, various
erotic adventures are related of him.
The manner in which Apollonius cast out a demon in India is extremely
amusing. A woman came, lamenting and crying, to the medical miracle
worker, and asked him to deliver her sixteen-year-old son from an evil
spirit. Apollonius at once gave her a letter directed to the evil
spirit which contained, as Philostratus emphasizes particularly, the
most terrible threats against the good-for-nothing tormentor. But the
biographer does not tell us whether the reading of this letter caused
the demon to desist from his improper behavior.
But as even in a man of miracles the hour-glass of life finally is
emptied, so also a time came when Apollonius realized that he must pay
his last debt to nature. But the Tyanian knew how to surround even the
act of dying with a halo of the extraordinary. As a matter or fact,
he did not die; but one day—if it is permissible to employ a trivial
expression in speaking of a demi-god—he evaporated without anybody
knowing what had become of him. This evaporation occurred in the
following manner. There was in Crete a temple of Dictynna so securely
guarded by vicious dogs that no one dared to approach. This temple was
entered by Apollonius, whom the furious dogs left unmolested; but,
after the doors of the sanctuary had closed behind the Pythagorean,
suddenly there resounded female voices singing from the depth of the
temple: “Leave the earth! Go heavenward!” With these sounds and
words Apollonius disappeared forever. Thus his last medical act was a
sleight-of-hand performance, in that he even snapped his fingers at
death.
The grateful heathen world of antiquity rendered divine honors to
Apollonius. In his birth-place, Tyana, a temple was erected in his
honor at imperial expense, and the priests everywhere erected statues
to a philosopher who had left this world without dying; in fact, even
the Emperor Alexander Severus set up an image of Apollonius in his
_lararium_, or domestic chapel. And thus to medical superstition was
accorded a triumph which no legitimate practitioner of any age has ever
enjoyed.
These theosophic vagaries reached their climax in Neo-Platonism, which
was founded toward the end of the second century of the Christian era
by the Alexandrian porter, Ammonius (175 to 242), and was further
elaborated by Plotinus (204 to 269). This religious, philosophical
system is of very particular interest in the history of medicine
in that, in the first place, it stands in direct opposition to the
physico-mechanical conception of disease, and, explaining sickness from
a theistic standpoint as a logical consequence, rejects the treatment
of disease by professional physicians.
Now this theistic conception of disease was based primarily upon the
assumption that the universe is filled with countless demons, spirits
which, altho essentially superior to man, are inferior to God. Such
a demon was supposed to be the “spiritus rector” of all terrestrial
occurrences, especially all evil events were attributed to him. ὂτι
αὐτοὶ αἳτιοι γιγνόμενοι τῶν Περὶ τὴν γῆν καθημάτων, οἷον λοιμῶν,
ἀΦοριῶν, σεισμῶν, αὐχμῶν Καἳ τῶν ὁμοίων (Porphyrius de Abst., lib.
2, 40). As the demons played havoc with the condition of the human
body, protection against them could not be expected from a professional
physician, but only from some one well versed in all their tricks and
devices, and, therefore, alone able to punish them thoroughly for their
mischievous behavior. This taming of the demon could be accomplished
in various ways. Porphyrius enumerates three methods of gaining an
influence over the host of demons.
The first and principal method (theosophy) attempted to attain the
most intimate union with God. Prayer, abstraction of all thought from
things earthly, and absorption in God were supposed to be the means of
participation in certain divine powers. An individual thus favored was
enabled in a trice to restore health to incurable patients, such as the
blind, the deaf, and the lame, and even the power of raising the dead
was conferred upon him. However, the acquisition of such extraordinary
powers demanded certain qualifications of a rather exacting and
terrestrial character. It was incumbent upon such an applicant for
these special gifts to abstain from the use of meat, and, above all,
from the society of women. How many were deterred by these fastidious
requirements from choosing the career of a famous man of miracles we
do not know. Nothing is reported on this subject by the pillars of
Neo-Platonism (as, Plotinus, Porphyrius, Damascius, Jamblichus), nor do
they state whether they themselves absolutely abstained from meat and
from the society of women.
Theurgy was the second method of counteracting the evil influence of
demons. In this way good demons were urged by prayer and offerings to
ward off disease or other misfortune.
By the third method (goety) attempts were made to dispel the evil
demons by conjurations and various kinds of mystical mummery. These
mysterious accessories consisted mostly in muttering any number of
words as meaningless as possible. The more meaningless and the more
unintelligible were these words the more efficacious—according to the
assurance of Jamblichus—they would prove, especially when they were
taken from Oriental languages. For, as Jamblichus says, the Oriental
languages are the most ancient—therefore, the most agreeable to the
gods. In such a manner words utterly nonsensical were drawled out at
the bedside, and, for greater security, written on tablets to be hung
round the neck of the patient. The magic word “abracadabra” enjoyed
especial respect. To render its power certain it was written as many
times as it has letters, omitting the last letter each time until only
one remained, and placing the words in such a succession as to form
an equilateral triangle. A tablet thus inscribed was worn around the
neck of the sufferer as an amulet. It may be that this wonder-working
word has arisen from the word “abraxas,” with which the gnostic
Basilides meant to designate the aggregate of the three hundred and
sixty-five forms of revelation of divinity which he assumed to exist.
Numerous other explanations are in vogue, however, with regard to
this medical, magic term (compare Häser, Vol. I., page 433). Very
ancient magic words which had originated in the earliest periods of
Hellenism were revived. Thus, to banish disease, certain words were
employed which were said to be derived from the temple of Artemis
in Ephesus, and which read: ασχι, Κατάσχι, λίε, τετράε, δαμναμενεύς,
αἲσσον. The meaning of these words, according to the explanation of the
Pythagorean, Androcydes, was: darkness, light, earth, air, sun, truth.
Besides, the attempt was made to obtain directly from the demons such
magic words as were endowed with curative power. For such purposes
small children were employed, in whom it was supposed that the demons
preferred to be present, and expressed themselves through their mouths.
Such children, therefore, played a similar part as does a medium with
modern spiritualists. The senseless stuff babbled by such a child was
considered the immediate manifestation of a demon, and was accordingly
utilized to banish the demons which brought on disease. Moreover,
the nonsensical practise which was carried on by the Neo-Platonists
by letter and word was to a certain extent accepted by professional
physicians. It had become a very common custom with physicians to
apply various kinds of bombastic names to all their various plasters
and ointments, powders, and pills. It is necessary only to cast a
glance upon the ancient pharmacopœia to find the most curious names.
Galen mentions disapprovingly the fact that Egyptian and Babylonian
expressions were preferred in the nomenclature of medicine (De Simpl.
Medicamentorum Facult. Lib. Sic. Preface).
Such were the methods with which the Neo-Platonists did not hesitate
to treat the sick; and not only minor practitioners, but even the
leaders of the entire movement, preferred banishing disease by means
of various kinds of magic formulæ to all other specially medical
methods of treatment. Thus, for instance, Eunapius of Sardis (about
400) recounts how Plotinus, one of the most gifted of the Neo-Platonic
school, repeatedly proved himself to be a medical miracle-worker, most
conspicuously during the sickness of Porphyrius. When the latter, a
favorite disciple of Plotinus, was traveling through Sicily he became
dangerously ill—in fact, according to the description of Eunapius,
he was actually breathing his last. Then Plotinus appeared, and by
magic words cured the dying man instantly. It appears, moreover,
that Plotinus did not only operate with wonder-working words, but he
employed still other agencies—as, for instance, mysterious figures
(ὁχήματα. Villoison, Anecd. græca, Vol. II., page 231). Plotinus was
even said to possess his own demon, who was at his disposal alone, and
by the aid of whom he performed other wonders—as, for instance, that of
prophesying.
Porphyrius, probably the most notable disciple of the Neo-Platonic
school after Plotinus, claimed even that the demons personally taught
him to expel, with certainty and despatch, those pathogenic demons.
It was claimed by him that Chaldean and Hebrew words and songs were
the promptest means of turning out all these evil spirits; in fact,
the philosopher, Alexander of Abonoteichos, in Paphlagonia, was of the
opinion that a pestilence, which was devastating Italy, could not be
checked by any better means than that of affixing to the doors of the
infected towns and villages the sentence: “Phœbus, the hair unshorn,
dispels the clouds of disease.”
Thus the last great system into which the ancient philosophy developed
was attended by the unfortunate result of a very material increase
of superstition in the healing art. This recrudescence of medical
superstition was by no means a transitory one, but proved exceedingly
persistent; in fact, we may unhesitatingly maintain that from that
time superstition never again disappeared from our science. This is
principally the fault of the position which Christianity took with
regard to demonology and the other fantastic ideas of Neo-Platonism.
Early Christianity, from the outset, was subjected to the influence
of ancient false ideas on the subject of demons. Without making any
modifications whatever, it had appropriated this false doctrine, and
had deduced from it the same medical notions as paganism had done.
The New Testament exhibits numerous examples of a prevailing belief
that supernatural beings—_i.e._, demons—were frequently the cause of
bodily ailments; and as Christ and His disciples had often cured such
patients, it follows that the belief in demons and their relations to
pathology must have been widely disseminated among the Christians of
that period. The Church Fathers also bear witness to this fact, as
they, in their writings, acknowledge, in plain terms, the belief in
demons as causes of disease. Justin Martyr, Tatian, Tertullian, Origen,
Augustin, all mention demons and their power over the human body
(compare Harnack, Chapter V., page 68, etc., where these conditions
are most lucidly depicted). Thus, for instance, St. Augustine says:
“_Accipiunt (scilicet dæmones) enim sæpe potestatem et morbos immittere
et ipsum aerem vitiando morbidum reddere._”
And, indeed, early Christianity not only accepted pagan demonology
unchanged, it even increased the therapeutic aspect of this delusion in
a most regrettable manner. This belief in demons, under the influence
of Christian doctrines, developed into an epidemic of insanity which
prevailed unrestrictedly for two or three centuries, and which was
again awakened in the late middle ages, to grow at last into one of the
most terrible aberrations of the human mind—into the belief in witches.
This epidemic derangement of the mind, to which the belief in demons
tended, under the influence of Christian doctrines, culminated in the
patient’s manifest idea that he was possessed of a demon. The mental
disturbance set in with wild, spasmodic attacks of excitement, and, as
it occurred not only in individual cases, but was also contagious, we
must not hesitate to designate this belief of the first three centuries
in demoniac possession an epidemic disease. It was an affection,
the mental substratum of which consisted in a mixture of overheated
religious sentiment and unrestrained medical superstition. The extent
to which this belief in demoniac possession was disseminated during the
first centuries of the Christian era is shown by the fact that a number
of persons busied themselves with the cure of this affection. In the
first place, most Christian communities owned an exorcist, or official
caster-out of demons. It seems that this profession of exorcists formed
a clerical order of its own; for, as all pagans, according to the
Christian conception, were in the power of evil spirits, these demons
were to be thoroughly driven out before each baptism, and thus the
institution of a special church officer, whose duty it was to drive out
demons, became absolutely necessary, especially after exorcism had also
been introduced, during the fourth century, in the baptism of children.
It may be stated, incidentally, that Catholic clergy of the third minor
order are even to-day called “exorcists.”
The Christian exorcists, in conjuring, only made use of prayer and of
the name of Christ; these two factors were considered sufficient to
cure the patient of his delusions, and they actually did so. Why they
accomplished a cure has been explained very strikingly by Harnack. He
says: “It is not the prayer that cures, but the praying person; not the
formula, but the spirit; not exorcism, but the exorcist. Only in those
cases in which the disease, as in numerous cases of the second century,
had become epidemic and almost common, did ordinary and conventional
means avail. The exorcist became a mesmerizer, possibly a deceived
deceiver. But when strong individuality is deceived concerning its own
personality by the demon of terror, and the soul is actually shaken by
the power of darkness which possesses it, and from which it purposes to
escape, a powerful and holy will alone can interfere from the outside
world to deliver the shackled will. In some cases we find traces of a
phenomenon which in modern times, for want of some better name, has
been called ‘suggestion’; but the prophet suggests in a different
manner than does the professional exorcist.”
Besides these official Christian exorcists, a great multitude of other
persons carried on the trade of conjurer of demons. The sorcerers and
magicians who plied their nefarious trade for the cure of the possessed
and for those suffering from other diseases, worked with various kinds
of mystic signs and ceremonies, and they certainly did an excellent
business, for he who humors the superstition and the stupidity of man
always prospers. Modern quackery illustrates this most strikingly.
But, besides these healers, there existed numerous other conjurers of
demons and medical wonder-workers who plied their trade not for the
sake of contemptible mammon, but solely for ethical reasons. These were
the members of the various theosophico-philosophical sects, who were
active during the first Christian centuries and have been exhaustively
described on the previous pages.
Altho Christians were eager to exalt their exorcists, who worked only
with prayer and the invocation of Christ, above all practises of
sorcery, they were not able, in the long run, to prevent Christian
dogmas from being confounded with and corrupted by those of philosophy.
Under the influence of Saturninus, Basilides, and Carpocrates, the
various philosophical vagaries concerning accessory, intermediary, and
inferior gods, and their influences upon the fate of man, corrupted
the pure and simple teachings of Christ. That error against which Paul
had so impressively cautioned the early Christian communities in his
Epistle to the Colossians, Chapter II., verse 8 (“Beware lest any man
spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of
men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ”), had,
nevertheless, made its appearance at last, and the adulteration of
pure Gospel by philosophical speculations and fantastic views began to
grow more complete from the third century on. This was the foundation
of the religio-mystic system which, during the middle ages, and even
beyond the period of the Renaissance, oppressed humanity like a
suffocating nightmare, and not only checked progress, but also filled
each branch of human knowledge with the most frightful superstition and
the crassest mysticism. This was the case also in medicine; in fact,
this branch of science has probably suffered most from the alliance of
Christianity with the fantastic doctrines of philosophical schools.
The ancient doctrine of demons passed under the influence of Christian
mysticism through certain changes and transitions, especially in its
relation to the bodily condition of individuals. The variations in this
doctrine were naturally most plainly evidenced in the medical views of
the day. It was believed that every human being from birth was allotted
a good and an evil demon. The good spirit held his hand protectingly
over his human charge, whereas the evil demon only waited his chance to
inflict injury upon man, forming especially the determining principle
in the etiology of disease. It is true, the evil spirits apparently
were no longer allowed to have such full sway over the health of
humanity as they formerly had. God now utilized them principally as
executors of punishments which he intended for mankind as a retribution
for various forms of delinquency. Thus the Church Father, Anastasius
(Sprengel, Vol. II., page 210), tells us that the reason why so many
lepers and cripples were found among Christians was that God, enraged
at the luxury of the members of the community, had sent the evil demon
of disease among them. The wrath of God from that time until late in
modern times has been considered a fully efficacious principle of
pathology; in fact, there are numbers of people even to-day who believe
that not natural, but supernatural and unearthly, factors are active in
the bodily ailments of mankind.
The idea of good and evil demons, however, now assumed a specifically
Christian character which, it is true, greatly resembled the ancient
Babylonian notion, excepting that the good demons were replaced by
angels and saints, whereas the evil spirits were embodied in the devil.
Both, saints as well as devils, were thenceforth destined to play a
part in the domain of medicine. It is true, the general recognition
which they enjoyed during the middle ages and a considerable period
of modern times has probably now passed away, but there still exist
numerous classes of our people in whom the medical rôle of saints as
well as devils is most willingly acknowledged.
We have referred elsewhere to the therapeutic accomplishments of
the saints during the middle ages. We will here only dwell upon the
influence which the devil, the Christian successor of the ancient
evil spirit, has exerted upon the medical views of all classes of the
people. This influence was very great. The devil and his subordinate
infernal spirits were considered the “disturbers of peace” in the
health of humanity. Disease in its various forms was their work;
they resolved to inflict it either from inherent villainy or as
incited by various magical arts of evil men. It was especially the
latter form of diabolical activity that, during the entire middle
ages and during a considerable part of modern times, was accepted
as uncontestedly authentic, and the imagination of mankind at that
period was inexhaustible in inventing the greatest variety of infamous
actions which the devil was able to perform either of his own accord
or as summoned by incantations. Any one desiring to acquaint himself
thoroughly with these delusive ideas should read the work of the Friar
Cæsarius, who lived about 1225, in the Rhenish-Cistercian monastery
of Heisterbach. Naturally, we are only interested in the medical acts
which the devil was always ready to perform. According to the history
of medical superstition, the devil, who was invoked by various spells
or appeared of his own volition, was able to influence each individual
bodily organ in a manner most disagreeable to the possessor of the
same. Neither were the Prince of Hell and his hosts always satisfied
to tease and to plague an individual being, but very frequently they
carried on this business wholesale. They threw themselves upon the
entire population of a country, and caused sickness in all who crossed
their path. The great epidemic of St. Vitus’s dance of the fourteenth
century, for instance, was considered to be the work of the devil, and
the clergy busied themselves in driving out this devil’s pest by means
of sprinkling holy water and by the utterance of conjuring formulas.
The sexual life of men as well as of women offered an especially
fruitful field for the activity of the devil and of his infernal
companions. Thus, it was a favorite trick of the ruler of hell and of
his subordinate demons to assume the shape of the husband or lover
of this or that female, and, under this mask, to assume rights which
should be permitted only to the husband. The infernal spirit that
played this rôle was called Incubus. Thus, for instance, Hinkmer tells
us of a nun who was mischievously claimed by such an infernal paramour,
and who could be relieved of him only by priestly aid. But hell also
contained female constituents who played the same rôle for the male
as did Incubus for women. Such a wanton woman of hell was called
Striga or Lamia (compare Hansen, pages 14 and 72). These amorous female
friends of hell did not even stop when they met eminent saints. In the
convent of St. Benedetto, near the Italian town of Subiaco, a rose-bush
is shown even to-day into which the naked St. Benedict threw himself in
order to resist the unholy temptation. And every one is sufficiently
acquainted with the troubles which St. Anthony of Padua had with these
infernal women. However, we physicians know well enough the cause
of these temptations. They may surely and actually have approached
the nun of whom Hinkmer reports, also St. Benedict and St. Anthony;
however, they were not the devil’s prostitutes, but the expressions of
suppressed and disregarded impulses of nature which, in the form of
voluptuous imaginations, appeared before the eyes of persons removed
from terrestrial gratifications; for nature does not even exempt a
saint, and the ancient saying, “_Naturam expellas furcâ, tamen usque
recurret_,” applies to them as well as to any other mortal.
Finally these liberties which the devil and his infernal host were said
to take as regards matters pertaining to love, assumed general and
quite serious forms; in fact, they gave rise to delicately contrived
legal questions. Namely, the idea had suggested itself that the
devil was able not only to call forth promiscuous love between men
and women, but that sometimes he derived a particular enjoyment if he
could manage to prevent a marriage that had already been consummated
by rendering the husband impotent. _Maleficium_ was the technical term
for such an event, equally saddening to husband as to wife, and the
theologians, philosophers, and jurists of the middle ages have written
the most learned commentaries regarding the legal consequences of this
_impotentia ex maleficio_. It was disputed whether or not this form of
impotence would constitute a legal cause for dissolution of marriage
which, after all, was a divine institution; the reasons also why God
permitted the devil to play such a reprehensible game were investigated
in a most serious and profound manner. Any one interested in this
question of _impotentia ex maleficio_ may read the most excellent
description of this subject by Hansen (Chapter III.).
This _impotentia ex maleficio_—_i.e._, one of the most extravagant
outgrowths of medical superstition—occasionally also gave rise to
scandalous lawsuits. This was the case in the disgraceful divorce suit
which took place about the year 860 between King Lothaire II. and his
spouse Teutberga. Lothaire was said to have lost his procreative power
completely, owing to infernal artifices of his concubine, Waldrada. The
reason why a concubine should undertake such a step, which, after all,
was bound to discredit her title and office in the eyes of her lover,
is not quite evident. However, at that period it was not difficult to
find an explanation for this remarkable fact. It was stated, _e.g._,
that Waldrada was instigated to this act solely by jealousy and
selfishness, in order to divorce the king from his consort. This first
step once taken, the courtesan, by removing the spells cast by her,
would take good care that the king should soon be delivered from the
odious condition of impotence. However, Waldrada had reckoned without
her host—_i.e._, in this case, without Hinkmar, Archbishop of Rheims;
for this latter gentleman, exceedingly well versed in all matters
ecclesiastic, politic, and diabolic, a genuine clerical fighting-cock,
very soon closely investigated the impotence of his royal master. In
an extensive memorial he considered the royal impotence according to
its legal, theologic, philosophic, moral, and various other aspects.
Medical superstition, accordingly, had acquired such power that the
sovereign of the holy Roman and German empires had to submit his
_potestas in venere_ to the test of public discussion.
But conditions were to become much worse. When, about the thirteenth
century, scholasticism had usurped full control of human reason,
and all sciences were permitted to be pursued only in a scholastic
sense, medicine was entirely divorced from the actual conditions of
life. It was completely detached from nature, its great teacher, and
irretrievably entangled in the subtleties of an uncertain philosophy.
Its activity now depended exclusively upon the study of the ancients—by
no means, however, upon that study in which an attempt was made to
master the intellectual spirit of ancient medicine, but which consisted
in a slavish adherence to the letter. Every decision of the ancients,
without any regard to nature, was made a dogma, and he was the best
physician who was most familiar with these dogmas, who understood
best how to interpret them most keenly. Mankind had entirely lost the
conception that the ancients had attained worth and importance only
in that they measured things by the standard of unbiased experience,
and tested their conclusions according to the phenomena of nature as
described from accurate observation of the sick.
It is quite obvious that superstition met with a well-prepared soil in
a system of medicine that was overburdened with dogmas and degraded
into utter subserviency to a vainglorious philosophy. The natural
result was that the medical art of a period of the middle ages, steeped
in scholasticism, was nothing but a chaos of the most despicable
superstition and folly. The most shocking result of these conditions
was the belief in witches, and, with this, medical superstition entered
upon a new stage. Whereas until then it had possessed a restricted,
mere local vitality, and entailed danger only upon those who, from
thoughtlessness, lent a willing ear to it, now it degenerated into a
mental epidemic which threatened equally all classes of the people.
The unspeakable misery which this variety of medical superstition has
brought to the Western world is well known, so that we may refrain from
entering into details, referring our readers to the excellent work of
Hansen on this subject.
Physico-medical thought was so thoroughly destroyed by the
above-described conditions that, even when humanity commenced to
shake off the scholastic yoke, during the period of Renaissance,
medicine was only able, in part, to follow this lead. Altho, under the
inspiration of the ancients, it returned to nature, it was not able to
rid itself of the superstitious idea of the continuous interference of
supernatural powers with the performance of the most common functions
of the body. The Church still persisted in the implicit belief in such
views, and still dominated men’s minds so thoroughly that even many
physicians, who in other respects were entirely unbiased, remained on
this point dutiful children of the Church; in fact, even those who were
fully aware of the shortcomings of the Christian Church unhesitatingly
adhered to the belief in demons as developed from antique conceptions
by the Church Fathers. Thus, for instance, Dr. Martin Luther was a
strict believer in the doctrine which taught men to hold the devil
responsible for the origin of all diseases. He thus expressed himself,
for instance: “No disease comes from God, who is good and does good to
everybody; but it is brought on by the devil, who causes and performs
all mischief, who interferes with all play and all arts, who brings
into existence pestilence, Frenchmen, fever, etc.” He accordingly
believed that he himself was compelled to scuffle with the devil when
his physical condition was out of order. Thus, when suffering from
violent headache, he wrote to the Elector, John of Saxony: “My head
is still slightly subject to him who is the enemy of health and of
all that is good; he sometimes rides through my brain, so that I am
not able to read or to write,” and upon another occasion he said, in
regard to his health: “I believe that my diseases are by no means due
to natural causes, but that ‘Younker Satan’ plays his pranks with me by
sorcery.”
The devil was also held responsible for the appearance of monsters; it
was believed that the ruler of hell helped young girls against their
will to enjoy the delights of motherhood. However, these delights were
said to be of a peculiar kind, in that intercourse with the devil
was always bound to be followed by the birth of the most frightful
monsters. The devil then unloaded these most remarkable monsters into
respectable people’s houses. Even Luther was not able to free himself
from this most astonishing delusion. On the contrary, he was devoted
to it with such conviction that, when once in Dessau, he heard of a
monster (according to medical opinion, it was a question of a rhachitic
child) that had grown to be twelve years of age, he advised, in all
seriousness, that this sinful product of devilish intercourse be thrown
into the river Mulde (compare Möhsen, Vol. II., page 506, etc., on “The
Relations of Luther to the Devil”).
If it was very improper of the devil to visit even clerical gentlemen,
he crowned his wickedness, in that he very unceremoniously honored even
ministers in the pulpit with his visit. Such an occurrence took place
in Friedeberg, Neumark, in 1593, in which otherwise harmless town the
devil commenced suddenly to create an unheard-of commotion. He harassed
about one hundred and fifty people, and even in church he gave so
little rest to those he possessed, that they raised various kinds of
mischief in this holy place. When, thereupon, the preacher, Heinrich
Lemrich, thundered against these deviltries from the pulpit, the devil
became so incensed that immediately he promenaded into the Reverend
Lemrich himself, so that the good minister raged in the pulpit exactly
as did the members of his congregation down below in the nave.
However, this variety of medical superstition finally spread to such an
extent that, as medical aid was powerless against the devil, the aid of
God, by order of the consistory, was invoked from all pulpits of the
Margravate against the above-described misdeeds of hell’s ruler.
But the clergy adopted still another plan to checkmate the devil. In
various publications they enumerated the villainies which Satan might
visit on mankind, so that each and every one would be enabled to
protect himself against the aggressions of the devil, in whatever form
he might make his appearance. The first publication of this character
was issued in 1555 by the General Superintendent of the Electorate of
Brandenburg, Professor of the University of Frankfort, Herr Musculus;
it bore the very appropriate title, _The Pantaloon Devil_. In fact, as
early as 1575 a compilation was published in Frankfort-on-the-Main,
in which twenty-four different forms, which the devil might assume
in visiting humanity, were discussed most conscientiously and with
becoming diffuseness of style (compare Möhsen, Vol. II., page 426,
etc.).
From that time it was impossible for mankind to shake off the belief in
devil and demons. The thought of being possessed played a conspicuous
part even in the first half of the nineteenth century, thanks to the
activity of Justinus Kerner, and even medicine felt called upon to busy
itself more thoroughly with this newly resurrected belief. This was
done, for instance, by Dr. Klencke, who, in 1840, published a little
book exclusively for the purpose of disproving the existence of spirits.
We have so far shown the potent influence exerted upon medical
superstition by antique as well as by medieval philosophy. But the
newer philosophy greatly influenced the destiny of medicine, even
at the end of the eighteenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth
centuries. The natural philosophy based upon the doctrines of
Schelling once more submerged the art of healing in mysticism, and thus
necessarily abetted superstition. The physician no longer conceived
disease as the effect of disturbances in the life of the bodily
organs, but held various forms of inconceivable powers responsible
for the incidence of a malady. The soul wrapped in sin had power
to lead the life of the body from the normal into the pathological
condition, and, accordingly, prayer and the belief in Christian
dogmas again became active as curative factors. It was especially
the Munich clinician, Nepomuk von Ringseis, who placed such theories
before his pupils, and who, in his “System of Medicine,” published in
1840, made them generally known. Ringseis states in this book: “As
disease is originally the consequence of sin, it is, altho not always
indispensable, yet according to experience, incomparably more safe
that physician as well as patient should obtain absolution before any
attempt at healing be made.” Another passage reads: “Christ is the
all-restorer, and as such He cooperates in every corporeal cure.” In
this sense Ringseis calls the sacraments “the talismans coming from the
Physician of all physicians, and, therefore, the most excellent of all
physical, stimulating, and alterative remedies.”
Thus, after almost three thousand years, medicine had returned to the
stage at which it originated—namely, to the view that incorporeal,
supernatural factors were to play a determining part in pathology
and therapy. However, that there are plenty of individuals even in
our time who are at any moment ready again to sacrifice wantonly
all enlightenment and all progress to this varied superstition,
is demonstrated by the cases of Mrs. Eddy and the Reverend Dowie,
those modern representatives of medical superstition. There is only
one protection against these relapses, against these atavistic
tendencies, and that is education in natural science. The more it
becomes disseminated among the people the less danger there will be
that the heresies of a false philosophy, or of an overheated religious
sentiment, may again conjure up medical superstition to the detriment
of humanity.
V
THE RELATIONS OF NATURAL SCIENCE TO MEDICAL SUPERSTITION
The point of view from which man has regarded nature for thousands of
years up to modern times has been such as to promote most effectually
the development of superstition; for the idea that a satisfactory
insight into the character of natural phenomena can be obtained only
by means of adequate experiments, and of observation perfected by the
employment of the inductive reasoning and ingenious instruments, is
comparatively recent. Natural science applying such means is scarcely
two hundred years old. Fit instruments for the observation of nature
existed only to a limited extent up to the eighteenth century, and,
besides, their complete efficiency left much to be desired. The
attempts to wrest from Nature her secrets by means of experiment were
but feeble and unsuccessful. Altho the ancients, as is shown by the
writings of Hippocrates, Galen, and others, had some knowledge of
vivisection, they had practised it to a most limited extent. During
the middle ages and the period of the Renaissance comparatively few
physical experiments were made. Whatever researches in natural science
were then undertaken were intended much less for the investigation of
nature than for fantastic and superstitious purposes—as, for instance,
the investigations of alchemy and astrology.
It is quite obvious that, under such circumstances, a number of
superficial, imperfect, and distorted observations crept into the
theoretic system of natural science.
However, this was not all; the diagnostico-theoretical method, by
means of which antiquity, the middle ages, and even the greatest part
of more modern times, had seen the natural sciences treated, was
radically wrong. Man did not feel his way carefully from experiment
to experiment, from observation to observation, until the general
principle was found which inductively comprised a number of phenomena
under one uniform principle of law, but the principle which was at
the bottom of phenomena was fixed upon a speculative basis, and in
accordance with this principle the phenomena were interpreted—as was
done, for instance, in medicine in the case of humoral pathology. And
as this speculatively constructed principle was obtained exclusively by
a method dangerous to the cognition of natural sciences, by conclusion
from analogy, naturally the most fantastic and adventurous conceptions
soon became accepted in the realm of natural philosophy. But natural
philosophy once lost in such a labyrinth, an aberration of the
perceptive powers can not fail to follow—at least, in certain domains
of nature. As a matter of fact, this fallacious perception promptly
made its appearance, and has proved the stumbling-block of science
from its earliest days up to the present times. Occultism, mysticism,
or whatever the names may be of the various forms of superstition,
have sprung from these erroneous conceptions of natural science. It
may even be contended that no variety of superstition exists which is
not somehow connected with a distorted observation or explanation of
nature. However interesting these considerations may be, we can not
here pursue them any further.
Such investigations belong to the history of superstition in general,
and any one who desires more detailed information is referred to the
enormous literature of the subject. We can here consider only those
relations which prevail, or have prevailed, between superstition and
natural science, and principally the influence which was thus exerted
upon the art of healing by astronomy.
Astronomy and medicine became most intimately connected during the
earliest periods of human civilization. The literature of cuneiform
inscriptions shows us that the attempt to bring the stars into
connection with human destinies is primeval, and reaches back to the
ancient Babylonian age, even to the Sumero-Accadic period (Sudhoff,
_Med. Woche._ 1901, No. 41). How primeval peoples came to connect
their destinies with the heavenly bodies and their orbits is explained
so lucidly by Troels-Lund (page 28, etc.) that we shall cite his
descriptions, even if they are rather long for quotation. He says: “The
Chaldean history of creation is inscribed upon seven clay tablets. On
the fifth tablet we read: ‘The seventh day He instituted as a holy day,
and ordained that man should rest from all labor.’ Why just seven?
Because the holy number seven of the planets imperceptibly shone
through the work of creation, and was imperceptibly impressed upon the
entire order of thought. We are here at the decisive epoch at which
the planets for the first time gave an impetus to human conception,
the effects of which were to persist for thousands of years. This was
repeated a second time when Copernicus, in dealing especially with the
orbit of the planets, founded the still-prevailing conception of the
universe.
“For the theory of creation could be reconciled with the phenomenon of
sun and moon moving in their regular courses. They were in this case
no longer, as had been assumed until then, individual living beings
and divinities, but lights kindled by a mighty God, and intended to
move day and night, in an established order, under the dome of heaven.
But the other five planets! It was unnecessary to be a Chaldean on the
Babylonian Tower in order to feel amazement at these. Every one who
had ever followed with his eye their courses for a few nights during a
caravan journey, every one who, lying awake, had occasionally attempted
to read the time from the only clock of the night—the star-covered
canopy of heaven—was bound to have noticed their peculiarities as
to light and course. They did not shine uniformly, but sometimes
intensely, at other times faintly, and entirely different was their
radiance from that of other stars—reddish, greenish, bluish. And their
course was at one time rapid, at other times slow; then backward or
oblique; sometimes they disappeared entirely. Necessarily they appeared
inexplicable not only to the inexperienced observer, but to a still
higher grade of intellect—that of the most experienced Chaldean;
for, altho their periods could possibly be calculated, their courses
beggared all geometrical figures. These confused paths could be
explained only in one manner—namely, as the expression of an arbitrary
will, the manifestations of an independent life. The courses of the
planets furnished the astronomic proof that the heavenly bodies were
animated. The universe was more than created, it was godhead itself in
living activity.
“How this point of view broadened and cleared everything! The world
assumed the shape of an enormous hall upon which divine power, divine
will, continuously acted from above. Farthest down was the world of
the elements. In boundless distances above it moved the moon and the
six other planets, each one in its transparent heaven. In the highest
height, finally, revolved the canopy of impervious heaven, into which
constellations were ranged in shapes that resembled animals (Tablet
V., verse 2). Apparently these rotations did not have anything in
common with each other; a power which passed through them from above
moved these elemental worlds. Did not daily experience of their rising
determine winter, storm, drought, etc.? Thus the processes on earth
only reflected and repeated the course of these divine and heavenly
bodies; yea, divine will itself. But their order of movement varied.
Sun and moon with their regular courses spin, as it were, the firm
warps and woofs; the other five are instrumental in producing what is
changeable and apparently accidental. Unitedly in their course through
heaven the seven weave the threads of fate. Silently they weave the
design of terrestrial life. Upon them depend not only summer and
winter, rain and drought, but also the life and death of every living
being; as determined by the constellation of their birth, such is each
man, so will he live. Never do the heavenly bodies repeat precisely the
same relative positions, and, therefore, never are two years, two days,
two human beings, two leaves, completely identical.”
So far Troels-Lund.
Much as we agree with what Troels-Lund says, yet we believe that the
decisive motive which led humanity to bring their bodily welfare into
closest connection with the starry canopy of heaven was suggested by
the powerful influence which the sun exerts upon the bodily welfare
of all life. As this life-giving power of the sun had a conspicuous
share in the origin of primeval sabianism, so also it exerted a similar
influence upon the development of astrology; for it must have been
obvious to even the most stupid observer that his well-being depended
to a great extent upon the action of the sun. From this perception
to the idea that other heavenly bodies were also intended to exert a
decisive influence upon things terrestrial was only a short step for
the ancient civilized peoples; for here the conclusion from analogy was
actually so closely and so enticingly under every one’s nose that all
he had to do was but to pitch upon the powers which rule all earthly
life and neatly box them up in a well-constructed system. But as the
conclusion from analogy was always considered in the ancient world
as the most certain, never-failing path to knowledge, it was readily
followed in this connection also. And thus astrology, like the greater
part of medico-physical knowledge, was based, we think, upon the
treacherous ground of a conclusion _per analogiam_.
Besides, our opinion that the warming and vitalizing power of the sun
formed one of the most important factors in the origin of astrology
is confirmed by the utterances of astrologists themselves. Thus, for
instance, Ptolemy points to the sun and moon as the sources of life to
mankind, and Hermes and Almansor repeat the dictum. This is furthermore
proved by the unparalleled popularity which astrology has enjoyed in
all phases of civilization. There is no civilized people, either
of ancient or of modern times, which has not adhered to astrologic
doctrines with the fullest confidence and most unswerving faith.
Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Germans, Romanians—in short,
all nations—have professed their belief in astrology. Such a conformity
of opinion would, however, be inexplicable amid such a dissimilarity of
religious and cultural ideas as characterized the different peoples,
unless a common principle had decisively influenced all nations in the
same manner. This principle was acknowledged in the influence of the
sun. Every human being was bound to observe the animating power of the
sun on his own bodily sense and from his own observation, and would be
at once led to the conclusion that a similar power resided also in the
other celestial bodies.
This conception, which to a great extent was brought about by
conclusions from analogy, provided a method of inference concerning
various other phenomena. Man meditated, speculated, concluded, until
the required sidereal relation of each organ and each function of the
human body was determined. Thus astrology may serve as one of the
most telling examples of scientific delusions to which the ancient
diagnostico-theoretical methods were bound to lead, with their
conclusions from analogy and their deductive modes of procedure.
The above survey indicates, altho only in very general outlines,
the origin of astrology. We shall now consider more in detail the
acquisition for which the art of medicine is especially indebted to
astrology.
Babylonico-Assyrian civilization possessed in its earliest ages a
well-developed system of astrologic medicine, as is evident from
writings bequeathed to us from antiquity. Campbell-Thompson has
recently published, from the great stock of cuneiform tablets in the
collection of the British Museum, 276 inscriptions of an astrological
nature belonging to the so-called Kouyunjik collection. Sudhoff has
compiled them, so far as they refer to medicine, and has subjected them
to critical analysis. We take the liberty of repeating certain extracts
from these cuneiform tablets, which appear to be the reports which
Assyrian and Babylonian court astrologists made to the king.
Tablet 69_a_ says: “If the wind comes from the west upon appearance of
the moon, disease will prevail during this month.”
Tablet 207: “If Venus approaches the constellation of Cancer, obedience
and prosperity will be in the land ... the sick of the land will
recover. Pregnant women will carry their confinements to a favorable
termination.”
Tablet 163: “If Mercury rises on the fifteenth day of the month, there
will be many deaths. If the constellation of Cancer becomes obscured, a
fatal demon will possess the land and many deaths will occur.”
Tablet 232: “If Mercury comes in conjunction with Mars, there will
follow fatalities among horses.”
Tablet 175: “If a planet becomes pale in opposition to the moon, or if
it enters into conjunction with it, many lions will die.”
Tablet 195: “If Mars and Jupiter come in conjunction, many cattle will
die.”
Tablet 117: “If the greater halo surrounds the moon, ruin will be
visited upon mankind.”
Tablet 269: “If an eclipse of the sun occurs on the twenty-ninth day of
the month of Jypar, there will be many deaths on the first day.”
Tablet 271: “An eclipse at the morning watch causes disease.... If an
eclipse takes place during the morning watch, and lasts throughout the
watch, while the wind blows from the north, the sick in Akkad will
recover.”
Tablet 79: “If a halo surrounds the moon and if Regulus stands within,
women will bear male children.”
Tablet 94: “If sun and moon ... on the fifteenth day ‘answer my prayer’
shall he say ... Let him nestle close to his wife, she shall conceive a
son.”
These few extracts show us the close relations into which
Assyrico-Babylonian culture brought the becoming and passing away of
all animal life with the stellar movement; in fact, as we note from
Tablet 94, the astrologists of this period did not hesitate to intrude
into the most intimate occurrences of married life. It is quite obvious
that, under such circumstances, the Babylonian physician was compelled
to consider very carefully the utterances of the astrologists in
carrying on his practise. It may be possible that we shall obtain still
further information regarding the quality of sidereal therapy from the
numerously discovered cuneiform tablets. We know positively that a
physician was forbidden to perform any surgical operations on certain
days of each month. Thus, for instance, the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, and
28th of the month Schall-Elul were unfavorable days for such operations
(Oefele). These directions were especially stringent in regard to
venesection, to which act we shall again refer in greater detail.
When civilization, later on, continued to thrive upon the shores of
the Nile, astrology still found a fertile soil there, and it appears
that here also the name Ἰατρομαθηματικοί has originated, which,
subsequently, was a favorite designation of adherents to the sidereal
art of healing. The astrological prognoses made by the professional
astrologist, Petosiris, for the king Nechepso of Sais are well known.
However, it appears, according to the latest investigations (compare
the excellent work of Sudhoff, page 4, etc.), that these prognoses have
nothing at all to do with that king Nechepso who reigned in the seventh
century, B.C. It seems more probable that some cunning Alexandrian
astrologist of the second century, B.C., fraudulently used the name
of the king as a cover for his work. But however this may be, these
prognoses of Petosiris have considerable value, in that they give us an
insight into the manufacture of such medical prophesies.
The object of these prognoses was primarily to discover the termination
of a disease, whether the patient would die or recover, either soon
or only after the lapse of a certain time—for instance, after seven
days. This was all that Petosiris undertook to predict. All details
regarding treatment, complications, and diagnosis of a case are still
entirely wanting. Petosiris, in making such a prognosis, by no means
relied solely upon the conjunction of certain celestial bodies, but he
employed a rather intricate method, in which mystic numbers, onomancy,
and astrology were important elements. To prognosticate medically
according to this system a circle of numerals was required in the first
place. There existed two different kinds of such circles—one simple,
the other more complicated. Berthelot has furnished us with examples of
both as used by Petosiris.
[Illustration: FIG. 1—CIRCLE OF PETOSIRIS
(After Bouché-Leclercq, p. 539)]
The more simple formula (Fig. 1) consisted of two concentric circles,
the smaller of which was divided into four quadrants. Between both
concentric circles and within the horizontal diameters were inscribed
the words: μέον ζωή; to the right of this: ἡ μικρὰ ζωή; to the left
of the vertical line: ἡ μεναλη ζωή. Under the vertical line was
inscribed: μέσος θάνατος; to the right of this: μικρὸς θάνατος;
and to the left of the vertical line: ὁ μένας θάνατος. Only words
which point to the longer or shorter duration of life, or to the
death-struggle, were therefore employed. The four quadrants of the
enclosed circle, as well as the vertical diameter, contained the
numerals from 1 to 29 in a mystical order, representing the duration of
the moon’s phases. The above (Fig. 1) shows us this astrological circle
of Petosiris.
The second—essentially more complicated—formula consists of three
concentric circles. Various words are inscribed between the first and
second circles, as in Fig. 1. Between the second and third circles, and
in the verticals, the numerals from 1 to 30 are disposed in a mystical
arrangement. Furthermore, these circles are not, as in Fig. 1, divided
into four quadrants, but into eight equal sections. At these points
in which the radii forming the sectors intersect the periphery of the
outermost of the three concentric circles, arched enclosures are raised
which also contain various words.
[Illustration: FIG. 2—CIRCLE OF PETOSIRIS
(After Bouché-Leclercq, p. 540)]
When it was sought, by means of the above-described figures, to
determine the medical future or the life and death of an individual,
this could be accomplished with the aid of the diagram represented in
Fig. 1 in such a manner that the duration of the disease in days, the
numerical value of the name of the patient, and the phases of the moon
were added, and the sum divided by 29. The result thus obtained was
interpreted by referring to the diagram. If this figure happened to be,
for instance, in the right upper quadrant, the patient, altho he would
recover from his illness, would live only for a very short period;
if this number was found in the vertical line, below the horizontal
diameter, the patient was destined to die after a short struggle.
Much more intricate was the use of the astrological apparatus
illustrated in Fig 2. Here the number of the moon’s day, and the
numerical values of the name of the patient were not added, but each
of these figures was separately looked for in the diagram. If the moon
figure was found in the lower, the figure for the name in the upper,
ends of the verticals—_i.e._, where δυσις ὑπόγειος, setting, and
ἀνατολὴ ὑπέργειος, rising, stand—the individual concerned, altho in
danger, finally recovered. If, on the other hand, the moon figure was
discovered in the upper, and the figure for the name in the lower, ends
of the verticals, nothing but evil was in store for the questioner, but
the misfortune appeared under the guise of fortune. If both numbers,
however, were at the upper ends of the verticals, the prospects were
favorable, but bad if both figures occurred below the horizontal line.
A method which is similar to the simple apparatus of Petosiris is
revealed to us in the so-called οφαῖρα Δημοκρίτου. It is contained in
the _Papyrus Magica Musei Lugdunensis Batavia_, published by Dietrich.
Fig. 3 shows the illustration belonging to this method, and also
the Greek directions for use, as given in the papyrus. It will be
noticed that in the method of Democritus recourse is made to a table
of numerals divided by a cross-line into the upper and larger, and a
lower and smaller, section. The upper part contains in three vertical
columns 18, in the lower, 12 figures. To use the table, the day when
the disease began, the numerical value of the name, and the days of the
moon were added, and the sum thus obtained divided by 30. This quotient
was then looked for in the table of numbers. If it was found above the
cross-line, the patient recovered; if below, he succumbed.
[Illustration: FIG. 3—THE TABLE OF DEMOCRITUS]
There existed a great many other methods besides those described above;
for instance, the system of the 12 places, the circle of Manilius, the
method of the mysterious Hermes Trismegistus, the circle of Ptolemy,
etc. However, we can not here enter into a more detailed description of
these forms, and refer those that wish more exhaustive information to
Berthelot, and, above all, to Bouché-Leclercq. Astrology, and, with it,
sidereal medicine, subsequently traveled from its Oriental home into
all civilized countries of the then known world.
As regards Greek and Roman antiquity, astrology in all its forms won a
high reputation both in Greece and Italy. Even the most eminent ancient
physicians, altho they did not unreservedly adopt sidereal medicine,
refrained from disavowing it. Thus we find in the Corpus Hippocraticum,
the chief work of early Greek medicine, passages which betray more
than a friendly feeling toward the astral art of healing. It is true,
expressions are not wanting which sound like a direct disowning of
astrology.
Let us consider for a few moments the attitude of Hippocratic medicine
toward astrology.
As to the rejection of astrologic medicine by the followers of
Hippocrates, we read (“Ancient Medicine,” Chapter I.; in the
translation of Fuchs, Vol. I., page 19): “For this reason I believe
that it [medical art] requires no basis of vain presumption, such as
the existence of invisible and doubtful factors, the discussion of
which, if it should be attempted, necessitates a hypothetic science
of supernatural or of subterrestrial nature; for, if any one should
contend that he knew anything about such a matter, neither he, the
lecturer, nor his hearers would clearly understand whether his
statements were true or not, because nothing exists to which reference
could be had for purposes of verification.”
This surely is a refutation as definite as can be desired of a medicine
which depends upon witchcraft or astrologic vagaries. However, various
other passages of the Corpus Hippocraticum take an exactly contrary
position. For example, we find the following statement (on “Air,
Water, and Locality,” Chapter XVII., in the translation of Fuchs,
Vol. I., page 390): “Attention must be paid to the rise of the stars,
especially to that of Sirius,[4] as well as to the rise of Arcturus,
and, further, to the setting of the Pleiades, for most diseases reach a
crisis during such periods, some of them abating in these days, others
ceasing entirely, or developing into other symptoms and different
conditions.” These words indicate a distinct intention of bringing
prognosis and course of diseases into the closest relations with the
motions of the celestial bodies. In the second chapter of the same book
similar expressions occur: “He who knows how the change of seasons and
the rising and setting of stars take place will also be able to foresee
how the year is going to be. Therefore, any one who investigates these
subjects and predicts coming events will be thoroughly informed as to
each detail of the future; he will enjoy the best of health, and take
as much as possible the right road in art. However, if any one should
be of the opinion that these questions belong solely in the realm of
astronomy, he will soon change his opinion as he learns that astronomy
is not of slight, but of a very essential, importance in medical art.”
Stars and diseases are also brought into mutual relations in the letter
to King Ptolemy (Emerins, page 293).
[4] This star, in particular, played a rôle in the astrologic
prognosis of the Egyptians; in fact, in various systems it was
made the starting-point of medical predictions; for instance,
in the method of Hermes Trismegistus.
The above quotations refer exclusively to the course of diseases in
relation to the stars, but we find in other passages also distinct
references are made to therapeutic methods; for instance, in
“Aphorisms,” § 4, paragraph 5, we read: “Purging is very difficult
during or before the dog-days.”
It would, indeed, be most remarkable if no astrologic remarks of any
kind were found in the Corpus Hippocraticum, as the idea of close
relation between the celestial bodies and matters terrestrial had
common currency during the Hippocratic period. The songs of Stesichorus
and of Pindar show, for instance (as is also stated by Pliny, Book 3,
Chapter XII., Vol. I., page 118), that eclipses of certain stars were
considered to be pregnant with mischief. This superstitious conception
has, in some cases, actually caused severe general calamities. Thus,
for instance, the Sicilian campaign ended unfortunately for the
Athenians only because their general, Nicias, under a superstitious
apprehension concerning an eclipse, failed to put to sea. And as this
campaign was the cause to Athens of a partial loss of Greek hegemony,
we may safely say that astrology had a decisive share in the fall of
Athens (Pliny, Book 2, Chapter XXIII.).
The appearance of comets, like eclipses of the sun and the moon, were
also reputed to be ominous among the ancients. Comets were considered
heavenly mischief-makers of the worst kind, and almost every sort
of calamity was ascribed to them. A calamity was supposed to assume
various aspects, according to the position and form of the comet.
Under some circumstances, however, they were said to prognosticate
many events advantageous to mankind (Pliny, Book 2, Chapter XXIV.).
Thus Augustus considered a comet, which was seen for an entire week at
the northern quarter of the heavens at the onset of his rule, during
performances which were given in honor of Venus genetrix, to be his
lucky star.
However, not only such extraordinary appearances in the sky as comets,
eclipses of the sun and the moon, played a conspicuous part in medical
superstitions of the ancients. Even those celestial phenomena which
occur with a regularity fixed by natural law, such as the revolution
of the sun and the moon, were considered highly important events in
therapeutic art. Thus, affections of the eye in man and beast were said
to increase and to decrease with the moon (Pliny, Book 2, Chapter XLI.).
All acute diseases were believed to be controlled by the moon, whereas
chronic affections were thought to be under the influence of the sun.
In fact, everything that happened to man was brought in immediate
relationship with appearances in the canopy of heaven. Thus, for
instance, it is stated by Marcus Manilius, the well-known author of an
astronomical didactic poem dedicated to the Emperor Augustus:
“Omnis cum coelo fortunæ pendeat ordo.”
In the thirteenth chapter of the second book the poet maintains that
each part of the human body is subordinate to a distinct sign of the
zodiac. Thus, for instance, the head to Aries, etc.
Altho the further development of Occidental as well as Oriental
astrology drew its resources from the primeval Assyrian, Babylonian,
and Egyptian doctrines, yet from the second century, A.D., the
astronomic work of Ptolemy and the exhaustive description of antique
medicine by Galen derive their inspiration from _Medicina Astrologica_.
Whatever these two great masters were able to report of the dependence
of the functions of the body upon celestial bodies was from then on,
without further inspection and examination, acknowledged to be true
by the great majority of physicians. Only occasionally this or that
practitioner is bold enough to oppose the intrusion of astrologic
vagaries into the art of healing; among these radicals was the
philosophically trained physician, Sextus Empiricus, who lived about
the year 193, A.D. However, this protest of brave Sextus, as well as
all subsequent ones, scarcely had any influence upon the astrological
development of medicine. Astrology could not be arrested on its road
to the domination of the world, and until the seventeenth century it
controlled the thought of physicians with the same invincible sway that
it exercised over the mental life of all other professions and classes.
Medico-astrological superstition had become legalized, and this in
spite of the fact that Galen himself at last expressed his distrust of
the _Medicina Astrologica_, and at least endeavored to extenuate his
part in its dissemination.
Let us now scrutinize more minutely the condition of _Medicina
Astrologica_ in the second century, A.D. The works of Ptolemy, the
“Iatromathematica” of the mysterious Hermes Trismegistus, and the third
book of Galen’s writing on the “critical days” furnish sufficient
material for outlining the medico-astrological system of that period.