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 hisdisposal 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 Christianitytook 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, ChapterV., 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 acceptedpagan 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. Butwhen 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 Christiancenturies 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, ChapterII., 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 andcripples 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 successorof 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 werethe 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 ofSt.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 wascalled 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 ofSt.Benedetto, near the Italian town of Subiaco, a rose-bush is shown even to-day into which the nakedSt.Benedict threw himself in order to resist the unholy temptation. And every one is sufficiently acquainted with the troubles whichSt.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, alsoSt.Benedict andSt.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 hadsuggested 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.Maleficiumwas 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 thisimpotentia 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 ofimpotentia ex maleficiomay read the most excellent description of this subject by Hansen (ChapterIII.).
Thisimpotentia 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 LothaireII.and his spouse Teutberga. Lothaire was said to have lost his procreativepower 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 hispotestas in venereto 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 degradedinto 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 functionsof 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 hesaid, 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. Suchan 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 theGeneral 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 ofSchelling 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, medicinehad 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.
THE RELATIONS OF NATURAL SCIENCE TO MEDICAL SUPERSTITION
Thepoint 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 periodof 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 ofnatural 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 beggaredall 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 (TabletV., 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 greatextent 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 conclusionper 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 nocivilized 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, withtheir 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 69asays: “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, astrologystill found a fertile soil there, and it appears that here also the nameἸατρομαθηματικοίhas 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 uponthe 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.