The pictorial representation of the influence of the zodiac 

 on human anatomy, well-known to every reader of modern 

 patent medicine almanacs, was familiar to the astrologers 

 and occultists of the Hradschin, having appeared as early as 

 1496 in the famous encyclopedia "Margarita Philosophica" 

 of Gregor Reisch, and being frequently copied into works on 

 medical astrology, and into almanacs. 



Just two years before the death of the Emperor Rudolph, 

 William Shakespeare was writing the play of Coriolanus ; in 

 this he alludes to the picture of a nude man surrounded by 

 signs of the zodiac. Menenius says to Sicinius : "If you see 

 this in the map of my microcosm, follow it that I am known 

 well enough too?'' 



Tycho Brahe was of a singularly superstitious nature, 

 producing timidity; if on leaving his house he met an old 

 woman he was accustomed to return home at once, regarding 

 the encounter as an evil omen ; if he met a hare in the fields 

 he thought it a dangerous sign ; more unlucky still were swine, 

 and on meeting them he used to spit, in the same way as did 

 many superstitious Jews, to ward off evil influences. An in- 

 verted slipper, salt spilled at table, or three lighted candles 

 on one table, caused him great anxiety, while to sit down 

 thirteen at a meal was simply tempting Providence. He used 

 to relate to those willing to listen, and this embraced every 

 one, that if a twig was broken from a cherry-tree on Saint 

 Barbara's day and watered daily, it would bear blossoms on 

 the succeeding Christmas; to be lucky in gambling as well 

 as in love he carried part of a hangman's halter and a lapis 

 alectorius, a stone about the size of a bean sometimes found 

 in the stomach of a fowl. 



"For worthless matters some are wondrous sad, 

 Whome if I call not vaine I must terme mad. 

 If that their noses bleed some certain drops, 

 And then again upon the suddaine stops, 



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