among savage races. It may be that Ashmole was right 

 when he wrote: "Incredulity is given to the world as a 

 punishment/' but it would seem that credulity has proved a 

 still greater cause of unhappiness. 



The association of astrology with medical practice had 

 been regarded as essential since the days of Galen and Hippo- 

 crates ; the former declared that physicians ignorant of astro- 

 logy were no better than murderers ; "So far are they distant 

 from the true knowledge of physic which are ignorant of 

 astrology, that they ought not rightly to be called physicians 

 but deceivers ; for it hath been many times experimented that 

 that which many physicians could not cure or remedy with 

 the greatest and strongest medicines, the astronomer hath 

 brought to pass with one simple herb by observing the 

 moving of the signs." Medicinal plants were gathered at the 

 appropriate age of the moon, distillations were carried on 

 under the proper conjunctions of the planets, and the medicine 

 thus concocted was given to the patients only under suitable 

 astronomical conditions. Magical healing power was at- 

 tributed not only to the greatest variety of objects belonging 

 to the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms, but to purely 

 mental operations as well; physicians prescribed: 



. . . "Divers verses of St. John 

 Which, read successively, refreshed the soul, 

 But, muttered backwards, cured the gout, the stones, 

 The colic and what not." 



Some insight into the character of the healing art as 

 practiced in the sixteenth century may be obtained by examin- 

 ing the methods of treating a single disease, epilepsy, that 

 distressing malady which still baffles the wisdom of modern 

 science. Rings composed of diverse substances were worn to 

 prevent the attacks; a ring made of three nails or screws 

 that had been .used to fasten a coffin, or one made of five 



102 



