In addition to the physical effects which we have already adverted to, it is stated to be capable of ! 
indicating the place where any injury has taken place, from an external cause, by augmenting the pain in the ; 
part, or renewing it if it have ceased to exist. The root seldom produces such disagreeable symptoms as the j 
flowers, but as these are considered auspicious signs, they must not, we are told, be heeded unless violent. 
A little of the extract of gentian prevents its untoward effects on the stomach and co-operates in its beneficial | 
results ; which are generally accompanied by an increase, but not velocity of pulse. 
“ All physicians, 
And penny almanacks, allow the opening 
Of veins this month.” 
The pointing out proper days for bleeding, taking physic, and other odd matters, was an important 
part of the task formerly assumed by almanack compilers, as appears by the last quotation and that from l 
Hall’s Satires. Neither is the belief quite extinct even now, there being many well-meaning persons who ' 
would not willingly adopt a remedy for a disease, without previously consulting that mystical column in the I 
Almanack devoted to “knees, legs, ancles, feet, toes,” &c; it being considered lucky, or unlucky, I forget, 
which, to take medicine on the day when the particular part of the body affected is under the influence of J 
the Sign. To facilitate the researches of the curious into these matters. Almanacks were formely decorated 
with the figure of a man, and the several portions of his frame marked by the Sign which especially concerns 
them. I cannot say 1 recollect this desirable illustration “ in my time” but I believe it has not been al- 
together discontinued within the memory of many persons somewhat more experienced. Mr. Forby in 
his East Anglian Vocabulary, gives the following anecdote in point. 
“About the close of the last century, a medical practitioner of great practice, in Suffolk, sent an j 
opening medicine to a patient, and desired him to take it immediately. On the following day he called at 
his house, and inquired how it had operated. The patient (a substantial farmer) said he had not taken it; | 
and, upon the doctor’s remonstrating against this disobedience, the sick man gravely answered, that he had 
looked into his Almanack, and, seeing the sign lay in ‘ Bowels,’ he thought that, and the physic together, 
would be too much for him.” 
Our old dramatists abound with allusions to this “ pictured shape.” Not to multiply quotations un- j 
necessarily, I shall notice but two. In Fletcher’s “Chances,” Antario, having been wounded, says of the I 
surgeon, 
“ When I go to bed, 
He rolls me up in lints, with lables at ’em, 
That I am just the Man i’ the Almanack.” 
And the Epilogue to Lee’s “Gloriana,” 1676, describing the severity of the weather when that Tragedy 
was produced, has this passage, 
“The ladies too, neglecting every grace, 
Mobb’d up in night-clothes came, with face to face ; 
The towre upon the forehead all turn'd back, 
And stuck with pins, like the Man i’ th’ Almanack.” 
The days of astrological prediction seem, however, to be nearly gone by ; and even the compilation of 
Francis Moore, Physician, which the Address put forth by the Stationers’ Company in 1830, avers to have i 
“been for nearly two centuries the most popular of all the Almanacks published in England,” is rapidly de- j 
dining, I fear, from that “high and palmy station.” To hasten its downfall, the “Stationers,” in the Address 
just quoted, speaking of this and Partridge’s make the following admission, which I commend more for its 
candour than its prudence. 
“ Note. These two Almanacks are the only ones published by the Stationers’ Company which contain j 
astrological predictions. These are still given from a persuasion that they delude nobody, and because many 
thousand readers are amused by tracing the coincidences which often occur between the prediction furnished 
by the astrological rule and the actual event.” 
Superstition, however, has still her votaries ; for a new Almanack has made its appearance within these 
few years, resting its claim to support solely upon the ground of its astrological merits; and, having j 
made some lucky hits, has, I understand, a large sale. I forget its precise title, and never had courage to ! 
examine its contents, being scared by the raw-head and bloody-bones with other fearful objects, which the 
superbly colored hieroglyphic presents to view. 
I wish some one, skilled in this kind of lore, would inform the world when and where the original i 
Francis Moore, Physician, flourished. Many men of less eminence, have had their biographers ; and why 
should not some kind soul attempt to rescue poor Francis from “ the gaping gulf of blank oblivion,” as poor I 
Kirke White styles it.* 
The Year Book. 
