"Now," says Paracelsus, in his "Secrets of Alchemy," "we come to speake of a manifold spirit or fire, which is the cause of variety and diversity of creatures, so that there cannot one be found right like another, and the same in every part; as it may be seen in metals, of which there is none which hath another like itself; the _Sun_ produceth his gold; the _Moon_ produceth another metal far different, to wit, silver; _Mars_ another, that is to say, iron; _Jupiter_ produceth another kind of metal to wit, tin; _Venus_ another, which is copper; and _Saturn_ another kind, that is to say, lead: so that they are all unlike, and several one from another; the same appeareth to be as well amongst men as all other creatures, the cause whereof is the multiplicity of fire.... Where there is no great mixture of the elements, the Sun bringeth forth; where it is a little more thick, the Moon; where more gross, Venus; and thus, according to the diversity of mixtures, are produced divers metals; so that no metal appeared in the same mine like another." This, which is an extract from Turner's translation of Paracelsus's "Secrets of Alchemy" (published in 1655), may be taken as a fair sample of the jargon of alchemy. The same faith in planetary influence was the grand feature of astrology, which regarded all natural phenomena as the effects of the stars acting upon the earth. Diseases of all kinds were referable to the heavenly bodies; and so, also, were the properties of those herbs or other objects which were believed in as remedial agents. In ancient medicine, pharmacy was at one period only the application of the dreams of astrology to the vegetable world. The herb which put an ague or madness to flight, did so by reason of a mystic power imparted to it by a particular constellation, the outward signs of which quality were to be found in its colour or aspect. Indeed, it was not enough that "a simple," impregnated with curative power by heavenly beams, should be culled; but it had to be culled at a particular period of the year, at a particular day of the month, even at a particular hour, when the irradiating source of its efficacy was supposed to be affecting it with a peculiar force; and, moreover, it had to be removed from the ground or the stem on which it grew with a particular instrument or gesture of the body--a disregard of which forms would have obviated the kindly influence of the particular star, without whose benignant aid the physician and the drug were alike powerless. Medical practitioners smile now at the mention of these absurdities. But many of them are ignorant that they, in their daily practice, help to perpetuate the observance of one of these ridiculed forms. The sign which every member of the Faculty puts before his prescriptions, and which is very generally interpreted as an abbreviation for _Recipe_, is but the astrological symbol of Jupiter. [Illustration: _AN ACCIDENT_]