Later Astrology.--Few now realize that the curious figure printed at the beginning of most of our almanacs down to the present day is a relic of the time when physicians believed in the influence of the constellations over the various portions of the body. Even yet this idea has not entirely gone out of the popular mind, and hence its retention as something more than a symbol in our little weather books. Man was considered as a little world, a microcosm, and the universe, as men knew it--the sun, the moon and the planets together--constituted a macrocosm. It was observed that the bodies constituting the universe were circumscribed in their movements and never went out of a particular zone in the heavens which was called the zodiac. This zodiac was divided into twelve equal parts called signs or constellations. Similarly man's body was divided into twelve parts, of which each one was governed by a sign of the zodiac or by the corresponding constellation. The ram governed the head; the bull the neck; the twins the paired portions, shoulders, arms and hands; the crab the chest; the lion the stomach, and so on. The old surgical rule, as quoted by Nicaise in his edition of Guy de Chauliac's "Grande Chururgie," was that the surgeon ought not make an incision, or even a cauterization, of a part of the body governed by a particular sign or constellation on the day when the moon was in that particular portion of the heavens, for the moon was supposed to be the bringer of ill-luck and to have untoward influences. The incision should not be made at these unfavorable periods for fear of too great effusion of blood which might then ensue. Neither should an incision be made when the sun was in the constellation governing a particular member, because of the danger and peril that might be occasioned thereby. {40} Such rules were supposed to be founded on observation. Patients were influenced by them mainly because they were assured that the surgical treatment was undertaken under the most favorable influence of the stars and that all unfavorable influences had been carefully observed and eliminated. It is hard for us to understand how such ideas could have been maintained for so long in the minds of men whose other attainments clearly show how thorough they were in observing and how profoundly intelligent in reaching conclusions. We should, however, have very little censure for them, since from some other standpoint we find every generation, down to and including our own, jumping at conclusions just as absurd and just as inconsequential. And the practice of astrology was not without its value, for the reassurance given patients by the consciousness that the stars were favorable did much to relieve their anxiety as to the consequences of surgery, lessened shocks, hastened convalescence, and favored recovery. HERBAL MEDICINE