all the numerous therapeutic effects which he was to achieve by the opening of the various veins. To facilitate this difficult art to a certain degree special figures were designed—so-called venesection manikins, in which the numerous points for bleeding were most carefully annotated. Fig. 5 (page 175) shows such a picture. It indicates no less than 53 different localities for venesection, and as each and every one of them again implied four or five, or possibly even more, methods of blood-letting, we may consider that there were many hundreds of different possibilities for phlebotomy. If it was easy to become lost in the labyrinth of this blood-thirsty therapy, the difficulty of a methodical application of venesection was very materially increased by astrology; for astrology differentiated between, first, favorable, then doubtful, and, finally, unfavorable days for venesection, basing this opinion upon certain positions between sun, moon, and planets. Then the various ages of life had also different days for venesection; days, for instance, which promised to be exceptionally successful for venesection in the young, offered very unfavorable prospects to the aged. Thus, for instance, the period from the first quadrature of the moon to the opposition was said to be excellent for bleeding in adolescence, whereas this period was by no means inviting for phlebotomy in those who had reached the senile period. The chances for venesection became rather intricate in their different aspects. Thus, for instance, Stöffler taught: {the sun prohibits venesection two {days before and one day after. Conjunction of { the moon with { }prohibits venesection one {Saturn }day before and one day {Mars }after. Quadrature of {Sun }prohibits venesection the moon with {Saturn }twelve hours before and {Mars }twelve hours after. Opposition of {Sun }prohibits venesection one the moon with {Saturn }day before and one day {Mars }after. We see, therefore, that the physician of that time was compelled to be well-versed in astronomy unless he meant to commit grave mistakes against the doctrines of _Medicina Astrologica_. Such sins could eventually become rather dangerous to the physician, for the code of Hammurabi (about 2200, B.C., ruler of Babylon) threatens the operator, for not quite unobjectionable surgical procedures, with the loss of his hands (Winckler, page 33, § 218).