By which it appears, that the fingers on which annuli were anciently worn were directed by the calling, or peculiarity of the party. Were it A soldier, or doctor, to him was assigned the thumb. A sailor, the finger next the thumb. A fool, the middle finger. A married or diligent person, the fourth or ring finger. A lover, the last or little finger. The medicinal or curative power of rings are numerous and, as a matter of course, founded on imaginary qualities. Thus the wedding ring rubbing upon that little abscess called the stye, which is frequently seen on the tarsi of the eyes, is said to remove it. Certain rings are worn as talismans, either on the fingers or suspended from the neck; the efficacy of which may be referred to the effects usually produced by these charms. CHAPTER XX. CELESTIAL INFLUENCES--OMENS--CLIMACTERICS--PREDOMINATIONS--LUCKY AND UNLUCKY DAYS--EMPIRICS, &C. Astrologers, among other artifices, have used their best endeavours, and employed all the rules of their art, to render those years of our age, which they call climacterics, dangerous and formidable. The word climacteric is derived from the Greek, which means by a scale or ladder, and implies a critical year, or a period in a man's age, wherein, according Ficinusological juggling, there is some notable alteration to arise in the body, and a person stands in great danger of death. The first climacteric is the seventh year of a man's life; the others are multiples of the first, as 21, 49, 56, 63, and 84, which two last are called the grand climacterics and the danger more certain. The foundation of this opinion is accounted for by Mark Ficimis as follows:--There is a year, he tells us, assigned for each planet to rule over the body of a man, each of his turn; now Saturn being the most _maleficient_ (malignant) planet of all, every seventh year, which falls to its lot, becomes very dangerous; especially those of sixty-three and eighty-four, when the person is already advanced in years. According to this doctrine, some hold every seventh year an established climacteric; but others only allow the title to those produced by multiplication of the climacterical space by an odd number, 3, 5, 7, 9, &c. Others observe every ninth year as a climacteric. Climacteric years are pretended, by some, to be fatal to political bodies, which, perhaps, may be granted, when they are proved to be so more than to natural ones; for it must be obvious that the reason of such danger can by no means be discovered, nor the relation it can have with any other of the numbers above mentioned.