The Evolution of Modern Medicine: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Yale University on the Silliman Foundation in April, 1913Osler, William, Sir
History
The Evolution of Modern Medicine: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Yale University on the Silliman Foundation in April, 1913
Osler, William, Sir
Medicine -- History
The almanacs of Moore and Zadkiel continue to be published, and
remain popular. In London, sandwich men are to be met with carrying
advertisements of Chaldeans and Egyptians who offer to tell your fortune
by the stars. Even in this country, astrology is still practiced to
a surprising extent if one may judge from advertisements in certain
papers, and from publications which must have a considerable sale. Many
years ago, I had as a patient an estimable astrologer, whose lucrative
income was derived from giving people astral information as to the rise
and fall of stocks. It is a chapter in the vagaries of the human mind
that is worth careful study.(33) Let me commend to your reading the
sympathetic story called "A Doctor of Medicine" in the "Rewards and
Fairies" of Kipling. The hero is Nicholas Culpeper, Gent., whose picture
is here given. One stanza of the poem at the end of the story, "Our
Fathers of Old," may be quoted:
Wonderful tales had our fathers of old--
Wonderful tales of the herbs and the stars--
The Sun was Lord of the Marigold,
Basil and Rocket belonged to Mars.
Pat as a sum in division it goes--
(Every plant had a star bespoke)--
Who but Venus should govern the Rose?
Who but Jupiter own the Oak?
Simply and gravely the facts are told
In the wonderful books of our fathers of old.
(33) It is not generally known that Stonewall Jackson practiced
astrology. Col. J. W. Revere in "Keel and Saddle" (Boston, 1872)
tells of meeting Jackson in 1852 on a Mississippi steamer and
talking with him on the subject. Some months later, Revere
received a letter from Jackson enclosing his (Revere's)
horoscope. There was a "culmination of the malign aspect during
the first days of May, 1863--both will be exposed to a common
danger at the time indicated." At the battle of
Chancellorsville, May 9, 1863, Revere saw Jackson mortally
wounded!
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