In the fifteenth century the practice of medicine became more and more influenced and dominated by the occult sciences, and especially astrology. All mankind was ruled by the stars, and the cause of various diseases was attributed to the conjunction of certain planets. “They believed the blood rose during the daytime towards the sun, and descended into the lower extremities at night; that at the third hour the bile subsided, so that its acid properties might not be mixed with the course of the blood; and that at the second hour the atrabilis, and in the evening the phlegm, subsided.” Such illusions and erroneous beliefs stopped the progress of science, and threatened to turn a noble art into mere charlatanry. In this country the surgeons mostly practised as apothecaries; and we are told that when Henry V. invaded France in 1415, the only surgeon he had in his camp was one Thomas Morstede, who was with difficulty induced to accompany the army, bringing with him twelve assistants. The sixteenth century saw an effort to throw off some of these errors which had grown round the art. The invention of printing helped largely in disseminating knowledge throughout Europe, and the followers of medicine assumed a higher position. [Illustration: AN APOTHECARY’S SHOP. FIFTEENTH CENTURY.] Towards the end of the fifteenth century Tachenius wrote: “There is no new thing under the sun whatsoever, therefore the followers of Hippocrates have handed out, and as it were midwifed into the world, the same was from the beginning though our eyes were not so clear-sighted as to discern it”. To which Stephen Pasquier replied in the following rhyme:— “Some Paracelse of novelty implead, For which, judged crime, he erst was banished, So Hippocrates, Chrysippus, and at Rome Asclepiade, too, were new. They’d all one doom. They who condemn new things condemn the old, Or else do both misjudge and are o’er bold.”