Pseudoscience’ Or a Science Without Any Scienti C Evidence to Support Its Existence, Astrology Was Long Thought to Be the ‘Science’ Or ‘Voyce of the Stars’
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chapter four ASTROLOGY AND ASTROLOGICAL MEDICINE Hee that commandeth their course and althereth them at his pleasure … If the Starres be pestilently bent against us, neyther Arts nor Armes, Perfumes nor Prayers can prevaile with them.1 Despite now being de ned as a ‘pseudoscience’ or a science without any scienti c evidence to support its existence, astrology was long thought to be the ‘science’ or ‘voyce of the stars’. Although ‘astronomy’ and ‘astrology’ are considered to be two diferent things today, during the Middle Ages and the early modern period they were believed to have formed a symbiotic rela- tionship which was an inseparable part of science. In 1615 Thomas Bretnor described the former as being ‘the calculation of the true place and motions of the planets’,while the latter explained ‘the efects of the planets’.Over fty years later Joseph Moxon provided a more detailed explanation of the ‘two- fold Doctrine’. He explained that the astronomical element was used for ‘erecting a Figure of Heaven, placing the Planets in it, nding what Aspects they bear each other, and in what Places they are constituted’. After this was done, the ‘astrological part’ could be used to judge of the events of things by the Figure erected.2 As one seventeenth century writer reminded his readers, it was imper- ative to ‘have the knowledge of the Motions, as well of the Moone as of the Sunne, and of the power and oper […]tions of them bothe’.3 The move- ments of the heavens were thought to inuence all things on earth, including astrological physic (the early modern term for medicine). As John Gadbury reminded his readers in 1674 the combination of the two equalled ‘the most useful Sciences in the World’. Furthermore, he went on to say that ‘with- out the knowledge of these Arts all Learning is imperfect, and nothing but Sound and Shadow’.4 The other major part of contemporary medical beliefs 1 S. Bradwell, Physick for the Sicknesse Called the Plague (London, 1636), p. 4. 2 T. Bretnor, A new almanacke and prognostication (London, 1615), sig. A2r and J. Moxon, A Tutor to Astronomy and Geometry (London, 1674), p. 12. 3 W. Knight, Vox stellarum: or the voyce of the stars (London, 1681); W. Ramsey, Lux Veritatis, or Christian Judicial Astrology Vindicated (London, 1652), pp. 15–16 and p. 30 and C. Estienne, Maison rustique, or The countrey farme (London, 1616), p. 30. 4 J. Gadbury, Thesaurus Astrologiae (London, 1674), sig. A4v. 90 chapter four and practices were composed of Galenic principles which resulted in what I would call ‘astro-Galenic’ medicine. This provided a full spectrum of the- ories and beliefs that lay at the heart of health and illness for both humans and animals. The origin of the word ‘astrology’ can be traced back to the Greek ‘Astron’ and ‘Logos’ which literally mean ‘the Speech or Reasoning of the Stars’.5 According to one seventeenth century writer, however, ‘the rst invention of this Science was by (or in the time of) the Patriarchs’. Vincent Wing went on to state that ‘Abraham was very learned & expert therein and … he was the rst that instructed the Aegyptians in Arithmetick and Astronomy’.6 Many modern historians, however, believe that it can be traced back to the Sume- rians around 3500bc. Other academics argue that while the Babylonians employed a form of astrology, it did not depend on a spherical cosmological framework, nor use geometrical models with the earth with other planets moving around it.7 Such reasoning suggests that it therefore only became a ‘science’ with the Greek development of mathematical astronomy. That said, it is now generally accepted that whether or not the Sumerians’ inter- est in astronomy would now be deemed ‘scienti c’ is less important than the fact that it resulted in the rst known recorded set of astronomical observa- tions.8 Michael Hoskins has suggested that two major ‘scienti c’ themes had already developed by the fourth century. These consisted of trying to under- stand nature in purely natural terms without recourse to the supernatural and by the acceptance of the Earth being a sphere.9 The earliest Greek sys- tems were based on the concept that the earth was at the centre of all motion surrounded by the other heavenly bodies which rotated around it. Thales of Miletus (circa 629–555bc), who founded the Early Ionian School, has been credited with raising the rst non-occult explanation of the Universe as a gigantic ball of water containing our earth, the stars xed to the inside sur- face and the seven planets (including the Sun and Moon). Dramatic changes in arithmetic and geometry were made under Pythagoras (c. 580–500bc). In 5 J. Blagrave, An Almanack (London, 1660), sig. A3r and P. Curry, Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modern England (Princeton, 1989), p. 10. 6 V.Wing, Astronomiainstaurata,or,Anewcompendiousrestaurationofastronomieinfour parts (London, 1656), sig. A3v. 7 F. Rochberg, ‘A consideration of Babylonian astronomy within the historiography of science’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 33, No. 4 (December, 2002), pp. 661–684. 8 S.J. Tester, AHistoryofWesternAstrology (Woodbridge, 1987), p. 18 and O. Pedersen, Early Physics and Astronomy, (Cambridge, 1993), p. 5. 9 M. Hoskin, The History of Astronomy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2003), p. 9..