Superstition in Medicine

by Hugo Magnus

It is quite obvious that, under such circumstances, a number of superficial, imperfect, and distorted observations crept into the theoretic system of natural science.

However, this was not all; the diagnostico-theoretical method, by means of which antiquity, the middle ages, and even the greatest part of more modern times, had seen the natural sciences treated, was radically wrong. Man did not feel his way carefully from experiment to experiment, from observation to observation, until the general principle was found which inductively comprised a number of phenomena under one uniform principle of law, but the principle which was at the bottom of phenomena was fixed upon a speculative basis, and in accordance with this principle the phenomena were interpreted—as was done, for instance, in medicine in the case of humoral pathology. And as this speculatively constructed principle was obtained exclusively by a method dangerous to the cognition of natural sciences, by conclusion from analogy, naturally the most fantastic and adventurous conceptions soon became accepted in the realm of natural philosophy. But natural philosophy once lost in such a labyrinth, an aberration of the perceptive powers can not fail to follow—at least, in certain domains of nature. As a matter of fact, this fallacious perception promptly made its appearance, and has proved the stumbling-block of science from its earliest days up to the present times. Occultism, mysticism, or whatever the names may be of the various forms of superstition, have sprung from these erroneous conceptions of natural science. It may even be contended that no variety of superstition exists which is not somehow connected with a distorted observation or explanation of nature. However interesting these considerations may be, we can not here pursue them any further.

Such investigations belong to the history of superstition in general, and any one who desires more detailed information is referred to the enormous literature of the subject. We can here consider only those relations which prevail, or have prevailed, between superstition and natural science, and principally the influence which was thus exerted upon the art of healing by astronomy.

Astronomy and medicine became most intimately connected during the earliest periods of human civilization. The literature of cuneiform inscriptions shows us that the attempt to bring the stars into connection with human destinies is primeval, and reaches back to the ancient Babylonian age, even to the Sumero-Accadic period (Sudhoff, Med. Woche. 1901, No. 41). How primeval peoples came to connect their destinies with the heavenly bodies and their orbits is explained so lucidly by Troels-Lund (page 28, etc.) that we shall cite his descriptions, even if they are rather long for quotation. He says: “The Chaldean history of creation is inscribed upon seven clay tablets. On the fifth tablet we read: ‘The seventh day He instituted as a holy day, and ordained that man should rest from all labor.’ Why just seven? Because the holy number seven of the planets imperceptibly shone through the work of creation, and was imperceptibly impressed upon the entire order of thought. We are here at the decisive epoch at which the planets for the first time gave an impetus to human conception, the effects of which were to persist for thousands of years. This was repeated a second time when Copernicus, in dealing especially with the orbit of the planets, founded the still-prevailing conception of the universe.

“For the theory of creation could be reconciled with the phenomenon of sun and moon moving in their regular courses. They were in this case no longer, as had been assumed until then, individual living beings and divinities, but lights kindled by a mighty God, and intended to move day and night, in an established order, under the dome of heaven. But the other five planets! It was unnecessary to be a Chaldean on the Babylonian Tower in order to feel amazement at these. Every one who had ever followed with his eye their courses for a few nights during a caravan journey, every one who, lying awake, had occasionally attempted to read the time from the only clock of the night—the star-covered canopy of heaven—was bound to have noticed their peculiarities as to light and course. They did not shine uniformly, but sometimes intensely, at other times faintly, and entirely different was their radiance from that of other stars—reddish, greenish, bluish. And their course was at one time rapid, at other times slow; then backward or oblique; sometimes they disappeared entirely. Necessarily they appeared inexplicable not only to the inexperienced observer, but to a still higher grade of intellect—that of the most experienced Chaldean; for, altho their periods could possibly be calculated, their courses beggared all geometrical figures. These confused paths could be explained only in one manner—namely, as the expression of an arbitrary will, the manifestations of an independent life. The courses of the planets furnished the astronomic proof that the heavenly bodies were animated. The universe was more than created, it was godhead itself in living activity.

“How this point of view broadened and cleared everything! The world assumed the shape of an enormous hall upon which divine power, divine will, continuously acted from above. Farthest down was the world of the elements. In boundless distances above it moved the moon and the six other planets, each one in its transparent heaven. In the highest height, finally, revolved the canopy of impervious heaven, into which constellations were ranged in shapes that resembled animals (Tablet V., verse 2). Apparently these rotations did not have anything in common with each other; a power which passed through them from above moved these elemental worlds. Did not daily experience of their rising determine winter, storm, drought, etc.? Thus the processes on earth only reflected and repeated the course of these divine and heavenly bodies; yea, divine will itself. But their order of movement varied. Sun and moon with their regular courses spin, as it were, the firm warps and woofs; the other five are instrumental in producing what is changeable and apparently accidental. Unitedly in their course through heaven the seven weave the threads of fate. Silently they weave the design of terrestrial life. Upon them depend not only summer and winter, rain and drought, but also the life and death of every living being; as determined by the constellation of their birth, such is each man, so will he live. Never do the heavenly bodies repeat precisely the same relative positions, and, therefore, never are two years, two days, two human beings, two leaves, completely identical.”

So far Troels-Lund.

Much as we agree with what Troels-Lund says, yet we believe that the decisive motive which led humanity to bring their bodily welfare into closest connection with the starry canopy of heaven was suggested by the powerful influence which the sun exerts upon the bodily welfare of all life. As this life-giving power of the sun had a conspicuous share in the origin of primeval sabianism, so also it exerted a similar influence upon the development of astrology; for it must have been obvious to even the most stupid observer that his well-being depended to a great extent upon the action of the sun. From this perception to the idea that other heavenly bodies were also intended to exert a decisive influence upon things terrestrial was only a short step for the ancient civilized peoples; for here the conclusion from analogy was actually so closely and so enticingly under every one’s nose that all he had to do was but to pitch upon the powers which rule all earthly life and neatly box them up in a well-constructed system. But as the conclusion from analogy was always considered in the ancient world as the most certain, never-failing path to knowledge, it was readily followed in this connection also. And thus astrology, like the greater part of medico-physical knowledge, was based, we think, upon the treacherous ground of a conclusion per analogiam.