Tablet 117: “If the greater halo surrounds the moon, ruin will be visited upon mankind.”
Tablet 269: “If an eclipse of the sun occurs on the twenty-ninth day of the month of Jypar, there will be many deaths on the first day.”
Tablet 271: “An eclipse at the morning watch causes disease.... If an eclipse takes place during the morning watch, and lasts throughout the watch, while the wind blows from the north, the sick in Akkad will recover.”
Tablet 79: “If a halo surrounds the moon and if Regulus stands within, women will bear male children.”
Tablet 94: “If sun and moon ... on the fifteenth day ‘answer my prayer’ shall he say ... Let him nestle close to his wife, she shall conceive a son.”
These few extracts show us the close relations into which Assyrico-Babylonian culture brought the becoming and passing away of all animal life with the stellar movement; in fact, as we note from Tablet 94, the astrologists of this period did not hesitate to intrude into the most intimate occurrences of married life. It is quite obvious that, under such circumstances, the Babylonian physician was compelled to consider very carefully the utterances of the astrologists in carrying on his practise. It may be possible that we shall obtain still further information regarding the quality of sidereal therapy from the numerously discovered cuneiform tablets. We know positively that a physician was forbidden to perform any surgical operations on certain days of each month. Thus, for instance, the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, and 28th of the month Schall-Elul were unfavorable days for such operations (Oefele). These directions were especially stringent in regard to venesection, to which act we shall again refer in greater detail.
When civilization, later on, continued to thrive upon the shores of the Nile, astrology still found a fertile soil there, and it appears that here also the name Ἰατρομαθηματικοί has originated, which, subsequently, was a favorite designation of adherents to the sidereal art of healing. The astrological prognoses made by the professional astrologist, Petosiris, for the king Nechepso of Sais are well known. However, it appears, according to the latest investigations (compare the excellent work of Sudhoff, page 4, etc.), that these prognoses have nothing at all to do with that king Nechepso who reigned in the seventh century, B.C. It seems more probable that some cunning Alexandrian astrologist of the second century, B.C., fraudulently used the name of the king as a cover for his work. But however this may be, these prognoses of Petosiris have considerable value, in that they give us an insight into the manufacture of such medical prophesies.
The object of these prognoses was primarily to discover the termination of a disease, whether the patient would die or recover, either soon or only after the lapse of a certain time—for instance, after seven days. This was all that Petosiris undertook to predict. All details regarding treatment, complications, and diagnosis of a case are still entirely wanting. Petosiris, in making such a prognosis, by no means relied solely upon the conjunction of certain celestial bodies, but he employed a rather intricate method, in which mystic numbers, onomancy, and astrology were important elements. To prognosticate medically according to this system a circle of numerals was required in the first place. There existed two different kinds of such circles—one simple, the other more complicated. Berthelot has furnished us with examples of both as used by Petosiris.