But if a ruler of high mental gifts is always destined to exert a powerful influence upon his epoch, how much more telling is this influence when the contemporaries of such a monarch lead a mental life, fettered by so many religious, philosophical, and physical prejudices as undeniably dominated mankind during the reign of the great Hohenstaufen. If these conditions were of the greatest advantage to astrology in general, circumstances shaped themselves most favorably for Medicina Astrologica in particular. Very soon after the death of the star-learned Hohenstaufen emperor, two highly talented physicians bound themselves body and soul to astrology—namely, Arnald Bachuone, called also, after his birthplace, Villanueva, Arnaldus Villanovanus or Arnald of Villanova (1235-1312), and Petrus, called also, after his birthplace, Abano near Padua, Petrus de Apono or Petrus Aponensis (1250-1315). From that time until the seventeenth century the most eminent representatives of all the sciences and professions devoted themselves to the doctrines of astrology. In the excellent work of Sudhoff is cited a notable number of physicians—by no means the most unskilful of their day—who confessed themselves to be iatromathematicians (i.e., medici astrologici). Astrology, and with it Medicina Astrologica, reigned supreme at most of the princely courts from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries. The Hohenstaufen, Frederick II., was, as we have seen, an implicit adherent to astrologic doctrines; likewise the Visconti in Milan. The royal court of Aragon in Palermo offered a sheltering asylum to astronomy and to astrology. Alfonso X. of Castile was so enthusiastic a friend of scientific astronomy that he ordered the planet-tables of Ptolemy to be restored, with an outlay of enormous costs, by fifty astronomers called by him to Toledo. German princes, such as Elector Joachim of Brandenburg, Albrecht, Elector of Mayence, Landgrave William of Hesse, Duke Albrecht of Prussia, not only adhered to the predictions of the stars, but they also subscribed to the statements of astrological medicine. Thus, for instance, Thomas Erastus (died 1583) the well-known opponent of Paracelsus, tells us that, as body-physician to the reigning count of Henneberg, he was not permitted to begin a course of treatment until he had consulted the stars. The German emperor, Charles V., was quite as constant a friend of the astrologists; he was instructed in astrology by his teacher, the subsequent pope, Hadrian VI. The court of Denmark was the center of astrological teachings under Frederick II., as no less a personage than Tycho de Brahe was active there. But not only rulers favored astrology, it met with implicit belief from highly enlightened scholars, statesmen, and naturalists. Thus, Melanchthon was so convinced an adherent of all astrological doctrines that he was incessantly active in their favor by mouth and by pen. And when fatal disease had finally seized upon him, he was soon satisfied as to the issue, in that Mars and Saturn happened to be in conjunction (Möhsen, Vol. II., page 416).
However, men were not wanting who courageously took up the battle against astrological delusions. Thus, for instance, the friend of Lorenzo of Medici, the learned Count Pico of Mirandola (1463-1494); also Girolamo Fracastori (1483-1553), who is known by his didactic poem on syphilis, opposed astrology.
If we now ask how it was possible that a superstition like astrology could for centuries dominate Occidental medicine, and was even able to influence the best minds in its favor, an answer to this question will not be as difficult as might appear at first glance. The very best and the most enlightened minds are always particularly affected by what is enigmatical and mysterious in the phenomena of life. They perceive the narrow limits set to our cognition of nature much more acutely and deeply than the average mind. This consciousness of the insufficiency of our own knowledge, joined with an ardent desire after a broadening of our understanding, tends to turn the mind in strange directions. The result of clearer self-knowledge in this modern epoch of ours is an adverseness to any form of romantic fancy, and is likely to end in a sad resignation that may result in pessimism. But the middle ages, with their exuberant confidence and faith, their belief in wonders, and their romantic ideas, did not suffer to any great extent from scientific apathy. A sharply defined, mystic tendency helped to overcome what was inadequate in the cognition of nature. And for this reason do we find this mystic tendency prominent, especially in those representatives of that period who, owing to their mental capacity, were bound to perceive their defective insight into the manifestations of life much more intensely than this was felt by the average persons of narrower intellect.
The conditions thus described, as well as the diagnostico-theoretical principles on which medicine and natural sciences were based in antiquity and in the middle ages, until late in the eighteenth century led many mentally gifted men to consider astrology rather a refuge from the current defective conception of natural phenomena than a false doctrine.
[4] This star, in particular, played a rôle in the astrologic prognosis of the Egyptians; in fact, in various systems it was made the starting-point of medical predictions; for instance, in the method of Hermes Trismegistus.
VI
INFLUENCE EXERTED UPON THE DEVELOPMENT OF SUPERSTITION BY MEDICINE ITSELF
As ancient, medieval, and some more modern theories of medicine have traveled over the same diagnostico-theoretical roads as did the natural science of those periods, they were naturally subject to the same errors and aberrations. But the consequences of their errors differed materially. Whereas natural science, in the early and middle ages, with its faulty diagnostico-theoretical method, too frequently had recourse to supernatural factors to explain terrestrial phenomena, and thus created superstition instead of elucidation, the pathology of ancient as well as of medieval medicine avoided as much as possible any recourse to miraculous agencies in explaining the pathological phenomena of the body. This it was forced to do for the sake of self-preservation. For what would have become of the physicians with their art, which was of a purely material kind, working as it did with drug and knife, if they themselves had traced disease to supernatural causes? No one, under such conditions, would have had any dealings with mundane medical science. It is true, there have been times when such a state of things actually existed. The physician, with his earthly appliances, was always led astray as soon as metaphysical ideas had victoriously entered pathology. History affords numerous examples of this. The cult of relics, the belief in astrology during half of the middle ages, show plainly to what a degrading position the physician was reduced as soon as a pathology reckoning with earthly factors was replaced by a metaphysical theory of disease. Then the physician was either completely thrust aside—ἀλλ’ ὠθεῖται μὲν ἒξω νοσοῦντος ὁ ἰατρός, as says Plutarch (“Superstition,” Vol. I., page 412)—or he was forced to submit to a disgraceful interference. All schools of medicine, therefore, from the humoral pathology of the followers of Hippocrates to the so-called parasitism of the nineteenth century, have avoided as much as possible the acknowledgment that supernatural influences were active as pathological factors. Various as the principles of the countless medical schools may have been, they were all united in assuming as the starting-point of their speculations some material process of the body itself, in accordance with which they applied their therapeutic agencies.