Fact 33

NICHOLAS CULPEPER AND HIS MEDICAL FOREWORD Astrology has been considered extremely useful in disease diagnosis since the time of Hippocrates, and even today some doctors resort to its diagnostic aspect, usually without informing the patient due to existing superstitions. As an example, we can cite the following case recounted by Kipling to a select circle of members of the Royal Medical Society at the Mayfair Hotel in London: “About three hundred years ago, Nicholas Culpeper, a physician-astrologer, practiced in Spitalfields, at which time the maid of his friend fell ill, and the local physician diagnosed the plague in her. Culpeper was invited as a consultant. When he arrived, the family was packing their belongings and preparing to leave, having decided to abandon the girl to die there. He took charge of the situation. Without indulging in unnecessary nonsense and even without verifying whether her tongue resembled that of a plague victim, he asked at what hour the girl had fallen ill. Then he cast a horoscope and began to examine the star map to determine how to cure the disease. The position of the stars indicated that it was not the plague but merely smallpox, which our ancestors treated just as simply as we do. And so it proved to be. The family returned and lived happily ever after, the girl recovered, and Culpeper expressed his opinion of his colleague, who had made the mistake, calling him a blind man and a hopeless fool.” (See London Daily Express. – Nov. 16, 1928). (Manly P. Hall Astrology. The Keys to Understanding. Trans. from English. – M.: Sfera, 2002. P. 19)