in stars and planets in certain relations
produced certain diseases and contagious disorders. Astrologers, for
example, attributed the plague to a conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter
in Sagittarius, on the tenth of October, or to a conjunction of Saturn
and Mars in the same constellation, on the twelfth of November. Burton
makes the most generous melancholy, as that of Augustus, to come from
the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Libra; the bad, as that of
Catiline, from the meeting of Saturn and the moon in Scorpio. If these
disorders were produced by planets it was reasonable to suppose that
they could be cured by planets.

The virtue of herbs depended upon the planet under which they were
sown or gathered. For example, verbena or vervain should be gathered
at the rising of the dog-star, when neither the sun nor the moon
shone, but an expiatory sacrifice of fruit and honey should previously
have been offered to the earth. If this was carried out it had power
to render the possessor invulnerable, to cure fevers, to eradicate
poison, and to conciliate friendship. Notice also, that black
hellebore, to be effective, was to be plucked not cut, and this with
the right hand, which was then to be covered with a portion of the
robe and secretly to be conveyed to the left hand. The person
gathering it was to be clad in white, to be barefooted, and to offer a
sacrifice of bread and wine.

Not only the planets and the stars, but the moon has had a potent
influence on medicine. For instance, mistletoe was to be cut with a
golden knife, and when the moon was only six days old. Brand[82]
quotes from _The Husbandman's Practice, or Prognostication Forever_,
published in 1664, the following curious passage, "Good to purge with
electuaries, the moon in Cancer; with pills, the moon in Pisces; with
potions, the moon in Virgo; good to take vomits, the moon being in
Taurus, Virgo, or the latter part of Sagittarius; to purge the head by
sneezing, the moon being in Cancer, Leo, or Virgo; to stop fluxes and
rheumes, the moon being in Taurus, Virgo, or Capricorne; to bathe when
the moon is in Cancer, Libra, Aquarius, or Pisces; to cut the hair off
the head or beard when the moon is in Libra, Sagittarius, Aquarius, or
Pisces."

The Loseley manuscripts provide us with further examples. "Here
begyneth ye waxingge of ye mone, and declareth in dyvers tymes to let
blode, whiche be gode. In the furste begynynge of the mone it is
profetable to yche