"Observe also to gather
all your physic herbs in the hour of the friendly planet, that
temporises with what you were born under, and in so doing they will have
more strength, power, and virtue to operate in the medicines; but
neither physic nor bleed on the third of January, the last of April, the
first of July, the first of August, and the last and second day of
October; for those astrologers, with whom physicians join, conclude it
perilous, by reason of the bad influence then reigning; and if it change
not the distemper into another worse, it will augment it, and put the
party in great danger of death, _if he or she in this case be not lucky
to escape_." It would be a waste of words to offer a single comment on
such egregious stuff--"do not bleed on the third of January," nor on
such and such a day, (as if there could be stated times for bleeding
beyond those which are indicated by the presence of disease, and
requiring such evacuation,) is a practice we believe peculiar only to
astrologers, and those who believe in such demonological cant. It is no
less, however, a singular fact that men distinguished in every other
respect for their learning, should most particularly have indulged in
the superstition of judicial astrology.
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