Take Counsel of your Head, and it will Certify you what I Speak is True.

 

THE STATIONER TO THE READER

Courteous Reader,

It is not unknown with how great an applause this Book was attended when it was first made public. For it overcame the envy of malicious tongues with the general good it brought in disclosing even to mean capacities the rarest and deepest mysteries of physick, which till now were concealed and locked up in unknown languages, without the assistance of large commendations advancing its own reputation, and the perfection of that most noble science.

Which, when the author saw so well approved by men of judgement he was not a little encouraged to take it to a second review, that he might not only reform the errors which easily might be overslipped in the heat of the first composure, but also enrich it with annotations and additions of his own. But ere he could perform this, death took him away, leaving none to perfect what he had begun, and few who with that diligence and industry endeavoured to be more accomplished either in the speculation or the practice of what be professed.Yet being unwilling that so good a work should die with him, he entrusted his papers with some of his nearest friends, to be published with those experiences which he was forced to leave behind him. 

Thus at length they came to our hands, and not till at length, which was the reason that for a time we frustrated not only our own promises, but deceived the expectations of other men. Bit 'tis hoped, Courteous Reader, that now you know the cause of the delay, you will easily grant our pardon, and accept rather late than never, this legacy of a dying man, bequeathed to you upon his death bed, on the confidence of his former practice and experience.

Yours,
Nath. Brook

ABRAHAM AVENEZRA
of Critical Days

Liber I.

It is a palpable and apparent truth that God carries men to the principles of grace by the book of creatures; for this beginning of Abraham Avenezra, an Arabian physician and a singular astologer (whom the priests of our times call a Heathen), favours of the things beyond Heathenism, for in this Treatise of Critical Days he begins thus:

I entreat the Lord God that he would enlighten my heart with his light and truth, so long as my spirit remains in me, for his light is very delightful and good for the eye of my soul to see by, for so shall the night be enlightened to me as the day, neither shall the clouds shadow it; it shall not be like the light of the Sun by day, because it shall not be clouded, nor like the light of the Moon, because it shall never be diminished as her light is.

God has made these lights as he has made man, and he appointed the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser to rule the night; hence it appears the Sun was made to rule the day, and not to give light to it only as the priests affirm, and the Moon was made to rule the night, not to give light to it only, as appears Gen. 1, because she has no light to give. Also, he has made the whole host of heaven, the fixed stars and planets, and gave them virtues together with the luminaries; but their virtues are not so great as the virtues of the luminaries, neither is the virtue of the Moon so great as the virtue of the Sun, although the whole host of heaven (that is, the fixed stars) move all in the same sphere, and therefore their distance is always the same the one from the other, and their latitude is always the same. 

But it is not so with the planets, for their course is various, and so is their distance the one from the other, and so is their latitude; for sometimes they are upon the ecliptic, sometimes north from it, sometimes south, sometimes retrograde, sometimes direct, sometimes in conjunction one with another, sometimes in opposition, sometimes in other aspects. The reason of this is because the sphere of one is lower than the sphere of the other, and the lower the sphere of the other than the sphere is, the sooner they make their revolution.

Nearest to the Earth of all the planets is the Moon, and therefore her course is swiftest; and besides her difference in longitude and latitude, there happen other accidents to her which are not visible to other planets, for sometimes she increases, sometimes decreases, and sometimes she is invisible or fails in light. The reason why the planets are not seen horned as the Moon is because their distance is greater from us; all the planets seem biggest when they are at their greatest distance from the Sun, or when they are nearest to the Earth, according to Copernicus; also, sometimes the Moon is eclipsed, but not in the same manner as the Sun, for the Sun never loses its light, but is only shadowed from a particular people or place by the body of the Moon. But the Moon eclipsed totally loses her light, and the reason is the Sun's light is his own, but the Moon is a borrowed light. 

This being premised, consider that all things under the Moon universally, whether men, beasts or planets, are changed and never remain in the same state, neither are their thoughts and deeds the same; take counsel of your head, and it will certify you what I speak is true, and they are varied according to the various course and disposition of the planets. Look upon your own genesis, and you shall find your thoughts moved to choler so often as the Moon transits the place where the body or aspect of Mars was in your genesis, and to melancholy when she doth the like to Saturn; the reason is because the Moon is assimilated to the body of man, whose virtue as well as her light increases and diminishes, for she brings down the virtue of the other planets to the creatures, and to man if he lives upon the Earth.

The Sun causes heat and cold, day and night, winter and summer. When he arrives to the house of his honour or exaltation, to wit Aries, then the trees spring, living creatures are comforted, the birds sing, the whole creation rejoices and sickness in the body show themselves in their colours; also, when he arrives at his fall, to wit Libra, the leaves of the trees fall, all creatures are lumpish and mourn like the trees in October.

Also, another notable experiment is usually sick people are something eased from midnight to noon, because then the Sun is in the ascending part of the heaven, but they are most troubled when he is descending, that is from noon to midnight.

The course of the Moon is to be observed in many operations both in the sea and rivers, vegetables, shellfishes, as also in the bones and marrow of men and all creatures; also, seed sown at the wane of the Moon grows either not at all, or to no purpose.

Also, wise men have experiences of many virtues of the stars, and have left them to posterity; and physicians in old time (when they were minded to be honest) have found out the changes and terminations of diseases by the course of the Moon, wherefore the 7th, 14th, 20th or 21st, 27th, 28th or 29th days of sickness are called critical days, which cannot be known but by the course of the Moon. For let not your brain rest in the number of the days, because the Moon is sometimes swifter, sometimes slower. 

As for such diseases as do not terminate in a month (I mean a lunar month) viz. the time the Moon traces round the Zodiac, which is 27 days, some odd hours, some few minutes. You must judge of these by the course of the Sun. The day is not called critical, because it is the seventh day from the decumbiture, as if the virtue lay in the number 7; but because the Moon comes to the quartile of the place she was in at the decumbiture, it's no matter whether it be a day sooner or later.

When she comes to the opposition of the place she was at the day of the decumbiture; she makes a second crisis, the third when she comes to the second quartile, and the fourth when she comes to the place she was in at the decumbiture, and it's well she can make so many.

The reason of the difference of the Moon's motion is the difference of her distance from the Earth, for when the centre of her circle is nearest the centre of the Earth; she is swift in motion, and hence it comes to pass that sometimes she moves more than 15 degrees in 24 hours, sometimes less than 12. Therefore, if she be swift in motion, she comes to her own quartile in six days, if slow, not in seven; therefore must you judge according to the motion of the Moon, and not according to the number of the days.

Upon a critical day, if the Moon be well aspected with good planets, it goes well with the sick; if by ill planets, it goes ill. But I know you would be resolved in one particular, which is if the crisis depend upon the motion of the Moon, and her aspect to the planets; what is the reason if two men be taken sick at one and the same time, that yet the crisis of the one falls out well, and not so in the other?

I answer: the virtue working is changed according to the diversity of the virtue receiving, for you all know the Sun makes the clay hard and the wax soft, it makes the cloth white and the face black; so then, if one be a child whose nature is hot and moist, the other a young man, and the third an old man, the crisis works diversely in them all, because their ages are different. 

Secondly, the time of the year carries a great stroke in this business. If it be in the springtime, diseases are most obnoxious to a child, because his nature is hot and moist; a disease works most violently with a choleric man in summer, with a melancholy man in autumn, with a phlegmatic man by reason of age or complexion in winter. 

Thirdly, to this I add, suppose at the beginning of a disease the Moon was in the place of Mars in the genesis, whose nature is hot and dry; if the disease be of heat, it mightily aggravates it, not so if it be of cold, and you shall seldom find two men that had Mars in one and the same place in their genesis fall sick together, and the disease differ neither at the middle nor at the end.