Take this for a Maxim of Truth, and say I told you so.

 

The diseases the planets signify.

The Sun causes pimples and burls in the face, afflictions of the heart, heartburning, tremblings, faintings, tympanies, sore eyes and disease of the mouth; cramps, convulsions; all diseases of the heart and brain, and their attendants, viz. the nerves and arteries, stinking breath, catarrhs, rotten fevers. Thus authors.

And if any ask why I mention no more, tell them here's more than is true. Now to the purpose.

First of all, tympanies are under the Moon. I have known the Sun give a fiery disease, but never a watery. 

Cramps and convulsions are under the Moon, and so are all diseases that often return, as agues do. You shall find the same in another aphorism afterwards, and although my author contradict himself, I do not delight to imitate him in that sport.

The head, brain and nerves are not under the Sun, as you shall hear hereafter.

Catarrhs are under either Mercury or Jupiter, or both; take this for a maxim of truth, and say I told you so: a planet ruling a part of the body, if he be weak in the genesis, that part of the body is naturally weak. I confess I know not wherefore art was made but to help nature; the eyes are under the luminaries, and whosoever has them weak in their genesis has but weak sight; the lungs are under Jupiter. Mercury is the opposite planet to Jupiter; now then, if Jupiter be weak, he is not able to strengthen the lungs as he should do; if Mercury be the afflicting planet, he weakens the lungs by opposition, if you have but with enough to know by a penny how a shilling is coined. 

Sensibus haec imis (res non est parva) repone.

Afford these lines a place amidst your senses,
And be not gull'd by specious pretenses.

I have now leap'd from the Sun to the Moon, and she (they say) causes apoplexies, palsies, cholic, bellyache, diseases in the stones, bladder and instruments of generation; stopping and overflowing of the terms in women, dropsies, fluxes (tympanies, diary, agues), all cold and rheumatic diseases, gout, sciatica, worms in the belly, rheums and hurts in the eyes, surfeits, rotten coughs, convulsions, falling sickness, king's evil, aposthumes, smallpox and measles; all coagulate and crude humours in any part of the body, lethargies, and diseases of phlegm. Thus my author.

Amongst these, I except against:

Apoplexies, and you shall find my reason within a quarter of an hour, unless you fall asleep with reading.

Diseases in the instruments of generation, for they are caused by Venus and Mars, by the one by sympathy, by the other by antipathy.

The gout is caused by Saturn. Who knows but that's the reason he moves so slowly.

Now must I leave the Moon, and mount up to Saturn, for I am like the world, never in station.

Under Saturn, say authors, are apoplexies, toothache, quartan agues; all diseases which come of melancholy, cold and dryness; leprosy, rheums, consumptions, black jaundice, palsies, trembling, vain fears, formidable fancies of a hobgoblin, dropsies, gouts of all sorts; a dog-like hunger, haemorrhoids, broken bones and dislocations, deafness, pain in the bones; ruptures, if he be in Leo or Scorpio, or in an ill aspect to Venus; iliac passion, chin-cough, catarrhs, pains in the bladder; all long diseases, all madness that comes of melancholy, fear or grief. 

If you will give me leave (after I have been first a little critical) I will be (secondly) a little instructive. 

I except against apoplexies, and if you would learn why, you shall so soon as you have learned a little patience.

I except against dropsies, for they are under the Moon.

I except against catarrhs, for they are under Jupiter or Mercury, or both.

I except against dog-like hunger, for it's under Mars.

A few instructions would I very willingly give you, if I thought you would be so wise to heed them. I had as good give them you under Saturn as under another planet; I will not give them you under each planet, because he's a foolish musician that harps always on one string. 

A planet cause diseases:
1. By sympathy.
2. By antipathy.
(vide. Epistle to English Physician.)

And as the cause is, so must the cure be, unless you will do as Scogging did, strike him that stands next you because another abuses you.

These diseases Saturn causes by sympathy; toothache, broken bones, the reason is because he rules the bones; deafness he causes because he rules the ears. Melancholy and all diseases of the spleen by the same argument (ergo the spleen is the seat of melancholy).

Also he afflicts all the parts of the body that are under the Moon by antipathy, and likewise he plays the same tricks with those that are under the Sun. You shall know what they are by-and-by.

The great wisdom of a physician (vide. N.C. Epicid. English Physician; vide. N.C. Eng. Phys. p.24, where you have directions for the cure of disease astrologically, worth your noting) is to know whether Saturn causes the disease by sympathy or antipathy, and then take notice that as the cause is, so is the cure, sympatheticla or antipathetical; and withal do not forget that sympathetical cures strengthen nature; antipathetical cures, in one degree or another, weaken it. 

And now your own mother wit (if you have any) will teach you that antipathetical medicines are not to be used, unless to such patients whom Doctor Ignorance or Doctor Carelessness have had so long in hand that sympathetical will not serve the turn. 

To bring all this to the point in hand, that so it may be useful: if Saturn causes the disease by sympathy, cure it by the sympathetical herbs of Saturn; if he cause the disease by antipathy, note whether it be antipathy to Sun or Moon, or if it happen to the instruments of generation, be sure it is by antipathy to Venus. Make use of the sympathetical herbs of those planets respectively for cure (viz. Venus, for the sympathetical herbs of Venus cure the diseases caused by the antipathy of Saturn. viz. You shall know what part the part affected belongs to, if you consider what precedes, and if Saturn be the cause of any disease in the genitals, it's antipathy to Venus; if in the spleen, then it's by sympathy to himself; if the disease be caused by sympathy in any party by Saturn; as Leo to any other planet is Jupiter to any disease in the lungs, use the sympathetical herbs of Jupiter); you shall not live the age of a little fish before I give you rational instructions for them all.

I now leave Saturn, and come a little lower to Jupiter.

Jupiter, they say, causes apoplexies, all infirmities of the liver and veins, infammations of the lungs, pleurisies and other aposthumes about the breast and ribs; all diseases proceeding of putrefaction of blood and wind, quinsies, fevers and other diseases, which authors either for want of wit, or super-abundance of ignorance, are pleased to attribute to him.

But I suppose Jupiter governs apoplexies because it proceeds of phlegm, Jupiter governing the lungs and so consequently of phlegm.

Against these I except:

Against apoplexies, for it cannot come about that all the planets should cause apoplexies; if so, they would be more frequent than they are no good argument.

Against corruption of blood, for Saturn corrupts the blood by melancholy, and Mars by choler (those he governs, and are proper for the disease).

Diseases under Mars are pestilences, burning fevers, tertian and quotidian agues, megrim, carbuncles and plague sores; burning, scalding, ringworms, blisters; frenzy, fury, hare-brains, sudden distempers in the head coming of heat; yellow jaundice, bloody flux, fistulas; all wounds whatsoever; diseases in the instruments of generation, the stone in the reins and bladder; scars and pockholes in the face; all hurts by iron and fire; the shingles, falling sickness, calentures, St Anthony's fire; all diseases coming of choler, anger or passion.

Amongst all these I can justly except but against one, and that is the falling sickness, which is under the Moon. And yourself will be of my opinion if you please but to take notice that those hideous fits usually come at conjunction, opposition and quartile of the Moon to the Sun.

Diseases under Venus are all diseases of the womb whatsoever as suffocation, precipitation, dislocation, &c. All diseases incident to the members of generation, the reins and navel, as the running of the reins, the French pox, &c. All diseases coming by the inordinate love or lust, priapisimus, impotency in the act of generation, ruptures of all sorts, all diseases belonging to the urine as disuria, iscuria and stranguria, iliac passion, diabetes, &c.

Against these I except:

Impotency of the act of generation, for that's Saturn.

Ruptures, for he hath a share in them also.

Diseases of the urine, for they are under Mars.

The iliac passion, which is under Mercury.

Under Mercury are almost all the diseases of the brain as vertigo, madness; all diseases of the lungs as asthma, phthisicks; all imperfections of the tongue as stammering, lisping; hoarseness, coughs, snuffling in the nose; all defects of the memory, gout, stopping of the head, dumbness, folly and simplicity (the epidemical diseases of the time), and whatsoever hurts the intellectual faculty.

Against these I except:

Against the defects of the memory, for Saturn has a great share in that.

Against the gout, for Saturn wholly rules that.

I have now done with this part, and if any youngsters ask why I have not given a reason for all I have spoken, tell them the reason is clear in the matter, and he that is not able to see it is unfit to give physick. A blind man cannot see the Sun in a clear day when he is upon the meridian.