Paul Summers Young

  Presages by the face. If in a sick body the face look as it did in the time of health, or but little different, the hope of recovery is not small. Signs of death in the face of a sick body are these. The nostrils are extenuated and very sharp. The eyes are hollow. The skin of the forehead or eyesbrows hard, dry and loose, and looks as though it were tan'd. The ears are cold, shrunk and almost doubled. The face is black, pale or swarthy or deformed, he looks but ill-favouredly. If these, or most these appear (be not to rash neither, for rashness is the daughter of ignorance, but be sober-minded) and first enquire whether the patient has not fasted much, or wanted to sleep, or had a flux a long time. If these or any of these had not a being before the sickness, the danger of death is to be feared.  If the sickness have been four or five days before you see these symptoms, they are but the harbingers of death, and he follows them at the tail.  Presages by the eyes and lips...

  Chapter XIV. Containing certain observations taken out of Cardan and other expert physicians. A double tertian invaded one, anno  1547, April 23 at six in the morning, at which time the Moon was in conjunction with Mars.  The twenty-sixth day having taken a purge, the fever left him; the quartile of the Sun and Moon that day was not much considerable, because they had no aspect at the Decumbiture.  The twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth days, he seemed perfectly cured; nothing of the fever appeared perfectly remaining. The thirtieth day the quartile of Mars excited a continued fever with dangerous accidents, for on that day he began to rave and pull the bedclothes &c, but because the Moon in the beginning of the disease separated from the conjunction of Mars to an aspect of Venus, all the symptoms became remiss and free from danger the sixth day of May, which was the fourteenth day from the Decumbiture, at which time Luna was in trine to Venus; neit...

  Hermes Trismegistus upon the First Decumbiture of the sick.  Showing the signs and conjecture of the disease, and of life or death, by the good or evil possession of the Moon at the time of the patient's first lying down or demanding the question. Whosoever shall take his sick bed, the Moon in Aries decreasing in light and motion, and afflicted by the conjunction, quartile or opposition of Saturn, the first original of the disease is from a cold cause, with heaviness of the head, weakness or dullness of the eyes, distillation of humours from the head into the breast, throat and windpipe stopped with phlegm, the pulse weak and inordinate, more afflicted by night than by day, the inwards parts very hot but outward parts shivering with cold, a loathing in the stomach with swoonings and inordinate sweatings. Things that heat and mollify and loose the belly are convenient, bloodletting is unprofitable. If the Moon apply to none of the Fortunes, without doubt the sick will die, bu...

  Chapter XV. For the cure of any disease, take these few rules. First, see what the disease is. Consider who is the author or causer of it, and that you may see if you consider what planet governs that disease. Consider whether it be caused by the sympathy or antipathy of the planet. And that you may know this (which is the whole key of physick) consider whether the planet afflicting governs the part afflicted, and if he have any dominion in that part of the body, he causes it by sympathy. One example will clear all, as suppose diseases in the bones, spleen &c.; if Saturn be the cause of it, 'tis by sympathy because he governs those parts. If by antipathy, consider what part of the body any planet afflicts either by his preference or aspects, and then secondly consider who or what planet governs that part, if the planet afflicting be an enemy to that planet governing that part, then the disease is caused by antipathy. As is the disease, so is the cure.  If by antipathy, t...

  Signs of Death. First of all, the Lord of the Ascendant afflicted in the Eighth: the patient is more mad to be apud inferos , then death is to have him. The man will die, and his life will be cast away absolutely with evil guiadance. If at the Decumbiture you find the Lord of the Ascendant combust in the Ascendant, pass the same judgement with the former. If the Lord of the Eighth be in the mid-heaven and afflict the Lord of the Ascendant, the physician will be in a shrewd mistake, and instead of curing go near to kill. Listen to this, O College of Physicians, let me entreat you to learn the principles of your trade, and I beseech you no longer mistake avarice for wit and honesty.  The Lord of the Eighth very strong in the Ascendant gives you fair warning that death is a coming.  A conjunction between the Lord of the Eighth and the Lord of the Ascendant is as mortal a sign as the heavens can show. It is a very unlucky sign when the Lord of the Eighth is Lord of the Hous...

  Signs of life at the Decumbiture. First, Jupiter, Venus, the Sun and the Moon in the Ascendant, nor afflicting nor beholding the Lord of the Eighth, nor being Lord of the Eighth themselves, take away not only the fear of death, but also promise a speedy cure. The conjunction of the Moon with Jupiter is always prosperous, most propitious if he be in Cancer; if doubtful at all, it is when they are in Capricorn, because in the one they are both dignified, in the other both cadent from their dignities. And yet, let me tell you but thus much: Jupiter is Jupiter still, be he where he will.  The Moon in an angle well disposed in good terms, and free from the body or beams of Saturn or Mars, it restores the sick to health, and scorns to be beholding to any of them all. The Moon applying to the Lord of the Ascendant, unless she carries the beams of the Lord of Death to him, does the like. The Moon increasing in light and swift in motion, and not posited in the Sixth, Eighth not Twelf...

  Signs of long or short sickness. First, the Sixth House being possessed by a fixed sign argues length in the disease. If the sign that possesses the Cusp of the Sixth be movable, the disease will be short; if the sign be common, the disease will either be mean in respect of length, or else the change of the disease, or a relapse is to be feared. If the latter degrees of a sign be upon the Cusp of the Sixth, the disease will quickly end either one way or another.  A fixed sign on the Cusp of the Sixth shows rough and hard humours to be the causes of the disease, and such as are hard to be expelled, they stick to the body like birdlime.  Saturn Lord of the Sixth shows long diseases; Jupiter, Mars and the Sun short; Mercury such as are as constant as the weathercock. If the Lord of the Sixth be stronger than the Lord of the Ascendant, nature gets strength over the disease, and will at last put him to a total rout. Common signs show the disease will stay in one state as lon...

  Chapter XIII. How it may be known what part of the body is afflicted. That this may be known, for 'tis not only possible but also probable, be pleased to consider: If the sign of the Lord of the Sixth possesses, especially if he be an unfortunate or a fortune unfortunated. ( Here the Lord of the Sixth or afflicting the Sixth shall signify the disease. ) And then consider what part of the body the sign he is in governs, as Aries governs the head, Taurus the neck and throat, &c., and be sure that part is afflicted. ( viz. the planet that afflicts the Sixth or planets there. ) Consider what part of the body the afflicting planet rules, what sign, which are under that sign, and you need not question but that's afflicted. For example, Venus though she rule many parts of the body, yet in Scorpio she rules only the privities. ( viz. that planet being in the sign of Venus in Virgo rules the privities &c. ) ( Good rules also you may observe, and I think not amiss, though any p...

  Chapter XII. How to know whether the disease be in the mind or in the body. All the aphorisms of my author upon this question are got so deeply together by the ears and in such a hubbub that I know not in the world which way to go about to reconcile them. Every following aphorism thwarts him that goes before; in one he affirms that the Sun, Moon and Ascendant rule the body, and their lords the mind, the very next aphorism affirms the contrary. Most of them contradict one another in such a hideous manner that I was forced to leave their company and search other authors for a resolution of this point, and they conclude that the Sun, Moon and Ascendant signify the body, and their lords the mind. And if this may be taken for truth, the directed aphorisms are these: The Sun, Moon and Lord of the Ascendant impedited, and their lords safe, show the disease lies in the body and not in the mind.  If their lords be impedited and they safe, the disease lies in the mind, and not in the ...

  Chapter XI. How the nature and kind of the disease may be found out by the figure of the Decumbiture. The nature of the disease is to be found out three ways, first by the Houses of Heaven, of which the Sixth, Seventh and Twelfth signify diseases; by the nature of the signs, of which fiery signs signify choler and diseases thence proceeding, earthly signs the diseases of melancholy, aery signs diseases of blood and wind, watery signs diseases of watery and salt phlegm; by the planets themselves and their aspects. All this I shall make clear by this subsequent discourse, before which I shall premise these following aphorisms. If Saturn signify the disease, 'tis like to continue long enough, if not too long; yet if he be with benevolents, it mitigates, if with malevolents, it increases the evil. Saturn in Leo or Capricorn with the Dragon's Head or Tail, or with Venus combust, or with violent fixed stars, he stirs up pestilences or other pernicious fevers that are little better....

  The particular parts of the body under the several signs of the Zodiac, and the Houses in the heavens in a celestial scheme. Under Aries is the head, and whatever belongs to it, as its bones, the face, brain, hair, beard, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, teeth &c, whatsoever in man is above the first vertebra of the neck. Under Taurus is the neck, throat, the vertebrae of the neck, which are in number seven. The chanel-bone, the shoulder blade according to my opinion. Also, Taurus has again signification in the voice, for he will roar like a bull. Under Gemini are the shoulders, shoulder-bones, arms, hands, fingers, together with their bag and baggage. Under Cancer is the breast, ribs, lungs, pleura, the ventricle of the stomach, women's breasts, the liver, spleen &c, and yet Doctor Reason told me the other night that the spleen was under Virgo. Under Leo is the heart, the back, and the vertebrae of the breast, which are in number twelve; the pericardium; some authors say, the s...