Introduction

Abstract

Abstract In the eighteenth century a system of medicine based on humours was, for a brief time, rivalled by a medicine grounded in astrological prediction (Wright 1979). The former won the struggle for supremacy, to be replaced in its turn a century later by the triumph of a system of medicine based on pathological anatomy. A conventional explanation for the failure of astrological medicine is that it was ineffective: if the role of medicine is to intervene to alter the outcome of illness then astrological medicine could at best only have had a placebo effect. But this explanation of success and failure is to judge astrological medicine from the perspective of the present and not in its own terms. As well as relief from illness, astrological medicine offered predictions about the future course of life, of good fortune, marriages, and achievements. However, these are not the criteria by which it is now judged: past systems of medicine are evaluated by the criteria of the most recent. Thus, the current system of medicine holds certain outcomes as important and proceeds to evaluate rival systems of medicine in terms of success in achieving these particular outcomes; but from the perspectives of these superseded systems of medicine such criteria of success and failure may be less appropriate. From the view of a medicine based on astrological prediction, modern medicine stands condemned in not even attempting life course forecasts, never mind claiming any success in this area.