Today, July 20th, is Moon Day! To commemorate the day humans first walked on the moon in 1969, the Dittrick Museum looks at how centuries of scholars considered the movements of the moon and planets as having a great impact on health.
Athanasius Kircher, a 17th-century polymath priest, created an astrological chart know as a "Sciathericon" in his treatise on optics and light called Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae (1671). This chart (Fig. 2) connected the zodiac with parts of human anatomy, types of health conditions, and the medications that could be used to treat these bodily complaints.
For example, the...