Tag Archive: astronomy
The celestial apocalypse of 1859
Dr. Stuart Clark is the author of the award-winning The Sun Kings: The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began
. He is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, UK, and a Visiting Fellow of the University of Hertfordshire, UK. Visit him at Of Bloodletting and Birthdays
By Holly Tucker
I won’t divulge my age, but I will mention that a birthday on November 3 makes me a Scorpio.
And because this blog is about history and not me, I’ll use this opportunity to transition into a discussion of bloodletting.
How’s that for a fluid transition?
Astrology and astronomy were not two separate fields in the early-modern era. In fact, astrology and medicine were also inextricably linked. While most bleeding was done from the arm, it was sometimes thought advantageous to bleed from other parts of the body depending on the ailment.
The bleeding chart above shows the places of the body that are governed by specific star signs. The heart is connected to Leo. The feet, Pisces. Libra, the gut. And Scorpio, well, ouch!
A barber-surgeon would do well to consult this or any of the many, many charts like it before bleeding. Any bleeding from the body part that matched the current star sign was ill-advised.
I’m sure men everywhere are relieved that the stars are in Scorpio right now.
Holly Tucker is the Editor of Wonders and Marvels. (and a Scorpio!) Read more about Holly here.
Telling Time in Early Europe
By Holly Tucker
What time is it, you say? If you were living before the 18th century, you would not look at your wrist watch. No, you’d slip a portable sundial out of your pocket. The more complex sundials could also be converted to moon dials that indicated the time according to the amount of moonlight expected on a clear, starry night.
Although town squares began constructing clocks beginning somewhere in the 14th century, sundials remained in the picture well into the 18th century. Mechanical clocks were exorbitantly expensive and could be found only in the most noble of homes. And they were notoriously unreliable–telling time only within an hour, give or take. They also needed to be reset frequently. Of course, with the help of a sundial.
A well crafted sundial was the mark of good birth and high culture. One of the most famous sundial makers of the late seventeenth century was the Englishman Michael Butterfield, who set up shop along the riverbanks of Paris. His top-of-line sundials were made of silver, not brass, and were engraved with beautifully elaborate designs.
Sundial preferences were also gendered. Men went for larger sundials of about 2 1/2 inches nested in a silver box, that itself was nested in a brass exterior box. Women reached instead for daintier, 1 inch models in gold cases that could be slipped more easily in a purse.
Now I’m not a specialist of time telling in the early-modern period. Hardly! Much of what you have here is a distillation of Sara Schechner’s outstanding article: “The Material Culture of Astronomy in Daily Life: Sundials, Science, and Social Change” (Journal for the History of Astronomy, 2001, 189-222). Well worth the read!
And for anyone near Chicago and interested in time keeping, a visit to the Adler Planetarium is well worth the trip. Their historical collections are remarkable. Any readers out there with a big checkbook? Take a peek at the sundial collections here. Feel free to ship one to me!
Image courtesy of the National Maritime Museum. For more information on the sundial above, click here.
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