sciences were to a degree, medicine was the one most closely linked to astrology. Jerome Cardan, perhaps the greatest physician of the day, was also one of the most famous astrologers. Forman, who has left an interesting astrological diary, as a physician diagnosed wholly by the Ephemerides.
"On the basis of medicine and astrology," says Mr. Hathaway, "it was easy for the would-be general fakir to rear his structure. Conjuring up spirits, telling fortunes, locating lost property, or hidden treasure, preparing love philters, seemed to the people but an extension of the practices of the scientists and physicians of the times. There was a difference in degree, but not in kind. The base of it all was magical. This attitude of wise and simple alike made imposters of the Forman type not merely possible but inevitable. The law of supply and demand applies at once. The people believed that such operations could be performed. They wished them to be performed. It remained but to select the person to perform them. Economic law presented him in a large assortment of varieties. The demand still exists in a lessened degree, and the supply meets it amply. The truth of this, for verification, needs but reference to the advertisements of any large daily paper. Clairvoyants, quacks, patent-medicine
