Observations des météores et médecine aux Temps Modernes

Abstract

With the expansion of meteorological observations—a source of scientific experiments and knowledge—a meteorological/climatologicalo/medical paradigm tinged with “hippocratism” emerged in the Age of Enlightenment. Out of “retrodiction” and empiricism, scientists elaborated upon the idea that meteorological conditions could have harmful effects propitious to spreading diseases and epidemic or could, on the contrary, be salubrious. Three centuries before and till the mid-seventieth century astrometeorological beliefs did not want stars, meteors and macrocosm disorders to be found in the sky but in the heavens and to have an influence upon human microcosm here below.

Keywords

• astrometeorology
• astromedicine
• astrology
• meteorology
• medicine