by Dusko Savic
guest writer
How will a planet express its energies primarily depends on its relations with other planets, which boils down to the angle that those two planets make with the centre of the circle. Each pair of planets brings its own kind of sickness, for instance, a combination of Sun and Saturn will slow down the metabolism, while the Sun and Mars make it easy for the person to burn his or her own energy -- such persons often go in for sports.
The angle of 150 degrees (inconjunction) is especially malefic. Whenever there is an exact inconjunction between two planets in the chart, the person will have to live through various troubles of medical nature. Malefic aspects from malefic planets to the Moon are the worst. Squares are extremely malefic, so Saturn squaring the Moon gives a predisposition towards cancer, although the same effect may be seen from malefic aspects from Neptune and/or Pluto to the Moon. Just as in other branches of astrology, malefic aspects produce action -- an illness of a kind. But, it always pays to see where the good aspects are, because they bring amelioration, often a complete cure -- sometimes through remedies, sometimes through persons that resemble the description of the aspect (for instance, a trine to Neptune -- healing through an apothecary etc.)
If there are no benefic aspects to the rulers of the 6th, 8th and/or 12th houses, then we should find persons whose planets create harmonious aspects. If that person is the doctor or a healer, healing will be successful.
Each planet is on the middle distance of another two planets, as if in a triple conjunction. For every midpoint there is a special medical delineation: the midpoint of Jupiter and Saturn denotes liver, while MA/SA (the midpoint for Mars and Saturn) denotes spasms, in more involved cases even death. Midpoints make each chart as unique as possible and you cannot do medical astrology well if you are not using them. For even greater precision, include the Uranian planets and their midpoints, especially in progressed charts.
Medical aphorisms are configurations typical for specific diseases and states. For instance, Mars on 29 Scorpio near the Ascendent will give a predisposition towards bronchitis, as will any squared malefic in Gemini, as will Saturn on the Ascendent in a mutable sign... and there may be more such combinations, for any given illness. The medical astrologer must be very well acquainted with such configurations and should be able to recognize them in the chart. However, the clients won't hold it against you if the middle of the session you look up at the manual -- they won't care if it helps them get cured!
In these modern times, it is possible to have astrology software compute medical configurations in the natal chart. To be more precise, without such a piece of software, it would be very difficult to do medical astrology, because there are hundreds of such configurations.