#best internal medicine physician culpeper

[lifestylephysicians]

Best Internal Medicine Physician Culpeper

An internal medicine physician specializes in comprehensive diagnosis and treatment for a wide range of diseases and conditions. It also includes infections, chronic problems, and diseases in the human body. They are experts in diagnosing and also assisting the patient if patients are struggling to lose weight. The internal medicine physicians are also known as “internists”, “general internists” and “general practitioner”. In this article, we will talk about the best internal medicine physician Culpeper, and Warrenton weight loss center. Pore over!

Best Internal Medicine Physician Culpeper:

Internal medicine physician provides adults with health services and it evaluates a patient like this:

It evaluates a patient’s medical history and helps them to prevent disease and teaches them about their wellness.

They identify and treat acute and chronic diseases it includes infections, injuries, and  gastrointestinal conditions.

They also help in providing family planning and contraceptive counseling.

Internists diagnose routinely heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and chronic lung disease.

A doctor of internal medicine helps the patient by diagnosing the full body.

Following are some important things that an Internal medicine physician suggests for weight loss:

If you are exercising daily and can’t achieve the target weight then instead of trying to starve, eat  three meals a day. This will help you to kill your urge to eat trash foods. So, before taking regular meal you just need to eat slowly        

Skip the fatty food, eat  low-fat food and of high protein like chicken, and also eat fruit and     salad for lunch.

Always make sure you take the desired  food and overeating is always the cause of obesity and other  diseases. 

Don’t eat to combat boredom,  tension or anxiety. If you feel like eating all the time then try to have something in your mouth like gum, carrots, and celery. Avoid fast food.

Internal medicine physician is also known as an internal medicine doctor, general internist, primary care doctor, general practitioner, and adult doctor. According to an internist there, five weight-loss drugs in the market and they are found in the combination of topiramate and phentermine to work best for the weight loss patients. We are the nation of short sleep; people need at least seven hours of sleep a day to make good food choices. People who sleep less than five hours eat 500 more calories per day. That’s why sleeping early and waking up early is can help you in getting relieved from lots of diseases. We hope this article helped you with the Warrenton weight loss center, and best internal medicine physician Culpeper.

[tipsycad147]

Plant Ally Project Thirty Day Challenge

Day 8: Meet your plant ally in person.

You may have already done this, but whether or not you have, spend some time connecting with a live version of your plant ally. It can be a plant growing in a garden, in the wild or in an urban park. Spend time being still with the plant, observing its environment, and talking aloud or silently to it. You might be surprised by what the plant shares with you!

If such is not possible at the moment due to the season or accessibility, reserve this exercise for another day and spend time connecting with an image or remedy of your plant ally.

Day 9: Draw a picture of your plant ally.

One can learn a lot about a plant from drawing it because the act of drawing engages our observational skills in new ways. It doesn’t matter if you can “draw well” or not. If you can hold pen to paper you will be able to roughly sketch a plant. I encourage you to get creative and use color, adding energetic observations, and any other doodles that you find inspiring. Have fun with it!

Day 10: Study the best ways to prepare your plant ally medicinally.

How to extract plant medicines depends on the constituents of a plant and whether or not they are extracted in water, alcohol, oil, vinegar, or additional menstruums (which is a word for a solvent that is used in extracting medicinal constituents from plants). Learn what the best method of preparation is (such as an infusion versus a decoction) and whether your plant ally can be used externally, internally or both.

Day 11: Make a tea or decoction of your plant ally.

Your first medicine-making day! Depending on what you learned yesterday, create a tea infusion or decoction of your plant ally. I recommend that you do not add other herbs to the tea - simply create a one herb infusion or decoction so you can fully appreciate the taste, smell, and effect of your plant ally in your body. Pay attention to the initial taste, the aftertaste, and how the herb feels in your body. Do images, memories, or words come to mind? Spend a half hour or more in contemplation with your tea.

Day 12: Learn about your plant ally’s magickal qualities.

Some materia medicas will include a plant magickal qualities or folkloric stories, but there are also materia medicas dedicated to the magickal qualities of plants including Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs by Scott Cunningham, A Compendium of Herbal Magic by Paul Beyerl, and The Complete Illustrated Encyclopedia of Magical Plants, Revised by Susan Gregg.

Whether or not you are a practitioner of magick, learning a plant’s magickal qualities and accompanying folklore can enrich not only our understanding of how our ancestors connected with the plant and the plant connected with them, but there is often insight into a plant’s medicinal qualities. Plants used in love spells, for example, are often aphrodisiacs and affect the sexual organs, libido, and/or nervous system (such as Damiana Turnera diffusa).

Day 13: Learn about the astrological correspondences of your plant ally.

You may have already discovered the astrological correspondences of your plant ally yesterday, but if not spend today learning more about them. Traditional Western Herbalism and astrology were intertwined for centuries and it has only been in recent generations that the two arts have been split apart.

A physician without a knowledge of Astrology has no right to call himself a physician.  - Hippocrates

Learning the astrological correspondences of herbs further deepens our language to be able to talk about herbs and understand their healing qualities. It also helps us to understand better traditional western herbal energetics and why certain herbs have been classified in certain ways historically (and whether or not that still makes sense today). Books discussing the magickal quality of plants often has astrological correspondences list as well, but you should also check out the historical works of Nicholas Culpeper including his still in-print Herbal. You can also check out my Introduction to Astroherbology which includes additional online and offline resources.

If no astrological information exists for your plant ally, that’s ok! You can either have fun doing a little research and assign your own astrological correspondence (check out my ongoing Astroherbology series and especially my blog on the Astrological Body for insight) or maybe get in touch with your favorite medical astrologer for some guidance.

Day 14: Learn about your plant ally’s emotional qualities.

Plant medicine affects the whole spectrum of our lived experience whether physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual, because it is a holistic medicine which recognizes that all of our parts are interconnected. Just as plants have medicinally healing qualities, they have emotionally healing qualities. Books on flower essences are great places to look when researching the emotional qualities of plants as well as materia medicas which take into account the emotional symptoms of dis-ease.

My recommendation for learning a plant’s emotional qualities is to ask the plant directly. I usually enter into a light meditative state and gently ask the plant to share with me its emotional story, sometimes while ingesting plant medicine (such as a tea), but not always. Sometimes I get words, other times images, and most often I feel the response in my body. Make sure to record your experience and don’t rush to “validate” or compare it to the writings and experiences of others. I will say, though, that very often there is overlap between one person’s emotional experience of a plants and another’s.

Bonus! Create a flower essence from your plant ally. Flower essences are easy and accessible forms of herbal medicine. You can find out how to make an essence of your own here.

http://www.wortsandcunning.com/blog/plant-ally-project

[catherindonald]

Raspberry, Herb of the Year and Herb of the Month: History and Lore

By Pat Greathead

Raspberry, Rubus spp., is the International Herb Association’s Herb of the YearTM for 2020 and The Herb Society of America’s Herb of the Month for January (Brambles). The genus Rubus includes both the red and black raspberry and the blackberry as well as almost 700 other species. Rubus is in the Rosacea family.

My Wisconsin Unit of The Herb Society each year examines the IHA Herb of the Year.TM In this blog post, I have mainly focused on red raspberry leaf and have used information from many websites in writing this article. I hope you enjoy reading it as this is the year of the raspberry!

Raspberry leaves are among the most pleasant tasting of all the herbal remedies, with a taste much like black tea, without the caffeine. Raspberries are native to Asia and arrived in North America via prehistoric people, with the first records of domestication coming from the writings of the Roman agricultural writer Palladius in the 5th century. Evidence has been found that early cave-dwelling humans ate raspberries. Seeds were discovered in Roman forts in Britain, so it is thought the Romans and animals spread raspberries throughout Europe.

Red raspberries were said to have been discovered and much loved by the Olympian gods on Mount Ida in northwest Turkey, hence their botanical name Rubus idaeus, which means ‘bramble (branch) bush of Ida’ in Latin. According to Société’s Materia Medica blog, “In the story of Ida, the nursemaid to the infant Zeus pricked her finger while picking the snow-white berries, staining them red for all eternity.” (Société, 2018) Fruits were gathered from the wild by the people of Troy in the foothills of Mt. Ida around the time of Christ.

The leaf was traditionally used in ancient times to prepare the womb for childbirth, to aid delivery and breastfeeding, and some farmers used it for their pregnant goats. Other uses were as a remedy for common ailments due to its abundance of minerals, vitamins, and tannins. (Tannins help to tone and tighten tissue). Chemicals in the leaf were believed to help the blood vessels relax. The ancient Greeks, Romans, Chinese, and Ayurvedic physicians also used it widely as a treatment for wounds and diarrhea (somewhat interchanged with blackberry).

By Medieval times (5th-15th century), raspberry had a great many uses, including using the juices in paintings and illuminated manuscripts and the leaves as a woman’s tonic. Société’s blog on red raspberry states that, “In early Christian artwork raspberries were used to symbolize kindness. Its red juice invoked the energy of the blood which runs from the heart and carries love, nutrition, and kindness through the body.” (Société, 2018)  King Edward the 1st (1272-1307) was said to be the first to call for mass cultivation of raspberries, whose popularity spread quickly throughout Europe. Raspberry leaf was first described in 1597 in the book The Herbal, or A General History of Plants by John Norton, the Queen’s printer.

By the 17th century, British gardens were rich with berries and berry bushes. Culpeper (1616-1654) in his book The Complete Herbal talked about raspberry leaf as “very binding and good for fevers, ulcers, putrid sores of the mouth and secret parts, for stones of the kidneys and too much flowing of the women’s courses.”  By the 18th century, berry cultivation practices had spread throughout Europe. An old Irish beekeeper’s recipe was to gather foxglove, raspberry, wild marjoram, mint, chamomile and valerian on May day, mix with butter made that day, boil together with honey, and rub the vessel into which you want the bees to gather, both inside and out.  Place it in the middle of a tree, and bees will soon come.  Again from Société’s Materia Medica, “In Germany, raspberry was used to tame bewitched horses by tying a bit of the cane to the horse’s body. In the Philippines, raspberry canes were hung outside homes to protect those who dwelt within from any souls who may inadvertently wander in” (remember the thorns!). (Société, 2018)

When settlers from Europe came to America, they found Native Americans already utilizing and eating berries, some believing raspberry had strong protective powers against unwanted spiritual beings. Teas of raspberry leaves were given to women of the Cherokee, Iroquois, and Mohawk Nations to soothe labor pains, ease contractions, and ease nausea. Due to the nomadic nature of their culture, berries were dried for preservation and ease of transportation.

Settlers also brought cultivated raspberries that were native to Europe with them to the new colonies. In 1761, George Washington moved to his estate in Mount Vernon where he began to cultivate berries in his extensive gardens. The first commercial nursery plants were sold by William Price in 1771. Jefferson planted raspberries at Monticello on numerous occasions beginning in 1774. In 1735, Irish herbalist K’Eogh described these uses for raspberry: “An application of the flowers bruised with honey is beneficial for inflammations of the eyes, burning fever and boils…the fruit is food for the heart and diseases of the mouth.”

Raspberry tea made political history after England imposed the Boston Port Act, which exacted a tea tax on the American Colonies in 1773 to help the financially troubled East India Company. Tea made from sage or raspberry leaves then became a popular substitute for the colonists’ favorite beverage.

Collected by French botanist André Michaux and included in his Flora Boreali-Americana (1803), our native red raspberry, Rubus strigosus, is now found across much of North America, including all of Canada and the northern half of the US to North Carolina and California. After the Civil War (1861-1865), major production areas emerged in the regions of New York, Michigan, Oregon, Washington, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana. By 1880 approximately 2,000 acres were in cultivation.

By 1867 over 40 different varieties of raspberry were known. “In 1890, JM Hodge, a Scottish solicitor and raspberry grower from Blairgowrie, rented some land specifically to grow raspberries on a larger scale. He formed the Blairgowrie & Rattray Fruit Growers Association, bringing together local producers and beginning industrial production.” (Oxfordshire Gardener, 2019)

In King’s American Dispensatory (1898), it is described that the leaves and fruits are the parts of the plant that are used for medicinal purposes. The leaves impart some of their constituents to water, giving to the infusion an odor and flavor somewhat similar to that of some kinds of black tea, and that raspberry is “of much service in dysentery, pleasant to the taste, mitigating suffering and ultimately affecting a cure.”   According to M. Grieve (1931) experience has shown that raspberry leaf has been used in cases of severe dysmenorrhea. She writes “an infusion of Raspberry leaves, taken cold is a reliable remedy for extreme laxity of the bowels. The infusion alone, or as a component part, never fails to give immediate relief and it is especially useful in stomach complaints of children.”

 According to the Telegraph’s Eleanor Doughty, “In the 1950’s, Scotland, known for its raspberry growing, brought raspberries down to London on a dedicated steam train known as The Raspberry Special.” (Doughty, 2015)

Today red raspberry leaf is used for gastrointestinal tract disorders, including diarrhea and stomach pains; also to treat heart problems, fevers, vitamin deficiencies, diabetes; and for respiratory system disorders, swine flu, and common flu. It is also beneficial in promoting urination, sweating, and bile production.

Many people use it for general skin and blood purification. Some use red raspberry leaf to ease painful periods, morning sickness associated with pregnancy, heavy periods, and in preventing miscarriage, as well as to ease labor and delivery. Similar to its ancient use, a strong raspberry leaf tea or tincture will soothe sunburn, eczema, and skin rashes when used externally. Swishing with a tincture or infusion of raspberry leaf is thought to relieve sore throats and the gums, and can help alleviate the symptoms of gingivitis or gum disease. In Europe, small quantities of red raspberry leaf are a source of natural flavoring in food preparation.

The website Practical Herbalist states that “Raspberry is one of the few herbs that must be processed from dry leaves. Fresh leaves contain a substance that causes stomach upset as they wilt. Making a tincture from raspberry leaves is simple. The easiest way to process this tincture is to add dried raspberry leaves to brandy.” The tincture should be shaken regularly for a few months and then strained.

For more information on raspberries and some recipes too, please see The Herb Society of America’s January Herb of the Month web page on Brambles.

Below are websites with more information about raspberries:

Alexander, Courtney. “Berries As Symbols and in Folklore.” Available at https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.cornell.edu/dist/0/7265/files/2016/12/berryfolklore-2ljzt0q.pdf

Doughty, Eleanor. “12 things you didn’t know about raspberries.” Available at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/11761546/12-things-you-didn’t-know-about-raspberries.html

Oxfordshire Gardener. “Raspberry Special: Growing Scotland’s Best Berries.” Available at http://theoxfordshiregardener.co.uk/growing-raspberries-scotlands-best-berries/

Practical Herbalist. “Raspberry: the Female Toner.” Available at https://www.thepracticalherbalist.com/raspberry-the-female-toner/

Société.  “Materia Medica Red Raspberry”. Available at https://www.societeapothecary.com/blog/2018/6/21/materia-medica-raspberry-leaf

Washington Red Raspberry Commission. “History.” Available at https://www.red-raspberry.org/history

Pat Greathead is a very active Life Member of The Herb Society of America and the Wisconsin Unit. She gardens in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.

Herb Society of America Medical Disclaimer … It is the policy of The Herb Society of America not to advise or recommend herbs for medicinal or health use. This information is intended for educational purposes only and should not be considered as a recommendation or an endorsement of any medical or health treatment.

Raspberry, Herb of the Year and Herb of the Month: History and Lore published first on https://marcuskeever.blogspot.com/

[caveartfair]

20 Years Later, Tracing the History behind Harry Potter’s Witchcraft and Wizardry

Mary GrandPré, Jacket art for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 2007. © Warner Bros. Courtesy of New York Historical Society Museum & Library.

In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the half-giant gameskeeper of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Rubeus Hagrid, appears on a stormy night and tells the 11-year-old titular orphan: “Harry—yer a wizard.” With that, the book’s readers are swept away, along with Harry Potter, into the enchanting wizarding world that exists just beyond the sight of non-magical folk, known as Muggles.

Author J.K. Rowling’s care in building out the curious minutiae of the young wizard’s new surroundings has been one of the drivers of Harry Potter’s ascendence as an international phenomenon for two decades. And though much of the world was drawn from Rowling’s own imagination, the author also tapped into a litany of narratives behind real objects and magical artifacts, as well as mythology.

On the surface, there are common tropes that all children will recognize, from broomsticks (used in the sport Quidditch) to unicorns (who dwell in the Forbidden Forest), each of which have a long history in folklore. Readers have also debated Rowling’s inspiration for some of the books’ major plot points, such as Horcruxes—objects and creatures imbued with the dark wizard Lord Voldemort’s soul to ensure his longevity—which recall the Slavic legend of Koschei, who was immortal thanks to a matryoshka of creatures and objects, and could only be defeated when the smallest nested object, a needle, was broken in half.

Hogwarts’s curriculum is also vividly colored with both the mythology and history of our own world, and the exhibition “Harry Potter: A History of Magic,” on view at the New-York Historical Society through January 2019, uncovers its heritage through centuries of artifacts, illustrated manuscripts, and scientific objects. Here, we share some of the objects that inspired the adventures and practices of Harry Potter’s wizarding world.

The Philosopher’s Stone

The Ripley scroll, ca. 1570. Courtesy of New York Historical Society Museum & Library.

Harry’s first major adventure at Hogwarts takes him deep into the bowels of the castle, where he must keep the Philosopher’s Stone out of reach of Lord Voldemort, who failed to kill him as an infant. Weakened, Voldemort seeks the stone for its ability to produce the Elixir of Life, which can give the drinker immortality, so long as the potion is consumed periodically. (The stone can also turn metals into gold, providing endless wealth, too.)

The maker of the stone was alchemist Nicolas Flamel, who was nearly 700 years old in Rowling’s world and based on a real historical figure. That Flamel was a landlord in 14th-century Paris who lived into his eighties (though his exact age is disputed), at a time in Europe when men were fortunate to live to 50. Flamel’s long life, as well as his great wealth (which he gained from his properties and his wife’s previous marriages), sparked a flurry of posthumous rumors that he was an alchemist who had evaded death by possessing the Philosopher’s Stone; the rumors turned to legend because of claims that he had been seen after his death.

The exhibition features Flamel’s tombstone, which was rescued from its alleged fate as a cutting board in a Parisian grocery store and is now part of the collection of the Musée de Cluny. Also on display is The Ripley Scroll, a nearly 20-foot-long illustrated manuscript from 1570 that serves as a guide for alchemic instruction, and contains symbolism used in Harry Potter. The scroll lists black, red, and white stones as the ingredients of the Philosopher’s Stone; according the exhibition, Rowling worked that reference into the names of Harry’s three father figures: Sirius Black, Rubeus Hagrid, and Albus Dumbledore.

Mandrakes

Giovanni Cadamosto’s illustrated herbal, 15th century. ©British Library Board. Courtesy of New York Historical Society Museum & Library.

Culpeper's Complete Herbal, 1653, via Wikimedia Commons.

In Harry’s second year, in Herbology class, Hogwarts students learn how to safely re-pot mandrakes: leafy humanoid plants that grow from babies to adults. They shriek when removed from the earth, and during infancy, their screams will knock a person unconscious; when fully grown, they are fatal.

The mandrake root is an actual plant from the nightshade family that has a long history of use. In Harry Potter, a brew made from mandrake can cure anyone under a petrification curse, but in the Bible’s Book of Genesis, the root was used to aid conception, and in ancient Greece, it was used as both an anesthetic and an aphrodisiac.

So where did the anthropomorphic qualities—and the screaming—come from? Mandrake roots can resemble humans, particularly babies, which was one of the reasons it became a popular fertility charm to place under one’s pillow in the Middle Ages. In some texts, they were even categorized as “male” and “female,” depending on their shape. And at some point, it was recorded that they shrieked upon being unearthed, causing madness. A 15th-century illustration from Europe instructed the best way to safely pick them: Use a rope to tie the plant to a dog, then blast a horn. The sound will both overpower the mandrake’s howls and frighten the dog so it pulls up the root.

Though it’s unclear why mandrakes were believed to be capable of insanity-inducing screams, perhaps the answer lies in the hallucinogenic properties of the root: It may have caused a number of accidental psychedelic trips over the centuries.

It’s also notable that Rowling was faithful to a particular book when dreaming up Herbology lessons. She referenced Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, published in 1653 by English botanist and apothecary Nicholas Culpeper, which outlines the use of over 400 herbs, and is still in print today. Culpeper, like many knowledgeable herbalists, was tried for witchcraft, though he was ultimately acquitted.

Bezoars

Jacob Meydenbach, [H]ortus Sanitatis, 1491 © British Library Board. Courtesy of New York Historical Society Museum & Library.

Bezoar stone in a gold filigree case 17th century. © The Board of the Trustees of the Science Museum, London. Courtesy of New York Historical Society Museum & Library.

Like Chekhov’s Gun, bezoars are introduced in Harry’s very first potion class, and one eventually saves Ron Weasley’s life after he drinks poisoned mead in the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In the books, bezoars are an antidote, sourced from the stomachs of goats, which are easy to use: “Just shove a bezoar down their throats,” Rowling wrote.

Bezoars do exist. They are clumps of undigested fibers that are, in fact, found inside of goats, as well as cows and elephants. They were believed to have anti-poison properties—though they were likely effective because they induced vomiting. Introduced by Arab physicians, bezoars were popular in medieval Europe; they were so prized that they were often kept in costly casings with ornate handiwork, like gold filigree.

Phoenixes and Basilisks

Jim Kay, Phoenix illustration. © Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 2016. Original design by the British Library 2017. Courtesy of New York Historical Society Museum & Library.

The basilisk and the weasel, via Wikimedia Commons.

Fawkes, Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore’s close companion, is a phoenix with scarlet and gold plumage, whose own tailfeather is the magical core of Harry’s wand. In the second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, after looking worse for the wear (like “a half-plucked turkey,” Rowling wrote), Fawkes suddenly bursts into flame, startling Harry. But Dumbledore isn’t alarmed: “About time, too,” he says. “He’s been looking dreadful for days.”

Fawkes is immortal, his life punctuated by periodic “Burning Days,” followed by rebirth from the ashes. That attribute is the hallmark of the mythic phoenix, whose legend has been passed down from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In ancient Rome, the bird was often used as a symbol for the empire’s long reign. In a 13th-century manuscript, the “fenix” is said to be native to Arabia, with a lifespan of up to 500 years, while a 5th-century text from Greek historian Herodotus was the first to mention the bird’s red and gold coloring.

Fawkes has the ability to heal, too, shedding tears when Harry is bitten by a basilisk to remedy the poisoned wounds. In Rowling’s world, a basilisk is a towering serpent whose glance alone is fatal. But an account from classical antiquity, from Pliny the Elder in 79 C.E., paints a slightly different picture: The creature is said to be palm-sized, more chicken than snake, and can be killed with the scent of a weasel. Over the centuries, basilisks have been depicted with varying combinations of rooster and serpent proportions, and though Rowling didn’t give her basilisks feathers and a beak, they do begin life by hatching from chicken eggs.

Avada Kedavra

Liber Medicinalis, 13th century. ©British Library Board. Courtesy of New York Historical Society Museum & Library.

Image of Abracadabra from Encyclopedia Britannica, via Wikimedia commons.

The etymology of the most treacherous spell in Harry Potter—avada kedavra—can be easily deduced from the most widely known word associated with magic, abracadabra. But while “abracadabra!” is usually exclaimed before pulling a bunny out of a hat, its Harry Potter complement is used to kill someone instantly.

Avada kedavra is one of three Unforgivable Curses and is illegal to cast, but is utilized by dark wizards(the other two cause torturous pain or control the mind). While abracadabra does have historical significance, it was not used for nefarious means, but as a healing charm against malaria. The incantation made its first appearance in a medicine book written by a physician to Roman emperor Caracalla, sometime at the turn of the 2nd century. According to the exhibition, to cure malaria, “the word should be repeatedly written out, each time omitting one letter. The charm was then worn as an amulet around the neck, in order to drive out the fever.”

Star-Reading

Vincenzo Coronelli, Celestial globe, 1699. Courtesy of New York Historical Society Museum & Library.

Muhammad b. Abi Bakr, Astrolabe, 13th century. Courtesy of New York Historical Society Museum & Library.

For inspiration, Rowling often looked to the stars. Indeed, she named many of her characters after stars and constellations, including Sirius (the “dog star”), Bellatrix, and Draco. (There are many other examples, and you can even create your own Harry Potter Starfinder). In the books, Astronomy, in which students identified celestial bodies, was a required class for five out of seven years; Divination, which featured star-reading as a way to see the future, was an elective from the third year on.

Two instruments used in Hogwarts classes are orreries and astrolabes. The former, a mechanical instrument that can predict planetary movements, is used by Professor Trelawney in Divination classes. In history, the first modern orrery was named after the one created by Charles Boyle, an Earl of Orrery, in 1704. Astrolabes, on the other hand, were invented in the Hellenistic era of Greece; they were used to measure heavenly bodies in classical antiquity and the Middle Ages. They were similarly used in the Islamic Golden Age, where they also served as navigational tools to find Mecca. A 13th-century astrolabe from Persia, featured in the exhibition, is believed to be “one of the oldest geared instruments” that exists today.

In the books, centaurs are known for their ability to read the planets and stars without the aid of instruments—and for their haughtiness toward humans. The centaur Firenze says “tiny human accidents” are “of no more significance than the scurryings of ants to the wide universe, and are unaffected by planetary movements.” To them, the tools used by wizards, such as star charts, are pointless. But the star charts used by Harry and his classmates to map the night sky have a real history in our world, too: The oldest complete star atlas was created during the Tang Dynasty in China around 684 C.E. Known as the Dunhuang Star Chart, it plotted 1,300 stars that are observable in the Northern Hemisphere.

from Artsy News