The Herbalist
It is the proud boast of our modern educationalists that the process of forcing knowledge down unwilling throats, known as compulsory education, has resulted in the triumph of science over superstition. Alchemy and astrology, the magic of the Middle Ages, have given place to chemistry and astronomy, the mysteries of which are displayed before the wondering eyes of the elementary scholar. The Age of Superstition is commonly supposed to have fled before the progress of the Age of Materialism.
This supposition is demonstrably false. At no other age in the earth’s history has superstition owned so many votaries. From the most rapt spiritualist to the man who refuses to walk under a ladder, the world is full of people who allow superstition to play an important part in their lives. In the neighbourhood of Praed Street fortune tellers and interpreters of dreams are superstition’s most popular ministers, though it may come as a surprise to many that a brass plate nailed to the door of a house in the Harrow Road advertises the existence of the British College of Astrology.