The Outlandish Companion - Diana Gabaldon [116]
Mercury is trine to Uranus, indicating a person who is not bound by tradition and may be ahead of the times. She has an excellent memory and is a good teacher, intuitive and independent.
The trine of Mercury to Pluto once again gives great ability to concentrate and to see to the heart of things. This position favors a career in medicine and/or surgery. She expects a lot from others, but gives a lot in return. She can influence and persuade others with her witty and diplomatic manner.
Mercury is lastly square the Ascendant. This gives ability with the hands, but she may have difficulties with others misunderstanding her. It may indicate a delayed education. Venus is sextile Mars, which shows a person who likes beautiful things, and is warm and affectionate. She is faithful in marriage, and is enriched by it. She has a optimistic and vivacious personality. She likes family life, but likes to retain her independence.
Venus is trine to Uranus, showing a fun-loving person who enjoys life and always looks on the bright side. Her marriage is characterized by trust and understanding, and she knows how best to express her love. She has sex appeal and may be considered unconventional.
Mars trine Neptune is another aspect that favors medicine as a career. She can heal others due to her ability to help with spiritual problems as well as physical ones. She has an exciting love life with honest and sincere lovers. She always looks for the best in others. Saturn is square to the mid-heaven, showing this person has responsibilities to others that interfere with her personal life.
Other aspects are between slow-moving planets and therefore affect generations rather than individuals.
1If somebody names their child Murtagh or Laoghaire as a result of reading these books, I’d like to know about it.
2I have friends in the Boise Convention Center.
3Fortunately, I do.
4Greenwich Mean Time
MAGIC, MEDICINE, AND WHITE LADIES
ell, it’s all Claire Beau-champ’s fault, like so many other things about these books. Once she had informed me (by her habits of speech and her unique perceptions) that she was a time-traveler, I had to determine exactly who she was— where she had come from, and her occupation (if any) in her original time.
People commonly say to me, in tones of admiration, “But you write such strong women!“ This is gratifying, but the simple fact of the matter is that I really don’t like weak ones. In other words, Claire is not a competent person because I thought it was my social duty to provide a politically correct role model for young women—I just don’t like ninnies and would find it a terrible chore to have to write about one.
Obviously, Claire was intelligent and competent; I could see that with half an eye. So what had she been doing, before fate decanted her into the Highlands of eighteenth-century Scotland? She might have been doing all sorts of things, from flying to the moon to competing in triathlons (though she seemed not to be very athletic, given what I’d seen of her so far), but the unfortunate fact is that there would be relatively little scope for the exercise of these talents in eighteenth-century Scotland.1
Given the state of things in the Scottish Highlands at the times—i.e., barbaric, violent, and lacking in hygiene—it struck me that doctoring might be a very useful talent indeed. Of all the assorted skills that might aid survival in the eighteenth century, a minimal knowledge of the healing arts certainly seemed one of the most desirable—and the most feasible.
Aside from the fact that it would be helpful to know how to dress wounds and treat minor problems like scurvy, I’d noticed in the course of research that there were in fact almost no “official” physicians at all in the Highlands. There was, of course, no formal program for training and licensing physicians at all, in either Britain or France at the time. There were colleges of medicine,