Nicholas Culpeper was an English botanist, herbalist, physician and astrologer. His book The English Physitian is a source of pharmaceutical and herbal lore of the time, and Astrological Judgement of Diseases from the Decumbiture of the Sick (1655) one of the most detailed works on medical astrology in Early Modern Europe. Culpeper catalogued hundreds of outdoor medicinal herbs. He scolded contemporaries for some of the methods they used in herbal medicine: "This not being pleasing, and less profitable to me, I consulted with my two brothers, Dr. Reason and Dr. Experience, and took a voyage to visit my mother Nature, by whose advice, together with the help of Dr. Diligence, I at last obtained my desire; and, being warned by Mr. Honesty, a stranger in our days, to publish it to the world, I have done it."

Medical astrology or astrological medicine is an ancient applied branch of astrology based mostly on melothesia, the association of various parts of the body, diseases, and drugs with the nature of the sun, moon, planets, and the twelve astrological signs. The underlying basis for medical astrology is considered to be a pseudoscience as there is no scientific basis for its core beliefs.