   Copernicus left Bologna for Frombork in 1501 without having obtained his degree. The chapter then approved another leave of absence for Copernicus to study medicine at the University of Padua. The medical curriculum did not just include medicine, anatomy, and the like when Copernicus studied it. Siraisi (1990, 16) noted that “the reception in twefth-century western Europe of Greek and Islamic technical astronomy and astrology fostered the development of medical astrology…the actual practice of medical astrology was greatest in the West between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries.” Astrology was taught in the medical schools of Italy. “The importance attached to the study of the stars in medieval medical education derived from a general and widely held belief that the heavenly bodies play an intermediary role in the creation of things here below and continue to influence them throughout their existence.  The actual uses of astrology in medical diagnosis and treatment by learned physicians were many and various. ‘Astrological medicine’ is a vague and unsatisfactory term that can embrace any or all of the following: first, to pay attention to the supposed effect of astrological birth signs or signs at conception on the constitution and character of one’s patients; second, to vary treatment according to various celestial conditions…third, to connect the doctrine of critical days in illness with astrological features, usually phases of the moon; and fourth, to predict or explain epidemics with reference to planetary conjunctions, the appearance of comets, or weather conditions” (Siraisi, 1981, 141–42). It is true that astrology required that medical students acquire some grounding in astronomy; nevertheless, it is likely that Copernicus studied astrology while at the University of   Padua.[2]