88 JEROME CARDAN. 





experience. In the time of Cardan it showed sound dis- 

 cretion in the doctor when he could say as Cardan said, 

 "I have been more aided -by experience than by my own 

 wisdom, or by faith in the power of my art 1 ." At that 

 time the empiric really was the best physician, and a 

 quack doctor, who would use his eyes with conscientious 

 shrewdness, dealt less death not to say more health 

 about him, than the graduate who put trust in scho- 

 lastic theories. 



It was just in those days that the sap began to rise in 

 the philosophy which had put forth leaves once only, and 

 but for that single brief show of vitality had remained, to 

 all appearance, without any change where it was first 

 established by Hippocrates. The science of medicine, 

 for the reason before stated, makes more progress in one 

 month of the present year than it was able to make 

 among all the generations that succeeded each other in 

 the world between the time of the birth of Hippocrates 

 and the publication of the writings of Cardan. During 

 that great interval of twenty centuries there was born 

 only one man, Galen, who did much to advance medical 

 knowledge; and so little had otherwise been gained by 

 the accumulation of experience, that when Cardan began 

 to write, Hippocrates and Galen were the undisputed 

 teachers of all that was held to be sound practice in 

 i De Vita Prop. cap. xxv. 



