102 JEROME CARDAN. 



parallel with a large body of the teachers in his day. He 

 differed from the herd of doctors, however, very greatly, 

 inasmuch as he poured into the old jars not dregs col- 

 lected from all quarters, but fresh oil of his own pressing. 

 His first work, the Contradicentia Medicorum, was very 

 much expanded afterwards, and published as a massive 

 treatise, of which it will be requisite to speak in a succeed- 

 ing chapter. It will be quite sufficient, therefore, now to 

 state the plan of it, since that was conceived even in its 

 author's days of pupilage. Hippocrates, said Cardan 1 , had 

 become obscure through lapse' of time and the conciseness 

 of his style. Galen " of whom there remains less 

 than we could wish, but more than we could well be- 

 lieve it possible for one man to have written" Galen, 

 in works written at different periods, contradicted himself 

 much and often. By the Arabians all his errors had been 

 copied. Aetius was inconsistent, following at once both 

 Galen and the men whom Galen combated, and never 

 giving reasons for his dicta. Oribasius was useless. In 

 fact, there was only Galen, with his errors and his obso- 

 lete passages, upon whom a hope of useful information 

 could be built. His design, therefore, was to travel steadily 

 through the medical doctrines of Hippocrates and Galen, 

 to note all contradictions of themselves or of each other, 

 and to consult with the same view the works of all the 

 1 Contradie. Medicorum. In preface. 



