THE FIGHT WITH THE DRAGON SCANDAL. 139 



some part of his light under a bushel. Cardan's hope of 

 fame and profit as a doctor was being undermined by the 

 reputation he acquired as an ill-paid teacher of geometry, 

 arithmetic, geography, and architecture. It is easier, he 

 writes, to prop a falling house than to rebuild it after it' 

 has fallen. He resolved, therefore, to support his sinking 

 reputation in the art of medicine by writing a work 

 strictly professional. Following up the notion with his 

 usual impetuosity, in fifteen days he wrote two books on 

 the bad practice of medicine by the physicians of his day 

 De Malo Recentiorum Medicorum Medendi Usu 1 not a 

 propitiating subject, certainly. A small tract was written 

 about the same time on the noxious ingredients in simple 

 medicaments. These Cardan put aside, or lent to friends 

 in manuscript, for he was unable to pay a printer, and 

 knew no one who would bear the risk of publishing what 

 he had written. 



When, in the same year 1535, the academic session 

 closed, Jerome's young patron was about to leave Milan. 

 In that year had died Francisco Sforza, Duke of Milan, 

 and Philip Archinto had obtained so much esteem and 

 trust in his own town, that he was selected by the magis- 

 trates as the most fit person to accompany Massimiliano 

 Stampa, their ambassador to the court of Charles V. upon 



1 De Sapientia, &c. p. 425. De Lib. Prop. (ed. 1557), where he says 

 that he wrote the book, " ut etiam in Medicina aliquid scire viderer." 



