164 JEROME CARDAN. 



than among the living, being distorted, and imbecile both 

 of mind and body; yet in time he did recover. Then a 

 younger son of the same senator was attacked in the ninth 

 or tenth month of his life by fever. Sfondrato's old 

 friend and family physician, Luca della Croce, was called 

 in, a very respectable man, procurator of the College of 

 Physicians, which inscribed also Sfondrato among its 

 patrons. Luca's brother Annibale had even thrown some 

 lustre of scholarship about the family name, by writing 

 Latin poems and translating Statius badly. The same 

 Annibale we shall presently find furnishing half a dozen 

 recommendatory verses to Cardan's next publication. 

 Luca della Croce saw the child, and promised fairly for it, 

 as became a well-spoken physician ; but sharp convulsions 

 suddenly set in, and made it fit that there should be fur- 

 ther advice taken and formal consultation held upon the 

 case. Luca proposed to summon Ambrose Cavenega, one 

 of the leading members of the faculty in Milan, holding 

 rank as imperial first physician, a man whose eminence 

 Jerome had acknowledged by dedicating to him, with 

 high compliment (little esteemed), the small tract upon 

 simple Medicaments added to his book on the Bad 

 Practice of Doctors. Sfondrato being entitled by usage 

 to name the third voice in the consultation, remembering 

 all that had been said to him by Donate Lanza, proposed 

 that they should meet Jerome Cardan. 



