176 JEROME CARDAN. 



of this work was printed, Jerome having refused, for 

 reasons before stated, to sanction a re-issue. It is a little 

 square book, closely printed, and containing in all a hun- 

 dred and ten pages. The main work is dedicated to 

 Archinto ; but this dedication contains also a compliment 

 to the physician Ambrose Cavenega, who is excepted 

 from the author's general criticism of the physicians of his 

 time, " for," he says, " the things which give most autho- 

 rity to a physician in these times, are habits, attendants, 

 carriage, character of clothes, cunning, suppleness, a sort 

 of artificial, namby-pamby way ; nothing seems to depend 

 on learning or experience." It would be well if this 

 criticism had quite ceased to be applicable. It did not 

 lose its force for at least two hundred and fifty years, and 

 is in our own day only beginning to grow obsolete. 



The dedication of his little volume to Archinto, Jerome 

 thus explains: " When I saw that you were foremost in 

 wit, memory, variety of studies, genius, and authority, I 

 judged you to be the best person to whom I could inscribe 

 my first so salutary labours ; I was also bound to dedicate 

 them to you by the several employments I have obtained 

 through you in the state; and at the same time invited 

 by your virtues." 



The little tract on Simples, occupying the last few 

 pages of the book, is dedicated, as before stated, briefly as 

 possible, to "Ambrose Cavenega, the most excellent doctor 

 of arts and medicine, the most worthy ducal physician." 



