SUCCESSIVE PUBLICATIONS. 283 



patron whose strength had chiefly been of service in re- 

 moving for him the obstructions offered to his progress 

 by the Milanese College of Physicians. It was dedicated 

 to Francisco Sfondrato, Senator and (when the book was 

 published) Governor of Sienna, who in the dedication 

 was lauded for the splendour and intellectual refinement 

 of his private life, for his public piety, the innocence and 

 extreme prudence and moderation of his conduct as a 

 magistrate, his lenity, and his simplicity of manners. 



In the fourth of the five books on Wisdom there 

 occurs the statement concerning supposed cures of con- 

 sumption, which was destined to affect the current of 

 his after-life. " When we ourselves long laboured in 

 this city against envy, and our income was not so much as 

 our expenses (so much harder is the condition of a merit 

 that is seen than of one that is unknown, and a prophet 

 is of no honour in his own country), we made many 

 attempts to discover new things in our art, for away from 

 the art no step could be made. At length I thought out 

 the cure of phthisis which they call phthoe, despaired of 

 for ages, and I healed many who now survive." So the 

 physician wrote, believing what he stated to be true. 



In the same year, Petreius published Cardan's treatise 

 on the Immortality of Souls, which was republished in the 

 succeeding year at Lyons by Sebastian Gryphius. Out of 

 the first fruits of his industry as Professor of Medicine at 



