CARDAN IN HIS BEDROOM. 293 



Cardan had a constitution that required to be refreshed 

 with a full measure of sleep. He avoided night-watching! 

 as much as possible ; he liked to spend ten hours in bed, 

 during eight of which he slept if his health happened to 

 be pretty good, otherwise he had not more than four or 

 five hours of proper rest. When he was wakeful he was 

 accustomed to get up and walk round his bed counting 

 thousands, with the hope of making himself sleepy. He 

 took but little medicine, being a doctor ; but when his 

 sleeplessness grew to be troublesome he abstained very 

 much from food, or put himself upon half diet. The 

 medicinal remedies most used by him to procure sleep 

 were bear's grease, or an ointment of poplar, applied 

 externally in seventeen places. It is an edifying thing 

 for us to figure to ourselves one of the most eminent 

 physicians of the sixteenth century rising at night weary 

 of watching to grope for his little jar of bear's grease, 

 and then patiently sitting down on the edge of the bed 

 to anoint the top of his head and the soles of his feet, his 

 elbows, his heels, his thighs, his temples, his jugulars, the 

 regions of his heart and liver, and his upper lip, according 

 to the formula prescribed, then creeping into bed again 

 to try the value of his remedy. 



Two hours after the sun Jerome rose for the day. He 

 was not much troubled with the putting on of clothes, for 

 he was careless about the purchasing of new dress ; during 



