18 JEROME CARDAN. 



On the other hand, he was renowned for learning ; he 

 was very earnest ; students would like his eccentricities, 

 and he worked indefatigably in his calling. For he devoted 

 himself exclusively at Pavia to the study of his profession, 

 because he was determined to work down the old belief 

 that he was properly versed only in mathematics and 

 astrology 1 . His public teaching in the university is partly 

 represented by the written Commentaries on Hippocrates, 

 at which he laboured with the heartiest good-will. Into 

 them he endeavoured to put the whole pith of Hippocrates 

 and Galen, adding such free comments and elucidations 

 as should cause the complete work to represent also the 

 whole pith of the medical science of his time. 



Whoever may desire to ascertain what sort of teaching 

 was contained in the lectures delivered on the Principles 

 and Practice of Medicine by a first-rate professor in the 

 middle of the sixteenth century, should turn to Cardan's 

 Commentaries on Hippocrates. In the opinion of their 

 writer they excelled his other works. They were written, 

 he said, in the years of his complete maturity, when he 

 had also the advantage of full leisure. Though treating df 

 his art generally, they embraced all that was in it. They 

 were filled with the divine opinions of Hippocrates, and 



1 De Libris Propriis (ed. 1557), pp. 56, et seq., for this fact and 

 succeeding details concerning literary work done while Cardan was 

 at Pavia. 



