52 JEROME CARDAN. 



study, and there arises a fit opportunity for giving some 

 additional account of the pen work done by him during 

 these years of his professorship at Pavia. 



Some of the works not yet specified as having been 

 written between the years 1546 and 1552 may be men- 

 tioned briefly 1 . After his return from Genoa it has been 

 said that he wrote the little book of Precepts, but on his 

 return he had brought home with him a work that had 

 been written on his journey to and fro, namely, four 

 books on the Preservation of Health first, in the case of 

 young and healthy people ; secondly, in the case of old 

 people ; thirdly, in the case of diseased people ; and, 

 fourthly, in particular trades. Afterwards he wrote also 

 ten books of explained problems upon all sorts of subjects, 

 classified, and an Italian popular treatise meant to be 

 both instructive and amusing, " De le Burle Calde." 



Of the Commentaries on Hippocrates and Galen, it is 

 enough to say that they form about an eighth part of the 

 whole mass of Cardan's published writings, and would fill 

 about twenty-five volumes of the magnitude of that now 

 in the reader's hand. They are as much extinct as the 

 megatherium, although the author himself rested his hope 

 of fame chiefly upon them. In his day they were valuable, 

 and they still have a kind of fossil value, but as they con- 



1 De Libris Propriis. Lib. ult. Opera, Tom. i. pp. 71, 72, is the au- 

 thority until another reference occurs. 



