CAR 



uiiue CARDAMINE, a genus of plants of the class 



Titrai!y;idiriia, and order Siliquosx. 

 ' : -'"' p. 2i 

 >nr " CARDAMOM. See MATERIA Mi f 



CARDAN, JKHOME, a celebrated Italian mathe- 

 matician and medical writer, was born at Pavia on 

 the Jlth of September 1501, and appears, to have 

 been the natural son of a celebrated advocate and 

 physician at Milan. When he was only four years 

 old, he w;-.". sent from Pavia to Milan, where IK- wai 

 instructed by his father in mathematics, astronomy, 

 and judicial astrology; and in his eighth year, when 

 he \\.ts alHicted with a dangerous illness, his father 

 devoted him to St Jerome. In the year 1521, he 

 went to study medicine and philosophy at the uni- 

 versity of Pavia, and two years afterwards lie was 

 able to give lessons on mathematics. In 15:21, he 

 went to Padua, where he received in the same year 

 the degree of master of arts; and in the year follow- 

 ing, he was honoured with his medical degree. He 

 married about the end of the yVar 1531, and, con- 

 trary to his expectations, he had several children.* 

 Having refused a medical chair in the university of 

 Pavia, he was, in 1533, appointed to the professor- 

 .-hip of mathematics at Milan, and at the same time 

 he commenced the practice of the medical profes- 

 . In 1539, he was admitted a member of the 

 college of physicians in that city; and though he was 

 thus brought into notice, his time seems to have been 

 more occupied in writing books than in attending 

 patients. His work De Malo rccentiorum Medicornm 

 ndi K&U, Venet. 1536, and his Contradiccnlium 

 Medicornm Libri duo, Lyons, I5t8, in which he 

 censures the practice of his contemporaries, and points 

 out the inconsistencies and contradictions of which 

 the best writers have been guilty in their account of 

 diseases, seem to prove that he was not on very good 

 terms with the other physicians in Milan. In the 

 year 1543, he gave public lectures in medicine at 

 Milan, and in the following year he repeated them 

 at Pavia; but as he could not procure payment of 

 his salary, he discontinued them at the end of a 

 year, and returned to Milan. 



Upon the recommendation of Vesalius in 154-7, 

 the King of Denmark offered Cardan a professor- 

 ship in the university of Copenhagen, with a free 

 table, and a salary of 800 crowns a year ; but Car- 

 dan declined this offer, on account of the severity of 

 the climate, and the religion of the country. 



Archbishop Hamilton, the primate of Scotland, 

 and the regent's brother, having been severely afflict- 

 ed for ten years with an asthma, applied for relief 

 to the physicians of the French king and of the em- 

 peror of Germany, but as he received no benefit from 

 their prescriptions, he sent for Cardan in the year 

 1552. At the end of 75 days, Cardan left the 

 archbishop in a state of convalescence, and gave him 

 such prescriptions, that he was completely cured at 

 the end of two years. Larrey, in his history of Eng- 

 land, informs us, that when Cardan was taking leave 



CAR 



of the primal?, Uc remarked that though he had ucarly 

 ! him of his malady, yet he could not change his s 

 ,y, and prevent him from being hanged. After 

 ii. y the inobt liberal remuneration for hih services, 

 Cardan returned to Milan at the end of ten months by 

 the way of London, the Low Countries, and Ger- 

 many ; and during hie stay at London, he is (aid to 

 have calculated the nativity of Edward VI. Having 

 resumed his former employments of practising medi- 

 cine and teaching mathematics, he continued at Mi- 

 lan till the end of October 1559, when he went to 

 Pavia to fill the professorship of medicine ; and in the 

 year following, he accepted a similar office at Bo- 

 logna. In this situation he continued till the year 

 1570, when he was thrown into prison for some of- 

 fence with which we are not acquainted. At the 

 end of some months, however, he was permitted to 

 confine himself in his owu house, and a soon as he 

 obtained his liberty, which was in September 1571, 

 he repaired to Roue. Here he lived for some time 

 without any public employment ; but he was soon 

 chosen a member of the college of physicians, and re- 

 ceived a pension from the pope, which was continued 

 till the day of his death, which happened on the 28th 

 September, 1575. 



Cardan was perhaps one of the most singular cha- 

 racters that has appeared in any age or country. In 

 the account which he published of his own life, he 

 has, with great ingenuousness, given a full detail of 

 his good and bad qualities, though it is probable 

 that he has suppressed many facts which were by 

 no means favourable to his moral reputation. He 

 gravely informs his readers, that he had frequently 

 determined to put himself to death ; that he often 

 wandered all night iu the streets; that he took the 

 greatest delight in bringing forward subjects that 

 were disagreeable to the company ; that he intro- 

 duced every topic, whether it was connected or not 

 with the subject of conversation ; that he ruined his 

 family and his reputation by playing for whole days 

 at games of chance; and that he staked even his 

 furniture and his wife's jewels. 



At a time when astrology was in the zenith of its 

 glory, it was natural that Cardan should follow the 

 example of the most distinguished of his contempora- 

 ries; but though we find in the character of the times 

 a sufficent apology for his devotion to judicial astro- 

 logy, yet we seek in vain for any palliation of that 

 empiricism and imposture which he seems to have 

 systematically pursued during the whole of his life. 

 He who could seriously believe that he had the power 

 of foretelling future events both in his dreams, and 

 from particular marks upon his nails, must have been 

 utterly devoid either of reason or intelligence ; but 

 he who could commit such pretensions to writing, 

 and try to impose upon posterity the same delusions 

 which he had practised upon his contemporaries, 

 must have possessed a mind destitute of every ho- 

 nourable feeling, and so deeply in love with false- 

 hood as to deceive when nothing could be gained by 



" Cum Sol et maleficcc ainbre ct Venus et Mercurius essent in signis" humanis, ideo non declinavi a forma hiunana, sl 

 cum Jupiter esset in ascendents, ct Venus totius ligi:r:i> doinina non fui obkesus nUi in ^ci:it;ilibus, ut a xxi anno ad xxxl 

 non potuerim concumbere cum inulieribus, et sicpius dctlerem sorteiu mcum caique alteri proprium iimdens." Cardanus- 

 DC I'ito Propria, cap. iL p. 8. 



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