CARBONIC ACID CARDAN. 



51 



CARBONIC ACID. See Carbon. 



CARBONIC OXYDE. See Carbon. 



CARBUNCLE. See Garnet. 



CARBUNCLE, in surgery; a roundish, hard, livid 

 and painful tumour, quickly tending to mortification, 

 and (when it is malignant) connected with extreme 

 debility of the constitution. When this complaint is 

 symptomatic of the plague, a pestilential bubo usually 

 attends it. (See Plague) The carbuncle is seated 

 deeply, in parts provided with cellular membrane, and 

 therefore does not soon discover its whole dimensions, 

 nor the ill digested matter it contains. 



CARCASS (in French, carcasse), in military lan- 

 guage; an iron case filled with combustible materials, 

 which is discharged from a mortar, like a bomb. 

 There were formerly two kinds, oblong and round 

 ones, but they are now out of use. In architecture, 

 carcass signifies the timber-work of a house, before it 

 is either lathed or plastered. 



CARCINOMA. See Cancer. 



CARD. Playing-<;ards are, probably, an inven- 

 tion of the East, as appears from the name which cards 

 originally bore in Italy (naibi), and still bear in Spain 

 and Portugal (naipes), which word, in the Oriental 

 languages, signifies divination or prognostication. If 

 it could be proved that the Gipsies first made cards 

 known in Asia and Africa, this supposition would be 

 placed beyond doubt. It is asserted, that the Arabs 

 or Saracens learned the use of cards from the Gipsies, 

 and spread the use of them in Europe. The course 

 that card-playing took, in its diffusion through Europe, 

 shows that it must have come from the East, for it 

 was found in the eastern and southern countries be- 

 fore it was hi the western. The historical traces of 

 the use of cards are found earliest in Italy, then in 

 Germany, France, and Spain. The first cards were 

 painted, and the Italian cards of 1299 are acknow- 

 ledged to have been so. The art of printing cards 

 was discovered by the Germans, between 1350 and 

 1360. The Germans have, moreover, made many 

 changes in cards, both in the figures and the names. 

 The lanzknechtsspiel, which is regarded as the first 

 German game with cards, is a German invention. Of 

 this game we find an imitation in France, hi 1392, un- 

 der the name of lansquenet, which continued to be 

 played there till the tune of Moliere and Regnard, 

 and, perhaps, still longer. The first certain trace of 

 card-playing in France occurs in the year 1361, and 

 Charles VI. is said to have amused himself with it 

 during his sickness, at the end of the 14th century. 

 The modern French figures are said to have been in- 

 vented, in France between 1430 and 1461. It has 

 been said that cards were known in Spain as early as 

 1332, but this opinion is supported by no evidence. 

 The earliest indication of card-playing in Spain is its 

 prohibition by the king of Castile, John I.,in 1387, 

 when it must, consequently, have been very preva- 

 lent. One of the best works on the different games 

 at cards is the well-known treatise of Hoyle. (For 

 the different games, see the respective articles.) 



CARDAMOM, small (cardamomum minus; am- 

 omum cardamomum, Linnaeus) ; a perennial plant 

 growing in the East Indies. The fruit is used as a 

 stimulant and excitant. Triangular capsules, from 

 four to five lines in length, of a yellowish-white, con- 

 tain the seeds, which are of a brown colour, a plea- 

 sant, aromatic smell, a warm, pepper-like taste, 

 weaker, however, than that of die various peppers. 

 In France, it is much less used than in Britain and the 

 United States. The great and middle cardamoms are 

 furnished by other species of amomum, as yet unob- 

 served and undescribed. They may be only varieties 

 of the preceding. Their properties are not so ener- 

 getic. 



CARDAN, or CARDANO, GERONIJU (Hierony- 



mus Cardanus). This famous philosopher, physician, 

 and mathematician, was born in 1501, at Pavia, and 

 was educated, from his fourth year, very carefully in 

 the house of his father, a physician and lawyer in Mi- 

 lan, distinguished for his learning and integrity. In 

 his twentieth year, he went to Pavia to complete his 

 studies ; and, after two years, he began to explain 

 Euclid. He was, subsequently, professor of mathe- 

 matics and medicine in Milan. He then returned to 

 Pavia, again visited Milan, taught, for some time, at 

 Bologna, and, meeting with some difficulties there, 

 went to Rome. Here he was received into the 

 medical college, and was allowed a pension by the 

 pope. He declined the invitations of the king of 

 Denmark, on account of the climate and of the 

 religion of that country. The latter reason for his 

 refusal appears strange from a man who was ac- 

 cused of irreligion ; but his biographers differ with 

 regard to his religious opinions. Contradictory pas- 

 sages are cited from his works, which cannot sur- 

 prise us in one who was lost in cabalistic dreams and 

 paradoxes, and pretended to have a familiar demon 

 (daemon familiaris), from whom he received warnings, 

 &c. All this excited the theologians against him, 

 who attacked his orthodoxy, and even accused him 

 of atheism, but certainly without foundation. The 

 truth is, that Cardan was superstitious, but his chi- 

 meras were in opposition to the reigning supersti- 

 tions of the age. He believed so impliciuy in astro- 

 logy, that he drew his own horoscope several times, 

 and ascribed the falsehood of his predictions, not to 

 the uncertainty of the art, but to his own ignorance. 

 His two works, De Subtilitate and De Rerum Varie- 

 tate, contain the whole of his natural philosophy and 

 metaphysics, and are curious as an instance of a 

 strange mixture of wisdom and folly. Cardan wrote, 

 also, on medicine. His writings on this subject, 

 amid much trash, contain some sound ideas. His 

 fame as a physician was so great, that the primate of 

 Scotland, who had been sick for ten years, and had 

 consulted the physicians of the king of France, and 

 of the emperor of Germany, without success, invited 

 him to Scotland, and was restored to health by his 

 prescriptions. His highest claims to the gratitude 

 of the learned rest on his mathematical discoveries. 

 Algebra, which, from the time of its origin, had been 

 cultivated almost exclusively hi Italy, excited, at 

 that time, much rivalry among the mathematicians, 

 who carefully kept their discoveries secret, in order 

 to triumph over each other in their public disputes. 

 Cardan, it is said, was told that Tartalea had dis- 

 covered the solution of equations of the third degree, 

 and obtained the secret from him by stratagem and 

 under promise of silence, but published the method, 

 in 1545, in his Ars magna. A violent dispute arose, 

 which cannot now be decided with certainty. The 

 honour of giving his name to the invention has re- 

 mained to him who first made it known, and it is still 

 called the formula of Cardan. It is universally 

 believed that Cardan discovered some new cases, 

 which were not comprehended in the rule of Tar- 

 talea; that he discovered the multiplicity of the 

 roots of the higher equations, and, finally, the exist- 

 ence of negative roots, the use of which he did not, 

 however, understand. His tranquillity was disturbed, 

 not only by the attacks of his enemies, but also by 

 his own extravagances, which are related hi his 

 work De Vita propria, no doubt with much exag- 

 geration. They are exposed with so much frank- 

 ness, that those who have judged him with indul- 

 gence have been obliged to suppose him subject to 

 fits of insanity. He died, probably, in 1576, accord- 

 ing to some accounts, by voluntary starvation, that 

 lie might not survive the year in which he had pre- 

 dicted that his death would occur. All his works 

 Dg 



