26 MEMOIR OF GESNER. 



danger ; for the well-known superstition regarding 

 the vicinity of this mountain, was at that time in 

 full force. He ascended on the 21st of August, 

 passing the night in a hay-loft. He carefully 

 examined everything in which he felt interested, 

 and a few days after his return home, published an 

 account of the mountain, along with his curious 

 treatise, " De Lunariis." ■^' 



It has just been stated that Gesner was of a deli- 

 cate constitution, and this circumstance had a con- 

 siderable influence on his proceedings during several 

 of the latter years of his life. While a youth, he 

 was threatened with general dropsy, and although 

 the immediate effects of this malady were overcome, 

 it seems to have produced a permanent debility, 

 which peculiarly exposed him to the inroads of other 

 disorders. In 1565 we find him complaining, in a 

 letter to a friend, of an affection of the brain, which he 

 says lasted nearly nine years. In 1559 he was afflicted 

 with calculus, and used all the remedies then in 

 vogue, against that excruciating disease. He like- 

 wise tried to find relief by travelling, as he was 

 wont to do on like occasions. Some of his friends 

 at the court of Ferdinand, Emperor of Germany, 

 thought that his visit to that country on this 

 occasion, afforded a good opportunity of introduc- 

 ing him to that monarch, to whom his celebrity as 



* Conr. Gesneri, dc raris et admirandis herbis, quas sivc 

 quod noctu luceaut, sivc alias ob causas, Lunarise nominantur, 

 &c. Ejusdem descriptio montis fracti, sire mentis Pilati, 

 jaxta Lucernam in Helvetia. Tigurini, 4to. (without the year). 



