60 JEROME CARDAN 



as the neck should be restored ; that the nurse should 

 eat no meat, and that the child should be nourished 

 entirely by the milk of her breast, and not too much of 

 that ; that it should be kept in its cradle in a warm 

 place, and rocked gently till it should fall asleep. After 

 the other physicians had gone, I remember that the 

 father of the child said to me, ' I give you this child for 

 your own,' and that I answered, ' You are doing him an 

 ill turn, in that you are supplanting his rich father by a 

 poor one.' He answered, ' I am sure that you would 

 care for him as if he were your own, fearing naught that 

 you might thereby give offence to these others ' (mean- 

 ing the physicians). I said, ' It would please me well to 

 work with them in everything, and to win their support.' 

 I thus blended my words, so that he might understand 

 I neither despaired of the child's cure, nor was quite confi- 

 dent thereanent. The cure came to a favourable end ; 

 for, after the fourteenth day of the fever the weather 

 being very warm the child got well in four days' time. 

 Now as I review the circumstances, I am of opinion that 

 it was not because I perceived what the disease really 

 was, for I might have done so much by reason of my 

 special practice ; nor because I healed the child, for that 

 might have been attributed to chance ; but because the 

 child got well in four days, whereas his brother lay ill 

 for six months, and was then left half dead, that his 

 father was so much amazed at my skill, and afterwards 

 preferred me to all others. That he thought well of me 

 is certain, because Delia Croce himself, during the time 

 of his procuratorship, was full of spite and jealousy 

 against me, and declared in the presence of Cavenago 

 and of Sfondrato, that he would not, under compulsion, 

 say a word in favour of a man like me, one whom the 

 College regarded with disfavour. Whereupon Sfon- 



