n8 JEROME CARDAN 



while I was fighting the battle against hostile prejudice, 

 and was unable to earn enough to pay my way (so 

 much harder is the lot of manifest than of hidden merit, 

 and no man is honoured as a prophet in his own 

 country), I brought to light much fresh knowledge, 

 and worked my hardest at my art, for outside my art 

 there was naught to be done. At last I discovered a cure 

 for phthisis, which is also known as Phthoe, a disease for 

 many centuries deemed incurable, and I healed many who 

 are alive to this day as easily as I have cured the Galli- 

 cns morbus. I also discovered a cure for intercutaneous 

 water in many who still survive. But in the matter of 

 invention, Reason will be the leader, but Experiment 

 the Master, the stimulating cause of work in others. 

 If in any experiment there should seem to be an 

 element of danger, let it be performed gently, and little 

 by little." x It is not wonderful that the Archbishop, 

 who doubtless heard all about Cardan's asserted cure of 

 phthisis from Cassanate, should have been eager to 

 submit his asthma to Cardan's skill. After acknow- 

 ledging the deep debt of gratitude which he, in common 

 with the whole human race, owed to Cardan in respect 

 to the two discoveries aforesaid, Cassanate comes to the 

 business in hand, to wit, the Archbishop's asthma. Not 

 content with giving a most minute description of the 

 symptoms, he furnishes Cardan also with a theory of the 

 operations of the distemper. He writes : " The disease at 

 first took the form of a distillation from the brain into 

 the lungs, accompanied with hoarseness, which, with the 

 help of the physician in attendance, was cured for a time, 

 but the temperature of the brain continued unfavourable, 

 being too cold and too moist, so that certain unhealthy 

 humours were collected in the head and there remained, 

 1 Opera, torn. i. p. 89. 



