JEROME CARDAN 129 



compound to be sharpened, if necessary, by the addition 

 of blister fly, or rendered less searching by leaving out 

 the euphorbium and mustard. Cardan adds, that, by 

 the use of this persuasive application, he had sometimes 

 brought out two pints of water in twenty-four hours. 

 The use of the shower-bath and plentiful rubbing with 

 dry cloths was also recommended. 



The purging of the body was largely a question of 

 diet. To prevent generation of moisture, perfumes 

 were to be used ; the patient was to sleep on raw silk 

 and not upon feathers, and to let an hour and a half 

 come between supper and bed-time. Sleep, after all, 

 was the great thing to be sought. The Archbishop was 

 counselled to sleep from seven to ten hours, and to 

 subtract time from his studies and his business and 

 add the same to sleep. 1 



Cardan's treatment, which seems to have been sug- 

 gested as much by the man of common-sense as by the 

 physician, soon began to tell favourably upon the Arch- 

 bishop. He remained for thirty-five days in charge of 

 his patient, during which time the distemper lost its 

 virulence and the patient gained flesh. In the mean- 

 time the fame of his skill had spread abroad, and well- 

 nigh the whole nobility of Scotland flocked to consult 

 him, 2 and they paid him so liberally that on one day he 

 made nineteen golden crowns. But when winter began 

 to draw near, Cardan felt that it was time to move 



1 Another piece of advice runs as follows : " De venere certe non 

 est bona, neque utilis, ubi tamen contingat necessitas, debet uti ea 

 inter duos somnos, scilicet post mediam noctem, et melius est exer- 

 cere earn ter in sex diebus pro exemplo ut singulis duobus diebus 

 semel, quam bis in una die, etiam quod staret per decem dies." 

 Opera, torn. ix. p. 135. 



2 " Interim autem concurrebant multi, imo pen tota nobilitas." 

 Opera, torn. 1. p. 93. 



K 



