252 JEROME CARDAN 



on bread-and-water and a few grapes. He sometimes 

 dined off bread, the yolk of an egg, and a little wine, 

 and would take for supper a mess of beetroot and rice 

 and a chicory salad. The catalogue of his favourite 

 dishes seems to exhaust every known edible, and it 

 will suffice to remark that he was specially inclined to 

 sound and well-stewed wild boar, the wings of young 

 cockerels and the livers of pullets, oysters, mussels, 

 fresh-water crayfish because his mother ate greedily 

 thereof when she was pregnant with him ; but of all 

 dishes he rates the best a carp from three pounds weight 

 to seven, taken from a good feeding-ground. He 

 praises all sweet fruit, oil, olives, and finds in rue 

 an antidote to poison. Ten o'clock was his hour for 

 going to bed, and he allowed himself eight hours' sleep. 

 When wakeful he would walk about the room and repeat 

 the multiplication table. As a further remedy for 

 sleeplessness he would reduce his food by half, and 

 would anoint his thighs, the soles of his feet, the neck, 

 the elbows, the carpal bones, the temples, the jugulars, 

 the region of the heart and of the liver, and the upper 

 lip with ointment of poplars, or the fat of bear, or the 

 oil of water-lilies. 



These few extracts will show that an intelligible 

 narrative could scarcely be produced by the methods 

 Cardan used. The book is a collection of facts, classi- 

 fied as a scientific writer would arrange the sections and 

 subsections of his subject. In gathering together and 

 grouping the leading points of his life, a method some- 

 what similar to his own will suffice, but there will be no 

 need to descend to a subdivision so minute as his own. 

 A task of this sort is never an easy one, and in this 

 instance the difficulties are increased by the diffuse and 

 complicated nature of the subject matter ; and because, 



