SCOT AGAIN AT COURT 149 



rictures on the work, and asked that a copy of 

 e emended edition should be sent him. Pisano 

 plied by dedicating the book to his correspondent. 



appeared in 1228, and contained a prefatory 

 tter, in which the author addresses Scot in the 

 ghest terms of respect, calling him by that title 



Supreme Master which he had won at Paris, 

 id submitting the Liber Abbaci, even in this its 

 lal form, to his further emendation. This lau- 

 iri a laudato must have been most grateful to 

 e philosopher, and it enables us to see the stand- 

 s' he had among the mathematicians of his time. 

 D.e would almost be disposed to infer, from the 

 spect Pisano paid him, that Scot himself had 

 mposed or translated some lost work on algebra. 

 L another connection we shall find reason to think 

 at this conjecture may be well founded. 1 



Besides the practice of astrology and his deeper 

 searches in astronomy and mathematics, Michael 

 jot devoted himself to another profession, that of 

 edicine. This was then a science very imperfectly 

 derstood, yet here too, in the years that followed 

 s return to court, Scot made a name for himself 



a physician, and contributed something to the 

 vancement of human knowledge in one of its most 

 fportant branches. The healing art in Europe had 

 ily just begun to emerge from that primitive state 



which savage peoples still possess it ; overlaid by 

 arms and incantations ; the peculiar department 



the wise woman, the sorcerer, and the priest, 

 mong the Latin races the lady of the castle and 

 e bella donna of the village still cared for rich 

 id poor in their various accidents and sicknesses, 



1 See infra, chap. ix. 



