

MEDICAL SCIENCES. , 7 , 



and corrupted art in a society which was aspiring after a complete and 

 thorough transformation. Sceptics of another kind were to be found in 

 Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim, who, while contending against 

 certain philosophical errors, sought to substitute for them theurgy and 

 magic ; or in Paracelsus, who, notwithstanding his splendid intellect, con- 

 ceived it possible that a hybrid alliance might be formed bstween cabalistic 

 mysticism upon the one hand, and medicine and occult sciences upon the 

 other. The scientific faith by which his genius was inflamed was not shared 

 by his contemporaries, Argentier, Rondelet, and Joubert, who were powerful 

 to attack ancient theories, but feeble to raise new ones upon their ruins. 

 Each man erected a system of his own, which, after exciting momentary 

 attention, collapsed, and left not a vestige behind it. A few, however, had 

 the good sense to content themselves with philological labours, with trans- 

 lating, revising, and commentating the works of Hippocrates, Galen, and 

 the masters of Greek and Roman medicine ; and amongst this select band 

 may be mentioned Thomas Leonicenus, Gonthier d'Andernach, Fuchs, 

 Jacques Houlier, and Louis Duret. 



The great doctors of that period, those who devoted themselves to their 

 work from pure love of science, remained poor, and with difficulty made a 

 living out of their profession. They did not practise medicine so much as 

 study the malady and the patient. Moreover, as there was no tariff of 

 doctor's fees, they sometimes received the most inadequate recompense for 

 their labours. Paracelsus sued a canon of Bale, whom he had cured, for the 

 stipulated fee of one hundred florins ; but the judge awarded him only six 

 florins. When the patient was of a generous disposition, the doctor came off 

 better ; and the best paid of all were those who attended upon the sovereign 

 and the court. Honorat Picquet, physician to Louis XII., attended his 

 daughter, Claude of France (Fig. 122), during a severe illness, which he 

 was fortunate enough to cure, and Queen Anne of Brittany, her mother, 

 rewarded him with a fee of three hundred crowns in gold. Frai^ois I., who 

 afterwards became the husband of the Princess Claude, did not forget this 

 almost miraculous cure, and when he founded the Royal College he created 

 a chair of medicine, which was almost always filled by a Frenchman. 



Switzerland produced a whole series of learned physicians, who added 

 numerous treatises to the long list of works on medicine. Conrad Gessner, 

 Jacques Ruff, and Guillaume Fabrice conferred renown upon the schools of 



