SCOT AGAIN AT COURT 149 



strictures on the work, and asked that a copy of 

 the emended edition should be sent him. Pisano 

 replied by dedicating the book to his correspondent. 

 It appeared in 1228, and contained a prefatory 

 letter, in which the author addresses Scot in the 

 highest terms of respect, calling him by that title 

 of Supreme Master which he had won at Paris, 

 and submitting the Liber Abbaci, even in this its 

 final form, to his further emendation. This lau- 

 dari a laudato must have been most grateful to 

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

 ing he had among the mathematicians of his time. 

 One would almost be disposed to infer, from the 

 respect Pisano paid him, that Scot himself had 

 composed or translated some lost work on algebra. 

 In another connection we shall find reason to think 

 that this conjecture may be well founded. 1 



Besides the practice of astrology and his deeper 

 researches in astronomy and mathematics, Michael 

 Scot devoted himself to another profession, that of 

 medicine. This was then a science very imperfectly 

 understood, yet here too, in the years that followed 

 his return to court, Scot made a name for himself 

 as a physician, and contributed something to the 

 advancement of human knowledge in one of its most 

 important branches. The healing art in Europe had 

 only just begun to emerge from that primitive state 

 in which savage peoples still possess it ; overlaid by 

 charms and incantations ; the peculiar department 

 of the wise woman, the sorcerer, and the priest. 

 Among the Latin races the lady of the castle and 

 the bella donna of the village still cared for rich 

 and poor in their various accidents and sicknesses, 



1 See infra, chap. ix. 



