CARDAN, JEROME, a celebrated Italian mathema tician and medical writer, was born at Pavia on the 24th of September 1501, and appears to have been the natu ral son of a celebrated advocate and physician at Milan. When he was only four years old, he was sent front Pa via to Milan, where he was instructed by is father in mathematics, astronomy, and judicial astrology ; and in his eighth year, when lie was afflicted with a dangerous illness, his father devoted him to St Jerome. In the year 1521, he went to study medicine and philosophy at the university of Pavia, and two years afterwards he was able to give lessons on mathematics. In 1524, he went to Padua, where he received in the same year the degree of master of arts; and in the year following, lie was ho noured with his medical degree. lie married about the end of the year 1531, and, contrary to his expectations, he had several children.* Having refused a medical chair in the university of Pavia, lie was, in 1533, appeint ed to the professorship of mathematics at Milan, and at the same time he commenced the practice of the medi cal profession. In 1539, he was admitted a member of the college of physicians in that city ; and though he was thus brought into notice, his time seems to have been more occupied in writing books than in attending patients. His work De Maio recentiorum itledicorunz medendi usu, \Te net. 1536, and his Contradicentium Medicorum Libri duo, Lyons, 1548, in which lie censures the practice of his contemporaries, and points out the inconsistencies and contradictions of which the best writers have been guilty in their account of diseases, seem to prove that he was not on very good terms with the other physicians in Mi lan. In the year 1543, lie gave public lectures in medi cine at Milan, and in the following year he repeated them at Pavia ; but as he could not procure payment of his sa lary, he discontinued them at the end of a year, and re turned to Milan.
Upon the recommendation of Vesalius in 1547, the King of Denmark offered Cardan a professorship in the university of Copenhagen, with a free table, and a salary of 800 crowns a year ; but Cardan declined this offer, on account of the severity of the climate, and the religion of the country.
Archbishop Hamilton, the primate of Scotland, and the regent's brother, having been severely afflicted for ten years with an asthma, applied for relief to the phy sicians of the French king and of the emperor of Ger many, but as he received no benefit from their prescrip tions, he sent for Cardan in the year 1552. At the end of 75 days, Cardan left the archbishop in a state of con valescence, and gave him such prescriptions, that he was completely cured at the end of two years. Larrey, in his history of England, informs us, that when Cardan was taking leave of the primate, lie remarked that though he had nearly cured hint of his malady, yet lie could not change his destiny, and prevent him from being hanged. After receiving the most liberal remuneration for his services, Cardan returned to Milan at the end of ten months by the way of London, the Low Countries, and Germany; and during his stay at London, he is said to have calculated the nativity of Edward VI. Baying re sumed his former employments of practising medicine and teaching mathematics, he continued at Milan till the end of October 1559, when he went to Pavia to lill the professorship of medicine ; and in the year following, he accepted a similar office at Bologna. In this situation he continued till the year 1570, when he was thrown into prison fur some offence with which we are not acquaint ed. At the end of some months, however, he was per mitted to confine himself in his own house, and as soon as he obtained his liberty, which was in September 1571, he repaired to Rome. Here he lived for some time without any public employment ; but he was soon cho sen a member of the college of physicians, and received a pension from the pope, which was continued till the day of his death, \villa happened on the 28th Septem ber, 1575.