Having expressed opinions contrary to the prevalent beliefs in regard to saints and witches, he was forced to depart abruptly. We next hear of him as a practising physician in Fribourg, Switzerland. Thereafter he became a vagabond and almost a beggar. Like his contemporary, Paracelsus, he advanced the most paradoxical theories during his adventurous career, which latter was partly scientific and partly political, but always turbulent. Finally he established himself at Lyons, where he again practised medicine, and became physician to Louise of Savoy, Regent of France, and the mother of Francis I. Here Agrippa soon fell into disgrace and was banished. In 1528 he joined the Court of Margaret of Austria, ruler of the Netherlands, at Antwerp. On the publication of his work, "On the Vanity of the Sciences," he was imprisoned for a year at Brussels.
Upon his release, he returned to Lyons, where he was again detained in custody, on account of an old libel against his former patroness.
His death occurred at Grenoble, France, February 18, 1535.
Agrippa was possessed of great versatility and learning, but his writings are tinctured with bitterness and satire. He has been described as restless, ambitious, enthusiastic, and credulous, a dupe himself and a deceiver of others. His career was a continuous series of disappointments and quarrels.
Yet he was an earnest searcher after truth, who was fain to attempt the unlocking of Nature's secrets, but did not hold the right key. Profoundly superstitious, he taught, for example, that the herb, Verbena officinalis, vervain, would cure tertian or quartan fevers according to the manner in which it was divided or cut. Agrippa has been tersely described as a "meteor of philosophy."
CARDAN
Jerome Cardan, an Italian physician, author, mathematician and philosopher, was born at Pavia, September 24, 1501. He was the illegitimate son of Facio Cardan, a man of repute among the learned in his neighborhood, from whom Jerome received instruction in his youth. Although idolized by his mother, he incurred his father's dislike, and these circumstances, we are told, exerted a peculiar influence upon his character. Despite many difficulties, however, he achieved both fame and notoriety. After having received degrees in arts and medicine from the University of Padua, he became Professor of Mathematics at Milan in 1534, and later was admitted to the College of Physicians in that city. In 1547 he declined an invitation to become court physician at Copenhagen, on account of the harsh northern climate and the obligation to change his religion. In the year 1552 Jerome Cardan visited Scotland at the request of John Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, whom he treated for asthma with success. Thence he was summoned to England to give his professional advice in the case of Edward VI, after which he returned to Milan with enhanced prestige. He afterwards practised Medicine at Pavia and Bologna and finally settled at Rome, where he received a pension from the Pope. His death occurred there, September 21, 1575.
Cardan was possessed of great natural ability, and for a time was regarded as the most eminent physician and astrologer among his contemporaries. But his mind was of a peculiar cast, and his temper most inconstant. He had, says Peter Bayle, in his "Historical Dictionary," a decided love of paradox, and of the marvellous, an infantine credulity, a superstition scarce conceivable, an insupportable vanity, and a boasting that knew no limits. His works, though full of puerilities and contradictions, of absurd tales and charlatanry of every description, nevertheless offer proofs of a bold, inventive genius, which seeks for new paths of science, and succeeds in finding them. According to his own statement, he found pleasure in roaming about the streets all night long. His love of gaming amounted to a mania. Baron von Leibnitz (1646-1716) wrote of Cardan, that notwithstanding his faults, he was a great man, and without his defects, would have been incomparable. He wrote extensively on philosophy, mathematics, and medicine, and also on chiromancy. For his own follies and misfortunes he apologized, attributing them all to the influence of the stars. He has been described as a genuine philosopher and devotee of science, and his lasting reputation is chiefly due to his discoveries in algebra, in which art, wrote the historian, Henry Hallam, he made a great epoch.
