nt buzzing in his ears; and laments that no
Linacre was at hand to restore him to health by skilful advice. In a
subsequent letter he writes from Paris to ask for a copy of a
prescription given him while in London by Linacre, but which a stupid
servant had left at the apothecary shop, so that Erasmus could not
have it filled in Paris.

An instance of his skill in prognosis, the most difficult part of the
practice of medicine according to Hippocrates and all subsequent
authorities, is cited by all his biographers, with regard to his
friend William Lily, the grammarian. Lily was suffering from a
malignant tumor involving the hip, which surgeons in consultation had
decided should be removed. Linacre plainly foretold that its removal
would surely prove fatal, and the event verified his unfavorable
prognosis. Generally it seems to have been considered that his opinion
was of great value in all {97} serious matters, and it was eagerly
sought for. Some of the nobility and clergy of the time came even from
the Continent over to England by no means an easy journey, even for a
healthy man in those days, as can be appreciated from Erasmus's
experience just cited--in order to obtain Linacre's opinion.

One of Erasmus's letters to Billibaldus Pirckheimer contains a
particular account of the method of treatment by which he was relieved
of his severe pain under Linacre's direction in a very tormenting
attack of renal colic. The details, especially the use of poultice
applications as hot as could be borne, show that Linacre thoroughly
understood the use of heat in the relaxation of spasm, while his
careful preparation of the remedies to be employed in the presence of
the patient himself would seem to show that he had a very high
appreciation of how much the mental state of the patient and the
attitude of expectancy thus awakened may have in giving relief even in
cases of severe pain.

The only medical writings of Linacre's that we possess are
translations. We have said already that the reversion at the end of
the fifteenth century to the classical authorities in medicine
undoubtedly did much to introduce the observant phase of medical
science, which had its highest expression in Vesalius at the beginning
of the sixteenth century and continued to flourish so fruitfully
during the next two centuries at most of the Italian universities. His
translations then {98} were of themselves more suggestive
contributions to medicine than would