s, of the
horn of unicorn,[70] and certain gems. The powder was given, and was
followed by vomiting. The bystanders perceived that the boy was indeed
sick, whereupon they called in three of the chief physicians, one of whom
was in a way friendly to me. They saw the description of the medicine, and
demanded what I would do now. Now although two of these men hated me, it
was not God's will that I should be farther attacked, and they not only
praised the medicine, but ordered that it should be repeated. This was the
saving of me. When I went again in the evening I understood the case
completely. The following morning I was summoned at daybreak, and found
the boy battling with death, and his father lying in tears. 'Behold him,'
he cried, 'the boy whom you declared to ail nothing' (as if indeed I could
have said such a thing); 'at least you will remain with him as long as he
lives.' I promised that I would, and a little later the boy tried to rise,
crying out the while. They held him down, and cast all the blame upon me.
What more is there to say? If there had been found any trace of that drug
_Diarob: cum Turbit_: (which in sooth was not safe) it would have been all
over with me, since Borromeo all his life would either have launched
against me complaints grave enough to make all men shun me, or another
Canidia, more fatal than African serpents, would have breathed poison upon
me."[71]

In this same year, 1536, Lucia brought forth another child, a daughter,
and it was about this time that Cardan first attracted the attention of
Alfonso d'Avalos, the Governor of Milan, and an intimacy began which,
albeit fruitless at first, was destined to be of no slight service to
Jerome at the crisis of his fortunes.[72] In the following year, in 1537,
he made a beginning of two of his books, which were subsequently found
worthy of being finished, and which may still be read with a certain
interest: the treatises _De Sapientia_ and _De Consolatione_. Of the
last-named, he remarks that it pleased no one, forasmuch as it appealed
not to those who were happy, and the wretched rejected it as entirely
inadequate to give them solace in their evil case. In this year he made
another attempt to gain admission to the College at Milan, and was again
rejected; the issue of the _De Malo Medendi_ was too recent, and it needed
other and more potent influences than those exercised by mere merit, to
appease the fury of his rivals and to procure him due sta