tion. Then Sfondrato turned to me, and said, 'As you have
discovered what the disease is, tell us likewise what is the remedy
therefor.' Since no one else spoke, I turned towards him and--careful lest
I should do hurt to the credit I had gained already,--I said, 'You know
what Hippocrates lays down in a case like this--_febrem convulsioni_'--and
I recited the aphorism. Then I ordered a fomentation, and an application
of lint moistened with linseed-oil and oil of lilies, and gave directions
that the child should be gently handled until such time as the neck
should be restored; that the nurse should eat no meat, and that the child
should be nourished entirely by the milk of her breast, and not too much
of that; that it should be kept in its cradle in a warm place, and rocked
gently till it should fall asleep. After the other physicians had gone, I
remember that the father of the child said to me, 'I give you this child
for your own,' and that I answered, 'You are doing him an ill turn, in
that you are supplanting his rich father by a poor one.' He answered, 'I
am sure that you would care for him as if he were your own, fearing naught
that you might thereby give offence to these others' (meaning the
physicians). I said, 'It would please me well to work with them in
everything, and to win their support.' I thus blended my words, so that he
might understand I neither despaired of the child's cure, nor was quite
confident thereanent. The cure came to a favourable end; for, after the
fourteenth day of the fever--the weather being very warm--the child got
well in four days' time. Now as I review the circumstances, I am of
opinion that it was not because I perceived what the disease really was,
for I might have done so much by reason of my special practice; nor
because I healed the child, for that might have been attributed to chance;
but because the child got well in four days, whereas his brother lay ill
for six months, and was then left half dead, that his father was so much
amazed at my skill, and afterwards preferred me to all others. That he
thought well of me is certain, because Della Croce himself, during the
time of his procuratorship, was full of spite and jealousy against me, and
declared in the presence of Cavenago and of Sfondrato, that he would not,
under compulsion, say a word in favour of a man like me, one whom the
College regarded with disfavour. Whereupon Sfondrato saw that the envy
and jealousy of the other phys