his needs. Since
their college days Ottaviano's father had died and had left his son to
carry on his calling of printing. In 1536 Jerome bethought him of his
friend, and sent him the MS. of the treatise which was to let the world
learn with what little wisdom it was being doctored.[67]

Ottaviano seems to have expected no profit from this venture, which was
manifestly undertaken out of a genuine desire to help his friend, and he
generously bore all the costs. Cardan deemed that, whatever the result of
the issue of the book might be, it would surely be to his benefit; he
hazarded nothing, and the very publication of his work would give him at
least notoriety. It would moreover give him the intense pleasure of
knowing that he was repaying in some measure the debt of vengeance owing
to his professional foes. The outcome was exactly the opposite of what
printer and author had feared and hoped. The success of the book was rapid
and great.

Ottaviano must soon have recouped all the cost of publication; and, while
he was counting his money, the doctors everywhere were reading Jerome's
brochure, and preparing a ruthless attack upon the daring censor, who,
with the impetuosity of youth, had laid himself open to attack by the
careless fashion in which he had compiled his work. He took fifteen days
to write it, and he confesses in his preface to the revised edition that
he found therein over three hundred mistakes of one sort or another. The
attack was naturally led by the Milanese doctors. They demanded to be told
why this man, who was not good enough to practise by their sanction, was
good enough to lay down the laws for the residue of the medical world.
They heaped blunder upon blunder, and held him up to ridicule with all the
wealth of invective characteristic of the learned controversy of the age.
Cardan was deeply humbled and annoyed. "For my opponents, seizing the
opportunity, took occasion to assail me through the reasoning of this
book, and cried out: 'Who can doubt that this man is mad? and that he
would teach a method and a practice of medicine differing from our own,
since he has so many hard things to say of our procedure.' And, as Galen
said, I must in truth have appeared crazy in my efforts to contradict this
multitude raging against me. For, as it was absolutely certain that either
I or they must be in the wrong, how could I hope to win? Who would take my
word against the word of this band of doctors of approved s