Unusually for a lawyer, he took a strong interest in matters medical; the more he was criticized for this by his fellow lawyers, the more books on the subject he sought to acquire.3 In the late 1530s or early 1540s he attended lectures on Galen's De usu partium given at the Collège de Tréguier in Paris by Jacobus Sylvius (1478–1555), and he describes his teacher arriving with parts of an animal or even a human limb, concealed in his gown, to be dissected before an eager crowd “drawn from every nation”.4 Du Fail put his medical learning to good use in his writings. Following in a long line of literary figures from Lucian to Rabelais, he devoted two of his contes to a discussion of gout, “a condition for which everyone has his own remedy”, and a third to syphilis, from which he also suffered.5 In 1578, he contributed, under the initials of the publisher, a preface to the Demostrion of his fellow Breton, the controversial Paracelsian physician Roch Le Baillif, in which he displayed his wide acquaintance with both traditional and Paracelsian writers as well as with local antiquities.6
A further reminiscence of Parisian medicine has escaped scholarly notice until now, despite throwing new light on a famous episode in the life of the physician and astrologer, Girolamo Cardano (1501–1576). In 1552, Cardano was summoned to treat John Hamilton, Archbishop of St Andrews, who was thought to be suffering from phthisis.7 His journey to Scotland took him via Paris, where he was entertained by leading members of the medical faculty and participated in a medical conference. Although he retained friendly memories of his meeting with Jean Fernel and with Sylvius, he seems to have been more impressed with the unicorn horn that he saw at St Denis when on an outing with the royal physician Nicholas Legrand.8
In his autobiography, Cardano merely records that “a conference was held with the physicians to the King.9 We dined together, but they did not succeed in getting an expression of my views at table, because before the meal they had wished me to take precedence in expressing my opinion. I continued my journey on the best of terms with Fernel, Sylvius and another court physician, all of whom I left there regretfully.”10
For another view of this visit, from the French side, we must turn to Du Fail.11 The story is put into the mouth of Polygame, the family nickname of Du Fail's elder brother, François, although it is not clear whether he had been present in person on that occasion or had merely heard of it from a friend such as Aimar de Rançonnet, a Paris lawyer who had been involved in some of the arrangements for Cardano's visit.12 The context of Du Fail's account, which is here translated in full, is a discussion of the time and the place to speak. The Batemanesque chapter heading, ‘On the student who spoke Latin while out hunting’,13 introduces the first of Du Fail's tales, while the chapter concludes with thumbnail sketches of four practitioners consulted by Du Fail about his syphilitic symptoms, and an account of their conflicting diagnoses and treatment plans and of the acrimonious debate which ensued at the apothecary's shop.14
The link between these two stories is provided by the account of Cardano's visit, which Du Fail places on Cardano's return from Scotland. This is an error, for Cardano's return journey took him to Brussels and down the Rhine, but it is understandable, given that Du Fail may have been writing up to thirty years after the event, and on the basis of hearsay.15
His account is as follows:
The reputation of Cardano, that great Milanese doctor, had he only known how to correct and curtail his writings, had spread everywhere, said Polygame, when, on his way back from treating a certain grandee in England, he was summoned to Paris to visit another sick nobleman, where the most famous doctors in the city, that is to say, in Europe, did not ignore his coming; thinking that Cardano would leave none of his great learning behind at his lodging when giving his account of the illness and its specifics, Sylvius, Houillier, Goupil, Fernel, Charpentier, Gorris, and Legrand,16 fully prepared, all set, and well primed, having secretly informed themselves of the cause, present state, rise and decline of the illness, were there to meet him.17 Of their own volition they conceded precedence and the right to speak first in this conference and discussion to Cardano, who even while turning it down accepted it, as bishops do, “nolens volo”, “I accept against my will”. The man who had the main charge of the case described matters in a great stream of words, until, not remembering where he had started and becoming lost in the middle of his tale, he was pulled up by Houillier, who, putting the cart before the horse,18 finished it off for him, saying that perhaps the speaker had been somewhat sidetracked by his great abundance of learning, not observing that common adage, “Bene, sed non hic”, i.e., this has been well said and with considerable eloquence and learning, but totally inappropriately. At each pause in these contributions from the University, Cardano merely gave a slight nod, in the fashion of his countrymen who, so they say, (but don't you believe them) have more in their storehouses than they display in their shops. It was absolute torture to listen to the younger men hold forth on the doctrines of the Greeks, Arabs, and Latins old and new. Fernel, who was then considered throughout their schools to be the foremost pioneer and sapper in the trenches of medicine and philosophy, brought into play all his elaborate equipment and everything else one might care to name. In his turn, Sylvius, with the fluency in Latin which had made him universally admired, also said some wonderful things. But Cardano was the last to give his opinion, and without further words, he brought so much learned debate to an end, having identified and picked out precisely the nub of the ailment, saying simply, “Ha besongna d'onno clystere” (“He needs a clyster.”). The medical contingent, as put out as could be, said, “Cardano's better value at long distance than at close hand; minuit praesentia famam (his presence diminishes his reputation).”19 He, for his part, said, “Ingannati tutti los pedantes, io son medico non di parole, ma d'effetto” (“All these pedants are mistaken; I'm a doctor not of words, but of action”).20
The historicity of what Emmanuel Philipot called “this mysterious story” is far from easy to determine. That the debate took place is clear, even if Du Fail gave it the wrong date, and there is a good deal of plausible detail. While it includes the great names of the Paris Faculty, those of Legrand and Charpentier, who was active only briefly as an academic physician, would not spring immediately to mind in any embroidered reconstruction. The fact that Cardano is quoted in tolerably accurate Italian suggests that the original informant was present at the time, although, given the tenor of the story, hardly as a medical participant from the Faculty itself.21 The discussion follows the rules of academic debate, in which the significant speeches are the first and the last, and in which the president has the right to pronounce on each contribution as it is made. Du Fail's report also confirms Cardano's own comment that he had been asked to make the first diagnosis, but had declined in some way.
Du Fail's suggestion that this confrontation was deliberately engineered and planned in advance by the Parisians, whether true or false, makes for a good story.22 Cardano's astuteness consists both in withholding his hand until the last minute, and in refusing to take on the Parisians at their own learned game. He responds in Italian, not in Latin, and with the briefest of conclusions. It is hardly surprising that his hosts felt that they had been short-changed, especially given Cardano's reputation, known even to Du Fail, for long and eloquent exposition.23 By putting himself forward as the author of effective action, not words, Cardano was claiming superiority over those who thought they were the best doctors in Europe.24 That he was capable of such self-advertisement is well known, both from the case histories in his autobiography and from his De curationibus. There he openly declared himself to be the modern successor of Galen, a doctor with many triumphs and very few failures, and his behaviour in Paris would easily fit into the Galenic model of competitive consultation and confrontation with other doctors.25
But there are other features that point towards a tale that grew in the telling. One may wonder why Cardano, who was certainly a fluent Latin writer, should choose to deliver his judgment before a French audience in Italian, not in Latin, the international language of scholarship.26 Similarly, his final comment, suggesting that he had seen through the Parisian plan, would, if delivered in public, have been insulting especially to Sylvius, Fernel and his host, to whom he elsewhere shows respect.27
It remains possible that something Cardano said later in private was passed on more widely, but it is more likely that whatever Cardano said was recast in order to disparage the Paris Faculty. Such an aim fits neatly not only with the theme of the chapter, but also with the preface that Du Fail had written a few years before to the Demostrion of the Paracelsian Roch Le Baillif, who, within months of its publication, was being pursued through the courts by the Faculty for illegal practice.28 Du Fail approved of his activities not least because the Paracelsians had discovered so many “good and valuable waters, so many oils, so many balms, and so many valuable essences for the upkeep and preservation of human health”.29
Du Fail's priority was decisive and effective treatment. The last pages of this chapter continue the theme, contrasting the general ineffectiveness of many practitioners (of whatever sort) with their eagerness to offer expensive and often longwinded advice. But to seek to establish the entire historicity of this record of Cardano and the Paris Faculty is perhaps to miss the point. Du Fail's witty stories at the expense of university physicians are to be read both as humorous literature and as part of his own individual reaction to the changes in medicine that were going on around him.