INTRODUCTION xvii

led him to distinguish clearly, for the first time, this malady
from other fevers. His old friend Navagero contracted it in
Italy and soon after died at Blois where he had gone on an
embassy.

Retirement

In 1530 was published at Verona the second version of Syphilis
sive Morbus Gallicus. Fracastorius had certainly retired from
active practice at Verona before 1534, for in an extant letter to
Rannusio dated Jan., 1534, he says: **There are now, thank
God, few who recognise me as a physician. . . . As for my studies,
they are very various. I have written a good treatise on Con—
tagion' . . . and on Critical Days, which I ascribe, not to the moon
but to our humors.*? / The rest of the letter is devoted to astron—
omy which he loved to discuss with Rannusio, and on this occa«—
sion he says he has been led to the subject by reading Dante.
He was still consulted by distinguished patients,? but there is
no doubt that at this time Montanus, whose own De Morbo
Gallico was not published till 1566, ranked higher than Fracas—
torius as a doctor at Verona. 'There was some rivalry between
them, and his biographers probably lay too much stress on it.
When in 1533 Montanus went to Bologna to become the physi—
cian, at & large salary, of Cardinal de' Medici whom he had cured
of a serious illness, Fracastorius wrote to Sonzio: *Our Mon—
tanus has betaken himself where Fortune abides and prevails?.
'TThis from the amiable Fracastorius, amounted to acid comment.
But it is the only direct evidence of any jealousy of Montanus,

: He did not publish it for another twelve years, during which he,
no doubt, made frequent revisions.  In a letter dated 1533, he says
that he has improved and rewritten, i. e. in prose, his work on the
Morbus Gallicus.

'The statement of some biographers, including Bayle, that he
did not take fees, is not well supported. In a letter to Rannusio,
1534, he answers a criticism of those who thought he ought to make
money by medical praetice; he quotes an alchemist of Verona who
had spent his fortune on investigation and had said that no time
had been better spent by him than that Whlch he had seemed to
throw away on such pursuits; "I at any rate," said Fracastorius,
€do not fling away my money, though I do not increase it'. The
anonymous Vita merely says that he was "always above the sordid
desire of gain, and thought himself best rewarded by the health of
his pat,l,ent . thus he contraected many friendships and had no
enemy.