Medical Compositions

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I have always believed it to be the mark of a noble mind to give to each his own, and especially to Hieronymus Bagolinus; whose name, erased by some hand from the front of a work not yet published, I have restored from very obscure traces, so that the man's ghost would not be defrauded of his praise: whom I discovered in the archives of the Gymnasium university at Padua in the year 1522 as an ordinary doctor of what they call the Practice of Medicine from the first chair. I do not wonder that Onuphrius Panuinius, the diligent herald of his fellow Veronese, was silent about his work in translating Dioscorides, since in the previous century the completed work was hidden away in obscure chests, from which, by good fortune, it finally reached my hands.

This is certainly the primary harvest of physicians, who, skilled in nature, believe that seeds are more fertile the smaller they are, since they comply more quickly with the air. Therefore, my Reader, there is need for the breeze of your favor, if we have achieved anything through this scantiness of talent. If I should easily obtain this, my mind, responsible for the vow, will be excited to greater and perhaps better things.

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