Cardano the Gambling Scholar.
JAMA · 1953
Girolamo Cardano of Milan was one of the fathers of medicine "next to Paracelsus and Nostradamus." He was born in 1501 and died in 1576, leaving behind 10 huge volumes containing information on many subjects. The son of a gifted father, Cardano was born out of wedlock, which barred him from membership in some of the learned societies. He was poor, but "When he finally began to make money he managed his affairs well, and above all he was a very popular physician with a great and universally recognized reputation" (page 34). Cardano was a student of all the sciences and philosophies and was a prolific writer on mathematics, astronomy, physics, ethics, religion, and philosophy. He also published a life of Christ and one of the Blessed Virgin. He was an egoist but confessed equally to vices and virtues and was "an enigmatic character" who, in the words of Bacon,