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 statutes of the faculty to appoint a person as Professor not formally qualified.

1577-1644.

(From an engraving in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.)

For a time things went well, but Van Helmont got tired of medical teaching before the University became tired of him. The particular occasion which disgusted him with medical science was that he contracted the itch, and though he consulted many eminent physicians could not get cured of it. He came to the conclusion that the pretended art of healing was a fraud, and he consequently resolved to shake the dust of it from his feet, after he had recovered from the weakening effects of the purgatives which had been prescribed for his complaint.

Then he set forth on his travels, and in the course of them he met with a quack who cured him of his itch