Theses medicae de febrium continuarum diagnōsi & therapeia

TO THE MOST NOBLE AND OF EXCELLENT DISPOSITION ADO-
lescent HENRY of SCHONBERG, son of GASPAR,
Count of Nantholien,
PAUL MAISTRE
sends greetings.

It is a custom among the followers of Homer, noble Count, both for the Greek and Trojan commanders, when they are about to engage the enemy in battle, to implore the aid and assistance of the gods under whose divine power they stand. This has now become my own practice. For as I am about to enter into the contest concerning fevers, a subject that extends far and wide in medicine, before the most grave Doctors of the nourishing Academy of Basel, I invoke you as my apotropaion theon god who averts evil: so that you may protect me with the shield of your favor, which will blunt the blades of those fighting in the ranks like that Gorgonian shield, and will turn their weapons back upon the authors themselves, rendering them ineffective. You are, I well know, so desirous of this shadow-boxing and that military combat that there is hope that you will one day be a certain Achilles in both (when confirmed age has made you a man). This praise, indeed, when it becomes yours in common with your parent, from whom the best inheritance is handed down to children, a glory of virtue and of deeds performed at home and in war more excellent than any patrimony, I hope moreover will be such that you add to those paternal praises some of your own, and by your knowledge of Greek literature and medicine, for which you burn with love, you will accumulate the military and civil glory of your father. This made me bolder, that I should dedicate these theses of mine on fevers to you; if you accept them with a peaceful countenance, and with that spirit with which you have always embraced me, truly I despise the contest of all athletes, and am prepared to join battle with anyone. Farewell, Given at Basel, the third day before the Kalends of November, by the old style. In the Year of Salvation 1590.