Leonard Botal, also a Piedmontese, was born in 1530. First a surgeon in the French army, he later became physician to the kings Charles IX and Henri III. He was the first to recommend frequent and general bloodletting. Apparently before his time this practice was greatly restrained. He carried his views so far as to maintain that an infirm old man should be bled from two to six times a year, and that it was good custom to open the veins of healthy individuals every six months. He wrote a remarkable memoir on the cure of disease by blood-letting. It is not to be denied that he obtained some remarkable success with his copious venesections, and it must be said, in his defense, that, if he overdid it, his contemporaries did not resort to it often enough, and that his own practices were instructive to others. In his writings he united independence and energy of thought with elegance and purity of style. Joubert (1529-1583) was Chancellor in the University of Montpellier and physician to King Henri III. He wrote a treatise on _Popular Errors_, which had an unheard-of success. In less than six months there were sold nearly five thousand copies, which, considering the times,{147} constituted a prodigious edition. For one thing, it was written in the common tongue, and so placed within the reach of all. It was also diversified with anecdotes and jokes, some of which were not of the most delicate character; in fact, the author endeavored to atone for some of its salacity by dedicating it to Queen Marguerite. He really proposed for his main purpose a serious and useful one,--namely, that of combating prejudices which were both injurious and ridiculous. Although we may make light of Joubert's treatise, it certainly achieved a useful end by dissipating a multitude of errors, giving information to those who could scarcely get it as well from any other source. That it was full of defects is simply another form of saying that it was published in the middle of the sixteenth century.