Even the good “Pantagruel” did not escape, more than others, the fashionable contagion of his time, for we read: “Pantagruel was taken sick, and his stomach was so disordered that he could neither eat nor drink; and as misfortunes never come singly, he was seized with a clap, which tormented him more than you would think, but his physician succored him well, and by means of drugs, lenitive and diuretic, they caused him to urinate away his misfortune (_pisser son malheur_). And his urine was so hot that since that time it has never grown cold, and there are different places in France where he left his mark, now called the _hot baths_, as, for instance, at Cauterets, Limoux, Dax, Balaruc, Neris, and Bourbon-Lancy.”[105] The chapters of Rabelais’ famous book which most evidence his medical knowledge are those discussing the perplexities of Panurge on the question of marriage. Pantagruel has long commented _pro_ and _con_, but has not fully made up his mind; he does not demand a solution of the matrimonial problem from Gods, dreams, nor from the oracles of Sibyls. He, however, consents to take council from Herr Trippa, allegorical name bestowed by Rabelais on the German Camilla Agrippa, of Neterheim, a philosopher and physician best known by his books on alchemy, magic, and occult science. This _savant_ proposed to unveil our heroes’ future destiny by “pyromancy, æromancy, hydromancy, gyromancy”; or, better still, by “necromancy I will make a spirit rise from the dead, like Apollonius of Tyana to Achilles, like the Witch of Endor to Saul, who will tell you all, even as Erichto, dead and rotten in body, rose in spirit and predicted to Pompey the issue of the battle of Pharsalia.”[106] Panurge always refuses, but finishes by taking advice from a priest, physician, lawyer, and philosopher, who elucidate the question. The consultation with the physician Rondibilis, that is to say, the author’s friend Guillaume Rondelet, fellow student of Rabelais at the University of Montpellier, is particularly interesting to all doctors by reason of the anatomical and physiological arguments. The good physician Rondibilis thus responds to Panurge on the question of marriage: “You say that you feel within yourself the sharp pricking stings of sensuality. I find in our Faculty of Medicine, and we found our opinion on the ideas enunciated by the ancient Platonists, that carnal concupiscence is controlled in five manners. “_Imprimis_, by wine; for intemperance in wine makes the blood cold, slackens up the cords, dissolves the nerves, dissipates the generative seed, stupefies the senses, perverts muscular movement; which weaknesses are all impediments to the act of generation. Hence it is that Bacchus, God of tipplers, bousers, and drunkards, is always painted beardless and dressed in a woman’s habit, like unto a thing effeminate or a eunuch. You know full well the antique proverb, _i.e._, that Venus is chilled without the society of Ceres and Bacchus.”