Page:Lives of British Physicians.djvu/45

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CAIUS. 29 Greek, he wished to have it pronounced after the manner of the modern Greeks. To eonchide. From the variety of his writings akeady alluded to, it will be admitted, by all, that he was fully entitled to the reputation of a critic,, a linguist, a physician, a naturalist, and an anti- quary. He passed the last years of his life, as has before been stated, in the academic retreat he had formed for himself at Cambridge ; but does not appear to have retired from the public busi- ness of his profession from any gloomy distaste to the world, but from a truly philosophic fondness for learned leisure ; as is apparent from the nume- rous pieces upon literary subjects, in which he was engaged to the last moment of his life. Before his death he was reduced to a state of great bodily weakness ; and from a curious passage in Dr. Mouffet's Health's ImjJrovement ; or, Rules con- cernitig Food, we learn that he attempted to sustain his decaying frame by reverting to the food of infancy. The passage is as follows :■ — " What made Dr. Caius in his last sickness so peevish and so full of frets at Cambridge, when he sucked one woman (whom I spare to name), froward of conditions and of bad diet ; and con- trariwise, so quiet and well, when he sucked ano- ther of contrary dispositions ? Verily, the diver- sity of their milks and conditions, which, being contrary one to the other, wrought also in him that sucked them contrary effects." Notwith- standing all these precautions, Caius died July 29„ 1573, in the 63d year of his age, and was buried within the chapel of his own College, in a grave made some time before his death, which, it is said.