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The Gaming Table by Andrew Steinmetz

 CHAPTER XI. page 6

M. Sallo, Counsellor to the Parliament of Paris, died, says
Vigneul de Marville, of a disease to which the children of the
Muses are rarely subject, and for which we find no remedy in
Hippocrates and Galen;--he died of a lingering disease after
having lost 100,000 crowns at the gaming table--all he possessed.

By way of diversion to his cankering grief, he started the well-
known _Journal des Savans_, but lived to write only 13 sheets of
it, for he was wounded to the death.[108]

[108] Melanges, d'Hist. et de Litt. i.

The physician Paschasius Justus was a deplorable instance of an
incorrigible gambler. This otherwise most excellent and learned
man having passed three-fourths of his life in a continual
struggle with vice, at length resolved to cure himself of
the disease by occupying his mind with a work which might be
useful to his contemporaries and posterity.[109] He began his
book, but still he gamed; he finished it, but the evil was still
in him. `I have lost everything but God!' he exclaimed. He
prayed for delivery from his soul's disease;[110] but his prayer
was not heard; he died like any gambler--more wretched than
reformed.

[109] `De Alea, sive de curanda in pecuniam cupiditate,' pub. in
1560.

[110] Illum animi morbum, ut Deus tolleret, serio et
frequenter optavit.

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