Medieval Health Handbook: Tacuinum Sanitatis

by Luisa Cogliati Arano, Luisa Cogliati Arano (Editor)

The Tacuinum (sometimes Taccuinum) Sanitatis is a medieval handbook on health and wellbeing, based on the Taqwim al‑sihha تقويم الصحة ("Maintenance of Health"), an eleventh-century Arab medical treatise by Ibn Butlan of Baghdad. Aimed at a cultured lay audience, the text exists in several variant Latin versions, the manuscripts of which are characteristically so profusely illustrated that one student called the Taccuinum "a trecento picture book," only "nominally a medical text". Though describing in detail the beneficial and harmful properties of foods and plants, it is far more than a herbal: listing its contents organically rather than alphabetically, it sets forth the six essential elements for well-being:

sufficient food and drink in moderation,
fresh air,
alternations of activity and rest,
alternations of sleep and wakefulness,
secretions and excretions of humours, and finally
the effects of states of mind.

Tacuinum Sanitatis says that illnesses result from imbalance of these elements.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

153 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Depictions and analysis of various herbs, foods, physical activities, and meteorological environment.
Note how oranges unavailable except candied rinds, recommended with good wine. And note acorns were eaten. My surviving notes (3o years) seem to be primarily Ch XIV:
Furmentum (frumentum?) wheat: a lovely painting, by someone who knows hunger.
Menstruation, a constant referent, especially under "dangers":
Acorns (glandes) prevent menstruation, but are neutralized by "roasting with suger."
Hyemps (winter) good for warm and dry temperaments, for the young, in southern regions, and for those close to the sea. (Is this hemp, hence marijuana? Not clear, since it appears for three months in February.)
Fennel (feniculus): bad for menstruation, but good for eyesight and prolonged fevers (Latin, "crises" as in the lunar "sea," Mare Crisium, near the Sea of Tranquillity.
"Cucumers" and watermelon (cetuli): Cool hot fevers and purify urine but cause pains in loin and stomach.
Oranges (cetrona), their candied skin: good for stomach, neutralize dangers, when accompanied by the best wine.
Dill (aneti): causes nausea, but good for cold and damp temperaments, for old people , and in winter.
Rye (siligo). Ch LXXXVI, Casanatense:bad for colic.
Coitus: harmful for those with cold and dry breathing.