The Tacuinum Sanitatis is a medieval handbook on health and wellbeing, based on the Taqwim al‑sihha تقويم الصحة , 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.
The Tacuinum Sanitatis is a medieval handbook on health and wellbeing, based on the Taqwim al‑sihha تقويم الصحة , 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.