Nature: Cold in the third degree, dry in the second. Optimum: The highly fragrant variety. Usefulness: Smelling it helps alleviate headaches and insomnia, spreading it on the skin works against elephantiasis and black infections. Dangers: It stupefies the senses. Neutralization of the Dangers: With the fruits of ivy. Effects: It is not comestible. It is good for warm temperaments, for the young, in Summer, and in the Southern regions. The Tacuinum Sanitatis is a medieval handbook based on the Taqwim as-sihhah, an 11th century Arab medical treatise by Ibn Butlan of Baghdad. 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. From the Tacuinum of Vienna, 14th century. |