Nature: Warm and dry toward the end of the second degree and the beginning of the third. Optimum: The kind that is green, fresh, and tender. Usefulness: Brings relief to a stomach that is cold and windy. Dangers: It is harmful to the kidneys and causes nausea with its essence. Neutralization of the Dangers: With lemoncellis, the juice of small lemons. Effects: Moderately nourishing. It is good for cold and damp temperaments, for old people, in Winter and in cold 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. 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. |