the legend of bold ROBIN HOOD

Medieval Health Handbooks

Illuminations and Text from Medieval Health Handbooks

The Physician Speaks:

"The Tacuinum Sanitatis is about the six things that are necessary for every man in the daily preservation of his health, about their correct uses and their effects. The first is the treatment of air, which concerns the heart. The second is the right use of food and drinks. The third is the correct use of movement and rest. The fourth is the prohibition of the body from sleep, or excessive wakefulness. The fifth is the correct use of elimination and retention of humors. The sixth is the regulating of the person by moderating joy, anger, fear, and distress. The secret of the preservation of health, in fact, will be in the proper balance of all these elements, since it is the disturbance of this balance that causes the illnesses which the gloriuos and most exalted God permits. Listed under these six classifications are many very useful varities whose nature, God willing, we shall explain. We shall speak, furthermore, about the choices suitable to each person owing to his constitution and age, and shall include all these elements in the form of simple tables because the discussions of the sages and the discordances in many different books may bore the reader. Men, in fact, desire from science nothing else but the benefits, not the arguments but the definitions. Accordingly, our intention in this book is to shorten long-winded discourses and synthesize the various ideas. Our intention also, however, is not to neglect the advice of the ancients."

- from the Tacuinum of Rouen

The Tacuinum Sanitatis were illuminated medical manuals based on texts translated from Arabic into Latin.

This site contains images and text from the following manuscripts:

The Tacuinum of Paris - late 14th century
The Tacuinum of Vienna - late 14th or early 15th century
The Theatrum of the Casanatense Library - late 14th century
The Tacuinum of Rouen - early 15th century