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Show Health Maxims of Old Salerno AWAY back in the Middle Ages there was a famous medical school at Salerno founded as an offshoot of the great Benedictine Monastery at Monte Casslno, half way between Rome and Naples. The "regimen" of Salerno has even bei n celebrated as a compendium of tane advice on healthful living. This has been translated into English several times, and a new edition of it Is reviewed by Dr. John Itubrah of Baltimore In the Medical Record (New York). Among the most interesting features of that school were the women who studied and practised prac-tised medicine there. Of these "Trotula was the most renowned, but one reads of Sichelgaita, wife of Robert Guiscard, and of Stephonla with more interest. Their lives would make lurid moving picture scenarios. The last-named lady's husband was killed by Emperor Otto III She ensnared the Emperor and when ill cured him, only to wrap blm durinc his convalescence In a deerskin deer-skin covered with corrosive poisons, so he died In great agony." The Regimen Sanltatls, or rule of health, of the Salerno school was a poem thai began with "2 lines but was gradually enlarged until finally It had 3,520 It became famous In the thirteenth thir-teenth century its first Enrllsb translation waa in the fifteenth century and became very popular In all about 165 editions have been published. Here are a few extrac's to show how excellent was much of the advice: "If thou to health nnd vigor wnul1 nttaln, , Shun weighty cares all anger deem profane, From heavy suppers and much wine abstain. Nor trlval count it. after pompous fare, To rise from table and to take the air. Shun idle, noonday slumber, nor delay The urgent calls of Nature to obey. These ruler., if thou wilt follow to the end, Thy life to greater length thou mayst extend " "To keepe good dyet, you should never feed Until you tindc your stomacke cleans and void Of former eaten meate. for they do breed Repletion, and will cause you soone to cloid, Xonc other rule but anpi tlte should need. When from your mouth a moysture clcare doth void. All Peares and Apples, Peaches. Milke and Cheese. Salt meates, red Deere, Hare. Beefe and Goat; all these Are meates that breed ill bloud, and Melancholy, If sickc you be, to feede on them were folly " "The taste of wines, their clearness, odor, shade, Are living proofs of their specific grade; You'll llnd all those that arc of highest source. Tragrant, frigid, fair, fuming with high force'" "Let men drink wine, let hearts for fountains crave. But water-drinking never men enslave." "Doctors should thus their patient's food revise What Is It? When the meal' And what its size? How often Where? lest by some sad mistake. Ill-sorted things should meet and trouble make ' |