HERB - Summer regimen

[Roos cc]

Just for fun. 
Below is Ibn Ridwan's advice for maintaining 
health in the summer in Egypt. Arab physicians were
as concerned with *healthy life styles* as with
curing illness. The regimen had to be adapted to fit
particular climates (this one would not have "worked"
for northern Europe) and your personal physician
would adjust it to fit your personal temperament.

This view underlies a number of practices described
in later herbals and health books, like hanging 
woodruff in hot weather or wearing red wool nightcaps.
Health conscious personas might have their own
regimen to follow--think up one of your own for
keeping your "cool" this summer. ;-)
Alysoun de Ros

"If the air is hot, you should advise the sprinkling of 
cold water, fountains, and the pouring of water into 
pools, waterskins, pots, and tubs of silver, china, 
lead, ceramic, and earthenware made especially in 
the month of Tubah. Recommend many fans and the use 
of canvas tents in the outdoors. The living rooms 
should face north and their furnishings should 
include cooling aromatics, such as violets, rose, 
nenuphar [?], and delicate scents of wild thyme, 
mandrake, and similar things. Use perfume, camphor, 
rose water, sandalwood; use oils such as oils of rose, 
violets, and nenuphar. If these are unavailable, furnish 
the living room with myrtle leaves, branches of 
grapevine and its leaves, Egyptian willow, and all 
kinds of willow, houseleek tree, duckweed, 
watermoss, and black nightshade. If none of these 
fresh things can be found, you may take the dried 
plants and sprinkle them with a little water. For 
meals make kid, and lamb, orache, spinach, 
purslane, endive, lettuce, gooseberry, sumac, 
white poppy, cucumber, pumpkin [!], melon, snake 
cucumber, squirting cucumber, and what is made 
from barley, such as *kishk* and *sawiq.* For 
clothing, make robes of honor with *Dabiqi* stuff; 
gowns and the rest of the clothing should be light, 
free, and clean. Perfume them with camphor, 
sandalwood, and rose water. Drink sour milk and 
the juice of unripe and sour grapes. Cook the acidic 
and sour, such as whey, the juice of unripe or sour 
grapes, lemon juice, sour pomegranante juice, 
tamarind juice, sour milk, sea buckthorn, and barley 
flour, broad bean flour, ground roses, and ground 
sandalwood. Eat fruits, such as apple, quince, prune, pomegranate, peach, and
the fruits of Christ's thorn. 
Use the sweetmeat that is made with camphor, 
rosewater, sugar, julep, and starch. Employ the 
remedy of tamarind, oxymel, barley broth, dried 
fruit, prune juice, and other things that cool the 
body. Drink the pure white wine and the acrid fresh 
wine. Altogether, make use of all those things that 
are inclined to coldness."

Biblio: Micahel W. Dols, *Medieval Islamic Medicine:
Ibn Ridwan's Treatise "On the Prevention of Bodily 
Ills in Egypt" (Berkeley: University of California 
Press, 1984), pp. 132-33. Translation of *Kitab Daf' 
madarr al-abdan bi-ard Misr* from *Dar al-Kutub 
al-Misriyah* MS no. 18 tibb, National Library, Cairo. 
The name of the author in the ms. is Ali ibn Ridwan.
There are seven known manuscript copies of the 
original (3 in Cairo, 1 Vatican, 1 Library of the Royal 
College of Physicians, London, 1 Chester Beatty Library,
1 Iraqi).
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