[Sca-cooks] Charlemagne and the doctors

Laura C. Minnick lcm at jeffnet.org
Sun Mar 7 13:06:11 PST 2010


otsisto wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
>   
>> "His health was good until four years before he died, when he suffered
>>     
> from constant fevers.  Toward the very end he also became lame in one foot.
> Even then he trusted his own judgment rather than the advice of his
> physicians, whom he almost loathed, since they urged him to stop eating
> roast meat, which he liked, and to start eating boiled meat."
>   
>> Einhard, The Life of Charlemagne, chapter 22.
>>
>>     
> Yes- that's the quote that got me started on the whole thing of
> wondering why his doctors insisted on boiled meats. (As it turns out, no
> one tells the emperor what to do!) Have a brand-new copy of Anthimus
> that I'm starting in on. Might get some illumination there. :-)
>
> 'Lainie>>>>
>
> Though I don't know if the physicians would have know exactly but could it
> have been the carcinogens that roasted tends to have. Perhaps they had
> associated the condition to the roasted meat.
>
> De
>   
Which was pretty much what I was wondering when I brought this up a 
couple of weeks back. The consensus here on the list was that it was 
likely a humoral theory issue. Which is why I'm reading Anthimus...

'Lainie

-- 
"It is our choices Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."  -Albus Dumbledore

~~~Follow my Queenly perambulations at: http://slugcrossings.blogspot.com/




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