Opera Medica Omnia. Vol. X.1. Regimen sanitatis ad regem Aragonum (review)

Arnaldi de Villanova. Opera Medica Omnia. Vol. X.1. Regimen sanitatis ad regem Aragonum. Edited by Luis García-Ballester and Michael R. McVaugh. Seminarium Historiae Scientiae Barchinone (C.S.I.C.). Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 1996. 933 pp. $55.00; Ptas. 6,000.00 (paperbound).

"Non solum autem corpori est comodus aer purus sed eciam menti. Nam omnia mentis opera, sive in apprehendendo sive in iudicando, clarius et perfeccius exercentur in aere puriori." (p. 423)

Some might question a 421-page introduction to a 47-page text. I can only exult. The two together provide "purer air," for those studying health and medicine in the Middle Ages and in all those subsequent periods that find a medieval foundation. The efforts of Pedro Gil-Sotres, with the assistance of Juan A. Paniagua, Luis García-Ballester, and Michael McVaugh, have produced a fascinating and useful volume. At once it presents an important text, Regimen sanitatis ad regem aragonum, and describes a critical category of medieval medical document, the regimen sanitatis, or regimen of health. The text in question was written around 1305 by Arnald of Villanova (d. 1311), physician to popes and kings, at the request of King Jaume II of Catalonia-Aragon (d. 1327), and it is probably the most popular of all Arnald's works. It presents a simplified regimen for guiding the health of the king, including discussions of the six non-naturals (air and baths, exercise, sleep, food and drink, evacuations, and emotions) as well as a conclusion on hemorrhoids, which was a particular ailment of this monarch.

The introduction is the most thorough and thoughtful survey of the textual category; previous work is appropriately described as "d'una manera fragmentària" (p. 17). Gil-Sotres, with input from Paniagua and García-Ballester, elucidates the classical and Arabic roots of the Regimen as well as its medieval confrères. Just as he previously illuminated the important tradition of thirteenth-century phlebotomy, Gil-Sotres now synthesizes a refined image of medieval regimens, drawing examples from the genre's beginnings in Hippocratic texts to its peak expression in the late thirteenth century and beyond. He then analyzes the broad theme of medieval "higiene," focusing on the six non-naturals as well as the particular physiologic settings for their manipulation (e.g., the extremes of age), in a 284-page tour-de-force. Given the sweeping scope of his study, Gil-Sotres finds many contradictions and subtleties in the adaptation of ancient and Arabic concepts of regimenal manipulation into the Latin and vulgar traditions. Both the overarching view and its myriad specific observations make this the new standard reference. As in previous volumes of Arnaldi de Villanova Opera medica omnia,--eight of which have appeared with another five in preparation (a total of twenty are planned)--the introduction is printed both in its original version, Spanish, and in Catalan. ¹

The Latin text is a careful presentation by Luis García-Ballester and Michael McVaugh. In addition to seventy-eight Latin manuscripts, three manuscripts of the work are attested in Catalan. The Catalan text appears to have been written at the behest of Jaume's queen, and probably with Arnald's acknowledgment. This happy coincidence notably assisted the editors in reconstructing the primary Latin text, which displays their usual care. The tome concludes with a brief bibliography and indices of names, important words, and codices used.

As all the works of the medical historian's mind, either in understanding or in resolving historical issues, are more clearly effected in purer air, it is stimulating to find in this combination of an excellent analysis of the regimen and the edition of an important Arnaldian text extremely pure air. Future scholars will breathe all the easier for it and so think more clearly.

Walton O. Schalick III
Harvard Medical School

Note

1. The eight volumes include...