CURIO, Johannes.

.A good copy of this illustrated edition of the Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum ( The Salernitan Regimen of Health ), edited by the German Johannes Curio (d. 1561). A Latin didactic poem composed in the 12th or 13th century (first printed around 1480), the Regimen is a collection of instructions on how to preserve good health, including rules of hygiene and diet, simple therapeutics, and other instruction intended more for the laity than for the medical profession. It was committed to memory by thousands of physicians and, after the invention of printing, was published in nearly three hundred editions, in Latin as well as in several vernacular languages (Heirs of Hippocrates). This fascinating work is considered a product of the prominent medical school of Salerno, founded in in southern Italy in 9th century.

.The simple and charming woodcuts (up to half page) illustrate the humours, various sorts of equipment, fruit, vegetables, aromatic plants, legumes, birds, fish, butter and cheese, parts of the human body (including a curious one of the mandible with dentist s tools), and the seasons. Among the most curious prescriptions, there is one concerning sleeping in the afternoon; the illustration shows a man sleeping on a chair, and the verses below read: Take a short nap in the afternoon, or avoid sleeping at all. Fever, laziness, headache and flu: these all may result from the afternoon nap . Another section advises on how to cure a hangover: If you develop a hangover from drinking too much wine at night, drink more of that wine in the morning, it will be your medicine , perhaps the origin of the hair of the dog .

.A physician of Rheimbergen (near Cologne), Curio published several editions of this work (first 1538), which are considered the most complete and interesting as, for the first time, he included other texts. In the present edition, the Latin text is provided with a German translation by Curio (in Gothic letter) and complemented by the important commentary by the Spanish physician and reformer Arnaldo de Villa Nova (1240 1311). Also included are: chapter 20, on blood, from De vacuandi ratione by the French physician Jean Fernel (1497-1558); a 18-verse poem by Anastasius on bloodletting; the Greek physician Diocles (c. 375-295) famous letter on preserving health addressed to addressed to Antigonus II Gonatas, king of Macedon; Hippocrates De salubri diaeta on healthy diet; a curious poem by the German humanist Joachim Camerarius (1500-1574), in which two elegiac distiches are dedicated to each month containing advices for a healthy lifestyle; finally, an extract from Philip Melanchton s (1497-1560) Liber de Anima concerning diet and sleep.