On Healthy Diet — First Draft Translation

ON HEALTHY DIET. Ordinary people ought to order their diaita (regimen / way of living) in the following way: in winter, eat as much as possible and drink as little as possible; let the drink be wine as undiluted as possible; let the foods be bread and all relishes roasted; use vegetables as sparingly as possible during this season. For in this way the body would best be kept dry and warm. 1. When spring takes hold, then one should drink more, wine more diluted and little by little, and use softer and lesser foods; cutting back on bread and introducing barley-cake, and likewise cutting back on relishes, and turning everything from roasted to boiled; and now in spring beginning to use a few vegetables — so that by summer the person will have settled into using softer foods, boiled relishes, and vegetables both boiled and raw; and likewise with drinks, as diluted and as plentiful as possible — but so that the change is not great, accustoming oneself gradually and not all at once. In summer, nourish yourself on soft barley-cake and drink diluted and plentiful, and all relishes boiled. For it is necessary to use these things when it is summer, so that the body may be cool and soft. For the season is hot and dry, and it makes bodies feverishly heated and parched; one must therefore ward this off with these practices. By the same reasoning as in the transition from winter to spring, so too one will transition from spring to summer, reducing foods and adding to drink; and by doing the opposite in this way one will settle from summer into winter. In autumn, again making foods more abundant and drier, and relishes proportionally, and drinks fewer and more undiluted — so that winter will go well and the person will get on with drinks more undiluted and sparing, and with foods as plentiful and as dry as possible. For so one would be most healthy and suffer least from cold; since the season is exceedingly cold and wet. For those bodily types that are fleshy, soft, and ruddy, it is beneficial to use drier regimens for the greater part of the year; for the nature of such types is wet. 2. Those who are lean, tight, tawny, and dark ought for the greater part of the time to live by a more moist diaita; for such bodies are dry by nature. And for younger bodies it is beneficial to use softer and more moist regimens; for youth is dry, and the bodies are dense and firm. Older persons ought to spend the greater part of their time in a drier manner; for the bodies at that age are wet, soft, and cold. One must therefore fashion regimens in opposition to the established conditions — both warmings and cold spells — with regard to age, season, habit, region, and bodily type. For in this way they would be most healthy. And when walking: in winter one should walk quickly, in summer calmly, unless one is walking in the heat of the day. Those who are fleshy ought also to walk more briskly, and those who are lean more slowly. 3. One should bathe frequently in summer and less in winter; the lean and tight types should bathe more than the fleshy types. In winter one should wear clean garments, in summer garments soaked in olive oil. Those who are stout and those who wish to become lean should do all their labors fasting; and they should approach food still panting from exertion and not yet cooled down, having drunk beforehand wine that is mixed and not very cold; and let the relishes be prepared with sesame or aromatic herbs and other things of that kind; and let the relishes brought to the table be rich — for in this way they would be filled from the least amount. But also: eating once a day, forgoing baths, sleeping on a hard bed, and walking naked as much as ever possible. 4. As many as wish, being lean, to become stout, should do the opposite in all other respects from those I described, and should do no labor while fasting. Concerning emetics and clysters for the belly, one should use them thus: vomit during the six winter months, for that period is more phlegm-laden than the summer, and diseases arise in the head and in the region above the midriff; but when the heat comes, use clysters — for the season is burning-hot, the body is more bile-laden, and there are heavinesses in the loins and knees, fevers arise, and griping pains in the belly; one must therefore cool the body and bring downward the things that are lifting upward from those regions. 5. Let the clysters be more saline and thinner for those who are stouter and more moist, and more fatty and thicker for those who are drier, more tightly-built, and weaker. The fatty and thick clysters are those made from milks and from water boiled with chickpeas and others of that kind; the thin and saline ones are brine, sea-water, and the like. Emetics are to be performed as follows: those people who are stout and not lean should vomit fasting after running or walking briskly, at midday. Let there be a half-kotyle of hyssop ground in a chous of water, and let the person drink it down, pouring in vinegar and adding salt so that it will be as pleasant as possible; let him drink it slowly at first, then more quickly. Those who are leaner and weaker should perform the emetic after food in this manner: having bathed in warm water, let him first drink a kotyle of undiluted wine, then eat all sorts of foods, and let him neither drink during the meal nor immediately after, but wait as long as it takes to walk ten stades; then give him to drink a mixture of three wines — dry, sweet, and sharp — first more undiluted and in small amounts and at long intervals, then more diluted, more quickly, and in large amounts. Whoever is accustomed to vomit twice in a month, it is better to perform the emetics on consecutive days within two days rather than fifteen apart; but people do exactly the opposite. Those for whom it is fitting to bring food back up by vomiting, or whose bellies do not pass through easily, for all such it is beneficial to eat many times a day, to use all manner of foods and relishes prepared in every way, and to drink two or three kinds of wine; those who do not vomit their food back up, or who have loose bellies, for all such it is beneficial to do the opposite of this practice. Infants should be bathed in warm water for a long time, and given wine well-diluted and not very cold — and give the kind that will least raise the belly and cause wind. Do this so that convulsions may seize them less, and so they may grow larger and of better color. 6. Women ought to order their diaita in the drier manner; for women's flesh is soft by nature, and dry foods oppose and correct this, and more undiluted drinks are better for the uterus and for the nurturing of a fetus. Those who exercise should in winter both run and wrestle; in summer wrestle little, not run, but walk a great deal in the cool. 7. Those who are fatigued from running should wrestle; those fatigued from wrestling should run. For in this way, by laboring the fatigued part of the body, it would be thoroughly warmed, consolidated, and most thoroughly rested. Those who, while exercising, are seized by diarrhoea, with stools food-laden and unconcocted — from these persons one should reduce their exercises by no less than a third, and let them use half the food; for it is clear that the belly is not able to concentrate warmth sufficiently to accomplish pepsis (concoction / cooking-through) of the full quantity of food. For these persons let the food be bread as thoroughly baked as possible, crumbled in wine, and the drinks as sparing and as undiluted as possible, and they should not walk after food; they should eat only once a day during this period. For so the belly would best concentrate warmth and prevail over what comes in. This type of diarrhoea occurs most in dense-fleshed bodies, when the person is compelled to eat meat, given that the nature is of such a kind: for the vessels, having become dense, do not take up the entering food. This condition is acute in nature, and turns in either direction, and good condition flourishes for only a short time in bodies of this kind. The more open-textured and hairier types also accept meat-eating, endure labors better, and their good condition lasts longer. Those who belch up their food the next day, and whose hypochondria become swollen as though the food is unconcocted — for these it is beneficial to sleep for a longer time, but their bodies must be compelled to the other forms of labor, and they should drink wine more undiluted and in greater quantity, and use less food during this period; for it is clear that the belly through weakness and coldness is unable to concoct the full quantity of food. Those who are seized by thirst should reduce both food and labors, and let them drink wine well-diluted and as cold as possible. Those in whom pains arise in the viscera either from exercise or from any other form of hard labor — for these it is beneficial to rest without food, and to use as a drink whatever, entering the body in least quantity, will drive off the most urine — so that the vessels running through the viscera may not be overstretched by being filled to excess. For from such things both swellings and fevers arise. Those in whom diseases arise from the brain: first numbness holds the head, and the person urinates frequently, and experiences the other things that occur in strangury; this continues for nine days; and if water or mucus breaks out through the nostrils or through the ears, the person is released from the disease and the strangury ceases; and he urinates without pain, in large quantity and pale, until twenty days have passed; and the pain in the head leaves the person, but the bright light harms him when he looks at it. 9. The person who is intelligent ought, reasoning that health is worth the most to human beings, to know how to benefit himself in illness from his own judgment.