De Medicina

22 The following are bland materials: broth, porridge, pancake, starch, pearl barley gruel, fat and glutinous meat, generally all that belong to domesticated animals, particularly, however, the trotters and titbits of pigs, the pettitoes and heads of kids, calves, and lambs, and the brains of all animals; likewise all bulbs properly so‑called, milk, must boiled down, raisin wine and pine kernels. The following are acrid: everything especially harsh, everything sour, everything salt, and even honey, and the better it is the more it is so. Likewise garlic, onion, rocket, rue, cress, cucumber, beet, cabbage, asparagus, mustard, radish, endive, basil, lettuce and most pot-herbs.

23 Now the following make phlegm thicker: raw eggs, spelt, rice, starch, pearl barley gruel, milk, bulbs, and generally all glutinous substances. Phlegm is rendered thinner by: all salted and acrid and acid materials.

24 But best suited to the stomach are: whatever is harsh, even what is sour, and that which has been sprinkled moderately with salt; so also unleavened bread, and spelt or rice or pearl barley which has been soaked; birds and game of all kinds, and both of these whether roasted or boiled; among domesticated animals, beef; of other meat the lean rather than the fat; the trotters, chaps,

25 But on the other hand materials alien to the stomach are: all things tepid, all things salted, all things stewed, all things over-sweetened, all things fatty, broth, leavened bread, and likewise that made from either millet or barley, pot-herb roots, and pot-herbs eaten with oil or fish sauce, honey, mead, must boiled down, raisin wine, milk, cheese of all kinds, fresh grapes, figs both green and dry, pulse of all sorts, and whatever causes flatulence; likewise thyme, catmint, savory, hyssop, cress, sorrel, charlock, walnuts. But it can be understood from the above that what has good juice does not necessarily agree with the stomach, and that whatever agrees with the stomach has not necessarily good juice.

26 Now flatulence is produced by: almost all food which is leguminous, fatty, sweet, everything

27 Again the heating foods are: pepper, salt, all stewed meat, garlic, onion, dried figs, pickled fish, wine, and the stronger this is, the more heating it is. Cooling foods are: pot-herbs the stalks of which are eaten uncooked, such as endive and lettuce, and also coriander, cucumber, cooked gourds, beet, mulberries, cherries, sour apples, mealy pears, boiled meat, and in particular vinegar, whether taken with food or as a drink.

28 Foods that readily decompose inside are: leavened bread, and any sort other than that made of wheat, flour, milk, honey, and therefore also all things made with milk and all pastry, soft fish, oysters, vegetables, cheese both new and old, meat fat or tender, sweet wine, mead, must boiled down, raisin wine; finally everything stewed or over-sweetened or over-thin. But the following decompose the least within: unleavened bread, birds, especially those with harder flesh, hard fish, not only for instance the gilthead or the sea bream, but also the squid, lobster and octopus; likewise beef and hard meat of all kinds; and the same is better if lean or salted; all pickled fish,

29 Again, the bowels are moved by: leavened bread, and especially if it is the grey wheaten or barley bread, cabbage if lightly cooked, lettuce, dill, cress, basil, nettle-tops, purslane, radish, caper, garlic, onion, mallow, sorrel, beet, asparagus, gourds, cherries, mulberries, raisins preserved in jars, all ripe fruit, a fig even dried, but especially a green one, fresh grapes; fat small birds, snails, fish sauce, pickled fish, oysters, giant mussels, sea-urchins, sea-mussels, almost all shellfish, especially the soup made from them, rock fish and all soft fish, cuttlefish ink; any meat eaten when fat, either stewed or boiled, waterfowl, uncooked honey, milk, all things made with milk, mead, wine sweet or salted, soft water; all food sweetened, tepid, fatty, boiled, stewed, salted or watery.

30 On the contrary the bowels are confined: by bread made from siligo or simila flour, especially when unleavened, and particularly so when toasted, and this property is even increased by baking twice, porridge either from spelt or panic or millet, as well as gruel from the same, and especially if these have been parched beforehand; lentil porridge to which beet or endive or chicory or plantain has been added, and especially when these have been previously toasted, or endive by itself, or roasted with plantain, or chicory, the smaller pot-herbs, cabbage twice boiled; eggs rendered hard, especially by poaching; small birds, the blackbird and wood-pigeons especially when cooked in diluted vinegar, cranes, all birds which run rather than fly; the hare, wild she-goat, the liver of animals which yield suet,

31 The following increase the urine: garden herbs of good odour, as parsley, rue, dill, basil, mint, hyssop, anise, coriander, cress, rocket, fennel; and besides these asparagus, capers, catmint, thyme, savory, charlock, parsnip, especially growing wild, radish, skirret, onion; of game especially the hare; thin wine, pepper both round and long, mustard, wormwood, pine kernels.

32 For producing sleep the following are good: poppy, lettuce, and mostly the summer kinds in which the stalk is very milky, the mulberry, the leek. For exciting the senses: catmint, thyme, savory, hyssop, and especially pennyroyal, rue and onion.