[1] Fordham University Press, New York, 1911.
[2] Popular Science Monthly, May, 1911.
[3] Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1871.
[4] The Latin lines run thus:
Si vis incolumem, si vis te reddere sanum,
Cures tolle graves, iras crede profanum.
Parce mero—cœnato parum, non sit tibi vanum
Surgere post epulas; somnum fuge meridianum;
Ne mictum retine, nec comprime fortiter anum;
Hæc bene si serves, tu longo tempore vives.
[5] English translations of the Regimen were made in 1575, 1607, and 1617. The two latter were printed; the former exists in manuscript in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The opening lines of the edition of 1607 deserve to be noted because they are the origin of an expression that has been frequently quoted since.
The Salerne Schoole doth by these lines impart
All health to England’s King, and doth advise
From care his head to keepe, from wrath his harte.
Drink not much wine, sup light, and soone arise.
When meat is gone long sitting breedeth smart;
And after noone still waking keepe your eies,
When mou’d you find your selfe to nature’s need,
Forbeare them not, for that much danger breeds,
Use three physitians still—first Dr. Quiet,
Next Dr. Merry-man, and third Dr. Dyet.
[6] Some of these old medical traditions come down to us from many more centuries than we have any idea of until we begin to trace them. Ordinarily it is presumed that the advice with regard to the taking of small amounts of fluid during meals comes to us from the modern physiologists. In “The Babees Book,” a volume on etiquette for young folks issued in the thirteenth century, there is among other advices, as, for instance, “not to laugh or speak while the mouth is full of meat or drink,” and also “not to pick the teeth with knife or straw or wand or stick at table,” this warning: “While thou holdest meat in mouth beware to drink; that is an unhonest chare; and also physick forbids it quite.” It was “an unhonest chare” because the drinking-cups were used in common, and drinking with meat in the mouth led to their soiling, to the disgust of succeeding drinkers. All the generations ever since have been in slavery to the expression that “physic forbids it quite,” and now we know without good reason.
[7] The book called “The Hundred Merry Jests” suggests that the wagtail is light of digestion because it is ever on the wing, and therefore had, as it were, an essential lightness.
[8] International Clinics, vol. iii., series 28.