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Good Humour, Good Health

8 bytes added, 09:53, 7 April 2021
<nomobile>[[File:Rembrandt - The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp.jpg|thumb|Only once it became acceptable to dissect human corpses for anatomical research was it possible to discover that Galen wasn't always right.<br>{{small|By Rembrandt van Rijn (1632)}}]]</nomobile>
<mobileonly>[[File:Anagni 2.JPG|thumb|left|Yet another infographic illustrating the relations between elements and seasons (outer circles), and humours and stages of human life (inner circles enclosing a human figure). This one comes from the 13th century and can be found on the ceiling of a crypt in the cathedral of Anagni, Italy. On the wall below you can see Hippocrates (ca.&nbsp;460&nbsp;BCE – ca.&nbsp;360&nbsp;BCE) conferring with Galen (129&nbsp;CE – ca.&nbsp;216&nbsp;CE).]]</mobileonly>
Like much of the achievements of the Greco-Roman civilisation, Galenic medicine will be largely forgotten after the fall of the western part of the Roman Empire, but will survive in its Byzantine part, from where it will be gleaned by the Arabs and from them, by the Persians. A man who will make the greatest contributions to further develop the theory will live in 11th-century Uzbekistan under the name Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abdillah ibn al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn Sina (or '''Avicenna''' for short). In the following century, the medical knowledge preserved and expanded by the Muslims, will filter back into western Europe thanks to, among others, '''Constantine the African''', who will bring it from Tunisia to Salerno, Italy. It's in Salerno where Europe's first medical school will be located and where Greek medical texts will be translated from Arabic and Hebrew, the chief languages of medicine. This is how Galen, along with "his" humoral theory, will be rediscovered in Europe and popularised among aristocrats by such court physicians as '''Michele Savonarola''' (his better-known grandson, Girolamo, will study medicine too, but then he's going to quit the his studies and get busy with religion and politicsinstead). Finally, in the 1470s, Bartolomeo Sacchi (better known as '''Platina''') will publish the first ever printed cookbook, ''De honesta voluptate et valetudine'' (''Of Honest Pleasure and Good Health''), which will introduce wider European populace to recipes marrying the pleasure of eating and humoral medicine.
<mobileonly>[[File:Rembrandt - The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp.jpg|thumb|Only once it became acceptable to dissect human corpses for anatomical research was it possible to discover that Galen wasn't always right.<br>{{small|By Rembrandt van Rijn (1632)}}]]</mobileonly>

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