Regimen (Diet & Way of Life as Medicine)
The physician's chief tools for health were not drugs but the whole ordering of daily life — diet, exercise, sleep, bathing, and air.
Regimen (diaita) is the Hippocratic management of health through everyday living: food, drink, exercise, rest, bathing, sex, and the surrounding air, all balanced to the patient's constitution, age, and season. The treatises 'Regimen' and 'Regimen in Acute Diseases' (late 5th–4th c. BCE) devote far more attention to this ordered way of life than to drugs or surgery, treating the patient's whole environment as part of the cure. This dietetic vision of medicine became the foundation of Western preventive health and of the later 'non-naturals' of Galenic medicine.
How it traveled
- De diaetaKos · -370doctrinal
- De diaeta in morbis acutisKos · -370doctrinal
- AphorismiKos · -370doctrinal
- De salubri diaetaKos · -370doctrinal
- De prisca medicina [attributed]Kos · -370doctrinal
- De sanitate tuendaRome · 175doctrinal
- Mishneh Torah, Human DispositionsFostat (Old Cairo) · 1180synthesis
Key passages(20)
Mishneh Torah, Human Dispositions · Moses ben Maimon (Rambam) · 1176 CE
וְעוֹד כְּלָל אַחֵר אָמְרוּ בִּבְרִיאוּת הַגּוּף. כָּל זְמַן שֶׁאָדָם מִתְעַמֵּל וְיָגֵעַ הַרְבֵּה וְאֵינוֹ שָׂבֵעַ וּמֵעָיו רָפִין אֵין חלִי בָּא עָלָיו וְכֹחוֹ מִתְחַזֵּק. וַאֲפִלּוּ אוֹכֵל מַאֲכָלו
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Mishneh Torah, Human Dispositions · Moses ben Maimon (Rambam) · 1176 CE
דֶּרֶךְ הָרְחִיצָה. שֶׁיִּכָּנֵס אָדָם לַמֶּרְחָץ מִשִּׁבְעָה יָמִים לְשִׁבְעָה יָמִים. וְלֹא יִכָּנֵס סָמוּךְ לַאֲכִילָה. וְלֹא כְּשֶׁהוּא רָעֵב. אֶלָּא כְּשֶׁיַּתְחִיל הַמָּזוֹן לְהִתְעַכֵּל. וְרוֹח
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Mishneh Torah, Human Dispositions · Moses ben Maimon (Rambam) · 1176 CE
לֹא יֹאכַל אָדָם עַד שֶׁתִּתְמַלֵּא כְּרֵסוֹ אֶלָּא יִפְחֹת כְּמוֹ רְבִיעַ מִשָּׂבְעָתוֹ. וְלֹא יִשְׁתֶּה מַיִם בְּתוֹךְ הַמָּזוֹן אֶלָּא מְעַט וּמָזוּג בְּיַיִן. וּכְשֶׁיַּתְחִיל הַמָּזוֹן לְהִתְעַכּ
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De diaeta in morbis acutis · Hippocrates
De diaeta in morbis acutis · Hippocrates
De diaeta in morbis acutis · Hippocrates
De prisca medicina [attributed] · Hippocrates
De prisca medicina [attributed] · Hippocrates