Prescription for Lemon Drinks

Moses Maimonides

Mid- to Late 12th Century

One ounce of sticky sugar melted in hot water. He should squeeze juice from two lemons onto it and drink it lukewarm in order to vomit. One hour after vomiting, he should sip two ounces of a lemon and squill-like oxymel drink, heated to lukewarm on a low flame, mixed with melissa-type and green mint leaves.

And he should be careful not to eat unripe dates, Christ’s Thorn jujube, green almonds, carob, green broad beans, carrots and any food that contains vinegar or taro. And for dessert he should eat only raisins, pistachios, figs and nuts.

The Lord will ward off from you all sickness (Deuteronomy 7:15). May the wellbeing of his Excellency increase forever! Neṣaḥ.1 Sela.

Translated by Amir Ashur.

Notes

[Heb., eternity, forever.—Ed.]

Credits

Moses Maimonides, “Prescription for Lemon Drinks,” trans. Amir Ashur, in Amir Ashur, “A newly discovered medical recipe written by Maimonides: Mosseri I.115.1,” Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository, March 1, 2014, doi:10.17863/CAM.62322. Published as a Taylor-Schechter Fragment of the Month. Used with permission of the translator.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 3: Encountering Christianity and Islam.

Engage with this Source

Like other physicians of his age, Maimonides believed in the restorative and medicinal benefits of lemons. Written in Judeo-Arabic, this prescription provides recipes for a lemon drink used as a purgative and another flavored with melissa and mint. The text was recently shown to be written in Maimonides’ own hand, making it an important addition to the small number of his recipes that are extant.

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Related Guide

Intellectual Culture in the Early Medieval World

6th to 12th Century

Creator Bio

Moses Maimonides

1138–1204

Born in Córdoba, Spain, Moses ben Maymūn (Abū ʿImran Mūsā ibn Maymūn ibn ʿUbayd Allāh; Moses Maimonides, also known as Rambam, an acronym of Rabbi Moses ben Maimon) was a scion of a rabbinic family and the proud heir to the Sephardic tradition of learning. After fleeing to Fez around the age of ten to escape Almohad persecutions in his homeland, he moved to Fustāt (Old Cairo), where he came to head the Jewish community and to serve as physician to the royal family. An active communal leader, Maimonides’ multifaceted contributions to Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew literature include the following: his Commentary on the Mishnah (1168), Book of the Commandments and the Mishneh Torah (both completed around 1178), Guide of the Perplexed (completed around 1190), numerous responsa, important topical essays, and a voluminous corpus of medical texts. His profound influence on virtually every subsequent Jewish thinker finds expression in the popular adage that compares Moses Maimonides to the biblical Moses himself: “From Moses to Moses there was none like Moses.”

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