Tratado sobre Medicina . . . para seu filho levar consigo quando se foy para o Brazil (A Treatise on Medicine . . . for His Son to Take with Him When He Went to Brazil)

1642

Baths

A sweet-water bath is a serious remedy to refresh the body from mange, itching, leprosy, melancholy, watchfulness, and thinness of the body. It is taken by a person placing himself in a vat, or a room of warm water up to the neck and remaining so for an hour, and afterwards lying down on a bed. This is a serious remedy for consumptives, for warming the liver, in particular, if one boils water with violets, hibiscus, roses, grape leaves, borage, lettuce, or river figs. Hot-spring baths are the only remedy for cold illnesses, paralysis, and colic. These baths, like the sweet-water ones, are to be taken only once a day, with fasting in the morning, and for twelve to fifteen days.

Exercise

It is movement performed with the body and is very advantageous for one’s health, when done in moderation. The body heats up and one’s respiration begins to change. It produces perspiration, and if done while fasting for a half hour, it rouses the heat naturally and helps the body to boil, dissolving excrement, fortifying the spirits distributing sustenance through the veins, stimulating one’s appetite to eat, removing bodily obstructions, and fattening the body if done in moderation. Exercise reduces the fatigue from weapons, stone-throwing, kicking, sailing, fishing, swimming, hunting, going by coach or palanquin, or hiking. Playing handball is excellent for preserving one’s life.

The Game of Venus [Making Love]

Making love is very harmful to the body, especially if it is excessive. If it is performed in moderation, with each session taking place over a long [period of] time, it has all the virtues of exercise. If overdone, it exhausts one’s life, depletes one’s natural heat, erodes one’s spirits, weakens the limbs, and is very harmful in throat diseases; it causes fever and serious illnesses of the brain and nerves because it dissolves many of the spirits and dries out the body. For this reason, a man should abstain from a woman, keeping apart from such a wholly pure substance, as is the seed. Thus, the brain cools down and many will find themselves without theirs.

The Air

The air we breathe is the remedy of life, without which we cannot live. It revives the spirit and is sustenance for the body. It must be taken greatly into account when dealing with fevers. The air must be fresh and the house has to be prepared with fountains and branches because warm air is a resolution [for these ills]. In winter, with cold sicknesses, the house should be heated with fire and there should also be warm herbs in the house, such as laurel, rosemary, lavender, and sage.

Translated by Marvin Meital.

Credits

Abraham Zacuto, Tratado sobre Medecina . . . para seu filho levar consigo quando se foy para o Brazil (A Treatise on Medicine . . . For His Son To Take With Him When He Went To Brazil) (Amsterdam: 1642). Republished as: Tratado sobre meecina que fez o Doutor Zacuto para seu filho levar consigo quando se foy para O Brazil (Portugal: between 1670? and 1707), National Library of Medicine, HMD Collection, MS B 378.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.