The First Treatise on Diet: The Kitab Hawass Al-Agdiyah de Yuhanna Ibn Masawayh
Authors
Gerard Troupeau
Practical School of Advanced Studies, IVth Section At the Sorbonne, Paris
Keywords:
Dietetics , IX century, Jean Mesue
Abstract
The article presents the first treatise concerning dietetics, written in Arabic in the first half of the IX century by one of the most ancient doctors of Bagdad, Yühannã ibn Masawayh, known in the Western world as Jean Mesue. Ibn Mc7sawayh, basing his work on Galen's Properties of Foods, describes the properties of 140 foodstuffs from the vegetable and animal kingdom, and their good or bad effects on the human body. The translation of this treatise has been made from the only manuscript surviving, in the National Library of Madrid.
