Regimen Sanitatis

Reference Number	194
Title	Regimen Sanitatis. The Rule of Health: a Gaelic Medical Manuscript of the Early Sixteenth Century.
Author	N/A (Edited work)
Editor	Gillies, H. Cameron
Date Of Edition	1911
Date Of Language	early 16c
Date Of Language Ed	16th c.
DateMacro	16th c.
Date Of Language Notes
Publisher	Robert Maclehose & Co., University Press
Place Published	Glasgow
Volume	N/A
Location	National, academic, and local libraries (Inverness Reference)
Geographical Origins	Ireland; Argyllshire (?)
Geographical Origins Ed	N/A
GeoMacro	Other
GeoX
GeoY
Geographical Origins Notes
Register	Prose, medical
Register Ed	Education, Prose
Genre	Information
Medium	Prose
Rating	B A medical manuscript (early 16th century?), which may have belonged to John Beaton of Ballenabe. Much of the text is a translation into Gaelic of John of Gaddesden’s Rosa Anglica, copies of which are also found in other sources. This text was most probably written in Ireland. The text contains terminology relating to various aspects of food and health, including terms for types of food, parts of the body, specific health problems, and way of life. Contains glosses explaining medical and botanical/herbal terms and similar.
Alternative Author Name	N/A
Manuscript Or Edition	Edition
Size And Condition	26cm x 20cm. The MS consists of 62 vellum folios, of approximately the same size as the reproductions in this volume (i.e. 20cm x 13.5 cm). According to the Editor, ‘The cover is skin-covered board ornamented by simple straight-line devices. The front board has two sides of the original pair of silver clasps still attached, the other parts are wanting. The vellum is in a very fair state of preservation, and the writing, as may be seen from the photographic reproduction, is quite legible’ (p. 1).
Short Title	Regimen Sanitatis
Reference Details	EUL, Celtic Library: LIG MACB.
Number Of Pages	[viii] + 139 pages
Gaelic Text By	N/A
Illustrator	N/A
Social Context	This edition contains photographs, a transcription and a translation of a Gaelic medical manuscript, with introduction, notes and a glossary. The original manuscript appears to have been written around the beginning of the sixteenth century, or possibly earlier. Much of the text is based on the Rosa Anglica of John of Gaddesden. The text is found in British Library MS Additional 15582, folios 8ral-14va10. According to the editor, the manuscript once belonged to John MacBeath (or Beaton, as the family is better known), one of a family of hereditary physicians. It had been purchased by the British Museum in 1845, from London bookseller Thomas Rodd. It was not known how he had acquired it. Another Gaelic medical manuscript in his possession, a ‘smaller vellum treating of Materia Medica’ [now BL MS Additional 15403], was likewise acquired by the British Museum (p. 1). Tradition holds that the Beatons came to Scotland from Co. Derry around 1300. The first Beaton on record is Patrick, who was the chief physician to King Robert I, who died in 1329. The family continued as hereditary physicians, and it has been said that ‘more medieval Gaelic manuscripts known to have been in the possession of Beatons have survived than for any other professional kindred. Their commitment to classical Gaelic scholarship came to an end in the person of Christopher, who was the compiler of the so-called Black Book of Clanranald’ (John Bannerman, in Thomson 1994, p. 22). They were well read in Greek, Muslim, and Continental medical tracts, which they frequently refer to in their own writings. See pp. 9-12 of the present volume and Bannerman 1986 for further information on these medical texts. It was the view of the editor of this volume that John Beaton, and other Beaton physicians, would have kept a note book, ‘in which he stored the sum and essence of his reading, compiled and translated from the many ancient authors which we know he had in his possession. He added pertinent comments and observations of his own, based upon his necessarily wide experience’ (p. 8). Gillies surmised (though the evidence for this is thin) that these notebooks would then be given to a professional scribe to write out ‘in the best and most compact form’, and that the present text, written by the scribe Aodh Ó Ceandainn, resulted from this process. At least two other scribes may have worked on this text, namely Cairbre and Dáibhí Ó Cearnaigh: see https://celt.ucc.ie//published/G600010/index.html. Hugh Cameron Gillies was a medical doctor. In addition to this volume, he published The Gaelic Names of Diseases and Diseased States (1898, reprinted from the Caledonian Medical Journal). His interests were varied, and he was also the author of The elements of Gaelic grammar, based on the work of the Rev. Alexander Stewart, D.D. (1896), The Place-Names of Argyll (1906), and Gaelic Concepts of Life and Death (1913).
Contents	This volume is dedicated to John, 4th Marquis of Bute. It is claimed in the Preface that this is ‘the is the first definite effort to restore our old Gaelic Medical Manuscripts’. After the Table of Contents, the Introduction (pp. 1-16) contains sections entitled ‘The MacBeaths’, ‘The Substance of the Text’, ‘The Genesis of the Book’, ‘The Transliteration’, ‘The Translation’ and ‘The Time and Age of the Text’. The edition of Regimen Sanitatis consists of photographs of each MS page with an en face transcription of its text (pp. 17-30). Regimen Sanitatis takes up 15 pages of corra-litir text, with two columns per page and 29 columns in total. The transcription is divided into sections, each corresponding to a column of the text. The text is divided into seven chapters, each dealing with a different aspect of health. The first chapter deals with ‘the three aspects of the Regulation of the Health’, these being Conservatiuum (i.e. ‘maintaining the healthy state’), Preservatiuum (i.e. ‘fore-seeing’), and Reductiuum (i.e. ‘restoration’). The rest of the chapters focus mainly on food. The second chapter is ‘Of the Quantity of the Food’; the third is ‘Of the Order of Diet or the Eating of Food’, the fourth is ‘Of the Time’, which considers the different eating habits required at different times of the year; the fifth is ‘Regarding the Time of Eating’, covering the appropriate times of day to eat in each season; the sixth is ‘Of the Habit of Custom’ of diet; and the last chapter is ‘Of the Age and Temperament’, which prescribes what ought to be eaten by people of different ages. There are three addenda to the text. The first of these describes the six different parts of the body that can be bled, and outlines the different results obtained by bleeding each part. The second, which is written in two different hands, contains an introduction to Hippocrates’s Arcanum. The third, which is signed ‘Donald MacBeath’, contains a short note on terminology. The edition of Regimen Sanitatis is followed by an English translation (pp. 31-58) and an extensive set of Notes on the interpretation and subject matter of the text (pp. 59-82). The volume is completed by a Glossary (pp. 83-139). NB The Glossary, although large, is not wholly scientific.
Sources
Language	This text, being particularly concerned with medical aspects of nourishment and diet, contains many terms relating to types of food, parts of the body, and specific health problems. The following passage, for example, extols the virtues of nuts: Gidhedh adeirim do na cnoib and so nachfuil etir nahuili toradh déis na fígeadh ocus na rísinedh toradh is ferr na iad ocus is uime sin adeir in fersa Dic auellanas epati semper fore sanas .i. abair gurab fallain na cnó do sír do na haeibh (p. 26, col. XIX). There are also statements on wine, its health benefits, and when it should be drunk, e.g.: Adeirim nachimchubidh an fín roimh an cuid an aimsir na sláinti. Gidheadh is imchubidh e uair ann an aimsir na heslainti .i. intan is mó is egail uireasbhaidh na bríghi na urchoid an fína mar is follus isin t’singcopis tig o anmhfainne na bríghi ocus adeirim gurub imchubidh e intan sin roimh in cuit ocus tar a héis (pp. 19-20, coll. VI-VII). The third chapter begins with an instruction on how best to start the day, with regard to exercise, washing, and clearing the digestive system: D’Órd in Dieta no Caithme in Bhidh—is e so e .i. intan éireochas neach sa mhaidin sínedh artús a lamha ocus a mhuinel ocus cuiredh aedaighi gu glan uime ocus indarbadh ainnsein imurcracha in cét dileaghtha ocus in dara dileagha ocus in treas dileaghtha le seiledh ocus le himurcrachaib na sróna ocus na bráighedh oir is iad so imarcracha an treas dileaghtha ocus aindsein coimleadh an corp dambia aimsir imcubidh aige arson fhuighill an alluis ocus in luaithrigh bis air in croicind oir ata in croicinn poiremhail ocus tairngidh cuigi gach ní bis ingar dó doréir g[alen] sa cét leabur de simplici medicina’ (p. 21, col. IX). The first postscript deals with blood-letting in different parts of the body. It begins: Nott let guruba sea hinduibh dlighear an adharc do cur maille fuiliughaidh. In cét inadh a clais cúil incinn ocus folmaighe si ona ballaibh ainmidhi ann sin ocus fóiridh tinneas in cind goháirighi ocus eslainti na súl ocus glantur (ocus) salchur na haighchi ocus do ní inadh na cuislinni ren aburtar sefalica (p. 30, col. XXVII). The writer frequently refers to other authors and texts, e.g.: Gidheadh is ferr na toirrthi uile do tregin ocus is uime sin innisis g[alen] a leabur follamhnaighti na slainti goraibhi a athair fén cét bliadhan ina bhethaidh arson nar chaith toirrthi (p. 25, col. XVIII). A word of warning is necessary in regard to Gillies’s remarks on the question of Irish versus Scottish Gaelic in this text. As noted above, he envisaged the text as having been originally composed in the Scottish Gaelic of a Beaton doctor, with an Irish overlay imparted by Irish scribes working for him. A more modern understanding of the linguistic situation would be that the educated classes in both Ireland and Scotland used a common, conservative form of Early Modern Gaelic for the purposes of written communication, while Irish and Scottish dialects of spoken Gaelic (the precursors of Modern Irish and Modern Scottish Gaelic) were emerging at a sub-literary level. In the case of this particular medical text, the evidence points to its having been written in Ireland (where a similar version of the same text is found in NLI MS G12, which can be consulted in Irish Script on Screen; see http://www.isos.dias.ie). In texts like this, where Scotticisms occur they are associated with Scottish scribes or with the annotations of Scottish doctors like the Beatons. Gillies’s discussion of linguistic questions (see especially pp. 15-16) is based on a pre-scientific understanding of the issues involved. It should be disregarded. Although it came to be domiciled in Scotland, Regimen Sanitatis was clearly written by Irish scribes, in all probability in Ireland. Its claim to be excerpted for Faclair na Gàidhlig is based on the degree to which its vocabulary and usage may have gained currency amongst members of the educated classes in Gaelic Scotland and hence come into use in Scottish Gaelic more generally.
Orthography
Edition	First edition. An electronic version of this text is available at https://celt.ucc.ie//published/G600010/index.html and images of the MS at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/medical/sanitatisndx.htm.
Other Sources
Further Reading	Bannerman, John, The Beatons: a medical kindred in the classical Gaelic tradition (Edinburgh, 1986: Donald). Färber, Beatrix, ‘Foreword to the Digital Edition’, CELT, https://celt.ucc.ie//published/G600010/index.html. Nic Dhonnchadha, Aoibheann, ‘Irish medical manuscripts’, Irish Pharmacy Journal, 69/5 (May 1991), 201-2. Nic Dhonnchadha, Aoibheann, ‘Medical writing in Irish’, in 2000 years of Irish medicine, ed. by J. B. Lyons (Dublin, [2000?]: Eireann Healthcare Pubns.), 21-26. Nic Dhonnchadha, Aoibheann, ‘Eagarthóir, téacs agus lámhscríbhinní: Winifred Wulff agus an Rosa Anglica’, in Oidhreacht na lámhscríbhinní. Léachtaí Cholm Cille 34, ed. by Ruairí Ó hUiginn (Maigh Nuad, 2004: An Sagart), 105-47. Thomson, Derick S., ed., The Companion to Gaelic Scotland (Glasgow, 1994: Gairm). Wulff, Winifred, Rosa Anglica, seu Rosa Medicinae Johannis Anglici. An early modern Irish translation of a section of the mediaeval medical textbook of John of Gaddesden (London, 1929: Irish Texts Society).
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