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Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus (September AD 129 – 199/217; Greek: Γαληνός, Galēnos, from adjective γαληνός, 'calm'), better known as Galen of Pergamon (modern-day Bergama, Turkey), was a prominent Roman (of Greek ethnicity) physician, surgeon and philosopher.<br/><br/>

Arguably the most accomplished of all medical researchers of antiquity, Galen contributed greatly to the understanding of numerous scientific disciplines including anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology and neurology, as well as philosophy and logic.<br/><br/>

The first major translator of Galen into Arabic was the Syrian Christian Hunayn ibn Ishaq. Hunayn translated (c.830-870) 129 works of 'Jalinos' into Arabic. One of the Arabic translations, ‘Kitab ila Aglooqan fi Shifa al Amraz’, which is extant in the Library of Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences, is a masterpiece of all literary works of Galen.<br/><br/>

Although they are hardly visible in the ‘Galenic corpus’ as it stands, many works that were once attributed to Galen are now ascribed to a ‘Pseudo-Galen’ and rarely give any additional information about the author’s identity.
The Tacuinum (sometimes Taccuinum) Sanitatis is a medieval handbook on health and wellbeing, based on the Taqwim al‑sihha تقويم الصحة ('Maintenance of Health'), an eleventh-century Arab medical treatise by Ibn Butlan of Baghdad.<br/><br/>

Ibn Butlân was a Christian physician born in Baghdad and who died in 1068. He sets forth the six elements necessary to maintain daily health: food and drink, air and the environment, activity and rest, sleep and wakefulness, secretions and excretions of humours, changes or states of mind (happiness, anger, shame, etc). According to Ibn Butlân, illnesses are the result of changes in the balance of some of these elements, therefore he recommended a life in harmony with nature in order to maintain or recover one’s health.<br/><br/>

Ibn Butlân also teaches us to enjoy each season of the year, the consequences of each type of climate, wind and snow. He points out the importance of spiritual wellbeing and mentions, for example, the benefits of listening to music, dancing or having a pleasant conversation.<br/><br/>

Aimed at a cultured lay audience, the text exists in several variant Latin versions, the manuscripts of which are characteristically profusely illustrated. The short paragraphs of the treatise were freely translated into Latin in mid-thirteenth-century Palermo or Naples, continuing an Italo-Norman tradition as one of the prime sites for peaceable inter-cultural contact between the Islamic and European worlds.<br/><br/>

Four handsomely illustrated complete late fourteenth-century manuscripts of the Taccuinum, all produced in Lombardy, survive, in Vienna, Paris, Liège and Rome, as well as scattered illustrations from others, as well as fifteenth-century codices.