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Wu Ji is a character from the classic Ming Dynasty novel 'Fengshen Yanyi'. In the novel, Wu Ji was a common woodcutter from the Western Foothills. Every day, while he was cutting wood, he would notice the sage Jiang Ziya sitting beneath a large willow tree while fishing without bait.<br/><br/> Eventually, Wu Ji became curious and asked the sage what his name was, laughing when Jiang would tell him his by-name was Flying Bear, since only high-ranking or learned officials could have by-names. Wu Ji mocks Jiang, who thens tells Wu Ji that he will kill a person today. Wu Ji angrily takes his leave at being cursed. True to Jiang's word, Wu Ji accidentally killed someone that day, and rushed back to plead for help from the sage, who agreed to help only after Wu Ji vowed to become Jiang's disciple.<br/><br/> He continued to serve as Jiang's disciple faithfully, and when Ji Chang, also known as King Wen of Zhou, and his entourage arrived at the River Pan, Wu Ji led them to his master's house. After Jiang Ziya was recruited by Ji Chang and promoted to Prime Minister, Wu Ji went with him and attained the rank of general.
Hand-coloured illustration from a Japanese miscellany on traditional trades, crafts and customs in mid-18th century Japan, dated Meiwa Era (1764-1772) Year 6 (c. 1770 CE).
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.