SALERNO, School of

Regimen sanitatis Salerni

      London, 1575 SALERNO, School of. Regimen sanitatis Salerni. This booke teachyng all people to governe the[m] in health is translated out of the Latine tongue into Englishe, by Thomas Paynell, whiche booke is amended, augmented, and diligently imprinted. London: Imprynted at London, by Wyllyam How, for Abraham Veale, 1575. Collation: 8vo: A8 **8 B-Y8, ff. [16] (the last blank) clxvii (i.e. clxviii). Black letter with Roman and Italic headings, the original Latin verse and shoulder notes in Roman. Title within a fleuron border, fleuron decorations, woodcut initials. Condition: 138 x 82mm. One or two shoulder notes in sig. X shaved; a little soiling but generally a good clean copy. Binding: Seventeenth-century panelled sheep. Rebacked, endleaves replaced, corners worn. Provenance: Early signature 'Albertus van Otten prae = 1s[ ]', cropped, at the head of the titlepage; another inscription, 'nottmgne'[?] further down the title; ex libris inscription of Thomas Prince in an Italic hand dated 1611 and of William Wersam dated 1651 on verso of title and a prescription in Prince's hand on the blank **8; Edwin Clarke (1919-1996). References: STC 21601; ESTC S116438; Wellcome 5390; Durling 3838; Heirs of Hippocrates 77. Sixth edition in English listed in STC (first 1528), translated by Thomas Paynell (d. 1564?), The Latin verses of the Regimen itself, attributed to John of Milan (fl. 1100) are printed with a translation of the extensive commentary attributed to Arnoldus of Villanova (d. 1311), which forms the bulk of the book. John's poem, supposed to have been written while he was head of the medical school at Salerno, is a manual of diet, hygiene and simple therapeutics. For centuries it was memorised by physicians and after the invention of printing published in nearly 300 editions. Geoffrey Eatough in Oxford DNB writes of Paynell's translation: 'A "temperate and moderate diete prolongeth man's life" is the keynote for a survey of the properties of all foods and drink, of remedies as "for parbraykynge on the sea" and of the psychology of illness. It has a clear analytical table of contents with careful instructions on how to locate a page. It was reprinted throughout the century and as late as 1634. The success of this book caused his publisher Thomas Berthelet to prompt Paynell to translate Ulrich von Hutten's De morbo Gallico (1533).' Paynell was a canon of Merton Priory in Surrey. He was educated at St Mary's College, the Austin canons' college at Oxford.