Book Review

摘要

The six non-naturals – air, food and drink, sleep and waking, movement and rest, retention and evacuation, and the emotions – are the focus of this outstanding edited collection, which emerged from a conference on ‘Healthy living in pre-modern Europe’. The non-naturals had their roots in ancient medicine, were standardised in works by Arabic medical authors, were central to medieval regimens of health, and continued to underpin the approach of early modern people to maintaining and restoring health. They can be, and have been, presented in slightly different ways by both scholars and early modern writers. The editors of this volume frame them as breathing, eating and drinking, sleeping, exercising, cleansing the body, and managing the passions of the soul; and characterise them as ‘spheres of life’.