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Ibn Butlan

Ibn Butlan was a Christian physician of Baghdad, working within Arabic-Islamic medicine, who travelled to Cairo and Constantinople and ended his life in Antioch.…

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ابن بطلان

Also known as Abū al-Ḥasan al-Mukhtār ibn Buṭlān

d. 1066 · Baghdad; Cairo; Constantinople; Antioch

Traditions: Islamic

Ibn Butlan was a Christian physician of Baghdad, working within Arabic-Islamic medicine, who travelled to Cairo and Constantinople and ended his life in Antioch. His Taqwīm al-Ṣiḥḥa set out the maintenance of health in compact tables covering foods, drinks, air, exercise, sleep and the emotions. Translated into Latin as the Tacuinum Sanitatis, it circulated widely in medieval Europe. It places food and drink within a whole framework of regimen rather than treating them in isolation.

Key ideas

  • Health is preserved by balancing the 'non-naturals': air, food and drink, motion and rest, sleep and waking, retention and evacuation, and the emotions.
  • Each food has properties, benefits and harms, and the harms can be corrected by preparation or combination.
  • Good eating is a matter of regimen, fitted to the person, the season and the place.
  • Medical knowledge can be organised in tables so that it is quick to consult.

Major works

  • Taqwīm al-Ṣiḥḥa (The Maintenance of Health; Latin Tacuinum Sanitatis)
  • Daʿwat al-Aṭibbāʾ (The Physicians' Dinner Party)

In the conversation

In the Coordinates

The questions of philosophy where Ibn Butlan takes a place, from The Coordinates of Thought.