When on military expedition in India, don't forget the rhubarb

“Secretum Secretorum”, originally known as “Kitab Sirr Al-Asrar”, is a peculiar work which was apparently widely read in Europe during the Middle Ages. It's purportedly a series of letters from Aristotle to Alexander the Great. Its actual origins are obscure. The earliest manuscripts are apparently Arabic. Later, the work was translated to Latin. The first English edition was published in 1526. This edition is “translated” to modern English to enhance readability.

I never read any scholarly analysis of The Secret of Secrets, but judging from the text, it's probably a Christian work with all overt references to Christianity excised, since it's supposed to have been written long before the birth of Christ. “Secretum” does contain Biblical allusions, and at one point mentions the Book of Maccabees, which was regarded as canon by Christians but not by Rabbinical Jews. Here, the author made a mistake: the Book, or rather Books, of Maccabees deal with events centuries *after* the death of Alexander, making the reference a glaring anachronism.

The book itself sounds rather silly, at least to modern ears, with its moralistic commonplaces, basic medical and gastronomic advice, and phrenology-related speculations. Here is a direct quote: “When you eat, do so by leisure, though you have great appetite to eat. For if you eat greedily, naughty humors do multiply, the stomach is laden, the body is grieved, the heart is hurt, and the meat remains in the stomachs' bottom undigested.” And here is another: “Beware therefore that you drink not wine outrageously, but move and change the nature thereof with rhubarb which causes the liver to live. And wine with rhubarb has many virtues as is found plainly in books of physic. Howbeit rhubarb and wine be both deadly venom if they be outrageously taken. And surely all evils come of wine unmeasurably drunken.”

We can't say we haven't been warned.