I am very pleased to offer to the reader this new critical edition and translation of Maimonides’ treatise On the Regimen of Health. The edition contains the original Arabic text, the medieval Hebrew translations and the Latin translations, the latter edited by Michael McVaugh. On the Regimen of Health was composed at an unknown date at the request of al-Malik al-Afḍal Nūr al-Dīn ʿAlī, Saladin’s eldest son who complained of constipation, indigestion, and depression. The treatise enjoyed great popularity in Jewish circles, as it was translated three times into Hebrew as far as we know now, namely by Moses ben Samuel ibn Tibbon in the year 1244, by an anonymous translator, and by Zeraḥyah ben Isaac ben Sheʾaltiel Ḥen who was active as a translator in Rome between 1277 and 1291. Of the translation by Moses ibn Tibbon we have three anonymous independent adaptations of the original text dating from the fourteenth until the sixteenth century. Especially in Italian Jewish circles in the fourteenth and fifteenth century his translation seems to have been in demand, as six manuscripts were copied in Italy, four in Italian script and two more in a different script in that very same period. Maimonides’ On the Regimen of Health is frequently mentioned, consulted and quoted in Hebrew literature; in the thirteenth century by Judah ben Samuel ibn Abbas and Shem Tov ibn Falaquera; in the fourteenth century by Israel ben Joseph Caslari, Joseph ben Abba Mari ibn Kaspi, Menaḥem ben Aaron ibn Zeraḥ and Meir Aldabi. The physician Tobias ben Moses Cohn (1652–1729) quotes from Maimonides’ On the Regimen of Health in his Maʿaseh Tuviyyah which was “the most influential Hebrew textbook of the sciences, especially medicine.”
The Arabic text of Maimonides’ On the Regimen of Health has been edited and translated in the past by the German physician Hermann Kroner. However, his edition suffers from mistakes and incorrect readings, which can be partly explained from the defective state of the manuscript. The Hebrew translation by Moses ibn Tibbon was edited by Süssmann Muntner with extensive introduction, notes and explanations. But, unfortunately Muntner’s edition is uncritical, eclectic and contains several mistakes. This edition became the basis for modern translations into English, German, Italian, and Spanish which are flawed because of the corrupt source they consulted. Bar-Sela, Hoff and Faris provided a new English translation on the basis of the Arabic text under consultation of the Hebrew and Latin translation. As this translation is in general accurate and only suffers from occasional mistakes, I have consulted it extensively for my own translation, for which opportunity I am very grateful. This new edition is part of an ongoing project aiming at critically editing Maimonides’ medical works which had not been edited at all or had been edited, but not in reliable editions. This project started in 1995 thanks to the support of the Wellcome Trust in London and now enjoys the generous support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The first ten volumes in the series, i.e., On Asthma (2 vols.), Medical Aphorisms (5 vols.), On Hemorrhoids, On Poisons and the Protection against Lethal Drugs, and On Rules Regarding the Practical Part of the Medical Art have been published by the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative at Brigham Young University’s Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. The series is now continued by E.J. Brill, Leiden and has led to the publication of one further volume, i.e., On Coitus. I thank Felix Hedderich and Fabian Käs for their great help in checking the proofs.