This volume is the fourth and most recent in a series projected for seven, making the twenty‐five medical aphorisms treatises of Spanish‐born Rabbi, philosopher, and physician Moshe ben Maimon/Musa bin Maimun (1135–1204 CE), also known as Rambam, accessible to contemporary research in a well‐done critical edition. It is part of an ambitious endeavor to publish all of the medical works by this prolific medieval author, an undertaking nestled within the overarching Middle Eastern Texts initiative sponsored by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Given the very specialized subject matter and its excellent scholarly presentation, in addition to the high quality of the printing of both the English and the Arabic (and the occasional Hebrew), the binding, and the overall layout of the book, the price is just a token and appears to be heavily subsidized. The support for such truly scholastic enterprise is to be lauded, especially in a time obsessed with scientific and technological progress at the expense of caring for the cultivation of historical awareness.

The core of the book consists of the annotated bilingual, side‐by‐side presentation of the collections of Maimonides’ medical aphorisms about women (16, pp. 1–16), the regimen of health (17, pp. 17–36), physical exercise (18, pp. 37–44), bathing (19, pp. 45–60), foods, beverages, and their consumption (20, pp. 61–94), and drugs (21, pp. 95–138). (The pagination is unusual, with odd pages on the verso.) The core is preceded by a list of “Sigla and Abbreviations,” a foreword by the publisher, an introduction by the editor, and a catalogue‐like critical listing of existing manuscripts of the Kitāb al‐fusūl fī al‐ţibb (pp. ix–xxix). The edition is supplemented by a critical comparison of the Arabic text with the Hebrew translations and the translations into English (pp. 140–43), extensive notes to the English translation (pp. 144–77), three separate bibliographies (translations of works by or attributed to Maimonides, editions of works by Galen, general bibliography; pp. 178–85), a subject index to the English translation, a “botanicals” [!] index (pp. 186–200), and a list of addenda and corrigenda to the fifteen treatises previously published in volumes 1–3 of the series.

While the reviewer cannot comment on the Arabic, he noted with delight the thoroughgoing critical editorial method applied and the care taken to present the texts in as correct a manner as possible. This is scholarship at its best. It invites serious engagement with the materials thus presented even by those who are not philologists of classical or medieval Arabic. Maimonides’ works open a window into the way of thinking about health care by an accomplished physician in the high Middle Ages in and around the Mediterranean Sea; Maimonides died in Cairo, Egypt. Thus, his medical aphorisms reflect not only the multicultural reality in that area at that time by writing in Arabic and quoting from Greek, Latin, and Arabic sources; they also show a pragmatic attitude informed by his own medical practice in treating complaints even when authorities like Hippocrates or Galen teach otherwise (see 16:4; 19:26; 20:67, 82).

The book is a treasure trove for historians of medicine and cultural anthropologists as well as for general readers, because it gives an informed, sometimes delightful insight into medical and therapeutic concepts of the time based on the idea of humoral balance as taught by Galen and others. If the humors are out of balance, disease sets in. The task of the physician is to help people stay healthy and if they fall ill to advise them on proper diet and exercise to regain the balance. Rest is regarded as being “very bad for the maintenance of one's health just as moderate movement is very beneficial” (17:1). “One,” therefore, “should not neglect the movement of one's body as scholars do, who diligently study the entire night and day” but that “the body and all its limbs … be moved evenly” (17:4). Yet, one should “not only … exert the body, but also … gladden and delight the soul” (18:2), because “the soul has eminence over the body.” Thus, “in all kinds of exercise one should strive after a combination of exertion with joy, pleasure, and gladness” (18:3).

When it comes to medical intervention, Maimonides stresses the tradition that “the knowledge of the powers of … foods is nearly the most useful kind of knowledge in the field of medicine, since there is a constant and never ending need for food, during both health and sickness” (20:2). Consequently, most of what one finds mentioned in the treatise on “drugs” has to do with plants, liquids, and meats used as food around the Mediterranean Sea (see also 20:6–89), because “a treatment with nutriments that have therapeutic powers is better than a treatment with drugs that have alimentary powers.” Physicians are admonished to “be careful not to use pure drugs, unless … forced to do so for some reason” (21:1) while they at the same time should keep in mind that “not every medication is beneficial for every person; rather, for each person there is a medication appropriate for him” (21:30). In a remarkably bold statement, Maimonides states, “If someone makes himself remember that which is not necessary to remember, it causes a deficient remembrance even of the things that should be remembered. Therefore, I advise remembering [only] the natures of the drugs that are often used in any place, whose names are well known, and that are employed internally” (21:67); this means that “the total number of drugs whose degrees should be remembered because of their frequent use is two hundred and sixty‐five” (21:86), not more!

When writing about bathing, the modern reader is surprised to find no mention of bathing as a means of personal hygiene or pleasure. Maimonides, instead, gives balneotherapeutical instructions by pointing out the medicinal properties of hot or cold baths, of the quality of the water (19:6, 7, 11), of water temperature, and the overall moisture in the bathhouse (19:32, 34). “Bathing evacuates only” the bad humors which are “near the skin,” whereas that “which is deep inside the body, spread in the flesh, is not” affected (19:1).

Ultimately, all concern for well‐being is not for the purpose of staying healthy as such but for bestowing “excellent ethical qualities” (17:17), because “one's moral character is impaired by bad habits in food, drink, exercise, sights, and sounds” (17:18). While one might doubt Maimonides’ judgment that “if pregnant women constantly eat quinces, it improves the moral quality of their children” (20:87), one cannot but wonder about his astuteness in sharing the tradition and his own experience by informing professional colleagues about what to do and what to abstain from.

Besides the excellent editorial scholarship seen in this book, which certainly will yield its fruits in studies yet to come, the gain for the average reader of this kind of first‐hand information from the Middle Ages is surprising, to say the least. May there be many individuals and libraries who, by acquiring a copy of this text, dare to be as courageous as the publisher in sponsoring the printing of these medieval documents of medical, botanical, and existential human knowledge.