Kitap 1
3
The season of the year also merits consideration. In winter it is fitting to eat more, and to drink less but of a stronger wine, to use much bread, meat preferably boiled, vegetables sparingly; to take a single meal unless the bowels are too costive. If a meal is taken at midday, it is better that it should be somewhat scanty, and that dry, without meat, and without drinking. At that season everything taken should be hot or heat-promoting. Venery then is not so pernicious. But in spring food should be reduced a little, the drink added to, but, however, of wine more diluted; more meat along with vegetables should be taken, passing gradually from boiled to roast. Venery is safest at this season of the year. But in summer the body requires both food and drink oftener, and so it is proper in addition to take a meal at midday. At that season both meat and vegetables are most appropriate; wine that is much diluted in order that thirst may be relieved without heating the body; laving with cold water, roasted meat, cold food or food which is cooling. But just as food is taken more frequently, so there should be less of it. In autumn owing to changes in the weather there is most danger. Hence it is not good to go out of doors unless well covered, and with thick shoes, especially on the colder days; nor at night to sleep in the open air, or at any rate to be well covered. A little more food may now be taken, the wine less in quantity but stronger. Some think orchard fruit injurious, which is generally the case when eaten immoderately all day, without reducing more substantial food. Hence it is not the fruit but the heaping of all things together which does harm, but in none of them all is there less harm than in the fruit. But it is not fitting to eat of it oftener than other kinds of food, and when eaten, it is necessary to subtract some of the more substantial food. But venery is useful neither in summer nor in autumn; it is more tolerable nevertheless in autumn, in summer it is to be abstained from entirely, if that possibly be done.
