- Thus Spoke Zarathustra

"A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet"

- Akira Kurosawa

A Glass of Wine with Caesar Borgia,
By John Collier

- The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, by Roy Porter

The four humours in ancient medicine

Dante Alighieri referred to Aristotle in his Divine Comedy as “The Master of Those Who Know.” 

He ran and ran and found no one else and was alone and found himself again and again and enjoyed and relished his solitude and thought of good things, for hours on end. About the hour of noon, however, when the sun stood  exactly over his head, he passed by an old gnarled and crooked tree which was embraced around by the abundant love of a vine and hidden from itself: from the vine an abundance of yellow grapes hung down to the wanderer. Then he felt a desire to relieve a little thirst and to pluck himself a grape; but when he had already extended his arm to do so, he felt an even greater desire to do something else: that is, to lie down beside the tree at the hour of perfect noon and sleep.
This he did; and no sooner had he lain down upon the ground, in the stillness and secrecy of the multicoloured grass, than he forgot his little thirst and fell asleep.

- Thus Spoke Zarathustra

how little attains happiness!’ Thus I spoke once and thought myself wise. But it was a blasphemy: I have learned that now. Wise fools speak better.

Precisely the least thing, the gentlest, lightest, the rustling of a lizard, a breath, a moment, a twinkling of the eye – little makes up the quality of the best happiness.

- Thus Spoke Zarathustra

To cure night-blindness in ancient Egypt, fried ox liver was to be taken, possibly a tried-and-tested procedure, as liver is rich in vitamin A, lack of which causes the illness.

but other remedies sound more exotic, including a drink prepared from black ass testicles, or a mixture of vulva and penis extracts and a black lizard, designed to cure baldness. Also good for hair growth was a compound of hippopotamus, lion, crocodile, goose, snake and ibex fat.

- The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, by Roy Porter

فيتامين A بيه قصص غريبة:
أولًا، الكميات الزايدة منه تنخزن بالكبد لأنّه فيتامين ذائب بالدهون.

النقص مالته يسبب العشى الليلي (من بين أشياء أُخرى)، اللي هو فقدان الرؤية بالليل وبالضوء الضعيف، بس بالنهار تكون رؤيتك جيدة نسبيًا.
المصريين القدماء جانوا يعالجون العشى الليلي، اللي هو من أعراض نقص فيتامين A باستخدام كبد ثور مقلي بالدهن لأنه ببساطة يحتوي على فيتامين A فيعوّض النقص.

بالمقابل، الإنويت Inuit (نفسهم الإسكيمو) يمتنعون عن أكل كبد الدببة القطبية ونوع من الفقمات (bearded seals) لأن كمية فيتامين A اللي بيهن عالية كلش لدرجة تسببلهم تسمم بالفيتامين:
Hypervitaminosis A

Also, too much vitamin A (hypervitaminosis A) can cause hypercalcemia

خادم الحسين

Make frequent visits; be especially careful in your examinations . . . Keep a watch also on the faults of the patients, which often make them lie about the taking of things prescribed. For through not taking disagreeable drinks, purgative or other, they sometimes die. What they have done never results in a confession, but the blame is thrown upon the physician.

- Decorum (honourable conduct), by Hippocrates

مَن قاسَ قَدَّك بالغُصنِ الرَّطيبِ فَقَد
أضحى القياسُ به زورًا وبُهتانا

الغُصنُ أحسَنُ ما نَلقاهُ مُكتَسِيًا
وأنتَ أحسَنُ ما نَلقاكَ عُريانا

فَقُلنَ له: نحنُ بناتٌ ونَخافُ أنْ نودِعَ السرَّ عندَ مَن لا يَحفَظُه، وقَد قرأنا في الأخبارِ شِعرًا:
صُنْ عَن سواكَ السرَّ لا تودِعهُ
مَن أودَعَ السرَّ فَقَد ضَيَّعَه

فَلَمّا سَمِعَ الحمّالُ كلامَهُن قال: وحياتِكُنّ إنّي رجلٌ عاقلٌ أمين، قرأتُ الكتبَ وطالَعتُ التواريخَ، أُظهِرُ الجميلَ وأُخفي القَبيح، وأعمَلُ بِقَول الشاعِر:
لا يَكتُمُ السرَّ إلا كُلُّ ذي ثِقَةٍ
والسرُّ عِندَ خِيارِ الناسِ مَكتومُ
السرُّ عندي في بَيتٍ لهُ عَلَقٌ
ضاعَت مَفاتِحُهُ والبابُ مَختومُ