240 Aster History; THE REGIMEN 
Plant remedies and diseases form however by no means the 
chief subject of the Regimen. It discusses air, food, exercise, 
sleep, bodily functions and temperaments. It attempts its greatest 
exactitude in telling the number of the bones, putting the number 
219* into such a form of verbal jugglery as to fasten it to the 
memory : 
Ossibus ex denis bis centenisque novenis. 
So with the number of the teeth, 32: 
Constat homo, denis bis dentibus, et duodenis ; 
and it even assumes to count the veins, 365 : 
Et ter centenis decies sex quinqueque venis. 
A great effort with the Regimen was to mark out the four 
temperaments, outlined in much detail. Characteristic lines in- 
clude these: of the sanguine (agreeing with its description in 
Galen and Avicenna ds 
Natura pingues isti sunt, atque jocantes, 
senha noves cupiunt audire frequentes, 
Hos Venus et Bacchus delectant, fercula, risus 
Et facit fins hilares et dulcia verba loquentes. 
Largus, amans, hilaris videns, rubrique coloris ; 
the bilious, 
Hirsuta, fallax, irascens, prodigus, audax, 
Astutus, gracilis, siccus, croceique coloris ; 
the phlegmatic, 
Est huic sensus habes pinguis facie color albus ; 
the melancholic, 
Non expers fraudis, timidus, luteique coloris. 
The Regimen Salerni does not mention the Aster ; in fact the 
plants in it are few and all are common, and under their usual 
ee eS ae 
as to their exact number Arnald remarks ‘* Haud ‘parv a dissensio inter 
scriptores,’’ saying ** here 219 are claimed, but Joannes Tagaultius, "usta physi- 
cian of our age, claims 246 in this distic 
Adde quater denis bina centum senaque, habebis 
Quam sit multiplici conditus esse semel. ; 
And some make 304. Rhazes proves them to be 248 by authority of Galen} with 
which agrees the vudgatissimus versiculus 
Ossa ducentena atque quater sunt et duodena.”’ 
Reference to anatomy to decide, rather than to Galen, which we should have eX- 
pected in aa of the bones. comes at last when Arnald would consider the 365 veins, 
saying o 
Cuius rei certitudo ex anatomia petenda est. 
