Practical medicine as education of the body. Thomas Elyot’s Castel of Helth

In 1539 Thomas Elyot, humanist and diplomat at the court of Henry VIII, published The Castel of Helth, the first regimen sanitatis writ- ten ex novo in English. Not a simple repeat of medical common- places drawn by Galenic tradition, this work was also aimed to non- physicians and people who could not read Latin. Its prescriptions acted on moral habits and pointed to educate the reader toward rea- soning and virtue. By appealing to the national pride of the English language, Elyot hoped to minder the vocation to excess in the ruling class, which was at that time so pernicious to the public weal.