Ibn Butlan

(c. 1001 - 1066)

Likely born in Baghdad, physician Ibn Butlan wrote his famous Almanac of Health, a manual offering tips on hygiene, medicine, cooking, and how to live a healthy life, around 1046. He later traveled widely, reaching Aleppo, Constantinople, and Cairo, where he engaged in intellectual warfare with the physician Ibn Ridwan over whether a young chicken is warmer than a young bird; the dispute ended with Ibn Butlan fleeing Cairo with diminished medical prospects. He later wrote a satirical novella about a pair of doctors squabbling, The Doctors’ Dinner Party.

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