“Thar be hounds, thar be homestead : these should be the focus of one’s labour” : Old Polish views on maintaining good health

Early modern medicine was based on the assumptions of humoral pathology that had its roots back in the ancient era. According to this view, maintaining good health was determined by keeping a balance between humors, which were the constituent elements of the body. The methods of treatment and prevention promoted by official medicine had a dominant influence on the perception of health by the intellectual and economic elites of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but to some extent they also shaped the behavior of other social groups (even peasants). The article is devoted to the analysis of propagated health behaviors as it compares them with the descriptions that are to be found in egodocuments from the era.