Donkey milk knowledge archive · Historical source

Regimen sanitatis Salernitanum: donkey milk in a verse of the Salerno school

The medieval didactic poem “Regimen sanitatis Salernitanum” devotes a short verse to milk. For consumptives it recommends goat’s and camel’s milk and calls donkey milk “more nourishing than all” – only to say the same of cow’s and sheep’s milk in the next line.

Historical account: The information reproduced here reflects the knowledge of its time. It is not scientifically substantiated, is not a recommendation and cannot be applied to today. Donkey milk is a food, not a remedy.
13th c.Southern Italy (Salerno), spread throughout EuropeMedical didactic poem
Author
Anonymous, attributed to the “School of Salerno”
Work
Regimen sanitatis Salernitanum; edition with English translation by John Ordronaux, Philadelphia 1870
Passage
Ch. XXXIV “De lacte tabidis” (on milk for consumptives), p. 72 of Ordronaux’s edition
Time & place
core text probably 12th/13th century; edition quoted 1870 · Southern Italy (Salerno), spread throughout Europe
Type of source
Medical didactic poem

In the original words

What the original says

Lac phthisicis sanum caprinum post camelinum; / Ac nutritivum plus omnibus est asininum. / Plus nutritivum vaccinum, sic et ovinum. / Si febriat caput et doleat, non est bene sanum.

For the consumptive, goat’s milk is wholesome, then camel’s milk; / and more nourishing than all is the milk of the ass. / More nourishing is cow’s milk, and so is sheep’s. / If the head is feverish and aches, [milk] is not very wholesome.

LatinRegimen sanitatis Salernitanum, Kap. XXXIV „De lacte tabidis“ (ed. Ordronaux, Philadelphia 1870, S. 72)

English rendering: our own translation by the DON DONKEY’S editorial team, following the sense of the text.

Background

Who, when, what kind of text

From the 11th century the medical school of Salerno was a centre of European medicine. According to tradition, the “Regimen sanitatis Salernitanum” comes from its circle: a poem in memorable rhyming verse about a healthy way of life – eating, drinking, sleep, bloodletting. No author is known; the verses grew over generations and survive in manuscripts and prints of very different length.

With the commentary attributed to Arnald of Villanova, the poem spread in numerous printed editions from the late 15th century. We quote the bilingual edition of 1870 by the American lawyer and physician John Ordronaux. It gives the Latin text in numbered chapters with an English verse translation on the facing page. Other editions number the chapters differently.

Content

What the source reports about donkey milk

The short chapter XXXIV is headed “De lacte tabidis”, milk for the wasting. In four lines it names goat’s milk and then camel’s milk as wholesome for consumptives, declares donkey milk “more nourishing than all” and warns against milk when the head is feverish and aching.

The third line is striking: it also calls cow’s and sheep’s milk “more nourishing”. The contradiction with the preceding line is probably due to the long, inconsistent transmission; Ordronaux’s English version smooths it over and makes donkey milk more nutritious “e’en beyond all cows’ or sheeps’”.

Ordronaux adds further lines on cow’s milk from a Paris edition of 1861. They show how open the text was: each generation added, removed and rearranged verses.

At a glance

Figures & facts from the source

XXXIVchapter “De lacte tabidis” in Ordronaux’s edition
4lines make up the verse on milk
5kinds of milk: goat, camel, ass, cow, sheep
p. 72page of the Latin text (1870)
1870year of the edition quoted, Philadelphia

Fact check

Recorded or just told?

Widespread claim

The Regimen clearly calls donkey milk the most nourishing of all kinds of milk.

What the sources say

The Latin text is contradictory: line 2 calls donkey milk “more nourishing than all”, line 3 calls cow’s and sheep’s milk “more nourishing”. Only translations such as Ordronaux’s smooth over the contradiction.

Critical assessment

How reliable is this source?

Source value

The text is anonymous, hard to date and transmitted in many versions. The linked 1870 edition is a late, non-critical edition; older prints differ in wording in places. For the statement on donkey milk it is nevertheless a readable witness to the tradition.

Circulation

Hardly any medieval medical text was as popular. Through these mnemonic verses the idea of donkey milk as nourishing food for the sick reached far beyond the learned world.

Today’s assessment

“Consumption” referred above all to tuberculosis and other wasting diseases. The verses reflect medieval dietetics, do not substantiate any effect and cannot be applied to today; donkey milk is a food.

Our assessment

The Salerno verse shows how knowledge about donkey milk was passed on in the Middle Ages: not in learned treatises but in rhymes learned by heart. The fact that the text contradicts itself makes it all the more revealing for us.

References

Sources to check

More sources and studies in the research archive. Summarised by the DON DONKEY’S editorial team, as of November 2026.