[Ancient dietetics - lifestyle and medicine]

The wide reaching meaning of eating and drinking is already recognized in antiquity. The declared aim of antique dietetics is the upbringing to a healthy lifestyle. Fundamental considerations of dietetic, theoretically organized ideas can be traced back to the Presocratics, who, for the first time in cultural history, let themselves be guided by direct observations from nature. Working from the meaning of dietetics as pure nutritional teaching, one can see in the Corpus Hippocraticum a significant, systematic attempt to put forth dietetics as a concept of lifestyle. Here a central aspect is that of equilibrium, as it is expressed in the rule of the four humours. Dietetics continually become a connecting link between Natural Philosophy and Anthropology and a lifestyle orientated to nature. Finally, Galen introduces a further systematization of the already existing and the increasingly modified. Nutrition and health are brought into association and the theoretical presupposed practically overturned. In late Antiquity dietetical outlooks continue to be discussed, which were transferred to the Middle Ages and still show practical relevance.