Pick Your Poison

Discourses on a sober and temperate life

This is a reprint of a 16th-century treatise where the author, Lewis Cornaro, advocates for a restrictive diet, calling it the key to longevity. At age 35 and near death, doctors advised him to limit his intake of food and wine significantly. After adopting a new, restrictive regimen, he went on to live another 63 years. Discourses on a sober life, his first treatise encouraging food and alcohol restriction, was translated into English and released in numerous editions over the next 300 years. In the 18th century, the text was co-opted by temperance movements in the US and around the world.