UCC's Department of History has put 915 Irish manuscripts online as part of its Celt project. Eoin Burke-Kennedyfocuses on the medical journals
The regime begins at a leisurely pace with some light stretches upon waking. Focus is on the chest, back and upper arms to ease out stiffness built up during slumber.
One is then encouraged to expel any excess mucus or "superfluities" resident in the nose, throat or chest. (Best done in a secluded corner, not to evoke the disgust of your room mate.)
This is followed by an all-over body rub to remove impurities in the skin, in particular "the remnants of sweat and dust" from the previous day.
The head and hands are then washed thoroughly in cold water after which a melon leaf is rubbed vigorously back and forth across the teeth and gums. In the absence of a melon leaf, the skin of a yellow apple is advised.
This is followed by some moderate exercise, preferably a brisk walk in an upland area, which is rewarded with a light repast to be consumed directly after exercise so as to aid digestion.
You'd be forgiven for confusing these rituals with some modern detox programme but they're taken from the Regimen Sanitatis (The Rule of Health), an Irish medical manuscript dating from the 15th century.
As if the comparison to modern dietary fads needed further example, the text advocates staggering the intake of certain foods which it says do not combine well when digested.
"When the mild food is eaten after the fat food it is quickly digested and the fat food is not, and it will be in that time seeking a way out and it cannot get it because the fat food is below; and it comes of that that the one is mixed with the other and they are all corrupted."
The Regimen Sanitatis is just one of 915 Irish manuscripts which University College Cork's Department of History has put online as part of its Corpus of Electronic Texts (Celt) project.
The latest instalment includes a collection of medical manuscripts dating from as far back as the 1300s which contain various cures and practices used by the physicians of the time.
Health was as important an issue in late medieval and early modern Ireland as it is today, says medical manuscripts expert Dr Aoibheann Nic Dhonnchadha from the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
"The manuscripts discuss the impact that various foods might have on a person's well-being, and the ways in which environmental factors such as quality of water and purity of soil might impact on him," she says.
"Medieval physicians also show a keen awareness of the effect that psychological factors have on human beings and they repeatedly stress the importance of regular exercise, for all age groups, in the maintenance of health," she says.
Nic Dhonnchadha believes the standard of medical care available in Ireland in medieval times compared favourably with that provided in other European countries.
"While no record of patient satisfaction with the Irish medical system of the time exists, the texts do give comprehensive and unequivocal evidence regarding the academic curriculum followed in Irish medical schools," she says.
Although the medicine in these texts reflect the dominance of humoralism - a belief that disease arose from an imbalance of humours in the body, they shed light on how physicians understood disease and the methods they employed to combat it.
A detailed account of the varieties of smallpox and how the contagion presents are found in the Irish version of Rosa Anglica, a late medieval manuscript attributed to John of Gaddesden, an Oxford physician.
The text specifies that if the disease is accompanied by white pustules that are few and large, "it is better as they come out easily and the fever accompanying them is low".
"But if they be white, small and hard, close together, and come out with difficulty, it is bad, for they are produced by thick matter, which kills often quicker than they can be ripened," it observes.
Warts, abscesses and open sores appear to have afflicted our ancestors in greater measure, judging by the inordinate amount of attention they receive in the texts.
One of the remedies for warts in the Rosa Anglica advises sufferers that it was good to cut them off, "and to cauterize the place, so that too much blood may not flow from them".
But it also recommends the application of burnt willow bark mixed with vinegar as a cure for warts and ficcus (soft warts near the anus). Ouch!
One of the more unusual cures was the use of peacock's droppings to heal "felons" (inflamed sores). How readily available such exotic excrement was in medieval Ireland remains to be seen.
There are more than 100 Irish medical manuscripts in extant in Irish, Scottish and English libraries.
Nic Dhonnchadha explains the texts contain many words from botany and medicine that have never been included in the major dictionaries, because most manuscripts were never transcribed.
"It is especially interesting to see parts of the Irish text that do not correspond to the Latin model.
"If ingredients for cures are not available, the doctor replaces them by more suitable ingredients."
Her research shows that many Irish physicians came from hereditary families, running medical schools in different parts of the country.
The Celt project is now one of the largest online repository of resources relating to Irish history and culture.
Director of Celt, Donnchadha Ó Corráin, says "tracing the development and practice of medicine and pharmacy in late medieval and early modern Ireland is not only of intrinsic interest, it brings together several disciplines across the sciences and humanities which illustrate the history of one of man's most important goods: health".