In the new medical manuals written in the later sixteenth century, unhealthy fatness was defined as ‘obesity’, and people who suffered from this ailment were separated into two camps – those with ‘natural’ obesity, destined to be fat from birth due to their God-given balance of humours, and ‘unnatural’, which was related to an imbalance of humours caused by intemperate food intake (among other things).16 For physicians to diagnose which type of fatness applied, they needed to scrutinise the patient’s appearance. According to Gabriele Falloppio, naturally obese people are ‘moist and cold… white
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