Galen (2nd cent.) promotes experience and reason as the two pillars of his medical-educational process. In his treatise On the powers of simple drugs, he criticizes the “Sophists’” method of demonstration based on induction and example. Yet he himself resorts to examples, giving them a prominent place in the demonstrative process. Rāzī (9th cent.) exemplifies medical theory and practice resorting to stories from all kinds of people, many of them outside the medical milieu. In his treatise Spiritual book (Kitāb ṭibb al-ruḥanī), Rāzī tries to keep out malaise, discomfort and unease. He undertakes this task putting daily life under close scrutiny and giving simple examples of ordinary circumstances recognized by everyone. He showcases the difficulty of achieving a balanced and healthy condition of mind and body and reaching human happiness. These points seem closer to the so-called “non-natural” or ”six” causes than to the usual rules of disease care. Both Galen and Rāzī transform situations everyone could meet in “real life” into pieces of medical evidence. Yet “real life” is not independent of time. In the Renaissance, the erudite humanists who use Galen’s work as the source of medical education have to reconcile their respect for his authority with their own intellectual and social context. How do they handle this challenging situation? Less erudite works aimed at “professionals” engage with religious beliefs and practices as part of the readers’ “real life”, without an explicit link to piety. Our aim is to diachronically study a selection of non-medical examples in their medical context or more generally in a wellness setting. We would like to focus on the transformation of their nature and use in the framework of knowledge transmission and innovation. Medicine is not mere rhetoric, yet the rhetoric of persuasion, including thoughtful engagement with “real life”, plays a crucial role for an education whose roots are erudite and whose branches flourish transcending time and place.