Humorism

This article is about humors in ancient and medieval medicine. For the modern theory of temperament, see four temperaments. For humors in Ayurvedic medicine, see Ayurveda.
The four temperaments as depicted in an 18th-century woodcut: phlegmatic, choleric, sanguine and melancholic.

Humorism, or humoralism, was a system of medicine detailing the makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers, positing that an excess or deficiency of any of four distinct bodily fluids in a person—known as humors or humours—directly influences their temperament and health. It is also present in the Indian Ayurveda system of medicine.

The humoralist system of medicine was highly individualistic, for each individual patient was said to have their own unique humoral composition.[1] Moreover, it resembled a holistic approach to medicine as the link between mental and physical processes were emphasized by this framework.[2] Ayurveda, which is known to have been practiced in the 6th century C.E, names three elemental substances, the doshas (called Vata, Pitta and Kapha). Ayurveda is still widely practiced in India. From Hippocrates onward, the humoral theory was adopted by Greek, Roman and Islamic physicians, and became the most commonly held view of the human body among European physicians until the advent of modern medical research in the nineteenth century. The concept has not been used in medicine since then.[3][4]

The four humors of Hippocratic medicine are black bile (Greek: μέλαινα χολή, melaina chole), yellow bile (Greek: χολή, chole), phlegm (Greek: φλέγμα, phlegma), and blood (Greek: αἷμα, haima), and each corresponds to one of the traditional four temperaments. A humor is also referred to as a cambium (pl. cambia or cambiums).[5]

Four humors

Essentially, this theory holds that the human body is filled with four basic substances, called humors, which are in balance when a person is healthy. All diseases and disabilities supposedly resulted from an excess or deficit of one of these four humors. These deficits were thought to be caused by vapors inhaled or absorbed by the body. The four humors are black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. These terms only partly correspond to the modern medical terminology, in which there is no distinction between black and yellow bile, and in which phlegm has a very different meaning. These "humors" may have their roots in the appearance of a blood sedimentation test made in open air, which exhibits a dark clot at the bottom ("black bile"), a layer of unclotted erythrocytes ("blood"), a layer of white blood cells ("phlegm") and a layer of clear yellow serum ("yellow bile"). It was believed that these were the basic substances from which all liquids in the body were made.[6]

Greeks and Romans, and the later Muslim and Western European medical establishments that adopted and adapted classical medical philosophy, believed that each of these humors would wax and wane in the body, depending on diet and activity. When a patient was suffering from a surplus or imbalance of one of these four fluids, then said patient's personality and or physical health could be negatively affected. This theory was closely related to the theory of the four elements: earth, fire, water and air; earth predominantly present in the black bile, fire in the yellow bile, water in the phlegm, and all four elements present in the blood.[7]

Paired qualities were associated with each humor and its season. The word humor is a translation of Greek χυμός,[8] chymos (literally juice or sap, metaphorically flavor). At around the same time, ancient Indian Ayurveda medicine had developed a theory of three humors, which they linked with the five Hindu elements.[9]

The following table shows the four humors with their corresponding elements, seasons, sites of formation, and resulting temperaments alongside their modern equivalents:[10]

Humour Season Ages Element Organ Qualities Temperament
Blood spring infancy air liver warm and moist sanguine
Yellow bile summer youth fire spleen warm and dry choleric
Black bile autumn adulthood earth gallbladder cold and dry melancholic
Phlegm winter old age water brain/lungs cold and moist phlegmatic

Blood

The blood was believed to be produced exclusively by the liver.[11][12]:103–105

Yellow bile

Excess of yellow bile was thought to produce aggression, and excess anger reciprocally gave rise to liver derangement and imbalances in the humors.

Black bile

The word "melancholy" derives from Greek μέλαινα χολή (melaina kholé) meaning 'black bile', from the belief that an excess of black bile caused depression.

Phlegm

Phlegm was thought to be associated with apathetic behavior, as preserved in the word "phlegmatic" /flɛgˈmatɪk/.[13]

The phlegm of humorism is far from the same thing as phlegm as it is defined today. Nobel laureate Charles Richet MD, when describing humorism's "phlegm or pituitary secretion" in 1910 asked rhetorically "this strange liquid, which is the cause of tumours, of chlorosis, of rheumatism, and cacochymia - where is it? Who will ever see it? Who has ever seen it? What can we say of this fanciful classification of humours into four groups, of which two are absolutely imaginary?"[14]

History

Although advances in cellular pathology and chemistry discredited humoralism by the nineteenth century, the theory had dominated Western medical thinking for more than 2,000 years.[3][4] Only in some instances did the theory of humoralism wane into obscurity. One such instance occurred in the sixth and seventh centuries in the Byzantine Empire when traditional secular Greek culture gave way to Christian influences. Though the use of humoralist medicine continued during this time, its influence was diminished in favor of religion.[15] The revival of Greek humoralism, owing in part to changing social and economic factors, did not begin until the early ninth century.[16] Use of the practice in modern times is pseudoscience.[17]

Origins

The concept of four humors may have origins in Ancient Egyptian medicine[18] or Mesopotamia,[19] though it was not systemized until ancient Greek thinkers[20] around 400 BC directly linked it with the popular theory of the four elements: earth, fire, water and air (Empedocles).

Fåhræus (1921), a Swedish physician who devised the erythrocyte sedimentation rate, suggested that the four humours were based upon the observation of blood clotting in a transparent container. When blood is drawn in a glass container and left undisturbed for about an hour, four different layers can be seen. A dark clot forms at the bottom (the "black bile"). Above the clot is a layer of red blood cells (the "blood"). Above this is a whitish layer of white blood cells (the "phlegm"). The top layer is clear yellow serum (the "yellow bile").[21]

Greek medicine

Hippocrates is the one usually credited with applying this idea to medicine. One of the treatises attributed to Hippocrates, On the Nature of Man, describes the theory as follows:

The Human body contains blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. These are the things that make up its constitution and cause its pains and health. Health is primarily that state in which these constituent substances are in the correct proportion to each other, both in strength and quantity, and are well mixed. Pain occurs when one of the substances presents either a deficiency or an excess, or is separated in the body and not mixed with others.[22]

Although the theory of the four humors does appear in some Hippocratic texts, some Hippocratic writers only accepted the existence of two humors, while some even refrained from discussing the humoral theory at all.[23] Humoralism, or the doctrine of the four temperaments, as a medical theory retained its popularity for centuries largely through the influence of the writings of Galen (129–201 AD) and was decisively displaced only in 1858 by Rudolf Virchow's newly published theories of cellular pathology. While Galen thought that humors were formed in the body, rather than ingested, he believed that different foods had varying potential to be acted upon by the body to produce different humors. Warm foods, for example, tended to produce yellow bile, while cold foods tended to produce phlegm. Seasons of the year, periods of life, geographic regions and occupations also influenced the nature of the humors formed.

The imbalance of humors, or dyscrasia, was thought to be the direct cause of all diseases. Health was associated with a balance of humors, or eucrasia. The qualities of the humors, in turn, influenced the nature of the diseases they caused. Yellow bile caused warm diseases and phlegm caused cold diseases.

In On the Temperaments, Galen further emphasized the importance of the qualities. An ideal temperament involved a balanced mixture of the four qualities. Galen identified four temperaments in which one of the qualities, warm, cold, moist or dry, predominated and four more in which a combination of two, warm and moist, warm and dry, cold and dry or cold and moist, dominated. These last four, named for the humors with which they were associated—that is, sanguine, choleric, melancholic and phlegmatic, eventually became better known than the others. While the term temperament came to refer just to psychological dispositions, Galen used it to refer to bodily dispositions, which determined a person's susceptibility to particular diseases as well as behavioral and emotional inclinations.

Islamic medicine

Medieval medical tradition in the "Golden Age of Islam" adopted the theory of humorism from Greco-Roman medicine, notably via the Persian polymath Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine (1025). Avicenna summarized the four humors and temperaments as follows:[24]

Avicenna's four humors and temperaments
Evidence Hot Cold Moist Dry
Morbid states Inflammations become febrile Fevers related to serious humor, rheumatism Lassitude Loss of vigour
Functional power Deficient energy Deficient digestive power Difficult digestion
Subjective sensations Bitter taste, excessive thirst, burning at cardia Lack of desire for fluids Mucoid salivation, sleepiness Insomnia, wakefulness
Physical signs High pulse rate, lassitude Flaccid joints Diarrhea, swollen eyelids, rough skin, acquired habit rough skin, acquired habit
Foods and medicines Calefacients harmful, infrigidants[25] beneficial Infrigidants harmful, calefacients beneficial Moist articles harmful Dry regimen harmful, humectants beneficial
Relation to weather Worse in summer Worse in winter Bad in autumn

Influence and legacy

Medicine

The four humors and their qualities

Typically "eighteenth-century" practices such as bleeding a sick person or applying hot cups to a person were, in fact, based on the humor theory of surpluses of fluids (blood and bile in those cases). Ben Jonson wrote humor plays, where types were based on their humoral complexion. Methods of treatment like bloodletting, emetics and purges were aimed at expelling a surfeit of a humor. Other methods used herbs and foods associated with a particular humor to counter symptoms of disease, for instance: people who had a fever and were sweating were considered hot and wet and therefore given substances associated with cold and dry. Paracelsus further developed the idea that beneficial medical substances could be found in herbs, minerals and various alchemical combinations thereof. These beliefs were the foundation of mainstream Western medicine well into the 1800s.

Central to the treatment of unbalanced humors was the use of herbs. Specific herbs were used to treat all ailments simple, common and complex etc., from an uncomplicated upper respiratory infection to the plague. For example, chamomile was used to decrease heat, and lower excessive bile humor. Also, arsenic was used in a poultice bag to 'draw out' the excess humor(s) that led to symptoms of the plague. Philip Moore, who wrote on the hope of health, and Edwards, who wrote Treatise concerning the Plague discuss how these herbs are helpful in curing physical disease. They also discuss the importance of maintaining an herb garden.

Apophlegmatisms, in pre-modern medicine, were medications chewed in order to draw away phlegm and humours.

The Unani school of medicine, practiced in Perso-Arabic countries, and in India and Pakistan, is based on Galenic and Avicennian medicine in its emphasis on the four humors as a fundamental part of the methodologic paradigm.

There are still remnants of the theory of the four humors in the current medical language. For example, modern medicine refers to humoral immunity or humoral regulation when describing substances such as hormones and antibodies that circulate throughout the body. It also uses the term blood dyscrasia to refer to any blood disease or abnormality. The associated food classification survives in adjectives that are still used for food, as when some spices are described as "hot", and some wines as "dry". When the chili pepper was first introduced to Europe in the sixteenth century, dieticians disputed whether it was hot or cold.

Culture

Theophrastus and others developed a set of characters based on the humors. Those with too much blood were sanguine. Those with too much phlegm were phlegmatic. Those with too much yellow bile were choleric, and those with too much black bile were melancholic. The idea of human personality based on humors contributed to the character comedies of Menander and, later, Plautus. Through the neo-classical revival in Europe, the humor theory dominated medical practice, and the theory of humoral types made periodic appearances in drama.

Because people believed that the quantity of humors in the body could not be replenished, there were folk-medical beliefs that the loss of fluids was a form of death.

The humors can be found in Elizabethan works, such as in Taming of the Shrew, in which the character Petruchio pretends to be irritable and angry to show Katherina what it is like being around a disagreeable person. He yells at the servants for serving mutton, a "choleric" food, to two people who are already choleric.

Foods in Elizabethan times were all believed to have an affinity with one of these four humors. A person showing signs of phlegmatism might have been served wine (a choleric drink and the direct opposite humor to phlegmatic) to balance this.

The concept of balance in health, a key feature in the humoralist theory, is still prevalent in modern Western culture. The dietary guidelines put forth by the United States Department of Agriculture recommend finding a "balance between food and physical activity".[26] The contemporary view of a healthy lifestyle in Western culture emphasizes the historically influential concept of balance.

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Bynum, edited by W.F.; Porter, Roy (1997). Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine (1st pbk. ed.). London: Routledge. p. 281. ISBN 978-0415164184.
  2. ↑ Bynum, edited by W.F.; Porter, Roy (1997). Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine (1st pbk. ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415164184.
  3. 1 2 NY Times Book Review Bad Medicine
  4. 1 2 "Humoralism" entry, p 204 in Webster's New World Medical Dictionary, 3rd Edition. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009 ISBN 9780544188976
  5. ↑ Burton, Bk. I, p. 147
  6. ↑ Johansson, Ingvar; Lynøe, Niels (2008). Medicine and Philosophy: A Twenty-First Century Introduction. Walter de Gruyter. p. 27. ISBN 9783110321364. Retrieved 23 April 2015.
  7. ↑ Wittendorff, Alex (1994). Tyge Brahe. G.E.C. Gad. p45
  8. ↑ http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3D%23115103
  9. ↑ Magner, A History of the Life Sciences, p. 6, at Google Books
  10. ↑ Lewis-Anthony, Justin (2008). Circles of Thorns: Hieronymus Bosch and Being Human. Bloomsbury. p. 70. ISBN 9781906286217.
  11. ↑ Medical Blood Page accessed Feb 15, 2015
  12. ↑ Byron Good. Medicine, Rationality and Experience: An Anthropological Perspective Cambridge University Press, 1994 ISBN 9780521425766
  13. ↑ <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/142540>; accessed 27 May 2012.
  14. ↑ Richet C (1910). "An Address ON ANCIENT HUMORISM AND MODERN HUMORISM: Delivered at the International Congress of Physiology held in Vienna, September 27th to 30th" (PDF). Br Med J. 2: 921–6. doi:10.1136/bmj.2.2596.921. PMC 2336103Freely accessible. PMID 20765282.
  15. ↑ al.], Lawrence I. Conrad ... [et (1998). The Western medical tradition, 800 BC to AD 1800 (Reprinted. ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 100. ISBN 978-0521475648.
  16. ↑ al.], Lawrence I. Conrad ... [et (1998). The Western medical tradition, 800 BC to AD 1800 (Reprinted. ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 101. ISBN 978-0521475648.
  17. ↑ Williams, William F. (December 3, 2013). Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience: From Alien Abductions to Zone Therapy. Routledge. ISBN 1135955298.
  18. ↑ van Sertima, Ivan (1992). The Golden Age of the Moor. Transaction Publishers. p. 17. ISBN 1-56000-581-5.
  19. ↑ Sudhoff, Karl (1926). Essays in the History of Medicine. Medical Life Press, New York City. pp. 67, 87, 104.
  20. ↑ Hippocrates (c. 460 – c. 370 BC): in Hippocratic Corpus, On The Sacred Disease.
  21. ↑ Hart GD (December 2001). "Descriptions of blood and blood disorders before the advent of laboratory studies" (PDF). Br. J. Haematol. 115 (4): 721. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2141.2001.03130.x. PMID 11843802.
  22. ↑ W.N. Mann (1983). G.E.R. Lloyd, ed. Hippocratic writings. Translated by J Chadwick. Harmondsworth: Penguin. p. 262. ISBN 978-0140444513.
  23. ↑ Lindberg, David C. (2007). The Beginnings of Western Science : the European Scientific Tradition in philosophical, religious, and institutional context, prehistory to A.D. 1450 (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226482057.
  24. ↑ Lutz, Peter L. (2002). The Rise of Experimental Biology: An Illustrated History. Humana Press. p. 60. ISBN 0-89603-835-1.
  25. ↑ "Infrigidate - ''The Free Dictionary''". Thefreedictionary.com. Retrieved 2012-01-11.
  26. ↑ "Dietary Guidelines". Retrieved 10 May 2014.

Bibliography

External links

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