Humorism, or humoralism, was a theory of the makeup and workings of the human body adopted by Greek The first known Greek medical school opened in Cnidus in 700 BC. Alcmaeon, author of the first anatomical work, worked at this school, and it was here that the practice of observing patients was established. Ancient Greek medicine centered around the theory of humours. The most important figure in ancient Greek medicine is the physician and Roman physicians Ancient Roman medicine combined various techniques using different tools and rituals. Ancient Roman medicine included a number of specializations such as intemistic, ophthalmology and urology. Romans believed in supernatural causes for many diseases and in some supernatural cures . The Romans favoured the prevention of diseases over the cures of and philosophers Greek philosophy focused on the role of reason and logic. Many philosophers today concede that Greek philosophy has shaped the entire Western thought since its inception. As Alfred Whitehead once noted, with some exaggeration, "Western philosophy is just a series of footnotes to Plato." Clear, unbroken lines of influence lead from. From Hippocrates Hippocrates of Cos or Hippokrates of Kos - Greek: Ἱπποκράτης; Hippokrátēs was an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles (Classical Athens), and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is referred to as the Western father of medicine in recognition of his lasting contributions to the onward, the humoral theory was adopted by Greek, Roman and Islamic physicians In the history of medicine, Islamic medicine or Arabic medicine refers to medicine developed in the medieval Islamic civilization and written in Arabic, the lingua franca of the Islamic civilization. Despite these names, a significant number of scientists during this period were not Arab. Some consider the label "Arab-Islamic" as, and became the most commonly held view of the human body among European physicians Medieval medicine in Western Europe was composed of a mixture of existing ideas from antiquity, spiritual influences and what Claude Lévi-Strauss identifies as the "shamanistic complex" and "social consensus." In this era, there was no tradition of scientific medicine, and observations went hand-in-hand with spiritual until the advent of modern medical research in the nineteenth century.
The four humors of Hippocratic medicine were black bile (melankholia Melancholia , also lugubriousness, from the Latin lugere, to mourn; moroseness, from the Latin morosus, self-willed, fastidious habit; wistfulness, from old English wist: intent, or saturnine, (see Saturn), in contemporary usage, is a mood disorder of non-specific depression, characterized by low levels of enthusiasm and eagerness for activity), yellow bile (cholera Cholera is a severe infection caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, which primarily affects the small intestine. The main symptoms include profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission is primarily by the acquisition of the pathogen through contaminated drinking water or infected food. The severity of the diarrhea and associated vomiting), phlegm (phlegma), and blood (sanguis).
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Four humors
Essentially, this theory held that the human body was filled with four basic substances, called four humors, which are in balance when a person is healthy. All diseases and disabilities resulted from an excess or deficit of one of these four humors. These deficits could be caused by vapors that were inhaled or absorbed by the body. The four humors were black bile Melancholia , also lugubriousness, from the Latin lugere, to mourn; moroseness, from the Latin morosus, self-willed, fastidious habit; wistfulness, from old English wist: intent, or saturnine, (see Saturn), in contemporary usage, is a mood disorder of non-specific depression, characterized by low levels of enthusiasm and eagerness for activity, yellow bile Humorism, or humoralism, was a theory of the makeup and workings of the human body adopted by Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers. 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, phlegm Phlegm is a viscous liquid secreted by the mucous membranes of mammalians. Its definition is limited to the mucus produced by the respiratory system, excluding that from the nasal passages, and particularly that which is expelled by coughing (sputum). Phlegm is in essence a water-based gel consisting of by glycoproteins, immunoglobulins, lipids, and blood Blood is a specialized bodily fluid that delivers necessary substances to the body's cells – such as nutrients and oxygen – and transports waste products away from those same cells. Greeks The Greeks , also known as Hellenes, are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighbouring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world and Romans Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world, and the later Muslim A Muslim or Moslem is an adherent of the religion of Islam. Literally, the word means "one who submits (to God)". Muslim is the participle of the same verb of which Islam is the infinitive. All Muslims observe Sunnah, but differences in the definition of what is and what is not Sunnah has led to the emergence of sectarian movements.[ and Western European Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the westernmost region of Europe, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity — the region lying in the Western part of Europe. Another definition was created during the 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 fluid, then his or her personality and physical health would be affected. This theory was closely related to the theory of the four elements Many philosophies and worldviews have a set of classical elements believed to reflect the simplest essential parts and principles of which anything consists or upon which the constitution and fundamental powers of anything are based. Most frequently, classical elements refer to ancient beliefs inspired by natural observation of the phases of: 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.[1]
Paired qualities were associated with each humor and its season A season is a division of the year, marked by changes in weather, ecology, and hours of daylight. The word humor derives from the Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of χυμός[2], chymos (literally juice Juice is the liquid that is naturally contained in fruit or vegetable tissue. Juice is prepared by mechanically squeezing or macerating fresh fruits or vegetables flesh without the application of heat or solvents. For example, orange juice is the liquid extract of the fruit of the orange tree. Juice may be prepared in the home from fresh fruits or sap Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. Fluid found in the vacuoles of other cells is sometimes referred to as "cell sap". Other liquid compounds found in plants or exuded by plants, such as latex, resins or mucilage, are sometimes incorrectly referred to as sap.[citation needed], metaphorically flavor Flavor or flavour is the sensory impression of a food or other substance, and is determined mainly by the chemical senses of taste and smell. The "trigeminal senses", which detect chemical irritants in the mouth and throat as well as temperature and texture, is also very important to the overall Gestalt of flavor perception. The flavor). At around the same time, ancient Indian Ayurveda Ayurveda Ayurvedic medicine is a system of traditional medicine native to the Indian subcontinent and practiced in other parts of the world as a form of alternative medicine. In Sanskrit, the word ayurveda consists of the words āyus, meaning "longevity", and veda, meaning "related to knowledge" or "science". Evolving medicine had developed a theory of three humours, which they linked with the five Hindu elements Tattva is a Sanskrit word meaning 'thatness', 'principle', 'reality' or 'truth'. According to various Indian schools of philosophy, a tattva is an element or aspect of reality conceived as an aspect of deity. Although the number of tattvas varies depending on the philosophical school, together they are thought to form the basis of all our.[3]
The four humors, their corresponding elements, seasons, sites of formation, and resulting temperaments alongside their modern equivalents are:[4]
History
Although modern medical science has thoroughly discredited humorism, this "wrong-headed theory dominated medical thinking... until at least the middle of the 20th century, and in certain ways continues to influence modern-day diagnosis and therapy." [5]
Origins
The concept of four humors may have origins in ancient Egypt Ancient Egyptian Medicine refers to the practices of healing common in Ancient Egypt from c. 33rd century BC until the Persian invasion of 525 BC. This medicine was highly advanced for the time, and included simple, non-invasive surgery, setting of bones and an extensive set of pharmacopoeia. While ancient Egyptian remedies are often[6] or Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris-Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, as well as some parts of northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and southwestern Iran,[7] though it was not systemized until ancient Greek thinkers[8] around 400 BC who directly linked it with the popular theory of the four elements Many philosophies and worldviews have a set of classical elements believed to reflect the simplest essential parts and principles of which anything consists or upon which the constitution and fundamental powers of anything are based. Most frequently, classical elements refer to ancient beliefs inspired by natural observation of the phases of earth, fire, water and air (Empedocles Empedocles was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for being the originator of the cosmogenic theory of the four Classical elements. He also proposed powers called Love and Strife which would act as forces to bring about the mixture and separation of the).
Fåhræus (1921), a Swedish physician who devised the erythrocyte sedimentation rate The erythrocyte sedimentation rate , also called a sedimentation rate or Biernacki Reaction, is the rate at which red blood cells precipitate in a period of 1 hour. It is a common hematology test which is a non-specific measure of inflammation. To perform the test, anticoagulated blood is placed in an upright tube, known as a Westergren tube, and, suggested that the four humours were based upon the observation of blood Blood is a specialized bodily fluid that delivers necessary substances to the body's cells – such as nutrients and oxygen – and transports waste products away from those same cells 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 A thrombus , or blood clot, is the final product of the blood coagulation step in hemostasis. It is achieved via the aggregation of platelets that form a platelet plug, and the activation of the humoral coagulation system (i.e. clotting factors). A thrombus is normal in cases of injury, but pathologic in instances of thrombosis forms at the bottom (the "black bile"). Above the clot is a layer of red blood cells Red blood cells are the most common type of blood cell and the vertebrate organism's principal means of delivering oxygen (O2) to the body tissues via the blood flow through the circulatory system. They take up oxygen in the lungs or gills and release it while squeezing through the body's capillaries (the "blood"). Above this is a whitish layer of white blood cells (the "phlegm", now called the buffy coat). The top layer is clear yellow serum (the "yellow bile").[9]
Greek medicine
The four temperaments (Clockwise from top right: choleric; melancholic; sanguine; phlegmatic). See also: Ancient Greek medicineHippocrates is the one usually credited with applying this idea to medicine. 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 (131–201 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.
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Sat, 24 Jul 2010 13:01:38 GMT+00:00
DailyFinance ... first into a sumptuously decorated medieval-style library, where "Dr. Ben" examined us according to the Hippocratic notion of " humorism " or "humoralism. ...
Sean Whitmore
hu, 01 Apr 2010 01:17:39 GM
Origins of . Humorism. . By Sean Whitmore, March 31, 2010 5:17 pm. Placeholder. categories Uncategorized. Leave a Reply. Cancel Reply. Name (required). Mail (will not be published) (required). Web site. The Coming of a . Humorist. ...
