The Four Humours
Written by: Stephaniex4
During the sixteenth-century, the four humours was the basis of medicine. This health theory existed, mainly between 490 and 430 BC. However, the four humours theory scattered around up until the eighteenth-century. The four humours were based on theories of Ancient Greece and Rome.
The four humours, also known as the four elements, included phlegm, which stood for water, yellow bile, which was fire, black bile, which was earth, and blood, which stood for everything. Of course, these elements really weren’t fire and earth, but that’s what the four humours stood for. Later on, there was a personality trait added on to each humour by a Greek physician, Galen.
If the four humours were imbalanced, people would get sick. They would lose their appetite and move slowly. Treating this illness included bloodletting. During this process, the doctors had to take out fluids and/or purge hot and cold. Also, the patients who had the imbalance of the four humours would drink a lot of liquids. This would help those with the sickness gain health again. These treatments were based on opposites. Anaximander, a pre-Socratic philosopher who was a student of Thales in the Milesian School, had the belief that the universe was based on opposites which the universal laws governed.
People thought of different humours to be the basis of the other three. Water was thought to be the basis of all the elements in life, as a Greek philosopher, Thales stated sometime between 640 and 546 BC. Thales stated that the earth and air just developed from water. Anaximenes believed that fire was the primary element instead of water or air. Since opposites were always at battle with each other, everything was in perpetual change. Galen Pergamum stated that the four elements were equally mixed in blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Pythagoras was a philosopher and mathematician who emphasized spirit instead of material, and a science of numbers rather than elements. So, really, the truth of the matter of which element was the basis for the rest was an opinion, not a fact. Surely enough, the people who stated which element is the primary one had a reasonable explanation. However, all answers couldn’t be correct. The answers weren’t completely supported to be considered a fact. The technology wasn’t very sufficient for learning about the humours and illnesses.
The “Doctrine of the Four Humours” dominated the theory of health, illness, and the personality between the times of Empedocles (409-430 BC) until the 18th Century, when bloodletting finally ended. The medical system now is much better than back then. Today, doctors have much more knowledge and technology. There is better equipment too, which would make the process that would have been very painful back then not as painful (if painful at all) now. For example, back then, if someone was sick, the doctors would have to treat the patients with a painful process called bloodletting. However, now, we know that, most of the time, it is just a cold and we have medicine to cure it, not involving surgery. However, when someone has an illness that does not involved a serious surgery, the system now is much more sanitary and professional, with medicine to put someone to sleep so they don’t feel anything.
In short, the four humours was a theory from 490 BC to about the eighteenth-century that involved serious processes to cure an imbalance/illness. As a medical advanced improved, the Four Humours theory was proved to be inaccurate and simpler cures were created.
Works Cited
Thompson, Lana. “The Doctrine of the Four Humours.” Science and Its Times. 2001: 114-116. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale. 29 Feb. 2008. <http://go.galegroup.com>.
