The theory of the four humors dominates medicine for two thousand years. Since the time of the ancient Greeks to the 19th century, humor imbalance is considered the cause of disease. The humors are blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile.
An excess or shortage of humors causes an array of physical and mental problems. This leads to scientific practices, beginning in the 5th century BCE, such as bloodletting, bleeding with leeches, vomiting and otherwise purging to expel a plethora or overabundance of humor.
Once Galen (129 - 216 AD) discovers human veins hold blood and not air, as previously believed, the bloodletting begins in earnest. It's one of the most common ways of treating disease. The four humors become associated with certain characteristics.
Blood
It's thought the nutritional value of the blood is the source of energy for body and soul. Blood is believed to consist of small proportional amounts of the other three humors. This means taking a blood sample allows for determination of the balance of the four humors in the body.
Blood is associated with a sanguine nature (enthusiastic, active, and social). Considered hot and wet, blood shares these characteristics with the season of spring. Blood can relate to rubedo in spiritual alchemy.
Yellow bile
Yellow bile is associated with a choleric nature (ambitious, decisive, aggressive, and short-tempered). It's thought to be fluid found within the gallbladder, or in excretions such as vomit and feces.
The associated qualities for yellow bile are hot and dry with the natural association of summer and fire. Excess of this humor results in emotional irregularities such as increased anger or irrational behavior. Yellow can relate to citrinitas or xanthosis in spiritual alchemy.
Black bile
Black bile relates to a melancholy nature, the word melancholy itself deriving from the Greek for 'black bile', μέλαινα χολή (melaina kholé). Depression is attributed to excess or unnatural black bile secreted by the spleen.
Cancer is also ascribed to an excess of black bile concentrated in a specific area. The seasonal association of black bile is to autumn with cold and dry characteristics of the season. It can relate to nigredo in color phase therapy of spiritual alchemy.
Phlegm
In humor-based medicine phlegm is a general term to describe white or colorless secretions like pus, mucus, saliva, sweat, or semen. In spiritual alchemy it can relate to leucosis, shadow side of albedo; or, a disease attacking white blood cells.
Phlegm is also related to the brain, possibly due to the color and consistency of brain tissue. The seasonal association of phlegm is winter due to the natural properties of being cold and wet. Too much phlegm causes apathy, laziness, anti-social behavior, reclusiveness.
Production of Humors
Humors were believed to be produced via digestion as the final products of hepatic digestion. Digestion is a continuous process taking place in every animal, and it can be divided into four sequential stages:
gastric digestion stage
hepatic digestion stage
vascular digestion stage
tissue digestion stage.
Each stage digests food until it becomes suitable for use by the body. In gastric digestion, food is made into chylous or chyle, suitable for the liver to absorb and carry on digestion.
Chyle is a milky bodily fluid of lymph and emulsified fats, or free fatty acids. It is formed in the small intestine during digestion of fatty foods, and taken up by lymph vessels specifically known as lacteals. The lipids in the chyle are suspended in chylomicrons.
Chylous is changed into chymous in the hepatic digestion stage. Chyme is the semifluid mass of partly digested food expelled by the stomach into the duodenum. "Digestion" is also an alchemical process using fresh horse dung.
In past medical theory chyme is composed of the four humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. These four humors then circulate in the blood vessels. In the last stage of digestion, tissue digestion, food becomes similar to the tissue of the consuming organ.
If anything goes wrong in the process of humor production, it causes an imbalance leading to disease. Proper organ functioning is necessary in the production of good humor. The stomach and liver also have to function normally for proper digestion.
If there are any abnormalities in gastric digestion, the liver, blood vessels, and tissues cannot be provided with the raw chyle, which can cause abnormal humor and blood composition. A healthy functioning liver can't convert abnormal chylous into normal humors.
Despite being the prevailing explanation of illness believed by the public, the Theory of the Four Humors fails to enhance public health. Underlying public health problems and transmission of diseases such as plague and leprosy remain unsolved.
These theories are worked and expounded upon by the major medical minds of history. A common human frailty is building upon fundamental mistakes. When "learned" persons dedicate their lives to a mistake, it results in denial and many convoluted loops of logic.
The successor of these persons, following the wisdom of the learned ones, builds on the predecessor's work rather than presuming to address the mistake(s) underlying its foundation. This is true from spiritual beliefs to computer programming.
Galen
In the 2nd and 3rd centuries Galen, formally known as Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus, is greatly respected in the medical field. Among other centers of learning he attends the medical school of Alexandria, where Hippocrates also studied.
A major proponent of the four humor theory, he dissects animals such as pigs to learn the internal works. At first he works on monkeys, but is troubled by their human-like expressions.
He encourages his students to study the bodies of dead gladiators for anatomical purposes. Because of Galen's renown, his acceptance of the four humors theory does not come into question, and followers develop it further.
Knowledge about the humors is the basis for entry into medical college. Despite later opposition by such figures as Paracelsus and Robert Fludd, the humors theory remains the medical standard until the discovery of germs in the 1850s.
Non-Fiction Books:
Fiction Books:
READ: Lora Ley Adventures - Germanic Mythology Fiction Series
READ: Reiker For Hire - Victorian Detective Murder Mysteries