The spread that I made for survey 2 is about the four temperaments, which is the first attempt at giving reasons to why a person becomes sick. I copied an illustration from a book about the four tempers. I used the round formatting found in some books written about the four humors as well. I expanded on the two figures towards the edges to make sure that the bleed would not ruin the illustrations at the edges. I also kept the writing away from the center to prevent it getting lost in the centerfold.
Some things that I could improve on would be the size and colour of the title and the headings. It is not clear that the inner parts of the circle fall under the categories of the four tempers. The title is also very small, and I could have made it more distinct so that it wouldn’t get lost within the other elements of the spread.
Overall, I think I made a very interesting spread and I am happy with the result. I would give myself an 7/10 for the strong composition and overall look of the piece, but I could have put more information about what the temperaments were and give more context to the reader.
In the past, illnesses and ailments were unexplainable phenomena that meant you had sinned and were being punished by the gods. However, as science and philosophy began to take shape in places like ancient Greece, physicians like Hippocrates began to make new observations about illness and its affects.
Woodcut of faces representing the four humors from Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe (1775-1778) by Johann Kaspar Lavater
what was humorism?
Humorism was a theory that was made by Hippocrates, a physician in ancient Greece, and was used to treat people’s illnesses by balancing the four fluids in the body. It was believed that if the four fluids– phlegm, blood, yellow bile, and black bile– needed to be kept in balance in order to keep a person healthy. The balance of the humors were affected by an individual’s gender, environment, lifestyle, mental state, and even by the planets. If someone had an excess of a fluid, then a physician would have them release the excess by urinating, letting blood and leeches, purgatives (like laxatives), or blistering the skin with hot irons. Symptoms of excess fluids included runny noses from too much phlegm and bloody noses from too much blood.
Pages of Fasciculus Medicinae on humorism depicting a urine wheel written by Johannes de Ketham, (fl. 1455-1470), Vienna, 1495
The four Temperaments
In humorism there were four temperaments called melancholic, choleric, phlegmatic, and sanguine. It was believed that every person had a natural temperament that they fell under, and that they needed to balance themselves by having the opposite temperament in their lives. For example, if a person was considered melancholic, then they needed to take purgatives to remove excess black bile in their bodies or they would need to. A person’s temperament did not stay the same and changed over time. As people aged they naturally moved from choleric to sanguine and then to phlegmatic and finally to melancholic. When seasons changed, a person had an excess of whichever temperament was associated with the season. In autumn for example, a person might have more phlegm in their body that caused their runny nose.
Learning about the past of medicine brings me a new appreciation to our current medical knowledge and the practice of doctors that is strongly regulated. While the theory of humorism is a fascinating and important first step into identifying illness and disease in the human body, I can’t imagine having a doctor decide I have too much blood and need leeches to drink the excess from my body. Please keep the leeches away from me and my blood.
