Survey 2 – Kathrin Teh

Imagine going to a doctor’s office with a common cold, and leaving with pneumonia, typhus, and the Black Plague. From the beginning of the common era to the early renaissance, a plethora of inventions and new ideas came into fruition during the high gothic era. The introduction of paper truly revolutionized the production of manuscripts, as well as printing, which has evolved to become a lucrative and nearly ubiquitous industry today; however, for every good idea comes a bad one.

The conception and dissemination of the four humours, also known as humoural theory, or humorism, was one aforementioned poor idea, and led to countless lives lost. Believed to be conceptualized by the Egyptians or Mesopotamians, it was systemized by the Ancient Greeks and became a dominant medical theory within Europe.

*A table displaying the connection of the four humours with outside factors.*

Humorism centres around the four humours: blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm; each humour is tied to a temperament, element, and season: spring/air, autumn/earth, summer/fire, and winter/water, respectively. These humours were believed to be vital fluids in the human body, with a deficiency in one leading to a specific illness, depending on which humour was “corrupted”. This idea was spread widely by Galen, who lived from 129 to 201 CE and adopted the idea from Hippocrates. Hippocrates also claimed that an imbalance between humours within a person led to different temperaments: blood was linked with being sanguine, yellow bile with a choleric personality, black bile with melancholy, and phlegm with a phlegmatic temperament.

This image depicts the doctors employing bloodletting quite well – they were incompetent for the most part, and had no proper understanding of the human body. Patients would typically only see the doctor when already in a near-death state.

The humours themselves were derived from the layers blood separates into when left in a container to settle. Dark clots form at the bottom of the container, with layers of red and white blood cells preceding it, followed by a clear yellow fluid at the top. This is likely what led people to believe all fluids in the human body were created with a mixture of the four humours.

The danger of this theory arises from the remedies given to patients by doctors following humorism. “Remedies” included laxatives to purge bodies, hot irons used to create extremely painful blisters on people’s skin, and the infamous bloodletting. Most patients would leave doctors in a worse condition than when they first arrived and the few patients who were lucky enough to recover were used as successful examples by doctors who, in reality, took no part in their recovery whatsoever. Going to a doctor’s office in this time period would be the equivalent of voluntarily offering oneself to the gallows.

*Shakespeare characterized many personalities in his plays with the four humours.*

In contrast to this gruesome imagery, the four humours were also very much embraced by Elizabethans, with Shakespeare alluding to them many times throughout his plays. The idea of the temperaments was quite popular throughout the renaissance especially, and continued to influence culture even after its medical practices were no longer in circulation. Despite this positive usage of the theory, the four humours inflicted much more pain than amusement throughout their reign.