Numbers

The Four Humors

• Blood
• Yellow Bile
• Black Bile
• Phlegm

"In medicine, however, Hippocrates of Cos (c. 460-377 B.C.) and his pupils developed a rational system of observation and treatment for disease. Hippocrates explicitly rejected supernatural explanations of illness and propounded instead the theory of 'humors.' Health, according to this theory, was believed to depend on the proper balance between blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. The physician's art consisted in restoring the balance when it became disturbed. This theory continued to dominate European medicine until the eighteen century A.D."—William H. McNeill, History of Western Civilization. 6th ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1968), 89.

While this theory might seem very distance from our current science-based practice of medicine, it is part of our every speech: "'Most people think Mark Twain was a sort of genteel Victorian. Well, in this document he calls [his secretary, Isabel Van Kleek Lyon] a slut and says she tried to seduce him. It's completely at odds with the impression most people have of him,' says the historian Laura Trombley, who this year published a book about Lyon called Mark Twain's Other Woman. 'There is a perception that Twain spent his final years basking in the adoration of fans. The autobiography will perhaps show that it wasn't such a happy time. He spent six months of the last year of his life writing a manuscript full of vitriol, saying things that he'd never said about anyone in print before. It really is 400 pages of bile.'"—Guy Adams, "After keeping us waiting for a century, Mark Twain will finally reveal all: The great American writer left instructions not to publish his autobiography until 100 years after his death, which is now," The Independent (UK), May 23, 2010.

How It's Used

"Greek physicians such as Galen (130-201 A.D.) believed that the body was comprised of four humors—blood, black bile, yellow bile and phlegm—and that treatment of disease and injury was based on keeping each humor was in proper equilibrium. Ergo, fevers, allegedly caused by an excess of blood, were treated by bleeding; and the heat and scalding nature of burns by cold substances, including water."

"Such is the frame for 'Mendeleyev's Dream,' Paul Strathern's lively pocket history of chemistry. Although he focuses on the quest to find and categorize the basic elements of matter, his story ranges widely, from the Greek philosopher Empedocles, whose 'On Nature' he calls 'a heady cocktail of brilliant original ideas and downright quackery,' to the Renaissance doctor Paracelsus, who wandered about Europe challenging authority, treating the sick and doubting the 'four humors' of medieval medical theory."

"The featured attraction on Wednesday night was the New York premiere of 'The Four Humors,' choreographed by Robby Barnett and Jonathan Wolken in collaboration with its cast: Mark Fucik, Renee Jaworski, Matt Kent and Jennifer Macavinta. The piece, to robust recorded music by Richard Peaslee, derived from a medieval theory of four basic personality types, known as temperaments or humors: the Sanguine, the Phlegmatic, the Choleric and the Melancholic.

"This notion can easily inspire choreographers to devise distinct ways of moving. George Balanchine's great ballet 'The Four Temperaments' is only one of many responses to the medieval concept.

"Each section of the Pilobolus production corresponded to one of the humors. The dancers playfully bumped into one another in the Sanguine episode. They tottered, as if hung over, through the Phlegmatic scene. The Choleric humor found them squabbling and reconciling, only to resume squabbling. Then they huddled together in the Melancholic finale."

"Until the 18th century doctors classified people according to the amount of the four humours they experienced: phlegm, blood, choler and black bile. A person's character was determined by which of these humours was predominant. The humours not only decided someone's personality, whether sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic or melancholic, but also diseases to which they might be prone.

"Choleric people are aggressive, irascible, irritable and impulsive, and the melancholic are depressed pessimists who have to drag themselves out of bed each morning. Sanguine and phlegmatic now mean much the same thing but a purist would describe the sanguine as an overconfident optimist and the phlegmatic as laid-back, unexcitable and calm."

"Blair starts a war and wings it. Brown is rude to journalists, kicks a few pieces of furniture and suddenly he is branded the next Radovan Karadzic. His main sin is to be a melancholic- choleric. If it sounds like Greek, that is because it is. For the ancient Greek physicians and philosophers believed that all humans were affected by 'four humours' or bodily fluids.

"These humours manifested themselves in the body as choleric (yellow bile), melancholic (black bile), phlegmatic (phlegm) and sanguine (blood). Centuries ago, bloodletting was used to "balance" these humours. One could argue that some things do not change. It is on these four elements that many subsequent psychology theories on personality are based."

Also Known As (AKA)

The Four Humours

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