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The Four Humours

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The Four Humours

The four humours.

from Shakespeare's Life and Times

In Greek, Medieval, and Renaissance thought, the traditional four elements form the basis for a theory of medicine and later
psychological typology known as the four humours. They constituted the western equivalent of the Chinese five states of change. Each
of the humours were associated with various correspondences and particular physical and mental characteristics, and could, moreover,
be combined for more complex personality types: (e.g. choleric-sanguine, etc). The result is a system that provides a quite elaborate
classification of types of personality.

The Four Humours and Classical Thought

"[In classic times] medicine was equated with philosophy and three Greek philosophers
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Hippocrates (c.460 370 b.c.e.), Plato (4271/8

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348 b.c.e.) and Aristotle (384-322 b.c.e.) contributed to the vision of health, disease and the functions of the body. Although they had
differences in general they saw health as an equilibrium of the body as determined by the four humors.
Sap in plants and the blood in animals is the fount of life. Other body fluids- phlegm, bile, faeces, became visible in illness when the
balance is disturbed. For instance, epilepsy, the sacred disease was due to phlegm blocking the airways that caused the body to struggle and
convulse to free itself. Mania was due to bile boiling in the brain. Black bile was a late addition to disease theory and was associated with
melancholy."
[ref

The Roots of Scientific Medicine by Dr. P. Warren, - The Humoral Theory of Diseases.]

The Four Humours and Unani (Greek-derived Islamic Medicine)

The four humours

The four humours.

from

An overview of the Unani System of Medicine and

Hikmat (Unani Medicine)

Unani is Arabic for Ionian, which means Greek. It is a formal medicine that has been practiced for 6,000 years. Also known as
hikmat, Unani Tibb Medicine was developed by the Greek physician Hippocrates from the medicine and traditions of the ancient Egypt
and Mesopotamia. When the Mongols invaded Persia and Central Asia many scholars and physicians of Unani fled to India. Proponents of
Tibb el Unani included ibn Sina (Avicenna) who wrote of Tibb el Unani in his medical classic al-Qanun and Ishaq ibn Ali al-Ruhawi
(1200AD) who wrote Adab el-Tibb, Medical Ethics. Hikmat is still practiced today among Muslims of Xinjiang, China as a part of
Uighur medicine in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Unlike modern Western medicine, hikmat does not hold to mind-body
dualism but is rooted in the understanding that spiritual peace is essential for good health. Unani medicine considers many factors in
maintaining health and divides the body in a number of ways to define this wisdom.
The first way that Hikmat defines the body is to describe it in terms of the four humors or akhlaat: air, earth, fire and water emanate from
the liver forming a subtle network around the body. In healing, foods and herbs are also classified according to the four humors. The four
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humors correspond to four bodily fluids: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. A typical diagnosis of a patient would take the balance
of these humors into consideration. For instance, over-stimulation of wet-hot elements effects nervous biochemical interactions within the
body with glandular ramifications within the blood. A wet-cold over-stimulation also effects nervous biochemical interactions but with
ramifications for the relationship between the muscular biochemical exchanges and the bloodstream such as diarrhea and diabetes. Excess
black bile in the blood leads to heart palpitations and constipation whilst excess yellow bile leads to general weakness (mypakfree, p.2).
Islam Online - Hikmat (Unani Medicine)

The Four Humours in Reniassance and Elizabethan time

By this time the humours had become standardised as follows
Body
substance

Humour

produced
by

Element

Qualities

Complexion and Body

type

Personality

Sanguine

blood

liver

air

hot and
moist

red-cheeked, corpulent

amorous, happy, generous, optimistic,

irresponsible

Choleric

yellow bile

spleen

fire

hot and dry

red-haired, thin

violent, vengeful, short-tempered, ambitious

Phlegmatic

phlegm

lungs

water

cold and
moist

corpulent

Sluggish, pallid, cowardly

gall
bladder

earth

cold and dry sallow, thin

Melancholic black bile

Note: "lazy" is sometimes attributed to Phlegmatics [ref

Humors]

Introspective, sentimental, gluttonous

The Four Humours] and sometimes to Melancholics [ref

The Four

"[It was though that each of] The "humours" gave off vapors which ascended to the brain; an individual's personal characteristics (physical,
mental, moral) were explained by his or her "temperament," or the state of that person's "humours." The perfect temperament resulted when
no one of these humours dominated. By 1600 it was common to use "humour" as a means of classifying characters; knowledge of the
humours is not only important to understanding later medieval work, but essential to interpreting Elizabethan drama"
Michael Hanly

Medieval Themes and Topics

The Four Humours in the modern world

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Rudolf Steiner, who derived a lot of his ideas from Graeco-Medieval thought, not unsurprisingly incorporated the humours into his
overall synthesis, here is his lecture on the
four temperaments. These are associated with dominance of one or the other of the four
levels of self. Choleric with the ego (which Steiner associates with "warmth", hence "fire"), the Sanguine with the astral body, the
Phlegmatic with the etheric body, and the Melancholic with the physical body. The sequence is from most subtle (fire, traditionally
"spirit") to most dense (earth, hence physical) elements
Steiner's thinking, being occult-theosophical based, has had little impact outside the specialised world of Anthroposophy. Of much
greater influence however was the personality classification of
Hans Eysenck (1916 - 1997). Eysenck took the two gradations of
extrovert-introvert and stable-unstable, to come up with four quadrants which could be associated with the classic four temperaments.
Each quadrant is also are further divided by keywords, creating a 360 gradation as follows

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original url

Another 20th century equivalent (although with only three temperaments) are Sheldon's Somatotypes. Additional recent temperament
theories are
reviewed by Richard Dagan

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Links

The Four Humors - good intro

Hikmat (Unani Medicine) from Islam Online
The Four Humours from Shakespeare's Life and Times
The Four Humors - description and illustration of each
Medieval Themes and Topics
The Four Cardinal Humors by Sheridan Hill. Includes extracts from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) and Rudolf Steiner
on the four temperaments.
Temperament ... A brief survey by Richard Dagan - includes some modern psychological theories and applications
Hans Eysenck (and other temperament theorists) - overview by Dr. C. George Boeree
The four humors and elements Aristotle and the Anishaabe Medicine Wheel, Canada
The Role of Plants in Health and/or Healing - includes herbs classified according to the four elements and humours

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Sacred Geometry Jewelry

by the artist David Weitztman
Sacred geometry is a term which describes the geometrical laws which create
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Christ Grid

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The Merkaba

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page uploaded 3 July 2004, relocated 14 July, last modified 16 August

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