The theory of the four humours was central to the teachings of Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galen. Arikha, N. (2007). Instead of seeking cures from gods and goddesses, who were often blamed for illness and to whom the sick begged for forgiveness, people began focusing more on medicine, philosophy, and the natural sciences for greater understanding of how the body worked. . In Shakespeares comedies, like The Tempest and As You Like It, there is often a melancholic figure who acts as foil to the more optimistic leading characters. From Hamlet, an ideal prince, and other essays in Shakesperean interpretation: Hamlet; Merchant of Venice; Othello; King Lear by Alexander W. Crawford. Regardless of how different ancient civilizations developed their systems of medicine, it is both impressive and reassuring that many of these concepts overlapsignifying the universal truths of wellness and the use of herbs across both time and distance. (V. ii. Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of day.. Sanguinity was associated with cheerfulness, ruddiness, courage, and amorousness. If the humours were in imbalance, then the person was sick. His world is vast. In an ideal situation, each of the humors was properly balanced. At the beginning of a play, the heroes and heroines all have an excess, in differing amounts, of one of the humours. Nervine, carminative, and antispasmodic herbs, including lemon balm (. ) %PDF-1.7 % Treatments for humoral imbalances were often unpleasant or dangerous, including bloodletting, vomiting, starvation, and purging. A natural excess of black bile could make you cautious and analytical. Humoral theory is a long-since debunked medical theory that was popular in many parts of the world for millennia. There are many famous melancholics - the author of Ecclesiastes was one, so was Hamlet (Shakespeare probably had read an . the first skull he says: "It might be the pate of a politician . i. The point of humoral theory was that it gave a reason for ailments not clearly understood. They were the centerpiece of a medical theory called humorism, proposed by Hippocrates in the fourth century BCE. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Drawing, c.1793. The Roman philosopher and physician Claudius Galen formulated a concept of personality types based on the ancient Greek theory of humorism, which attempted to explain the workings of the human body. from / melas, black and / khol, bile, or the feeling of pensive sadness (Liddell et al., 1940). Passions and tempers: A history of the humours. The four humors were blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Having an excess of one humour could be a bit of a vicious cycle: it both causes and is caused by your behaviour. However, should one fluid overpower the others, the body becomes out of balance and causes medical and psychological illness. The Norway (Fortinbras) Subplot Blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile: the bodys four humours were believed to control your personality in Shakespeares day and influenced the way the Bard created some of his most famous characters. Hamlet as National Hero The four main characters of the two plays each represent one of the four temperaments. Shall I be frighted when a madman stares? (Arikha, 2007). Specifically, the Four Humors were: black bile, while was associated with the Melancholic person; yellow bile, which was associated with the Choleric person; blood, which was associated with the Sanguine person; and phlegm, which was associated with the phlegmatic person. . "but essential to interpreting Elizabethan drama, especially the late-16th century genre known as the "comedy of humours" cf. squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again. copyright 2003-2023 Study.com. As Sir Herbert Tree has recently said: "But for humor he should go mad. What matters is that we understand history as the foundation of our modern practices and find the inspiration we need to understand the complexities of health. Essentially, this theory held that the human body was filled with four basic substances, called four humors, which are in balance when a person is healthy. Crawford, Alexander W. Hamlet, an ideal prince, and other essays in Shakesperean interpretation: Hamlet; Merchant of Venice; Othello; King Lear. In Shakespeares day, only very wealthy people could afford a doctor and the medicines or treatments he would recommend. Woodcut of two men drinking, over-consuming and vomiting. Readers must do their own research concerning the safety and usage of any herbs or supplements. even though there are, and must be pages on anatomy and physiology. A Greek-English lexicon. In Shakespeares time, the understanding of medicine and the human body was based on the theory of the four bodily humours. endstream endobj 110 0 obj <>>> endobj 111 0 obj <. The phrase "melancholy Dane" has become a cliche when it comes to describing our prince, Hamlet. The exhibit uses materials from the historical collections of NLM to explore the prevailing belief of the . Hippocratic method and the four humors [Blog Post]. Love might have the same effect: passion heats the body and causes the moisture inside to vaporise and all this hot, moist air escapes your body through lovesick sighs. Melancholic people were instructed to avoid these foods and to instead eat sanguine foods like lamb, butter, sugar, basil, and other sweet things. Black bile, the humour that dominated this temperament, was connected to the cold and dry element earth, to old age, and all things dying and rotting. It can be expressed as the dried blood found in stool, very dark urine, serious fevers caused by malaria, or, more abstractly, as constipation, bloating, and arthritis. (2.2.555-612) ", With Osric he gives way to a bantering and jeering humor very similar to that with Polonius. and will not tell him of his action of battery?" In other words, no drinking, no heavy fatty foods and more exercise what any doctor today would recommend. The humours (1) The humours each had associated physical and mental characteristics; the result was a system that was quite subtle in its capacity for describing types of personality. The union of. Directly after the warm greetings between the friends the following conversation takes place: Again, on the occasion when Polonius comes to summon him to the queen's presence, Hamlet pokes fun at One of the things that Petruchio does in order to make his new wife less angry is to deprive her of food, which was in line with the acceptable treatment for choleric temperaments at the time. Shakespeareswriting is one of the most important sources for the knowledge we have about medicine in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Black bile. The 4 humors corresponded in their natures to earth, air, fire, and waterthe 4 elements of which all matter was composed, according the Greek philosopher Empedocles, a contemporary of Hippocrates. Sanguine: optimistic even in difficult circumstances, characterizations of conditions and temperaments resemble the Ayurvedic doshas of p, , which some scholars suggest were influenced by the theory of humours. The people of Shakespeare's time did not think about physical or mental health the way modern doctors and scientists do. Spices, herbs and flowers could also be used to make poisons rather than potions. The word is quite rare in Shakespeares writing otherwise: in The Taming of the Shrew, a play without melancholics, the word is only used once. . Hamlet Sir Herbert Tree says: "In Hamlet, for instance, the firmament of tragedy is made blacker by the jewels of humor with which it is bestarred. By this time, the Renaissance had spread to other European countries, and ideas about our ability to fully understand the human experience became more skeptical. She has been teaching English in Canada and Taiwan for seven years. Carried by the bloodstream, the four humors bred the core passions of anger, grief, hope, and fearthe emotions conveyed so powerfully in Shakespeare's comedies and tragedies. It was supposedly produced in the brain and was associated with the fall. Humors, Madness, and "Hamlet". It crops out at every turn, and indicates the essential soundness of his mind. Hamlet's stubbornness is one of the survival tactics he has developed to counter his own reluctance to kill Claudius. We use a third party provider, dotdigital, to deliver our newsletters. Hysteria Symptoms & Historical Origin | What is Hysteria in Personality? y-axis (horizontal): Thinking - Feeling scale. Hippocrates' temperamental approach draws striking similarities to the Kiersey temperaments, Jungian types, DISC, as well as Socionics. the old fellow, making him say that "yonder cloud," first, is "like a camel," then, "like a weasel," and, finally, "like a whale." Badger, 1916. hb``f``: AXw@bA73ptt0tt4EbH"?~%G?2bfa10%rsH_x4:1V2cBqbi4x D1` O]b |H^aHs10g`Z & The four humours were literally bodily fluids, but were associated with personality traits, which is why we still talk about someone being "good-humoured." Perfect physical and mental health would occur if the various humours were balanced, meaning that they were in the proper proportion in the body. The humours affect your whole being, from your health and feelings to your looks and actions. What were the humours according to the Theory of the Four Humours? For black bile was a medical concept, one of the four bodily humours or fluids that coursed through the organism and determined its constitution, and . Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. balance these conditions. Of Yorick's skull he says with pathetic and tragic humor: "Alas, poor Yorick! . Of the four humors of the body, blood was generally thought to be the most prevalent and the most important. Humor and madness do not travel the same road. - Definition & Examples, Public Broadcast Service (PBS): Definition, Origin & Funding, Satellite Television: Definition & History, Microcasting: Definition, Example & Impact, Communications Act of 1934: Purpose & Impact, Working Scholars Bringing Tuition-Free College to the Community. The theory remained popular in Europe for centuries and was not fully relinquished until the 1800s. This explains the Hippocratic . hbbd```b``{A$G9d"&"A qTI 9l!9$'``]`Jim10l0 w calls him a "water-fly," then "a chough . Humorism, the humoral theory, or humoralism, was a system of medicine detailing a supposed makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers . 83-99. His works contains a lot of information on the contemporary medical practices of the time, but they also show the social history of medicine: how medicine formed a part of peoples lives and thoughts. 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