16th-century German illustration of the four humors: Flegmat (phlegm), Sanguin (blood), Coleric (yellow bile) and Melanc (black bile), divided between the male and female sexes 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. [1] Humorism began to …
First suggested in ancient Greece, the four ‘humours’ personality types have shaped how we view ourselves for thousands of years – and still look oddly familiar today.
The Four Temperaments (also called the “four humors“) was a theory that behavior was caused by concentrations of body fluids — the “humors” of classical medicine: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm.
Humour, (from Latin “liquid,” or “fluid”), in early Western physiological theory, one of the four fluids of the body that were thought to determine a person’s temperament and features. In the ancient physiological theory still current in the European Middle Ages and later, the four cardinal humours
This theory proposed that the human body is composed of four humors: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. According to the Humoral Theory, an imbalance of these humors could lead to various physical and mental health conditions.
The four humors were identified as black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. Greeks and Romans, and the later Muslim and Western European medical establishments that adopted and adapted classical medical philosophy, believed that each of these humors would wax and wane in the body, depending on diet and activity.
The theory of the four humors is often brought up in pop culture — bloodletting with leeches or medieval methods to induce throwing up are frequently shown as methods of medical treatment. Understanding the theories behind these scenes in documentaries and fictionalized accounts will aid you in understanding how people once viewed the human body.
He argued that four bodily fluids – which he called humors – governed not only physical health but also an individual’s personality, emotions, and behavior. From this idea emerged one of history’s earliest personality typologies: the four temperaments.
The Theory of the Four Humours was that four bodily fluids (humours) control physical and mental health, giving the Four Temperaments. This theory was believed by the ancient Greeks, the Ancient Romans, and during the Medieval period right up to the 1800’s, when it was finally disproved.