What are four humours?

The four humour are the basis of ancient medicine. According to the Four Humours model, it is essentially general health to rely on the balance of four main body fluids: blood, mucus, black bile and yellow bile. The concept originated in ancient Greece, but persisted until the 19th century. Although the idea of ​​four humons and their effect on general health and temperament was discarded in the field of medicine, many modern theories of psychology are based on four types of personality associated with four humor. It was assumed that the excess of any of the four corresponds to a certain temperament in the patient. A large amount of blood caused the sanguine or cheerful, perhaps with too much energy. Too much flegma made him flegmatic , or cool and apatics. The excess black bile, also called spleen or melancholy and considered to be a exclusive spleen, would cause a person melancholic or depressed. Finally, too much yellow bile or choler made for cholEric or easily angry temperament.

Medical treatment in the past was often attempts to balance four humoure. Bloodletting was common in the medieval era, and in the Elizabeth period it was assumed that certain meals deal with complaints caused by excess or deficit of some humor. Each of the four humor was considered hot or cold and either dry or wet, so each corresponded to one of the four possible combinations of these attributes. For the treatment of mucus surplus, which was considered warm and wet, foods would be administered to patients considered cold and dry. This system is the basis of contemporary classifications of food and wines using these terms, drought such as "hot" pepper or "dry" white wine.

The Four Humours system has become a past with a more modern and precise understanding of human physiology. For example, it is now known that there is nothing like a "black bile" excretednou. However, four temperaments associated with Humours are still considered useful in psychology, where they are considered four basic categories of human personality and are grouped.