The Four Humours
The Four Humours

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.
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 Hippocrates
(c.460 – 370 b.c.e.), Plato (427-348 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.
The Four Humours and
Classical Thought Cont’d…

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."
The Four Humours
and Unani (Greek-derived Islamic
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.
 Hikmat is still practiced today among Muslims of
Xinjiang, China as a part of Uighur medicine in
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
The Four Humours
and Unani Cont’d

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 Humours
and Unani Cont’d






The four 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
Excess yellow bile leads to general weakness
The Four Humours in Reniassance
and Elizabethan Time
By this time the humours had become standardized as follows:
Humour
Body
substance
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
Melancholic
black bile
gall bladder
earth
cold and dry
sallow, thin
Introspective, sentimental, gluttonous

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
The Four Humours in the
Modern World






Rudolf Steiner, who derived a lot of his ideas from GraecoMedieval thought, not unsurprisingly incorporated the humours into
his overall synthesis, and he discusses 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
The Melancholic with the physical body
The Four Humours in the
Modern World Cont’d…
The sequence is from most subtle
(fire, traditionally "spirit") to most
dense (earth, hence physical)
Elements.
 Steiner's has had less
impact than Hans Eysenck
(1916-1997) who developed
the personality classification.
 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ｰ
gradation as follows:
