The Four Humors
<p ><b>Humorism</b>, or <b>humoralism</b>, is a now discredited theory of the makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_medicine" title="Ancient Greek medicine" >Greek</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_in_ancient_Rome" title="Medicine in ancient Rome" >Roman physicians</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_philosophy" title="Greek philosophy" class="mw-redirect" >philosophers</a>, positing that an excess or deficiency of any of four distinct <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodily_fluid" title="Bodily fluid" class="mw-redirect" >bodily fluids</a> in a person directly influences their<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperament" title="Temperament" >temperament</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health" title="Health" >health</a>. From <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocrates" title="Hippocrates" >Hippocrates</a> onward, the humoral theory was adopted by Greek, Roman and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_in_medieval_Islam" title="Medicine in medieval Islam" class="mw-redirect" >Islamic physicians</a>, and became the most commonly held view of the human body among <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_medicine" title="Medieval medicine" >European physicians</a> until the advent of modern medical research in the nineteenth century.</p>
<p>
The four humors of Hippocratic medicine are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melancholia" title="Melancholia" >black bile</a> (Gk. <i>melan chole</i>), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bile" title="Bile" >yellow bile</a> (Gk.<i>chole</i>), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlegm" title="Phlegm" >phlegm</a> (Gk. <i>phlegma</i>), and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood" title="Blood" >blood</a> (L. <i>sanguis</i>), and each corresponds to one of the traditional <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_temperaments" title="Four temperaments" >four temperaments</a></b>. A humor is also referred to as a <i>cambium</i> (pl. <i>cambia</i> or<i>cambiums</i>).<sup id="cite_ref-Burton_0-0" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humours#cite_note-Burton-0" >[1]</a></sup>
<sup id="cite_ref-Burton_0-0" class="reference" > </sup>
<img src="/a1170a50-7808-5001-a5c0-2dd4814fa85e.png"/></p>
<p>
</p>