Hippocrates and the theory of the essential humors in humans

The history of Hippocrates and the theory of the essential humors date back to almost four centuries before our era. It is considered one of the first approaches to what almost 20 centuries later would become a new science: psychology.

Hippocrates is called “the father of medicine,” as he was the first in the West to systematize the available knowledge about health. and the disease. He also proposed an explanation for these phenomena and a whole therapy to address them.

“It is much more important to know which person has the disease than which disease the person has”.

-Hippocrates-

Hippocrates’ theory of the essential humors was assimilated and used by the majority of doctors. (and similar) until the mid-19th century. This gives us an idea of the solidity with which this man from Ancient Greece set out his thoughts. In fact, some of the postulates of that theory are still cited today.

The theory of essential humors

Hippocrates’ theory of essential humors It basically states that the human body is made up of four substances . These substances are called “humors.”. They must maintain a perfect balance with each other. When they lose it, illness occurs, both of the body and the spirit.

Any disability or illness only meant that the balance had been disturbed of the essential humors. Therefore, the way to treat it was to find a way to restore the lost balance.

According to the theory of essential humors, the substances that make up the human body are: black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm.. In turn, each of these humors was related to an element of the universe and an atmospheric quality. The relationship would be the following:

Moods and personality

Hippocrates and his followers never saw illness as an exclusively organic matter. They maintained a conception in which mind and body were one reality. Therefore, what happened in the mind had effects on the physical organism and vice versa.

The members of the Peripatetic school contributed a new element to the theory of essential humors. They postulated that the predominance of one of the humors generated a specific temperament in people. Later, Galen complemented these approaches. He pointed out that the imbalance of humors affected our way of being, feeling, thinking and behaving..

It was Galen who ended up proposing the existence of four temperaments, based on the theory of essential humors. These are:

Melancholic. It characterizes those who have a predominance of black bile in their body. They have a sad temperament, quite susceptible and given to artistic activities.Choleric. It represents those who have a large amount of yellow bile. This gives rise to a passionate temperament, with enormous vitality and given to getting angry very easily.Sanguine. In this case the humor of the blood predominates. The traits of the sanguine temperament are self-confidence, cheerfulness, optimism, expressiveness and sociability.Phlegmatic. It characterizes those who have a predominance of phlegm in their body. Phlegmatic people are thoughtful, fair, calm, without a great capacity for commitment and a little lazy.

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Hippocratic approaches in today’s world

Both Hippocrates, Galen and all their followers designed and complemented the theory of essential humors based on observation, but without the application of any scientific method. That’s why With the emergence and consolidation of formal sciences, this entire theory fell into disuse. Today it is not given objective validity, beyond considering it a historical reference.

However, the theory of essential humors It has the merit of having been the first serious effort to classify the different types of temperaments. Also very interesting is the fact that they have been able to understand that emotions also have a physiological reference.

In fact, the theories of Hippocrates and Galen served as inspiration for the first psychologists.. In one way or another, these thinkers displayed great intuition. Their classifications are close to the different personality types that researchers defined, almost 2,000 years after these precursors of health sciences did so.