Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.
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Early Modern England Encyclopedia
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Medical practice during an early modern person’s lifetime largely consisted of humoural theory. The humours were the four liquids (black bile, phlegm, yellow bile, and blood) that helped form the four basic personality types of melancholy, phlegmatic, choleric, and sanguine. According to scholar William Jackson, they were believed to have special properties that affected both physical constitution and temperament. All four humours were contained in the body, and the amount of each liquid determined the effects it would have on an individual’s emotional or physical well-being. Health was determined by the amount of humours in a person’s body and so it formed the foundations for medical treatments. The humours bred the core passions of anger, grief, hope, and fear—the emotions conveyed so powerfully in Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedies
(National Library of Medicine).
Many medical texts of the era, such as the 1616
The humours were based off of the four elements of the natural world: fire, earth, water, and air. Since most Grecian philosophers credited the creation of the universe with the creation of the elements, the humours were also invented at the creation of the universe as the liquids that stemmed from these elements, notes historian Noga Arikha. While the humours could create good effects in people, like courage and calm serenity, they were also attributed as the cause of major diseases and unwanted temperaments. The humours were divided into categories along with their elemental association.
Choler was the yellow bile often associated with the gallbladder. It was common for many doctors to require a urine sample, as its color, consistency, taste, or smell could indicate the presence of too much choler or too little. It was a hot and dry humour associated with those who were easily angry, quick witted, and argumentative. Energetic, witty, or courageous men were said to have a lot of choler, but it was also attributed to the vengeful, unreliable, and mean-spirited. An excess of choler, oftentimes an infection, was often cured by the cold and moist elements of phlegm. Purging the body was a common cure for too much choler and oftentimes laxatives were used for purging or opium was administered for calming of the brain.
Sanguine was the hot and moist humour associated with the heart and liver. Oftentimes considered to be the most understandable to a modern audience, sanguine was associated most with the blood. The sanguine were considered optimistic, serene, and lively, but too much blood could cause fever and sweat. Galen describes the effects of a hot and moist head as, there follows a high colour of the Face, the Eyes are hot and burning, and look red, the Veins of the Temples seem great, the excrements of the Head are many.
The most popular form of cure for the sanguine person was bloodletting, in which small cuts were made to release blood or leeches were applied to the skin, but sweating, keeping patients overly hot in order to sweat out the disease, was also used.
Phlegm was the cold and moist humour commonly found in the brain. It often described those who were sluggish, feeble, or old. The common cold was often associated with an excess of phlegm and was said to be contained in fluids such as mucus or saliva. Those who had an excess of phlegm were also inflicted with laziness and sleep, often in the form of a coma, and most of the cures consisted of a change of diet to foods that were considered hot and dry. Galen described those with a cold and moist brain like this: the excrements that flow from his Brain are abundance, he seldom goes without a snotty Nose, his Head is full, though not of Wit.
Melancholy humour serves as the most elusive to a modern understanding of medicine, since no black bile can actually be found in the human body. It was believed in the early modern period to stem from either yellow bile or phlegm but was thought to be stored primarily in the spleen. The qualities associated with it were cold and dry, which meant older, thinner, hairless, or introverted people were often seen as melancholic. Some good qualities in melancholic people were creativity and deliberation, but too much melancholy was attributed to fear, insanity, insomnia, or depression. Melancholy was often cured by increasing the hot or moist elements. There would often be a change of diet to more hearty meaty foods, including snails. For those with a cold and dry brain, herbalist Nicholas Culpeper suggested, A Cup of strong Beer with Nutmeg and Sugar is an excellent mornings draught for such People
.
The medicine of the time period was administered by medical practitioners of several types. Physicians were the highest ranking and were responsible for diagnosing and administering medication. Barber surgeons were responsible for physical injuries such as cuts or broken bones, and often performed surgeries. Apothecaries opened shops that sold medicines, but they were not permitted to diagnose or prescribe. There were also many women who administered medicines they compounded from plants. It is likely that women provided medical diagnosis for their own households and for rural areas, as the other practitioners provided services in towns and cities. Humoural theory was so foundational to early modern medicine that any of these practitioners would proably have relied on it to prescribe, create, and administer treatments.