[HPforGrownups] Four Humours (wasRe: CHAPDISC: HBP5, An Excess of Phlegm

[Juli]

No: HPFGUIDX 144250



potioncat wrote:
One theroy of health used to be that the body contained four Humours. 
(Phlegm, Blood, Bile and ????)  All four are supposed to be in balance. Certain conditions were thought to be due to an excess of one of the Humours. Does anyone know anything about this? What are the four humours? And what would an excess of phlegm cause?

I wonder if the name of this chapter has more to do with Tonks than with Fleur.

And why do I have the impression that Snape is suffering from an excess of Bile?

Juli: I couldn't remember the 4 humors myself so I had to google it. Here's what I found:
   
  In the Hippocratic corpus (believed not to be the work of a single man of that name) disease was thought to be caused by isonomia, the preponderance of one of the four bodily humors: 
    
   Yellow Bile   
   Black Bile   
   Phlegm   
   Blood
  Four humors matched the four seasons 
    
   Autumn: black bile   
   Spring: blood   
   Winter: phlegm   
   Summer: yellow bile.
  Each of the humors was associated with one of the four equal and universal elements posited by Empedocles: 


  Aristotle, who used the image of wine to expose the nature of black bile. Black bile, just like the juice of grapes, contains pneuma, which provokes hypochondriac diseases like melancholia. Black bile like wine is prone to ferment and produce an alternation of depression and anger.... 
-From The History of Melancholy
    
   Earth: black bile   
   Air: blood   
   Fire: yellow bile   
   Water: phlegm. 
  Too much earth made one MELANCHOLIC; too much air, SANGUINE; too much fire, CHOLERIC; and too much water, PHLEGMATIC. 


    
   Too much Earth: Melancholic   
   Too much Air: Sanguine   
   Too much Fire: Choleric   
   Too much Water: Phlegmatic. 
  Finally, each element/humor/season was associated with certain qualities. Thus yellow bile was thought of as hot and dry. Its opposite, phlegm (the mucus of colds), was cold and moist. Black Bile was cold and dry, while its opposite, blood was hot and moist. 


    
   Black Bile: Cold and Dry   
   Blood: Hot and Moist   
   Phlegm: Cold and Moist   
   Yellow Bile: Hot and Dry.
  The only relation I see between Fleur and Phlegm is the winter. Fleur is described in the books as beautiful and cold, very much like winter. She isn't particularly lovable (aside from her veela-ness), she isn't very nice (IMO)... She's pretty cold to me.
   
  Sirius probably had too much Black Bile. He was melancholic, depressed, he thought constantly about the 'good old days'... He is fall, his better days are over, he is slowly dying and going black...
   
  Severus, oth, is completely full of Yellow Bile, he's choleric, dry, and hot (maybe I'm the only one who thinks he's hot). But he isn't at all like summer. He's probably the less summer-y person ever!
   
  Juli


Juli
Aol: jlnbtr
Yahoo: jlnbtr



		
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