welcome to this rapid revision video on the theory of the four humors one of the most important ancient medical ideas that you'll encounter and one that's incredibly important in the medieval period and even after that so let's get into it what was the theory of the four humors this theory was based upon the ideas of Greek philosophers like Aristotle but particularly it was used by Greek doctor Hippocrates Hippocrates was a Greek doctor he used this idea to help him diagnose illnesses and suggest treatments and that's pretty important the diagnosis part although this is based upon symptoms it is a logical step towards trying to diagnose people in a sort of scientific way that's not to say it's right though the theory states that the body was composed of four liquids or humors that were linked to the four elements and the seasons a diagram shows them here there was blood phlegm black bile and yellow bile if you use a little bit of imagination you can probably imagine what fluids this means in the body blood's pretty obvious so is phlegm and you can imagine those things being out of balance yellow bile well you can imagine that's part of vomit black bile it could be related to shall we say number twos but also is likely to relate to the idea of dry blood and scabs and things like that the idea of the theory was that if all of these humors in the body are balanced a person is well they have a good sense of humor you could say there is too much or too little of a particular humor then the person becomes unwell they also believe that it had links to personality as well this seemed to be further backed up by how certain illnesses seem to be more common at different times of the year have another look at the diagram what season would you say was wet and cold probably the winter or maybe the spring well when do you tend to get colds and they're full of phlegm well it tends to be at that time of year Well we Now understand that's because we're spending more time indoors and we're more likely to pick up those sorts of bugs but to the ancient Greeks all that's not falling out your nose because your body trying to rebalance its humors this theory is incorrect but despite this it does kind of make sense as an idea which helps to explain why this idea lasted for so long and crucially this was an attempt to explain how illness was caused without relying on Supernatural ideas like evil spirits and God let's have a look at some examples what about if you have a cold what are the symptoms but you might have Shivers you might have lots of phlegm and snot so the ancient Greeks would say that the cause was too much phlegm and therefore the treatment would probably be to extract some phlegm to balance of humors it could be as simple as blowing your nose or maybe breathing in some Vapors to encourage it what about this one then you have a rash and a fever a high temperature so you've got that redness of the skin you got the high temperature which you'd be able to feel so the belief was that the cause might be too much blood so the Cure might be to bleed the patient and restore the balance of humors what about if a person is constipated though maybe they're unable to go for a number two well the cause could be too little black bile The Cure therefore would be to eat few foods that are laxative which would basically give you deliberate diarrhea and it would solve the constipation not a nice thought but it makes sense you can probably think of some more examples of your own so what is the importance of this well firstly does this idea represent progress continuity or regress the difficulty for us is in this particular topic we study medicine from 1250 going through to the present day in a way this is our starting point in ancient Greek times the four humors really Mark progress though this was a scientific and rational explanation for illness even if it was incorrect however in medieval times it represents continuity an old idea surviving for a very long time treatments related to the four humans especially bleeding lasted a very long time such treatments began to be challenged in the Renaissance but they still carried on in some forms into the 19th century and right up until pastor's germ Theory indeed bleeding was considered so vital that some people who were completely healthy would have a weakly bleeding anyway because they thought it was good for them of course it wasn't some final points then the four humors were blood back black bile yellow bile and phlegm the theory stated that illness was a result of imbalances in the humors the theory was a rational explanation of illness however this theory was incorrect ments based upon the four humors treated symptoms not the cause of the disease preventions based on the four humors were either common sense or potentially harmful such as bleeding the four humans remained one of the most widespread theories of the cause of the disease for centuries that's the end of this rapid 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