Table of Contents
What common treatment was based on the Four Humours?
Humoural Treatments Many treatments involved trying to restore the balance of the Four Humours. Blood-letting (phlebotomy): Methods including cupping, leeches and cutting a vein. Purging: Patients were given emetics (to make them vomit) or laxatives (to empty the bowels).
What are the 4 humors and how do they relate to one’s disposition?
The theory was that there were four body fluids referred to as humors and these humors were associated with mood: black bile, meaning melancholy; phlegm, meaning apathy; yellow bile, referring to anger; and blood, which was confidence.
How did the Four Humours affect medical knowledge?
If the humours stayed in balance then a person remained healthy, but if there was too much of one humour then illness occurred. If a patient had a runny nose, it was because of an excess of phlegm in the body. If a patient had nose bleeds, it was because of an excess of blood.
How did Galen and Hippocrates influence medicine?
Hippocrates was significant in the development of medicine because he developed the Theory of the Four Humours which influenced ideas about the causes of disease for hundred of years after his death. Galen’s ideas hindered medical development, by reducing the ability of other doctors to come up with their own ideas.
How were Galen and Hippocrates similar?
Both Hippocrates and Galen attached clinical importance to observation and prognosis. It was the evidence of the senses that laid the indispensable groundwork of medical knowledge. Both had an ability for generalization from observations. Galen disposed himself particularly to deductive reasoning.
What are the 4 humors and explain how Hippocrates thought they were related to disease?
Greek physician Hippocrates (ca. 460 bce—ca. 370 bce) and his successors espoused a system of medicine called “the theory of the four humors.” When these humors—black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood were in balance within the patient, health prevailed; when they were out of balance in some way, disease took over.
What did Hippocrates believe?
He believed in the natural healing process of rest, a good diet, fresh air and cleanliness. He noted that there were individual differences in the severity of disease symptoms and that some individuals were better able to cope with their disease and illness than others.
How did the four humours help develop medicine?
They believed that people became sick when the four Humours in their bodies were out of balance. exercise and a good diet. This would keep the Humours in the body well-balanced. They treated illnesses by bleeding patients or making them vomit.
How are Galen and Hippocrates similar?
Why was there little change in medicine in the Middle Ages?
Finally, there was a lack of progress in medicine during the middle ages because of a lack of scientific understanding. Due to Church control of medical training Physicians and medical students tried to make new discoveries fit into the older theories, rather than experimenting to explain the discoveries.
What was Galen’s theory of opposites?
Galen believed in the use of opposites – if a man appeared to have a fever, he treated it with something cold; if a man appeared to have a cold, he would be treated with heat. People who were weak were given hard physical exercises to do to build up their muscles.