Prof. Maciej Kokoszko, Food, health and illness: the idea of the balance of humours in medical science

Summary

The lecture’s main goal is to describes the humoral system worked out by Galen. The system  included four main chymoi, i.e. bodily juices, namely blood, phlegm, bile and black. Each of them was described in terms of four primary element of the material world, archai, of which they consisted, namely air, water, earth and fire, and therefore were characterized by qualities that are immanent in the elements, and which were termed stoicheia, namely humidity, dryness, warmth and coldness. The lecture will present a characterization of the chymoi, describe their role in the body, and present some results of their excess or deficiency, both in the whole body as well as in its particular parts.