Humoral Theory

Shakespeare and Medicine

In this course Professor Mary Fissell (Johns Hopkins University) explores the health and disease in Shakespearean England. In the first lecture, we introduce the fundamental theory of medicine in the late 16th- and early 17th-century England: humoral theory. After that, in the second lecture, we think about the various medical practitioners in Shakespeare’s day, including midwives, physicians, surgeons, barbers and apothecaries, before turning in the third and final lecture to think about the various plague epidemics that struck London in Shakespeare’s day, and their impact of Shakespeare and his plays.

Humoral Theory

In this lecture, we discuss the fundamental theory of medicine in early modern England: humoral theory. As we move through the lecture, we consider: (i) the four humours that formed the basis of humoral theory: blood, phlegm, black bile (melancholy) and yellow bile (choler); (ii) about the connection between food and drink and the balance of the humours in one’s body; (iii) the idea of the humours as a combination of wetness/dryness and hotness/coldness, and their connection with the four classical elements: earth (cold and dry, like black bile), water (cold and wet, like phlegm), air (hot and dry, like blood) and fire (hot and dry, like yellow bile); (iv) the use of humoral theory to explain the difference between men and women, the female menstrual cycle, and between young and old; (v) the idea that each individual had a dominant humour, and that one needed to eat and drink in a way that complemented one’s own humoral constitution, e.g. if you were phlegmatic (cold and wet), to eat lots of hot, dry food; (vi) the personality types associated with each of the humours, and some examples from Shakespeare’s works: choleric (e.g. Petruchio and Kate in The Taming of the Shrew); melancholic (e.g. Jacques in As You Like It, Hamlet in Hamlet); phlegmatic (e.g. Falstaff in Henry IV Parts 1 and 2); and sanguine (e.g. Prince Hal/Henry V in Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 and Henry V); and (vii) the idea that sickness was caused by a humoral imbalance.