Ideas about the causes of illness in Medieval Britain

The Four Humours

The Ancient Greeks identified four different liquids, or Humours in the body:

• blood
• phlegm (the watery liquid when you sneeze or cough).
• yellow bile (when you are sick)
• black bile (probable blood in your vomit, which makes it look black)

If your Four Humours was unbalanced, you became ill. So if you had a temperature, they would say you had too mcuh blood, as your cheeks go red. They referred the Four Humours to the season as well because in Winter, you have a chance of catching a flu, where you body produces too much plegm. They used these theories to balance out the Four Humours. 

Hippocrates

Hippocrates had a huge influence on doctors' training and ideas about the causes of diseases in the Roman Empire.…