Passions and tempers : a history of the humours / Noga Arikha.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Arikha, Noga.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Body fluids.

Mood (Psychology)--History.

Mood (Psychology).

Body Fluids--physiology.

History of Medicine.

Mental Disorders--history.

Mental Disorders--physiopathology.

Philosophy, Medical--history.

Temperament--physiology.

History.

Medical Subjects:

Body Fluids--physiology.

History of Medicine.

Mental Disorders--history.

Mental Disorders--physiopathology.

Philosophy, Medical--history.

Temperament--physiology.

Physical Description:

xxi, 376 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Ecco, [2007]

Summary:

The humours- blood, phlegm, black bile, and choler- were substances thought to circulate within the body and determine a person's health, mood, and character. For example, an excess of black bile was considered a cause of melancholy. The theory of humours remained an inexact but powerful tool for centuries, surviving scientific changes and offering clarity to physicians.

This one-of-a-kind book follows the fate of these variable and invisible fluids from their Western origin in ancient Greece to their present-day versions. It traces their persistence from medical guidebooks of the past to current health fads, from the testimonies of medical doctors to the theories of scientists, physicians, and philosophers. By intertwining the histories of medicine, science, psychology, and philosophy, Noga Arikha revisits and revises how we think about all aspects of our physical, mental, and emotional selves.

Contents:

I Foundations: Ancient Insights: (Antiquity: Sixth Century BC to Second Century AD)

1 Cosmic Elements 3

2 Human Elements 6

3 Types, Temperaments, and Environments 9

4 Prescriptions and Priests 14

5 From Greece to Alexandria 18

6 The Naked Eye 21

7 The Breath of Life 24

8 Alexandrian Sects and Galenic Travels 29

9 Primordial Passions 33

10 Three Souls 37

II Essences: The Classical Trail: (Eastern Middle Ages: Seventh to Twelfth Centuries)

1 Byzantium 45

2 The Arab Conquest 48

3 Hunayn ibn-Is'haq and the Translators 50

4 Divine Creation and Human Frailty 53

5 Religion and Emotion 57

6 New Departures 61

7 Persian Insights 64

8 Out of Spain 68

III Remedies: Miraculous Medicine: (Western Middle Ages: Fifth to Fourteenth Centuries)

1 Faith and Healing 73

2 Scholasticism and Humoural Care 78

3 Old Convictions 80

4 The High and the Low 83

5 Outsiders 87

6 Bloody Treatments 89

7 Verbena, Olives, and Herbal Power 92

8 Apothecaries, Alchemists, and Amulets 96

9 Airs, Waters, Places, Diets 98

10 Fearful Epidemics 104

11 Life After Death 109

IV Harmonies: Renaissance Bodies and Melancholy Souls: (Renaissance: Fifteenth Century to Early Seventeenth Century)

1 Hypochondria at Court 113

2 The Black Sun 115

3 Mind, Matter, and Metaphysics 120

4 Cosmic Attunement 124

5 Musical Therapy 126

6 Artistic Astrology 130

7 Paracelsus and the Magic of Nature 135

8 Corpses, Books, and Reputations 139

9 Beauty Beneath the Skin 143

10 New Bodies, Old Science 151

11 Diagnosing Melancholy 155

12 Love-Maladies 159

13 Uterine Fury and Satyriasis 162

14 Anti-Melancholy Antidotes 167

V Nature: Of Blood, Airs, and Reasons: (Scientific Revolution: Seventeenth Century)

1 New Science, Old Bodies 173

2 Campanella's Heavens and Galileo's Revolutions 175

3 Atoms and Humours 179

4 From Spirits to Circulation 183

5 Harvey's Blood 187

6 Cartesian Souls 191

7 Anti-Humours 195

8 Empiricism 199

9 Medical Secrets and Popular Healers 202

10 Transfusions and Confusions 207

VI Brain: Passions and Nerves: (The Making of Modernity: Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries)

1 Cartesian Humours 215

2 The Physiological Self 217

3 The Sensitive Soul 220

4 Introducing "Neurologie" 223

5 Enlightened Thinkers, Old-Fashioned Doctors, and the Embodied Mind 227

6 Of Mechanism and Vitalism 231

7 Nervous Juice 235

8 The Material Soul 238

9 Modern Humours 243

10 Mental Illness 246

11 Mesmerism 249

12 The Birth of Psychiatry 253

13 Brain Localization 258

14 Hypnosis, Hysterics, Neurosis 263

VII Science: Contemporary Humours: (Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries)

1 The Neurological Self 271

2 The Pharmaceutical Self 274

3 Brain Images and Body Image 280

4 The Emotional Self 282

5 New Temperaments 287

6 Mind Over Matter 291

7 The Regimen Returns 295

8 Full Circle 301.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references ([329]-351) and index.

ISBN:

9780060731168

0060731168

OCLC:

137242012