Galen's theory of black bile : Hippocratic tradition, manipulation, innovation / by Keith Andrew Stewart.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stewart, Keith Andrew, author.

Series:

Studies in ancient medicine ; volume 51.

Studies in ancient medicine, 0925-1421 ; volume 51

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Galen.

Medicine, Greek and Roman.

Medicine, Ancient--History.

Medicine, Ancient.

Body fluids.

Humoralism.

History, Ancient.

History.

Medical Subjects:

Humoralism.

History, Ancient.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

viii, 178 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2019]

Summary:

In Galen's Theory of Black Bile: Hippocratic Tradition, Manipulation, Innovation Keith Stewart investigates Galen's writing on black bile to explain health and disease and shows that Galen sometimes presented this humour as three substances with different properties that can either be harmful or beneficial to the body. Keith Stewart analyses the most important treatises for Galen's physical description and characteristion of black bile and challenges certain views on the development of this humour, such as the importance of the content of the Hippocratic On the Nature of Man. This analysis allows us to understand how and why Galen defines and uses black bile in different ways for his arguments that cannot always be reconciled with the content of his sources.

Contents:

Galen and the history of black bile

The origins of black bile and humoral theory

Galen's doxographical explanation for the history of black bile

Key influences on Galen's writing on black bile

The importance of philosophy in Galen's interpretation of the hippocratic corpus

The influence of Galen's teachers on his views concerning medical theory

Galen's opinion on the authenticity of the hippocratic writings

Galen's polemic against those he considers to be opposed to humoral theory

Galen's qualitative and structural characterisation of black bile

The essential properties of black bile

Physical descriptions of black bile

Galen's distinction of different types of black bile

The different types of black bile in Galen's writing

A question of consistency in Galen's characterisation of black bile

Galen's explanation of harmful black bile

The properties of altered black bile and how this makes it a potentially harmful substance in the body

The cleansing of harmful black bile from the body

The importance of the liver for the origin of black bile in the body

The relationship between the structure of the spleen and its function

Galen's attack on asclepiades and erasistratus on the function of the spleen to cleanse the body of black bile

Diseases of the spleen in relation to the harmful nature of black bile

The diseases caused by black bile

Melancholy, the black bile disease

Quartan fever, the black bile fever

Cases where the presence of black bile indicates a terminal disease.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Other Format:

Online version: Stewart, Keith Andrew, author. Galen's theory of black bile

ISBN:

9789004382787

900438278X

OCLC:

1043563079