Hippocratic humoral theory
Teoría humoral y medicina hipocrática
- Date
- c. 400 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Kos, Greece
- Credited to
- Hippocrates of Kos and the Hippocratic school
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
A naturalistic explanation of disease as an imbalance of four humours (blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile), separating medicine from magic and religion. It established clinical observation, prognosis and professional ethics.
The Corpus Hippocraticum was written by several authors over more than a century.
What it led to
- rational medicine based on observing the patient
- the Hippocratic oath and medical ethics
- the dominance of humoral theory in the West for two millennia
- the practice of bloodletting and dietetics as therapies
Built on
- Egyptian medicine (Edwin Smith Papyrus)
- pre-Socratic natural philosophy
Made possible
- Experimental anatomy and physiology (Galen)c. 170 CE
- medical record
- Galenic medicine