Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours [Hardcover]

Noga Arikha (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 29, 2007

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.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Leading medical minds were once convinced that health and sickness resulted from the interplay of the four "humors": blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile, each associated with a certain personality trait (e.g., black bile signifies melancholic) and with one of the basic elements of the universe (e.g., yellow bile is linked to fire). The rational mindset naturally recoils at the crudity and superstition of this ancient medical framework, but independent historian Arikha's pleasing historical survey usefully reminds us that our modern theories of the relationship between mind, mood and body rest on gains made by humoral analogy. To investigate the humors is to probe all of Western medicine, starting with the ancient physicians Hippocrates and Galen, the Persian Hunayn ibn-Is'haq, through the bloodlettings of the Middle Ages and Harvey's experiments on blood, to Mesmer and Freud and beyond. If Arikha's defense is occasionally a touch too fervent, her passion, intellectual energy and empathy are laudable . After all, says Arikha, neurotransmitters are today's humors, and pharmaceutical companies are not all that different from the apothecaries of yore. This is a stimulating work that shows the Western mind nobly grappling with the inscrutable nature of the human body. 36 b&w illus. (June)
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Review

“Passions and Tempers may excite the passions and tempers...as a good work of intellectual history should.” (Washington Post )

“...this persistent [humoural] theory...has much to teach us...” (New York Sun )

“...a stimulating work that shows the Western mind nobly grappling with the inscrutable nature of the human body.” (Publishers Weekly )

“To Arikha’s immense credit, she provides a thoroughly documented account...” (New York Times Book Review )

“...a fine job...” (New York Times Book Review )

“Fascinating…[Passions and Tempers] challenges us to consider the value, and the meaning, of a discredited theory.” (Salon.com )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Ecco; 1 edition (May 29, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060731168
• ISBN-13: 978-0060731168
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #441,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, July 24, 2007

By 

Mark Stevens - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours (Hardcover)

This is an illuminating, marvelous, and captivating book. As a work of scholarship it recounts in fascinating detail the history of humours, those mysterious forces that, it was believed for more than 2000 years, govern our bodies and minds. In the last century, of course, scientific research has discredited the theory; today, humours are regarded by many as an embarrassing artifact of ignorance and superstition, the equivalent of "the world is flat" or "the sun revolves around the earth." But humoural theory remains nonetheless one of the great achievements of the human imagination, an often beautiful, subtle and complex effort to understand our nature. Arikha has not only written a rich account of humoural medicine before the modern era (the book contains many extraordinary historical prints of the body) she has also brought to life this deep philosophical music. The many great thinkers who applied themselves to humoural theory sought to transcend the alienation from which we all suffer, to harmonize the warring and discordant elements within us and, in a larger sense, to unite mind to body and man to nature. Western culture too often forgets as it corrects; "Passions and Tempers" recovers something essential: the soulfullness of the body. "Even when wrong," Arikha argues, "a theory can help us understand, if not the world, then perhaps ourselves."

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent narrative on a difficult subject, September 8, 2007

By 

A Reader (NYC, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours (Hardcover)

Arikha has tackled a rich and challenging subject, nothing less than explaining humoural theory, a medical model that dominated the Western and Arabic worlds for thousands of years. This wonderful book lucidly traces the evolution of this complex thinking over time. And she does a great job of showing how the model and its metaphors still influence our language and thinking today. It's a welcome addition to the long bibliography of studies that show how ancient ideas and beliefs still resonate in our time and is a worthy successor to the many similar projects produced by earlier generations of Warburg Intstitute-trained scholars. Read it if you're interested in medical history or in the many ways humans have tried to make sense of the different ways our bodies and our minds experience and perceive the world around us.

13 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Could have been better, July 17, 2007

By 

Don Paarlberg Jr. (Fairfax, Virginia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Passions and Tempers: A History of the Humours (Hardcover)

Arikha does a good job with a fascinating subject - an intellectual history of the theory and practice of medicine. As she shows, long-authoritative theories of the four humors profoundly influenced people's lives until only very recently. This makes the book worth buying. With such a good subject, though, it's too bad that Arikha did not take the trouble to do a better job. The book is about twice as long as it should be, and we lose track of the forest in her minute, repetitive descriptions of trees. Moreover, Arikha apparently did not consult very many original sources, and instead mainly presents a re-churning of the secondary literature. Had she better mastered the originals, she might more confidently have been able to tell us what it all means.