On Temperaments

Anyone may have casually heard of the word “temperament” as pertaining to one’s mood, temper or general disposition. In psychology, experts explain this term in deeper detail with the hefty “HUMORISM” theory. While this has never been a bit of a joke, it was pretty dominant in the medical practice in the medieval times until the advent of modern medical research in the nineteenth century.

This theory holds that the human body is filled with four basic substances, called four humours, or humors, which are in balance when a person is healthy. The four humors were identified as black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. And from these humors, a set of characters were developed. Those with too much blood were sanguine. Those with too much phlegm were phlegmatic. Those with too much yellow bile were choleric, and those with too much black bile were melancholic.

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