Ben Jonson’s Imitation Games

This chapter considers why sartorial affectation holds exemplary status as a “humor” to be purged through humiliating exposure in humors comedies. This exemplarity carries over to city comedy’s depiction of masculinity when Ben Jonson creates a bridge between the genres in his Every Man in His Humour. The play has been traditionally understood as drawing on humoral theory to reaffirm class hierarchies and align masculinity with competitive individualism. However, this chapter demonstrates that when this play is situated in relation to other humors comedies by George Chapman as well as Jonson’s other non-dramatic writings, the distinction between the authentic masculinity of the city gallant, true poet, and trickster servant and its inauthentic imitation in the gull, plagiarist, and braggart soldier falls apart. The chapter draws on the overlap of accounts of nonnormative embodiment within disability and queer theory to help reveal that Jonson’s play encourages a broader range of acceptable variations in masculine embodiment than modern post-Cartesian forms of selfhood permit. These nonstandard forms of embodiment, in turn, are the basis for attachments between men and attachments to the objects of material culture, especially clothing.

Humoral Pathology

This chapter talks about the role humoral pathology played in Jewish medicine. Humans were created from four elements: earth, wind, fire, and water. And the fact that someone, God forbid, falls ill is due to an imbalance of these elements. One becomes dominant over another and there is no peace between them. In both Jewish medicine and rabbinic literature, views on the elements, the humours, and the temperaments were concordant with the dominant conceptions across Europe and in the Middle East. Humoral theory in Jewish folk beliefs was a significant element of most popular publications cited in traditional health and medical manuals. However, with the rise of biomedicine, memory of the origins of many views and practices derived from humoral pathology faded. Nonetheless, like the temperaments, they remained a presence in colloquial phraseology. As humoral pathology filtered down into folk culture it began to interact with magic and religion, even offering grounds for speculation on the extrasensory world, angels, and so on.

Black, White and Blue: Pregnancy and Unsettled Binaries in The Masque of Blackness (1605)

This article examines the construction of national and racial identities within Ben Jonson’s and Inigo Jones’s Masque of Blackness against the backdrop of King James’ investment in creating a ‘British’ union at the start of his reign. The article re-examines the blackface performance of the Queen and her ladies in the contexts of the Queen’s and Inigo Jones’ European connections, the Queen’s reputation as ‘wilful’, and her pregnant body’s ability to evoke widespread cultural beliefs about the maternal imagination’s power to determine a child’s racial make-up. We argue that the masque’s striking use of blue-face along with black and white-face reveals a deep investment in Britain’s ancient customs which stands in tension with Blackness’ showcasing of foreign bodies, technologies, and cultural reference points. By demonstrating the significance of understanding Queen Anna’s pregnancy and her ‘wilful’ personality within the context of early modern humoral theory, moreover, we develop existing discussions of the humoral theory that underpins the masque’s representation of racial identities. We suggest that the Queen’s pregnant performance in blackface, by reminding the viewer that her maternal mind could ‘will’ the racial identity of royal progeny into being, had the power to unsettle King James I’s white male nationalist supremacy in the very act of celebrating it before their new English court and its foreign guests.

The Special Problem of Nutrition and Women’s Health

In this chapter, we move beyond the basics of humoral theory to those recommendations specific to women’s health. In particular, dietary recommendations for women’s health are considered as they pertain to theoretical medicine but also as they concern religion and folk medicine. Specific concerns about women were typically found in gynaecological texts. Pregnancy was typically viewed as a condition which required special treatment, but dietary treatment was often similar to that used for any ill or recuperating person.

The Trotula and the Works of Hildegard of Bingen

Two thirteenth century works on medicine attributed to women are examined for what they tell us about those writing inside and outside the medical tradition, and what the authors might have known about folk medicine. The Trotula is traditionally attributed to a female author (Trota) who was a teacher in the medical school at Salerno. While only part of the book, if any, was written by Trota, the text was a mainstay of gynaecological treatment through the sixteenth century. Hildegard of Bingen was a prolific author and abbess who wrote two works addressing health: Causae et curae and Physica. All three texts are examined and compared for their take on humoral theory and influence of folk medicine.

Medieval Theories of Nutrition and Health

Ancient Greek humoral theory, as formulated primarily by Hippocrates and Galen, formed the basis of theoretical medicine in the Middle Ages. This chapter provides a brief overview of humoral theory, and explains how diet was directly related to disease and health in the Greek medical system. This chapter also traces some of the changes and modifications of humoral theory which took place through the Middle Ages.

The Hippocratic account of Mental Health: Humors and Human Temperament

Introduction: A quintessential element of Hippocratic medicine is treatment of mental diseases which was based on a detailed examination of the symptoms as well as the study of human physiology and final outcome of the diseases which is based on humoral theory. Purpose: The aim of the work is to highlight the contribution of Hippocrates to the study of mental illness based on his theory of humors Methodology: Our study consists of interpretations of the original text of Hippocrates including extensive observations of anatomy and physiology of human body based on humoral theory. Then the information was evaluated on the basis of modern literature in order to establish their validity. A major limitation of the research is the lack of a systemic methodology to screen the Hippocratic corpus for relevant passages which actually requires interdisciplinary research in order to determine which aspects of Hippocratic medicine can be developed. Results: In Corpus Hippocraticum, it is highlighting that maintaining a relative proportion of humors in human body (apart from maintaining health) regulates the human temperament and its behavioral manifestations. Hippocrates, has included in his work observations not only on human physiology and diseases but also studies the environmental and geographical impact on them, thus setting the stage for holistic approaches Conclusion: Summarizing, Hippocratic medicine and particularly his observations on mental disorders provides a clear picture of the methodology used by Hippocrates which can be a guide for the adoption of good practices for contemporary scholars and clinicians on their everyday practice

Historical Surgical Treatments in Polish Veterinary Medicine

Several methods of surgical treatments have been used in the history of Polish veterinary medicine, many of which have now been forgotten. In the present study, a review was conducted of Polish-language veterinary medicine books published from the 16th century (when the first books in Polish were printed) to the 20th century. The article contains a description of the most popular surgical methods used in animal treatment in Poland over the centuries including, among others, bloodletting, setons, fonticulus and cauterization. This article reviews historical veterinary methods and traces the development of Polish veterinary medicine from ancient cures often based on humoral theory to a modern branch of biologic science.

On Immunity

During the late 1800s and early 1900s, a war of words raged among physicians and scientists regarding the nature of immunity: Some supported the so-called cellular theory and others the serum, or humoral, theory. Considerable laboratory research was mounted by scientists on each side to refute the findings of those on the other. The two camps on immunity, the cell theory people and the serum (or humoral) theory people, passionately clung to their respective beliefs and sometimes lobbed disrespectful comments, or downright insults, very publicly at each other. Ultimately, both theories, the killing power of serum and the phagocytic activity of the leukocytes, were recognized to be operative in immunity because they work together to facilitate a rich, complete, albeit complex, immune response.

Nie tylko „O sztuce lekarskiej” w wybranych pismach Corpus Hippocraticum

According to the researchers, the most intriguing and fascinating work at the Corpus Hippocraticum is the treatise De prisca medicina. It consists of 24 parts in which Hippocrates argues that the human organism is a blend of various substances or humors. Having set forth humoral theory, Hippocrates criticizes the hypothesis about the causes of diseases independent of this theory. Hippocrates medicine, due to the way it is practiced, should be treated as τέχνη, and this term can be translated as proficiency, craftsmanship, skills, craft, and art. Medicine should not use hypotheses or generalizations but should be based on experience and research. The doctor was a researcher, but above all a craftsman, accompanied by students and other doctors, with whom he analyzed every case of disease.