BPS 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Phlegm, Parsley, Phocomelia

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Biopharmaceutical sciences
• Course: BPS 1101
• Professor: William Ogilvie

Document Summary

Raw and cooked foods have different patterns of chemicals. No instructions: information passed verbally, imprecise, poor reproducibility. Now things come with standard instructions that increase reliability. Cure arrived at by reasoning (make it up). Healing often connected with superstition, magic, and religion. The universe is made up of four elements: earth, air, fire, water. He built on these ideas and this dominated medical theory. Body is made of four humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile. The four humours are normally in balance. Too much or not enough of a humour causes disease. Cure by re-balancing the humours: diagnose using the properties of the humours. Fevers associated with hot and dry: cure using cold and wet. Properties of four elements: earth dry, air cold, fire hot, water wet. Properties of four humours: blood cold, phlegm wet, yellow bile hot, black bile dry.