Galen 121-180 A.D.

Galen was the personal physician of Emperor Marcus Aurelius. “He adopted the Hippocratic teaching of the four humours and made it the corner stone of an elaborate and rigid system of medicine, which effectively paralysed European medical thinking for the next 1500 years; for centuries the mere words ‘Galen says…’ were enough to halt any daring attempts at medical free thinking”.

Galen was responsible for classifying medicinal plants according to their reaction with the patient’s humours and designated a temperament for each herb. These temperaments were basically hot, cold, dry, moist or temperate, which the plant could be to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th degree.

Causes of Heat:

• Outward heat e.g. summer, moderately hot baths, heating external applications.
• Movement, e.g. moderate exercise, light massage, moderate friction, hot foods, drinks and medicines, nourishment generally.
• Emotions generally e.g. anger, mild worry, moderate joy; also moderate wakefulness and sleep.
• Putrefaction.

Causes of Cold:

• Excessive exercise or repose.
• External refrigerants including cooling foods, drinks and medicines.
• Excessive heat e.g. very hot air, thermal waters, hot fomentations which disperse the innate heat by relaxing the body.
• Insufficient food.
• Extreme aggregation of humours in the body which strangles the innate heat.

Causes of Moisture:

• Baths, especially after meals.
• Moistening foods and medicines, foods taken to excess.
• Retention of matter ordinarily eliminated from the body.
• Evacuation of a desiccant or dry humour.
• Rest and sleep.
• Moderate joy.
• Things which cool the body, thus causing humours to be retained.
• Applications which, being mildly warm, liquefy the secretions.

Causes of Dryness:

• External cold which congeals humours, constricts channels in the body and obstructs moistening nutrient materials.
• Excessive heat, which disperses moisture.
• Diet; drying foods and medicines; insufficient food.
• Exercise.
• Frequent emotional disturbance.
• Violent evacuations, including sexual intercourse.

Galen’s system marked the beginning of the division in Western Europe between the ‘qualified’ physician and the traditional healer. The former had learned Galen’s system and knew the temperaments of the plants and how they reacted with the humours, while the traditional healer simply knew that plant x was good for a cough.