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There is actually a reason for this that follows back all the way to the middle ages belief that your body needed to be in balance, and black bile produced in t
by pyromine 10y ago
There is actually a reason for this that follows back all the way to the middle ages belief that your body needed to be in balance, and black bile produced in the spleen was one of the components of that balance.
Granted I was reading about this last night, but I can't remember it to the full extent now.
- kamkha 10y agoUnfortunately, that's a bit of a false etymology! According to humorism, black bile [1] comes from the gallbladder, not the spleen. The spleen was supposed to produce yellow bile, an excess of which was thought to cause aggression and anger. [1] Black bile is actually the source of the term "melancholy" — from the Greek melankholia, from melan- ("black") and kholē ("bile")!
- tpeo 10y agoThe issue with spleen and black bile in humoralism isn't that it overproduces it, which it doesn't, but rather that it overaccumulates it. >“The gall, placed in the concave of the liver, extracts choler to it: the spleen, melancholy; which is situate on the left side, over against the liver, a spongy matter, that draws this black choler to it by a secret virtue [emphasis mine], and feeds upon it, conveying the rest to the bottom of the stomach, to stir up appetite, or else to the guts as excrement.” ~ Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy