KatayunSalehi

=Medicinal ﻿Practices and Illness in the Elizabethan Era=

In the Elizabethan period, the three major organs of the body were known to be the brain, the heart, and the liver. The brain functioned as a person's source for logic, memory, and imagination (Hoeniger 131). The heart was known to be the source of life. The heart took blood given by the liver and created heat within the body to stimulate energy (Edgar 45). The liver was supposedly responsible for producing the four humors: yellow bile, black bile, phlegm, and blood. The humors were associated with choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic, and sanguine behavior, respectively (Edgar 43). An excess or lack of any of the four humors meant physical instability. The liver was believed to be connected to vessles (which were not quite like how veins are known to be today) which contained blood and therefore spread the humors throughout the body (Hoeniger 145). Doctors and physicians would offer treatments, like bloodletting, for sick patients based on the idea that they had an imbalance of the humors in them and they must be purged of the disharmony (Moss 114). The graphic below is a visual representation of the emotions related to each of the humors:
 * ===Physiology===

Shakespeare refers to blood and alludes to its significance in the following passage from Macbeth, when Lady Macbeth is alone after having read her husband's letter:

"Come, you spirits/ That tend on mortal thoughs, unsex me here,/ And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full/ Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood./ Stop up th' access and passage to remorse..." - Shakespeare 33 (Act 1. Sc. 5. L. 47-51.)

Shakespeare's audience would have understood the statement to imply high levels of heat in the body produced by the heart with blood from the liver, and a great deal of energy. The mention of and request for thick blood by Lady Macbeth indicates that she may be on the verge of instability. Just like physical health, a person's mental state relied on a balance of the elements (Hoeniger 181-2). As with the example above, Lady Macbeth may have been interpreted by Elizabethans to be of poor mental health when she pleads for thick blood. Much of what Elizabethans believed about mental health came from the ancient Greek philosophers. The four humors were also referred to as the four elements: earth, water, air, and fire. The characteristics associated with them were heat, coldness, dryness, and moistness (Edgar 206). Two out of four characteristics (which were said to encompass the composition of everything) made up each one of the elements (Hoeniger 182). The picture below shows how each element is connected to two characteristics: The plague, or Black Death, was a constant threat in Europe for a very long time, and sometimes led to public places like theaters being unoccupied or shut down. One of the symptoms was that the plague was seen as having a melancholic effect on the sick. Therefore, they had excess black bile being produced by the livr (Simpson 205-6). Some thought that the Black Death was a result of people's sins. One of them was performing in or attending the theater, which added even more pressure for theaters to be closed (Moss 74). The Hippocratic Oath, which came from ancient Greece, was taken very seriously during Shakespeares time. It was seen as a series of regulations and laws to provide better and more qualified physicians. The requirements to become a doctor became stricter through the Oath and was made in the interest of improving the diagnosis and treatment of patients (Simpson 63). For example, the physician must have attended a university and studied science, and surgeons needed to be able to read and write (Burns 226). It also prevented everyday, random people from administering drugs and medicines to other; the task was reserved for legitimate apothecaries (Simpson 177). Also, midwives were only allowed to practice their job if certified by a bishop (Hoeniger 19). Midwives were given the power to actively seek out physicians to help with risky childbirths as well (Burns 227-8).
 * ===The Elements===
 * ===Epidemics===
 * ===The Hippocratic Oath===