Galen's theory of black bile : Hippocratic tradition, manipulation, innovation / by Keith Andrew Stewart.

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2018]

178 pages ; 24 cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Galen and the history of black bile -- The origins of black bile and humoral theory -- Galen's doxographical explanation for the history of black bile -- Key influences on Galen's writing on black bile -- The importance of philosophy in Galen's interpretation of the hippocratic corpus -- The influence of Galen's teachers on his views concerning medical theory -- Galen's opinion on the authenticity of the hippocratic writings -- Galen's polemic against those he considers to be opposed to humoral theory -- Galen's qualitative and structural characterisation of black bile -- The essential properties of black bile -- Physical descriptions of black bile -- Galen's distinction of different types of black bile -- The different types of black bile in Galen's writing -- A question of consistency in Galen's characterisation of black bile -- Galen's explanation of harmful black bile -- The properties of altered black bile and how this makes it a potentially harmful substance in the body -- The cleansing of harmful black bile from the body -- The importance of the liver for the origin of black bile in the body -- The relationship between the structure of the spleen and its function -- Galen's attack on asclepiades and erasistratus on the function of the spleen to cleanse the body of black bile -- Diseases of the spleen in relation to the harmful nature of black bile -- The diseases caused by black bile -- Melancholy, the black bile disease -- Quartan fever, the black bile fever -- Cases where the presence of black bile indicates a terminal disease.