Humoralism and Social Development in Colonial America

COLONIAL physicians had a sense of man's physical nature that contrasts sharply with modern thinking.1-4However, the dissimilarities do not alter the fact that colonial medical thought had a determinative influence on early American behavior by informing attitudes about housing, clothing, diet, health, race, and sex. The present communication surveys the far-reaching impact that humoralism (a prominent theory of medicine in the colonies) had on 17thand 18th-century America. The purpose of this communication is to create an appreciation for the critical role that medical thought played in the formation of American society. Origin and Concept of Humoralism Humoralism was not an entirely logical body of thought that was written by one person. On the contrary, it was a cluster of interrelated ideas; its various propositions were formulated by persons who were often separated by space and time. Humoralism began before the time of the Hippocratic writers of ancient Greece,