Three Books on Life

...it also needs to be plentiful. And even so much, that it seems to equal at least the weight of yellow bile original: "bilem". In this system, yellow bile (choler) is hot and dry, while black bile is cold and dry.. Let black bile original: "atra bilis", therefore, be abundant, but very thin. Let it not lack the surrounding moisture of a finer phlegm original: "pituitæ". Phlegm is cold and moist; here it acts as a lubricant to prevent the black bile from becoming too brittle., lest it dry out completely and become extremely hard.

It should not, however, be mixed entirely with phlegm, especially if it is cold or plentiful, lest the mixture grow cold. But let it be mixed with yellow bile and blood to such an extent that one body is fashioned out of the three: composed of a double proportion of blood compared to the other two. In this mixture, there should exist eight parts of blood, two parts of yellow bile, and again two portions of black bile.

Let the black bile be ignited somewhat by those two humors, and once ignited, let it glow—not burn. Otherwise, as tends to happen with harder matter when it boils too much, it might burn and agitate the person too violently. For when it cools down, it similarly cools to the extreme.

Indeed, black bile is like iron: when it is directed toward the cold, it is extremely cold; when, on the contrary, it turns strongly toward heat, it is extremely hot. Nor should it seem strange that black bile can be easily ignited and, once ignited, burn more intensely. Since we see lime original: "calcem". Quicklime reacts violently with water, generating heat; Ficino uses this as a chemical analogy for how dry humors react., which is similar to it, immediately boil and burn up when water is poured over it.

Melancholy has such power toward either extreme because of the unity of its stable and fixed nature. Such extremes do not happen to the other humors. When it is supremely hot, it produces the greatest boldness—indeed, ferocity. When it is extremely cold, however, it produces extreme fear and cowardice.

But when it is affected in various ways by the middle degrees between cold and heat, it produces various dispositions. This is not unlike how strong, undiluted wine is accustomed to bring on various moods in those drinking to intoxication, or even those drinking just a little too freely.

Therefore, it is necessary that black bile be appropriately tempered original: "temperata". In medieval medicine, "tempering" meant balancing the qualities of hot, cold, moist, and dry.. When it is moderated thus, as we said, and mixed with yellow bile and blood—because it is dry by nature and, as much as its nature allows, very thin—it is easily ignited by them. Because it is solid and the most tenacious of the humors, once ignited, it blazes for a very long time. Because it is most powerful in the unity of its tenacious dryness, it grows hot more violently. Just as wood, compared to straw, if both are ignited, remains hot and glows more and for longer. And from that long-lasting and violent heat, a great brilliance and a violent and long-lasting movement proceed. To this point returns that saying of Heraclitus Heraclitus was a pre-Socratic philosopher known for his focus on fire and change. The quote beginning here is "A dry light is the wisest soul.": Light