black bile
Spleen's ancient secretion
Black bile is one of the four humors in ancient and medieval medicine, believed to be produced by the spleen.
An excess supposedly caused melancholy—indeed, *melancholy* comes from Greek words meaning "black bile." The concept persists mainly in historical discussions of medicine and psychology, though melancholic and splenetic survive as personality descriptors.
- saturnineGloomily bitter in temperament
- depressionProlonged low state
- morosenessIll-tempered gloominess
- heavy heartProfound emotional sadness
- spleenBlood-filtering abdominal organ
dark mood · Galenic medicine · ancient medicine · Galen · Hippocrates · temperaments · bodily fluid · bodily fluids · liver · earth element · gloom · medieval · morbid · biliousness · alchemy · purge · darkness · introspection
- ancient medicinephysicians, healers, Hippocratic Oath, Hippocratic oath, four humors
- Humors and Passionspassions, humors, choler, melancholia, phlegm
- medieval medicinebloodletting, leeching, four humors, humors, barber-surgeons
- old medicinebloodletting, leeches, leech therapy, leeching, cupping
- Old Sciencephlogiston, aether, ether, caloric, miasma
- humoral medicinefour humors, bodily humors, phlegm, Hippocratic corpus, Galen
black bileblood
Body's oxygen carrier
yellow bile · choler · sanguinity · red blood · phlegm
black bilesanguinity
Cheerful confidence about outcomes
good cheer · high spirits · joviality · optimism · cheerfulness
black, blacken, melancholy, blackness, bile, blackest, blacker, blackish, blackened