THE HUMORAL THEORY...
Leeches, Mathematics, Ageing, and Kleptomania...
BOC#016
4 MINUTE MUNCH
THE ‘HUMORAL THEORY’ OF HIPPOCRATES (460-370 BC) AND GALEN (129-216 AD)…
…held that the body was maintained by the correct balance of four bodily fluids; blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. A person’s health was thought to be influenced by the harmony of these four fluids. A person who was red from fever was thought to have too much blood, and so bloodletting was encouraged to reestablish equilibrium. Leeching was the method of choice; a practice that dates back to ancient Egypt where it’d been recorded over 3000 years ago in the form of tomb carvings. Written records of the practice are known to exist in Chinese, Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian texts. Leeching peaked in the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe, and while it is no longer mainstream, it’s still used today by plastic surgeons to reduce venous congestion, as well as a means of increasing blood flow, relieving pressure, and preventing tissue death.
PERSIAN MATHEMATICIAN AL-KHWARIZMI IS DUBBED THE ‘FATHER OF ALGEBRA’…
…thanks to his famous work Al-Jebr which was translated into latin in 1145 by the English Arabist Robert Chester. Robert was thus the first person to introduce the word algebra into Europe. Interestingly, he also introduced the mathematical term ‘sine’ into English, which, as anyone remembering their school maths lessons might recall, is defined as the ratio of two sides of a right-angled triangle; recall sin, cos and tan. The word finds its origins in Sanskrit (Jya-ardha) abbreviated by Hindu mathematicians to Jiva. When this word was subsequently arabized, it became ‘jiba’ as there is no ‘v’ in arabic, and was eventually abbreviated further using the two arabic letters Jim (j) and Baa (b). When Robert Chester attempted to translate the word into Latin, he misread it as ‘jayb’ which means ‘pocket’ in Arabic. Chester then used the Latin word for pocket, ‘Sinus’ in its place, which was later reduced to ‘sin’ in english.
PASSAGE ON AGEING FROM TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE BY MITCH ALBOM*
“All this emphasis on youth—I don’t buy it,” he said. “Listen, I know what a misery being young can be, so don’t tell me it’s so great. All these kids who came to me with their struggles, their strife, their feelings of inadequacy, their sense that life was miserable, so bad they wanted to kill themselves . . . “And, in addition to all the miseries, the young are not wise. They have very little understanding about life. Who wants to live every day when you don’t know what’s going on? When people are manipulating you, telling you to buy this perfume and you’ll be beautiful, or this pair of jeans and you’ll be sexy—and you believe them! It’s such nonsense.” Weren’t you ever afraid to grow old, I asked? “Mitch, I embrace aging.” Embrace it? “It’s very simple. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed at twenty-two, you’d always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It’s growth”.
ON THIS DAY: 21st APRIL
…in 1935, the first photograph of the ‘Loch Ness Monster’ was published in the Daily Mail, while on 21st April 1983, the new £1 coin was introduced in the UK, replacing the old £1 note.
DID YOU KNOW Koalas aren’t bears, they’re marsupials, so should technically only be called koalas, not koala bears. Call me pedantic!
WORD OF THE WEEK: KLEPTOMANIAC
A person who lacks the ability to resist the recurring urge to steal when the stealing is done for no personal gain. It is considered a type of impulse control disorder that begins with tension, anxiety, and arousal leading up to the theft, and ends in guilt, shame, and remorse. Kleptomania is distinct from shoplifting in that the person will steal things that they don’t actually need.
“MAYBE THE JOURNEY ISN’T SO MUCH ABOUT BECOMING ANYTHING…
…maybe it’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you”. - Paulo Coelho
On the importance of moving frequently…
“WE KNOW THAT SITTING FOR AS LITTLE AS AN HOUR…
…cuts blood flow through the legs to the heart by as much as 50 per cent, affecting cholesterol levels and jeopardising our heart and metabolic health. But American researchers say that a slow five-minute walk every hour reverses the damage. When the researchers asked a group of men to move for five minutes every hour at a speed of two miles per hour, their extended sitting ceased being detrimental to their heart health. ‘Light physical activity can help,’ concluded the research team.” - Annabel Streets, 52 Way to Walk.
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