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The four temperament theory is a proto-psychological theory which suggests that there are four fundamental personality types: sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Most formulations include the possibility of mixtures among the types where an individual's personality types overlap and they share two or more temperaments.
The melancholic and choleric, however, shared a sustained response (dryness), and the sanguine and phlegmatic shared a short-lived response (wetness). This meant that the choleric and melancholic both would tend to hang on to emotions like anger, and thus appear more serious and critical than the fun-loving sanguine, and the peaceful phlegmatic.
The four humors as depicted in an 18th-century woodcut: phlegmatic, choleric, sanguine and melancholic. The imbalance of humors, or dyscrasia, was thought to be the direct cause of all diseases. Health was associated with a balance of humors, or eucrasia. The qualities of the humors, in turn, influenced the nature of the diseases they caused.
In fact, the original four types of temperament (choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic and sanguine) suggested by Hippocrates and Galen resemble mild forms of types of psychiatric disorders described in modern classifications. Moreover, Hippocrates-Galen hypothesis of chemical imbalances as factors of consistent individual differences has also been ...
Thus, individuals with sanguine temperaments are extroverted and social; choleric people have energy, passion, and charisma; melancholics are creative, kind, and considerate; and phlegmatic temperaments are characterised by dependability, kindness, and affection. [47] Galen was also a skilled surgeon, operating on human patients.
People were thought to be either of the four temperaments: choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic, or sanguine. During the Middle Ages in Europe , the Latin term complexio served as the translated form of the Greek word crasis , meaning temperament . [ 1 ]
Physiognomy of the melancholic temperament (drawing by Thomas Holloway, c.1789, made for Johann Kaspar Lavater's Essays on Physiognomy). Melancholia or melancholy (from Greek: µέλαινα χολή melaina chole, [1] meaning black bile) [2] is a concept found throughout ancient, medieval, and premodern medicine in Europe that describes a condition characterized by markedly depressed mood ...
Melancholia and melancholy had been used interchangeably until the 19th century, but the former came to refer to a pathological condition and the latter to a temperament. [3] The term depression was derived from the Latin verb deprimere, "to press down". [12] From the 14th century, "to depress" meant to subjugate or to bring down in spirits.