HUMOURS- 
443 
rally diffused and copious of them) was accounted to be the 
principal or matrix ; either the humours were said to superabound, 
to be overheated, to be impure or vitious, or even to be putrid ; 
which doctrine constitutes what modern medical philosophers 
have denominated the “ humoral pathology.” The lights how¬ 
ever in later times cast upon medical science have dispelled such 
mysterious and ill-grounded notions from the mind of the modern 
physiologist: as he has become enlightened in his progress, he has 
become convinced that such notions are erroneous; that, as the 
solids are, admissibly and demonstrably, organised bodies, 
whereas the fluids or humours are but the products of organiza¬ 
tion, the conditfon of the latter must necessarily depend upon the 
state of the former; so that, to assert that an altered fluid itself 
constitutes the essence of disease, is, evidently, mistaking the 
effect for the cause. With equal reason might one declare in a 
cankered tree that yielded bad fruit, that the fault was not in the 
tree, but in the fruit: it is manifest, however, that such is not the 
case; that the evil is owing to some defective organization or 
function in the tree, or else to the nature of the soil in which it is 
• 
adoption of such notions among the physicians of former 
days, and the seeming plausibility of them, speedily led to their 
propagation among the community at large ; and from the minds 
of non-medical people in general, up to the present hour, may it 
be said that they are far from being eradicated. How often do we 
hear in the course of our practice of people talking of the blood 
being too “rich,” or too “poor,” too “thick,” or too “thin,” or 
too “ hot,” &c: and no class of persons seemed to have imbibed 
these false tenets with more avidity, or to have clung to them 
with more notorious obstinacy, than our grooms and farriers, and 
riding-masters and horsemen in general: for, are we not conti¬ 
nually, up to the present hour, hearing these people complain of 
horses having “ humours in their eyes,” “ humours in their 
skin,” and being “ full of humours” ? Were it at all necessary to 
illustrate what I have just affirmed, I might cite the most ridicu¬ 
lous and absurd passages from works on farriery and horseman¬ 
ship, even of modern date : but it is not; nor would it be worth 
my while to dwell upon the subject at all, were it not to show 
that the doctrine is not merely erroneous, but a dangerous one to 
entertain, in consequence of its dictating a mode of treatment 
both indirectly injurious from want of efficacy, and positively 
pernicious from co-operation with the morbific agents themselves. 
By the humoral pathology, we are taught to believe that 
there is some peccant or offending matter floating about in the 
fluids or humours; and that, nature requiring the expulsion of 
planted 
The 
