140 Aristotle and his school
it would be the only way to provide a solid basis for assessing the theory
presented in theProblemata,and because attempts to relate this theory to
pre-Aristotelian, especially medical views have proved unsuccessful.^5 De-
spite extensive research, the concept of melancholy in the Hippocratic
Corpus remains a complicated issue.^6 Early Hippocratic writings describe
melancholy only as a disease, sometimes very specifically as a pathological
change of colour of the fluid bile. Significantly, these writings do refer to
the so-called constitutional type of ‘the melancholic’ (ho melancholikos), yet
without providing clarity on the underlying physiological theory, and in
any case it is nowhere related to a bodily fluid called ‘black bile’.^7 The Hip-
pocratic writingOn the Nature of Man(c.400 b c e) seems to be the first to
recognise black bile as a bodily fluid in its own right, but this recognition
does not result in the concept of ‘the melancholic’.^8 While the details of this
recognition of black bile – in addition to yellow bile, blood and phlegm –
as one of the four bodily fluids that form the basis for physical health are
still open to dispute,^9 it is clear, as Muri and Flashar have shown, that ̈
in order to establish a link between the bodily fluid ‘black bile’ (melaina
chole ̄) and the constitutional type of ‘the melancholic’, at least one further
step is required. The problem is that, on the one hand, this step was sup-
posedly first made in Aristotle’s school (according to Jouanna ( 1975 ) 296 ),
whereas on the other hand the Aristotelian use of ‘the melancholics’ as an
established term seems to suggest that this step had already been taken. I
say ‘seems’, for it is by no means certain that Aristotle actually associated
the termho melancholikoswith this ‘constitutional type’ and its affiliated
theory of the four humours.^10 There is even doubt as to whether Aristotle’s
use of the term has anything to do with a physiological theory on black
bile.^11 There is some justification for this doubt in that the adjectivemelan-
cholikos(just asmelancholod ̄es ̄and the verbmelancholan) was also used in
non-medical discourse of the fifth and fourth centuriesbceand often
(^5) Muri ( ̈ 1953 ) 38 ; Flashar ( 1962 ) 714 ; Flashar ( 1966 ) 62.
(^6) In addition to the works by Muri and Flashar see Roy ( ̈ 1981 ) and Joly ( 1975 ) 107 – 28.
(^7) See Flashar ( 1966 ) 32 – 5 ;M ̈uri ( 1953 ) 30 – 2 ; Dittmer ( 1940 ) 95.
(^8) Flashar ( 1966 ) 43 ; Jouanna ( 1975 ) 296.
(^9) I am referring to the controversy between Joly ( 1969 ) 150 – 7 ; Joly ( 1975 ) 107 – 10 ; and Jouanna ( 1975 )
48 – 9 ; also Roy ( 1981 ) 11 – 19 ; it concerns the date of this recognition and any differences between the
humoral systems of the schools of Cos and Cnidos (cf. Grensemann ( 1968 c) 103 – 4 and Lonie ( 1981 )
54 – 62 ).
(^10) Cf. the following statement by Lucas ( 1968 ) 284 , which is entirely unfounded: ‘Aristotle, who had
been trained as a physician, accepted the Hippocratic theory of the human constitution, namely
that health depends on the proper balance of the four humours present in the body, blood, phlegm,
yellow bile, and black bile.’ The fact that Aristotle knew the Hippocratic workOn the Nature of Man
(cf.Hist. an. 512 b 12 ) has no bearing on this question.
(^11) Dirlmeier ( 1956 ) 491 ;W.D.Ross( 1955 ) 252.