Humours

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I had a biology teacher who was fond of telling us about how the inbalance of the humours in the body was once held to be responsible for diseases and emotions. It went something like this:

Black Bile - makes one melancholy
Blood presumably responsible for anger, 'seeing red' etc
Phlegm- Makes one phlegmatic
Green Bile (I think, or was it white) dunno about this one.

He could never remember if he'd told a particular class this story, so repeated it many times, just in case. I think this was the origin of bleeding as a cure for disease.
This reminds me that I was going to give blood today...I expect to be much calmer later, tho free tea and biscuits and a break from work may also have some effect.

Is it blood-letting at St Columba's today, then? If so, thanks for the heads-up. And the calmness may also be due to a reduced ability to transfer oxygen. Incidentally, I'm reading my Herriot collection at the moment, and there's one instance where Siegfried uses blood-letting, IIRC to reduce the anxiety of a horse.

If it's the episode with the gypsy pony, it was to deal with a severe swelling in the foot, which causes great pain for the animal because the hoof can't swell. I think it's called laminitis, and I don't think it's commonly treatable, certainly not when it's very bad. Siegfried bled the pony from the neck, and by the morning the horse was much better. HTH - SunKitten

: Yes, that's the one.