ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the sixteenth century medical science was firmly based on the classical tradition of humoral medicine, especially on the works of Galen and the Hippocratic writings. Broadly speaking, humoral medicine was based on the belief that everything was made up of four elements —earth, air, fire and water. These elements possessed qualities of cold, heat, dryness and moisture in different combinations and degrees. Bleeding was so widely and generally used that perhaps a seventeenth century author may be allowed to explain the theory. According to the ancients the function of respiration was to cool the heart, the lungs acting simply as bellows. Although William Harvey's great discovery of the circulation of the blood was published in 1628, it was a further half century before any use of it or even reference to it appeared in an English midwifery book.
