Editing Humorism (section)

===Phlegm===
Phlegm was associated with all [[Four temperaments#Four fundamental personality types|phlegmatic]] nature, thought to be associated with reserved behavior.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/142540 |title=Home : Oxford English Dictionary |publisher=Oed.com |date=2019-12-31 |access-date=2020-04-04}}</ref> The phlegm of humorism is far from [[phlegm]] as it is defined today. Phlegm was used as a general term to describe white or colorless secretions such as pus, mucus, saliva, or sweat.<ref name=":1" /> Phlegm was also associated with the brain, possibly due to the color and consistency of brain tissue.<ref name=":1" /> The French physiologist and Nobel laureate [[Charles Richet]], when describing humorism's "phlegm or pituitary secretion" in 1910, asked rhetorically, "this strange liquid, which is the cause of [[Neoplasm|tumours]], of [[Hypochromic anemia|chlorosis]], of [[rheumatism]], and [[cacochymia]] – where is it? Who will ever see it? Who has ever seen it? What can we say of this fanciful classification of humors into four groups, of which two are absolutely imaginary?"<ref>{{cite journal |pmc=2336103 |pmid=20765282 |volume=2 |issue=2596 |title=An Address On Ancient Humorism and Modern Humorism: Delivered at the International Congress of Physiology held in Vienna, September 27th to 30th |year=1910 |journal=Br Med J |pages=921–26 |author=Richet C |doi=10.1136/bmj.2.2596.921}}</ref> The seasonal association of phlegm is winter due to the natural properties of being cold and wet.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Jouanna|first1=Jacques|title= The Legacy of the Hippocrates Treatise The Nature of Man: The Theory of the Four Humours|date=2012|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctt1w76vxr.21|work=Greek Medicine from Hippocrates to Galen|pages=335–60|editor-last=van der Eijk|editor-first=Philip|series=Selected Papers|publisher=Brill|access-date=2021-12-06|last2=Allies|first2=Neil|chapter=The Legacy of the Hippocratic Treatise the Nature of Man|jstor=10.1163/j.ctt1w76vxr.21}}</ref>