Humorale

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Relating to the bodily fluids, such as blood and lymph, or to the ancient theory of humours that was based on them
2. Describing something connected with the body's liquids, especially in the old medical theory of four humours or in immune responses carried by fluids
3. Of or pertaining to the bodily fluids, a term used in medicine and in the historical study of the four humours

Etymology: "Humorale" is the adjective form of "humor" in its older medical sense, and the English word itself is the one with the surprising history. Medieval and early modern physicians believed the body contained four fluids, or "humours": blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. Health depended on their balance, and the Latin "umor" meant "moisture" or "fluid," the root of the modern word "humid." Humoral medicine is often described as a theory of the body's liquids, which is exactly what the word meant at the time. The sense of "humour" as a mood or temper came directly from this theory. Because a person's temperament was thought to reflect the dominance of one fluid, a cheerful disposition came from a surplus of blood and a gloomy one from black bile. Over the centuries the medical idea faded, but the word kept the connotation of temperament, which eventually narrowed to the comic sense we use today. "Humorale" follows the same pattern as other English adjectives formed on Latin stems ending in "-al," and it is used mainly in discussions of ancient and early modern medicine or of the immune system. The term "humoral immunity," for instance, refers to antibodies and other substances circulating in body fluids, a modern use that reuses the old physiological vocabulary.