Kitap 2
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ProdicusProdicus of Ceos, a Sophist, contemporary of Socrates. also, when in his book On the Nature of Man he gives the name phlegm to that element in the humours which has been burned or, as it were, over-roasted, while using a different terminology, still keeps to the fact just as the others do; this man's innovations in nomenclature have also been amply done justice to by Plato.Plato, Timaeus, 83-85, passim Thus, the white-coloured substance which everyone else calls phlegm, and which Prodicus calls blenna [mucus],cf. the term blennorrhoea, which is still used. is the well-known cold, moist humour which collects mostly in old people and in those who have been chilledcf. the Scotch term colded for affected with a cold; Germ. erkältet. in some way, and not even a lunatic could say that this was anything else than cold and moist.
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If, then, there is a warm and moist humour, and another which is warm and dry, and yet another which is moist and cold, is there none which is virtually cold and dry ? Is the fourth combination of temperaments, which exists in all other things, non-existent in the humours alone? No; the black bile is such a humour. This, according to intelligent physicians and philosophers, tends to be in excess, as regards seasons, mainly in the fall of the year, and, as regards ages, mainly after the prime of life. And, similarly, also they say that there are cold and dry modes of life, regions, constitutions, and diseases. Nature, they suppose, is not defective in this single combination; like the three other combinations, it extends everywhere.
