The humor of it : bodies, fluids, and the history of medicine in Shakespeare Bodies, fluids, and the history of medicine in Shakespeare Medicine in Literature Body Fluids Drama History of Medicine History, 16th Century Human Body Personality Michael North introduces Dr. Paster and the discussion. Dr. Paster cites her interest in the cultural history of the body. In today's lecture she focuses on the the four humors as they are used in the plays by Shakespeare. She begins by explaining the humors--blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile--as developed by Galen. These humors are sent to the body in the form of hot, cold, moist and dry. The humors provide hints of the human personality. In Shakespeare, the body is defined as fragile and porous, filled with fluids. She uses Corporal Nim who is found in "Henry V" and "The Merry Wives of Windsor" as an example of use of humors. Another example is found in Act IV, Scene I, in the "Merchant of Venice." Received: Jan. 16, 2009; transfer; from Stephen Greenberg. [Bethesda, Md.] : National Library of Medicine, 2009 Paster, Gail Kern. National Library of Medicine (U.S.) Lecture Moving image 076 min. Sound Color Live action nlm:nlmuid-101496178-vid 101496178 http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101496178 OCLC: 319068828 English The National Library of Medicine believes this item to be in the public domain: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/