Shaved heads and the Humors: I found a quote
Posted by SuzanneR on September 02, 1998 at 01:19:34:
In response to The head, written by P. Bingham on August 30, 1998 at 15:42:13
] That would seem likely to me. As it has long been traditionally thought that heat escapes from the feet and head. I just don't know how long that has been an assumption. So I am a little inclined to believe that it has something to do with those "humors" that the captain had gone over so well some time ago. They are tucked away in the archives.
It seems you were right. This is from England in the Age of Hogarth, page 192:
"Such men {physicians} proceeded along apparently logical lines and the treatments they prescribed seemed to accord with a reasonable man's understanding of the reasonable world in which God had placed him. Their constant recourse to blood-letting was to seem strange to later generations, as was the treatment of madness by hot poultices applied to the shaven head 'to draw out the humors', but in the light of current theories of the physical world these things could be logically justified."
A footnote points out that George III received the shaven head treatment in 1788. Interesting, eh?
- very good detective work! (nfm) P. Bingham 03:28:39 9/02/98
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