Table Of ContentHUMORS, HORMONES AND THE MIND
Humors, Hormones
and the Mind
An Approach to the Understanding of
Behaviour
Bernard T. Donovan
Department of Physiology
Institute of Psychiatry
De Crespigny Park, London SES BAF
M
STOCKTON
P R E S S
© Bernard T. Donovan 1988
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First published 1988
Published by
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Companies and representatives
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Typesetting by Communitype, Leicester
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Donovan, Bernard T.
Humors, hormones and the mind : an approach to the understanding of behaviour.
1. Human behavior 2. Hormones
I. Title
612' .405 BF121
ISBN 978-0-333-45293-6 ISBN 978-1-349-19025-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-19025-6
Published in the United States and Canada by Stockton Press
15 East 26th Street, New York, NY 10010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Donovan, Bernard T.
Humors, hormones and the mind : an approach to the understanding of behaviour I
Bernard T. Donovan.
p. em.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-935859-32-4 (Stockton Press) : $60.00
1. Psychoneuroendocrinology. I. Title.
[DNLM: 1. Behavior-physiology. 2. Brain-physiology.
3. Hormones-physiology. 4. Psychophysiology. WK 102 D743hal
QP356.45.D66 1987
612' .814-dcl9 87-27745
CIP-
Contents
Preface vii
Part 1 Introduction
1 Humours, Humors and Hormones 3
2 The Neural Basis of Humoral Action 23
Part 2 Humors
3 Neurohumors 41
4 Hormonal Humors 64
5 The Master Humors 85
6 Peptide Humors 112
7 Immunohumors 138
Part 3 How the Humors Affect the Mind
8 Senses 149
9 Emotion 158
10 Stress 172
11 Aggression 185
12 Learning and Memory 198
13 Eating and Drinking 211
14 Masculinity 232
15 Femininity 257
16 Intellect and Personality 271
Index 282
Preface
Brain science is passing though a revolution, with the progress in recent
years being little short of astounding. A major force in the upheaval has
been, and still is, the contribution of research on hormones and humors; for
the old idea that the brain served as conductor of a hormonal orchestra, with
a major gland attached to the base ofthe brain, the pituitary gland, acting as
the controlling baton, has given way to a much more dynamic concept, for
the brain itself produces many hormonal factors. Almost every bodily
function is affected by hormones, from eating, drinking, digestion, emotion,
learning, memory, and intellectual endeavour, to muscular action, growth
and sexual activity, but coverage in the present work is largely restricted to
the chemical control of behaviour, for it is here that progress is of greatest
import. The new knowledge is not simply of theoretical significance, but of
major practical impact, for in addition to helping us understand ourselves,
and the way we behave, it is providing novel tools for the treatment of
mental illness, and altering the approach of psychiatrists and psychologists
to their patients, as well as that of the social services to their clients.
Inevitably, much of the new information appears a little complicated and
difficult to comprehend, but its impact upon society and the way we live is
such as to merit the present attempt to convey some of the interest and
excitement in a non-technical but systematic manner. Both the layman and
the professional will find much of interest within these pages, and the
material can be approached in several ways. The knowledgeable might
prefer to start at the beginning and continue to the end; the tyro may opt to
dip into a chaPter on some particular aspect of behaviour and explore from
there. It is for this reason that numerous cross-references have been
inserted. Whatever the approach, the reader is certain to encounter material
of immediate appeal. The fact that the subject matter is of direct concern to
the drug-taker, endocrinologist, immunologist, nutritionist, physiologist,
psychologist, psychiatrist, and teacher, to name but a few, should not be a
deterrent: it is of great moment to us all.
This book develops a point of view presented in a more technical way,
primarily for psychiatrists, in my Hormones and Human Behaviour
(published in 1985). Some matters touched upon lightly here are covered in
viii Preface
greater depth in that work and to a degree the volumes are complementary.
But each stands alone.
Readers should note that in places I have deliberately reproduced quota
tions from other sources exactly as they originally appeared. This has
occasionally led to oddities of grammar, punctuation and spelling.
London, 1987 B.T.D.
Part 1
Introduction
1
Humours, Humors and
Hormones
HUMOURS
Over the years innumerable attempts have been made to account for the
humour or behaviour of a person on the basis of the influence, in one
direction or another, of rather few humoral or chemical .f actors. The
ancients had no inkling of chemistry, and relied instead upon intuition with a
larding of everyday observation. For the Greek physicians and philosophers
the body was supposed to be comprised of four basic elements: fire, air,
water and earth. In turn, each element had two qualities, with fire being hot
and dry, air being hot and moist, water cold and moist, and earth being cold
and dry. The qualities of hot, cold, moist and dry were then transformed into
the four humors, which were blood (hot and moist), phlegm (cold and
moist), yellow bile (hot and dry) and black bile (cold and dry). Inevitably,
the theories proved inadequate as knowledge accumulated, but for cen
turies it was sincerely believed that to be sanguine was to be the lucky
possessor of blood containing an optimal mixture of the all-important
humors. Actually, arterial blood was supposed to contain a lot of sanguine
which accounted for the bright red and healthy appearance of that fluid. On
the other hand, the melancholic suffered from an excess of nasty black bile,
while the lethargic suffered from an excess of phlegm. Phlegm was a product
of the lungs or brain and could be drained through the nose, as was very
evident in many ill people. Delirium was more difficult to explain but was
traced to a preponderance of yellow bile. Naturally, particular effort was
given to the identification of medicines that might get rid of these excesses
by seeking out and eliminating harmful substances by purging them from the
body by the induction of vomiting, sweating, salivation, urination or
haemorrhage - heroic measures which could have done little to ease the
plight of the patient. Despite their seemingly mystic basis these ideas have
4 Humors, Hormones and the Mind
proved enduring, with descriptive words such as melancholic, phlegmatic,
choleric, bilious and sanguine still remaining in common usage.
Although the concept of the four humors appears irrational, the idea may
well have been founded upon careful comparisons of the process of blood
clotting in the sick and healthy. In 1921, Robin Fahraeus, a Swedish
pathologist, published a thesis based upon his research on the sedimentatiop
rate of red blood cells in normal individuals and in patients suffering from
various diseases. This work led to the clinical test that is in common use. As
Borje Cronholm recalled in 1984, Fahraeus showed that observations made
on coagulated blood could have provided grounds for the existence of the
four humors. In coagulated blood from a patient with an abnormally high
sedimentation rate, as in pneumonia, a distinct separation into four compo
nents is evident: the liquid serum (the yellow bile, or cholera), the pale
coagulum without any red corpuscles (the phlegm), the coagulum contain
ing oxygenated red blood cells (the blood in a restricted sense, or haema or
sanguis), and the coagulum with poorly oxygenated red blood corpuscles
(the black bile or melancholia). Now, in coagulated blood from a healthy
man with a much slower sedimentation rate the layer of phlegm is very thin,
so that it would have been logical to attribute disease to an excess of phlegm,
though it remains less· easy to account for the association of black bile, the
melancholia.._ with depressive symptoms.
Even today psychologists argue that we are all the result of a blend of four
basic personality types: the choleric, who is outgoing, extraverted and
unstable; the melancholic, who is an unstable, withdrawn and inward
looking (introverted) individual; the sanguine, a well-balanced and stable
extravert; and the phlegmatic, the stable introvert. Thus Hans and Michael
Eysenck (1985), for example, recently harked back with relish to the
description of Immanuel Kant in his Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hin
sicht of 1798, who referred to the sanguine person as carefree and full of
hope, attributing great importance to whatever he may be dealing with at
the moment, but forgetting about it the next, and to the melancholic, who
lent great importance to everything that concerned himself, but discovered
causes for anxiety everywhere, and was preoccupied with the difficulties of
life. The choleric was hot-headed, easily roused but easily calmed; readily
annoyed but not harbouring a grudge, full of pride but then suffering most as
others refused to fall in with his pretensions. And, finally, the phlegmatic,
who was someone with a natural tendency to be moved, neither quickly nor
easily, but with persistent pressure, and who warmed up slowly but stayed
warm and acted on principle, not by instinct.
Objective evidence for the existence of humors affecting behaviour, of
substances we now regard as hormones, started to become available with the
development of experimental physiology and medicine in the middle of the
nineteenth century. The loss of masculinity suffered by the castrated
cockerel, and, more important, the reversal of the ensuing changes after
