Given below are two statements:
Statement I: Early Greeks like Hippocrates as well as the Indian Ayurveda system of medicine asserted that health was a state of body and mind where there was a balance of certain ‘humors’.
Statement II: The ‘good humor’ hypothesis of health was disproved by the demonstration of high body temperature in persons with ‘blackbile’ using thermometer.
In the light of the above statements, choose the most appropriate answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Statement I is correct but Statement II is incorrect
The old ‘good humor’ idea was not based on experiments; it came from pure reflective thought. It held that persons with ‘blackbile’ had a hot personality and would have fevers. Such an idea is disproved only when a test shows the opposite of what it predicts.
Statement I: Early Greeks like Hippocrates as well as the Indian Ayurveda system of medicine asserted that health was a state of body and mind where there was a balance of certain ‘humors’. — True. For a long time health was taken as a balance of humors, and this is what Hippocrates and the Ayurveda system asserted.
Statement II: The ‘good humor’ hypothesis of health was disproved by the demonstration of high body temperature in persons with ‘blackbile’ using thermometer. — False. The thermometer showed normal body temperature in persons with blackbile. A high temperature would have supported the idea that they have fevers; the normal reading went against it. The discovery of blood circulation by William Harvey also helped disprove it.
NCERT Extract:
Human Health and Disease – “… Health, for a long time, was considered as a state of body and mind where there was a balance of certain ‘humors’. This is what early Greeks like Hippocrates as well as Indian Ayurveda system of medicine asserted. It was thought that persons with ‘blackbile’ belonged to hot personality and would have fevers. This idea was arrived at by pure reflective thought. The discovery of blood circulation by William Harvey using experimental method and the demonstration of normal body temperature in persons with blackbile using thermometer disproved the ‘good humor’ hypothesis of health.”