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5. The Cardiovascular System
~ the western herbal medicine context
To the Heart of the Matter
The following text examines the vitalistic therapeutic understanding of CV illness evident in
traditional WHM by examining the humoral and Physiomedicalist based approaches and the WHM
materia medica.
5.1. Humoral Medicine
Within Humoral Medicine, the nature of man was described as being an expression of the four
elements of ancient Greek philosophy. These elements were understood as qualities of nature and
were described as being an expression of the vital energy (Fortune 2000). The temperament of an
individual, related to the balance of the qualities of the elements, which dictated the humoral
constitution. (Tobyn 1997). Disease, which was considered a natural phenomenon, was said to be
the result of humoral imbalances, and treatment was aimed at addressing the expressions of the vital
energy by correcting imbalances at the physical, constitutional and subsequently the temperamental
levels (Chishti 1988).
Galen described the heart as bein gone of the principle organs, along with the liver and the brain
(Gotfredsen 1973). Each of these organs related to a specific faculty, which is described by Chishti
(1988) as being a power or a potentiality, and the origin of function. The animal faculty related to
physical activity, and governed; mental, motor and sensory responses and was related to the brain
and mental activity. The Natural faculty related to physical existence, governing nutrition and
material composition and resided in the liver. The vital faculty, which can be understood as being
the quality, which imparts life, was said to reside in the heart, the sol corporis (Culpeper 1995);
(Tobyn 1997)
The concept of the life giving principle, the spiritus vitalis, or principal pneuma that related to the
vital faculty, was fundamental to the teachings of humoral medicine. Pneuma was described as
being disseminated throughout the body by the heart, and was to be felt in the pulse (Chishti 1988).
According to Aristotle, the quality of pneuma was hot, and its physical manifestation was the innate
heat of the body (Tobyn 1997). It was the expression of the heart, the sol corporis, mediated by the
spiritus vitalis or principal pneuma, which generated the bodies innate heat and was the source of
life. Culpeper writes: “… for as the Sun gives life, light and motion to the Creation, so doth the
heart the body” (Culpeper 1995, p. 300).
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