The Fire-Eaters

Bloodletting, Earth, Fire, Water, Air....yes, a discourse on Alchemy is in accord.

Alchemy was the midieval version of physics, psychology and medicine in one. The main purpose of alchemy was to convert base metals into gold, but aside from that, the study and practice of Alchemy in the midieval world was also to cure disease and ultimately find immortality.

Death is one of those things that people feared, especially back then. The Black death raviged people. Whole populations were lost.

Medieval thinking was largly based on heiarchies. This general idea can probably be traced to the time of the Romans. I'm not certain to whom to give the due of coming up with the "four basic elements" theory, but Earth, Water, Fire and Air were symbolic of four characteristics that, in the medieval mind, made up everything: dry, cold, moist, hot.
Earth was furthest from heaven, therefore the lowest of the elements, then water, which goes up and comes down as rain, then air, which goes up and stays up, and then fire, which the Sun is made of.

They believed that each person contained four humors which were made up of two characteristics each that symbolized and element.
Blood is hot and moist, and therefore of the element of Air.
Yellow Bile/cholor is hot and dry, therefore made of the element Fire
Phlegm is cold and moist, therefore made of the element Water
Black Bile is cold and dry, therefore made of Earth.

While the modern mind can see a great deal of problems medically that can come of this type of thinking, one must also marvel at it's partial accuracy.
Blood carries oxygen to the cells. Oxygen is found in the air. The midieval mind knew this, even without knowing truly what blood is, nor cells, nor oxygen. In the medieval mind, they knew that one's humor needed to be in balance and that each humor was largely affected by diet. The stomach and liver, to the medieval mind were the entities which converted food into each of the humors.
The idea that one is psychologically affected by the food one eats has enormous truth to it. I know because I've tested this theory on myself. It's a tremendous excercize, if one enjoys eating quite alot, but the practice of fasting should have a moment here in the limelight. Fasting is a fantastic way to clear your mind, not because of hunger pains (if you fast, I encourage you to eat enough to avoid those, but eat things which have life... citrus, leafy greens and water-bearing vegetables and fruits: watermelon more than a banana, celery more than a potato) but because of the profound feeling of being clensed.

Here in America, we eat highly-processed food, that which is usually hot and dry. So we, then are the Fire-eaters. Who also has been at war? We eat fire and therefore have an overload of yellow bile. Are we like Shakespeare's Hotspur, then, ruled by our spleens?
Perhaps our international and internal problems would be solved if we embraced the Spinach leaf...quit babbling about fears of ecoli and ate something healthy for a change.

It was only a harmless musing.