On the Nature of Man
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On the Nature of Man is a work in the Hippocratic Corpus. On the Nature of Man is attributed to Polybus, the son in law and disciple of Hippocrates, through a testimony from Aristotle's History of Animals.[1] However, as with the many other works of the Hippocratic Corpus, the authorship is regarded as dubious in origin.
On the Nature of Man attempts to explain the human body in its anatomy and composition. The content is based on observation and defended by logical explanations of the causes of each disease in order to readily meet outside criticism. It places emphasis on disease not being of divine origin, but rather an imbalance of the four humors (collection of blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) in the body.[2] This was the first introduction of the theory of four humors which was used to explain and diagnose any disease or ailment as an imbalance of these four humors in the body excluding health issues that arose from an outside source.[3]