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Wellsprings
medicine

Coction and Crisis (Pepsis)

πέψις

Disease is a slow cooking: the body simmers its corrupt humours to ripeness, and on the appointed day a crisis boils them out.

Greek physicians imagined illness as a kind of cooking. The body's innate heat had to "concoct" the raw, morbid humours behind a fever until they reached maturity, much as fruit ripens or a stew thickens. Once coction was complete, a turning point called the crisis expelled the now-ripened matter through sweat, urine, or other discharge, and the patient recovered. By reading signs of coction in the urine, sputum, and stool, the doctor could forecast whether the cure would come, and on which "critical day" to expect it.

Where this idea shows up

5 Greek sources

Where to read it