Okay, so a couple of weeks ago, I drank so much that the next morning, having already vomited up the contents of my stomach the night before, I ended up puking up bile. I recall once seeing a friend of mine that ill once before due to some flu like bug, and I’ve been that sick a couple of other times myself as well, and as far as I can remember, every time the bile was a yellowish/green color. Now I also remember hearing that back in medieval times, doctors would examine the color of the bile to tell people’s symptoms, and that apparently, it comes in a wide arrangement of colors. So, a couple of questions:
Where is bile made in the body?
How many different colors are there?
Are they made by different organs?
Can the different colors of bile really be used to diagnose illness?
Bile is essentially always yellowish green (I can imagine that pus-filled bile might be whitish, but that’d be pretty rare and extreme)
The Greeks had a theory of “four biles” or “vital fluids” (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) but it has not been accepted for centuries.
The Tibetans had a similar theory of “five biles” (digestive bile, from the upper stomach; colouring bile, from the liver; accomplishing bile that resides in the heart; sight bile that resides in the eyes; pigmenting bile that resides in the skin) and five phlegms (sustaining phlegm that resides in the chest; decomposing phlegm that resides in the stomach where the food is not yet digested; tasting phlegm that resides in the tongue; satisfying phlegm that produces satisfaction; connective phlegm that resides in the joints)
Indeed, many cultures have had similar theories, but on closer inspection it appears that the similarities are either forced (by translation) or were just a basic recognition of essential body functions, with no real link to anything that we would call a ‘bile’ ‘humor’ or ‘fluid’ (e.g. the “satisfying phlegm” of the Tibetans)
Wow, KP, thanks a lot. Very in depth, I appreciate that. One little question, though…Three of the Greek’s four biles were other bodily fluids (blood, phlegm, and bile), but I’m still perplexed as to what this “black bile” is? The only place I’ve ever really seen it was the Evil Dead movies, and somehow, I seriously doubt they come anywhere near counting as a creditable medical documentation. Is there a way bile could turn black, or some other fluid in the body that could be considered “black bile”?