Jaundiced Eye?

I know how the saying is used. . . but where did it come from? Turning a yellow eye on something??? What gives?

Brewer’s Phrase and Fable cites an Alexander Pope poem:

“All seems infected that the infected spy,
As all seems yellow to the jaundiced eye”

i.e. a prejudice colours your perception of everything, just as if you were looking through a colour filter (there was an old belief that jaundice made everything look yellow).

Pope stole it from

sayeth the OED. But Pope certainly gave it it’s modern usage and probably popularized it.

And the whole idea was Greek, recorded by Hippocrates a few hundred years B.C. The body had four humours (or fluids): blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile, the one that applies here. Disease showed that the humours were out of balance, and restoring that balance with tonics or bleeding would restore you to health. That health wasn’t just physical, but included emotional states as well.

Old medicine was interesting, but I’ll take penecillin, thanks.

And maybe a proofreading course along with the *penicillin.

And a smack on the head to remind me to preview. :frowning: