Question

Elizabethans do not understand infection and contagion as we do. It is not that they are completely ignorant as to how illnesses spread—physicians believe they know perfectly well—it is rather that their understanding is very different from ours. The principal ideas underpinning most Elizabe­than medical thinking come from Galen, who lived in the second century A.D. Physicians will cite him as an unquestionable authority when they ex­plain to you that your health depends on a balance of the four humors: yellow bile or choler, black bile, phlegm, and blood.

–The Time Traveler's Guide to Elizabethan England,
Ian Mortimer

What is the central idea of this passage?

Elizabethan believed that their health depended on what they ate.
Elizabethans believed that their health depended on astronomy.
Elizabethans believed that health depended on the balance of the four humors.
Elizabethans believed that health depended on where one lived.

Answer 1

Elizabethans believed that health depended on the balance of the four humors.