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Tompkins-McCaw Library is proud to host the traveling National Library of Medicine exhibit,"And there's the Humor of It" Shakespeare and the Four Humors. William Shakespeare (1564-1616) created characters that are among the richest and most humanly recognizable in all of literature. Yet Shakespeare understood human personality in the terms available to his age?that of the now-discarded theory of the four bodily humors ?blood, bile, melancholy, and phlegm. These four humors were understood to define peoples' physical and mental health, and determined their personality, as well. "And there's the humor of it:" Shakespeare and the four humors explores the role humors played in several of Shakespeare's most beloved works through beautiful imagery and rare books from both the National Library of Medicine and the Folger Shakespeare Library.