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Medicine: Bloodletting, New Style

Oldtime physicians who bled their patients for whatever ailed them, from “the vapors” to the gout, did more harm than good. But modern medicine has not forgotten the ancient practice. A pair of New Orleans researchers reported to the American Heart Association last week that repeated small bleedings have proved effective in relieving the agonizing tightness of angina pectoris and other symptoms of coronary disease—ironically, an uncommon problem in the days of leeching and venepuncture.

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 Bloodletting Is Still Happening, Despite Centuries of Harm

But why? How has the bloodletting business, which many doctors today would rank along with reading bumps on the head as olde timey quackery, managed not to dry up? The appeal seems to be in its simple logic.

 Modern Bloodletting: A Patient Perspective

The practice of bloodletting, which has a lengthy history of about 3000 years, began with the Egyptians,1 but was embraced by people all over the world (e.g., Africa, Asia, and Europe). It was employed as a treatment for numerous conditions, including an imbalance of the four “humors,” migraines, fever, and epilepsy. To induce bleeding, special instruments (e.g., a lancet, fleam, or even leeches) were used to open a patient’s vein or artery. While bloodletting was a common practice until the late nineteenth century, it wasn’t without its problems or risks. For example, it’s widely believed that George Washington, the first president of the United States, died from excessive blood loss in 1799 after he requested bloodletting be used as a treatment for his failing health.

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Ancient Maya Bloodletting Tools or Common Kitchen Knives? How Archaeologists Tell the Difference

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Bloodletting and medical practice

I have often wondered why bloodletting was so widespread as a treatment and why it persisted for so many years. Concepts of malign influences, spiritual or physical, entering the body have always been prominent to explain death and disease, however, anyone who has witnessed catastrophic blood loss cannot but be impressed by the sense of the life draining away during such an event. Throughout history many have had this experience, whether in battle, by accident, during childbirth or in medical practice.

Bloodletting and medical practice

I have often wondered why bloodletting was so widespread as a treatment and why it persisted for so many years. Concepts of malign influences, spiritual or physical, entering the body have always been prominent to explain death and disease, however, anyone who has witnessed catastrophic blood loss cannot but be impressed by the sense of the life draining away during such an event. Throughout history many have had this experience, whether in battle, by accident, during childbirth or in medical practice.

Bloodletting is Revived for a Wide Variety of Modern Ills

In the ancient practice of bloodletting, all purged blood was discarded. In the modern versions, the technique is named according to the portions that are selectively removed. For example, in therapeutic plasm@ap@heresis (also called plasma exchange or apheresis) the fluid plasma portion of the blood is discarded. Dramatic improvement has been reported among patients affected by the 50 or so disorders in which it has been tried over recent years, disorders as disparate as rheumatoid arthritis and mushroom poisoning.

Bloodletting Online Exhibition

Bloodletting became the standard treatment for a wide range of diseases – from plague, cancer and smallpox, to rheumatism, acne and headaches. Bloodletting took different forms. Leeches could be applied to the skin. Where the leech was placed depended on where the disease was located – headaches, for example, meant a leech was placed on the face.

Bloodletting. Dead end in medicine or an endless inspiration for modern nephrology?

Nowadays bloodletting is used as a treatment for polycythemia and hemochromatosis. However, for centuries it was used to treat numerous other diseases, mostly without any justification. The idea of bloodletting was to remove the excess of one of the humors — blood. Indeed, in patients with hypertensive crisis or acute heart failure, the removal of fluid excess could lead to an improvement. Bloodletting has now been replaced by diuretics and ultrafiltration, which are essential parts of extracorporeal renal replacement therapy.

Bloodletting: an early treatment used by barbers, surgeons

Bloodletting was used for hundreds of years to help cure illness and restore health, and its popularity thrived in the 19th century. Even though its effectiveness was routinely questioned, the procedure was used for cardiac problems into the 1920s.

Bloodletting: Its Popularity in the 1700 and 1800s

Bloodletting is the withdrawal of blood from a patient to prevent illness or cure disease and could involve bloodletting performed by bloodletters or by applying leeches. Bloodletting began in ancient times to cure or prevent disease. It was based on ancient medicine and the idea “humors” — blood and other bodily fluids — needed to be in proper balance because when a person was ill, it was believed an imbalance in humors existed. People of the eighteenth and nineteenth century thought the best way to restore a humor imbalance was to draw blood. Additionally, curing illness was elusive, and, as doctors wanted to cure people, bloodletting was better than nothing because it worked in some cases, although that was likely due to a placebo effect.

Bloodletting: the cure for all diseases

In the past there were limited medical treatments available for doctors. Often the first thing a doctor would do when someone got sick was: cut open their veins. This gruesome practice called bloodletting is thousands of years old. It is also known as phlebotomy, from the Greek words phlebos (vein) and temnein (to cut). Bloodletting started with the Egyptians and was only just recently, around the early 20th century, discredited. Inventions were made over the years to improve one of medicine’s oldest treatment, such as scarificators.

Bloodletting: Why doctors used to bleed their patients for health

Also known as phlebotomyTrusted Source — from the Greek words phlebos, meaning “vein,” and temnein, meaning “to cut” — bloodletting is a therapeutic practice that started in antiquity. Today, however, the term phlebotomy refers to the drawing of blood for transfusions or blood tests. Some sources suggest that the original practice of bloodletting is more than 3,000 years old and that the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans — as well as many other ancient peoples — all used it for medical treatment.

Hirsute Historium: A Brief History of Bloodletting & Barbers

Long, long ago, your friendly neighborhood barber was also your doctor and your dentist. You could pop in the chair and freshen up with a quick shave, a trim on the sides, and some minor surgery (though it may cost a bit more than two bits). If you were feeling under the weather, what with the influenza and black plague adrift in the air, you might stop in for that most infamous of barber services, that good old-fashioned cure for what ails ye: a wee bit of bloodletting. If you’ve somehow missed the memo, bloodletting is a process where a little (or a lot) of your blood is drained out of your veins, for reasons. While bloodletting is remembered in a very intense way in recent media, the task itself was as common a practice as standard blood work is today, and its origin lies as far back as the history of civilization.

Leeches, bloodletting, and phlebotomy in the 21st century

Starting with the ancient Egyptians and continuing through the 19th century, bloodletting – the therapeutic removal of blood from the body – was a commonly practiced medical procedure. According to Hippocrates, illness was caused by an imbalance of the four basic humors: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. Procedures such as bloodletting, purging, catharsis and diuresis restored that balance.

Medieval Bloodletting

The idea of bloodletting as a central part of medicine comes from the writing of Galen. Galen’s text, however, proves that bloodletting, though established within the medical traditions of Ancient Greece, was not a universal belief, as He criticizes Erasistratus stating he, “in the case of such a powerful and important remedy as phlebotomy, and one that was esteemed by the ancients as in no way inferior to the most effective of all, has nothing to say.” While seeming like merely a disagreement among two medical professionals, it clearly shows that bloodletting as a treatment was not universal and was debated until Galen’s time. Claiming that Galen is solely to blame for the widespread practice of bloodletting may seem excessive, yet it was Galen who, more than any other, save perhaps Hippocrates, shaped the study of medicine until modernity

Meet William Harvey, a Misunderstood Genius in Human Anatomy

For about 1500 years, bloodletting was like aspirin—a treatment administered by doctors for just about every medical trouble. Prevailing wisdom was that your body was filed with fluids called humors, and draining them was the best way to cure what ailed you. It took a 16th-century physician armed with curiosity and a stomach for human dissection to at last disprove that notion, and he was thanked for it with a big dose of public outrage.

New Research Suggests Bloodletting, Pneumonia Killed Raphael

The artist failed to disclose his late-night outings to physicians, leading them to misdiagnose his illness.

Pharmacy Fact: Bloodletting Found Not as Successful as Previously Thought

Although bloodletting had been praised by medical professionals for more than 2 millennia for its ability to cure a variety of health concerns—from smallpox and epilepsy to madness or a broken heart—not all patients were as enthused at being purged of their blood as their physicians were, regardless of the claims of its efficacy. One such less than enthusiastic individual was the poet Lord Byron, who, when suffering from a particularly unpleasant cold, had a battle of wills with his physicians regarding his desire to keep his blood inside his body. They insisted that to heal his cold, the answer was contrary to his stated desires.

The history of bloodletting

With a history spanning at least 3000 years, bloodletting has only recently—in the late 19th century—been discredited as a treatment for most ailments.

The Hot Market for Books About Bloodletting and Delivering a Baby in 1669

Brush off those old guides to bloodletting and treating a gunshot wound with boiling oil. You may be sitting on a gold mine. Bankers, doctors and others who share a love for medical history—and the crinkly feel of a centuries-old binding or manuscript—are bidding up the price of texts that illuminate the evolving understanding of human anatomy and treating patients.

The Long, Respected History of Bloodletting

You can say this about bloodletting ‚ the practice of bleeding the ill patient to get his or her "humors" back in balance: it had a long and respected history. Dating back to at least fifth century B.C. and in practice across many cultures, bloodletting served as a foundation stone of Western medicine. Unfortunately, you can also say this about bloodletting: It was at best a useless practice and at worse a dangerous one, causing more deaths than it could ever claim to save. Today, the idea seems barbaric, maybe equivalent to torture.

What Was Bloodletting All About?

Imagine you’re managing a health condition in the year 1349. It will be hundreds of years until the dawn of modern antibiotics. A 14th-century doctor — some trained at universities and some who were simply village herbalists — may suggest a multitude of medieval therapies to help. One common treatment was bloodletting. Yes, pouring out your own blood was one of the top treatments at the time.

What Was the Science Behind Medical Bloodletting?

For centuries bloodletting was thought to be the cure for almost every malady. Why did ancient doctors think it worked?

Why the World Needs Bloodsucking Creatures

The ecological benefits of animals like leeches, ticks and vampire bats are the focus of a new exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Why you should love a leech: blood letting to microsurgery

Medicinal bloodletting has been practiced since the Stone Age. The popularity of leech therapy as a treatment has varied over time, but they still have a use in modern surgery. The species of leech used for medicinal purposes is Hirudo medicinalis. Each leech can consume about 5 to 10 ml of blood at each feeding, almost 10 times its own weight. They have three jaws and a hundred teeth. As they bite, they inject an anaesthetic into the skin and their saliva contains anticoagulants which stop the blood clotting.