Bloodletting — the practice of withdrawing blood from a person’s veins for therapeutic reasons — was common for thousands of years. In this Curiosities of Medical History feature, we look at the history of bloodletting and how it eventually fell out of favor with the medical community.
Also
known as phlebotomy —
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.
But what is
the origin of the notion of bleeding someone to help them get better?
Hippocrates
— an Ancient Greek physician who lived in the fifth century before the common
era and was one of the most important figures in the history of medicine —
practiced medicine according to the theory of the four humors, or “humoral theory.”
This theory posited that there
were four key humors, or liquids, in the human body and that imbalances in
these humors were responsible for many physical and mental illnesses.
According
to the most influential version of this theory, these humors were: black bile, yellow
bile, phlegm, and blood.
In the
second century before the common era, Galen — a famous Roman physician who also
subscribed to the humoral theory — promoted arteriotomy, a bloodletting
method, as a means of reestablishing the balance of the four humors and
treating a variety of symptoms.
According to Galen, a bloodletting
incision into the veins behind the ears could treat vertigo and headaches,
and letting blood flow out through an incision in the temporal arteries — the
veins found on the temples — could treat eye conditions.
The
principle behind bloodletting is to remove some blood in a controlled way so
that the patient does not end up bleeding profusely.
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