Talk:Bloodletting

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I think this article is too negative about blood letting. In fact there are many conditions for which is is beneficial, e.g. lowering fever and stimulating the immune system. Just because we have paracetemol today, doesn't mean that blood letting wasn't a good idea in the olden days. Also blood letting is distinctly good for aneurisms, and aneurisms were common in people suffering from syphillis. Syphillis was the AIDS of the 16th, 17th 18th AND 19th century, therefore huge numbers of people could have benefitted from bleeding. An estimate suggests that 10% of the entire medieval population had some condition or other that would have benefited from blood letting. And of course doctors weren't bleeding people at random, they were only bleeding the self selected group who complained that they were sick.

My comments are drawn from the relevent chapter of the popular science book 'honey mud and maggots' which discusses these ancient techniques and which shows that our current smug complaceny in our superior medicine is a little overdone. Honey for example rivals the best Western medicine can achieve in terms of would healing (of 6% of wounds that western medicine could not heal, honey healed 99% of this difficult 6%). Honey is in clincal trials and will hopefully make wound intervention much cheaper and more effective, albeit more sticky. Maggots are good too.

There are some good reasons to look down on blood letting, doctors rather overdid it in the earlier part of the 19th century. But in the absence of many modern drugs it was a valuable technique.

What other articles are there (or should there be) about the development of moderm medicine, with its emphasis on experimental trials to verify the efficacy of proposed treatments? --Ed Poor

[edit] Challenge to disambiguation

The term "phlebotomy" is still sometimes used for the taking of blood for laboratory analysis or blood transfusion.

• Disambiguation redirects Phlebotomy to Bloodletting.
• In the healthcare field, "phlebotomy" is the standard term used for taking blood for laboratory analysis, for blood donation, and for treatment of hemochromatosis.
• "Bloodletting" is an archaic term for phlebotomy. Modern phlebotomists do not "let blood". They perform venipunctures or lancet punctures of capillaries to collect venous blood. Less frequently, arterial punctures are performed to collect blood for blood gas analysis. Cutting veins or arteries is not a routine practice.

• The disambiguation is incorrect. A comparable example of disambiguation would be to redirect 'dentist' toward 'barber-surgeon', one who yanked teeth in the 19th century.

--john 04:04, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

• Cutting veins was a routine for actual blood sampling until syrynges were invented.

--68.115.90.49 14:49, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Artifacts

I have a 19th century blood letting machine, that I inherited from my grandfather (a doctor). I will take pictures and probably will post some here. It is made of brass and steel, with a spring mechanism. An array of curved blades rotates out through slits in the case. It was in working condition until my son and my first wife snapped it too many times (without flesh to dampen the action). {Perhaps if I had known that I would have the machine longer than the wife I would not have allowed that. LOL.} She used it in a graduate school report on tribal medicine. David R. Ingham 07:37, 14 January 2006 (UTC) It actually was thrown away and then taken back out of the trash can after my grandfather, Samuel Delusena Ingham, died. That shows how many strange things he had. These included a dried-up brain and an Amati cello. David R. Ingham 08:02, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

The AMA (American Medical Association) has within the last year recognized Phlebotomy as an official pratice it is helpful in treating vericose vein disease and is a 2+billion dollar industry. At least that is what I've been told. I had hoped to find more here but only got an ancient overview which doesn't seem fair to this profession. Any more information from a doctor specializing in this medical pratice would be great.