QUESTION: Is bloodletting still popular and what is it?

Movie that inspired question:

Speed 2

I learned many things watching Speed 2.

Relationships based on intense circumstances do not work out.
It’s extremely easy to hide the fact that not only are you a police officer, but you’re also an adrenaline junkie.
Bloodletting is a portable task that can be easily disguised…. I mean seriously, no one asked why he had jars of leeches in his bag.

This brings me to the question. What is bloodletting and do they still do it today?

First, the easy part. Bloodletting is taking the blood from a patient with therapeutic intent.

Now that the definition is out of the way, lets dive in. Think its safe to say the one important person to know when beginning your journey into bloodletting is Hippocrates.

He’s the man that shaped its purpose in the medical community.

His belief was humans were related to 4 basic humors: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile. Think of it in terms of earth, air, fire, water. He’s like the Captain Planet of the body.

Each humor is connected to a particular organ. Brain, lung, spleen and gallbladder.

So having an illness meant one of these humors was imbalanced. In order to heal it, you must remove a certain amount of the excessive humor.

I know what you’re thinking. Thanks for the history lesson, but what did this treat? Ok, Ok, bloodletting was used to treat everything. Acne, asthma, cancer, cholera, diabetes, epilepsy, herpes, indigestion, insanity, leprosy, pneumonia, excessive menstruation, etc. It was a one stop shop.

For the purposes of this article, we’re going to talk about two bloodletting techniques today. Leeches and bleeding.

Let’s begin with leeches. First off, the leeches that were used weren’t picked out of some roadside pond.

(Side Note: am I the only one who thought of

Stand By Me? You’re welcome.)

They used medicinal leeches

(<-- that guy)

Leeches are sort of amazing creatures. They can ingest almost 10 times their weight. That’s 5-10 ml of blood.

Back then leeches were used to promote wound healing and stimulate blood flow post-surgery in addition to bloodletting. These baby vampires were insanely popular in France during the 1830s. Paris alone used 5-6 million of them. As a whole France was using 35 million a year at one point.

But, as it is with most fads, the use of leeches lost popularity by the late 1800s. Today they're mostly used in the area of microsurgery and re-implantation surgery. (re-implanted ears, fingers, that good stuff)

It’s also used to help reduce venous congestion and prevent tissue necrosis, and to assist with post-operative care of skin grafts.

Oh yeah, and celebrities use them to stay "young".

Example: In 2008, Demi Moore sat down with David Letterman and discussed her beauty regime. “I was in Austria doing a cleanse and part of the treatment was leech therapy. These aren’t just swamp leeches, though, we are talking about highly trained medical leeches. They have a little enzyme that when they are biting down in you, it gets released in your blood. It detoxifies your blood. I’m feeling very detoxified right now.”

Now onto the other type of bloodletting, we’re going to discuss today, bleeding. First, let me show you some charts.

(barber-surgeons bloodletting chart 1480)

These charts indicated the parts of the body that can be bled and why.

During the Roman Empire, bleeding became extremely popular. It was believed that blood didn’t circulate throughout the body, so it could stagnate, which can attribute to illness. Therefore, it has to be drained so new blood can be created.

The area of your body that was drained was based on your ailment. (see charts) Typically 16-30 ounces (1-4 pints) of blood was drained. A shallow bowl was used to catch the blood.

Here are some of the tools that were used.

Lancets Fleams

(photos courtesy of alllancets.com)

Bleeding bowl (courtesy of science museum.org.uk)

I think it’s safe to say the most famous case of bleeding in the United States is that of President George Washington.

On December 13th, 1799, George Washington developed a painful throat infection. His throat swelled to the point where he couldn’t ingest anything. So, he asked his doctors to bleed him.

Remember this was standard practice in those days.

They did, and when he didn’t feel better he asked to be bled again. In a single day, they removed 80 ounces of blood from his body. That’s clearly more than the recommended 30-ounce max. In total, he was drained of 124-126 ounces of blood during his treatment.

(photo courtesy of National Geographic)

He died December 17th, 1799.

One reason bleeding was so popular was the fact that no one knew how to cure a lot of diseases. The general consensus was it was better to treat the disease in some way instead of no way.

Just like leeches, bleeding isn’t as popular as it used to be, but it still happens. In certain parts of the world, it is used to cure or assist with various ailments such as cancer, arthritis and high blood pressure.

Who did the bloodletting?

Remember Sweeney Todd?

(Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd)

That’s right, the barber surgeon was the man to go to for all your bloodletting needs.

Back in the days of medieval Europe, surgery was not necessarily conducted by physicians. Surgeons mostly worked in universities and considered certain procedures beneath them.

Barbers were equipped to do anything from cutting hair to amputating limbs.