Connecticut western news., 1901-11-14
THE BLEEDING CURE.
A RELIC OF THE MEDICAL METHODS
 OF A CENTURY AGO.

The Barbarous Practice of "Cup-
 pinS" Suffering Humanity Still Has
 Its Adherents = The Operation .
 Somewhat Delicate One.
 One hundred years ago the sovereign balm for every i'll, from fainting to fe- ver was bleeding. The wonder is that a human race was left to admit the folly of the practice. It was the cor rect method of the day, recommended and employed by the best physicians of the time. The surgeon who attended George Washington in his last illness first set about bleeding his august pa tient The story Is that he took several cups of blood from the vigorous arm of Washington and then diagnosed the case Washington died. Some say that if he had not been bled he probably would have lived.
 The cry comes, But that was cen tury ago! In sharp contrast stands the wonderful advances made by modern surgery. Thankfully it may be said that such Is the truth. But sometimes customs die hard, and today the doc urine of "cupping" has deyotees as faithful as those who gave up their life sustaining fluid in Washington's time. This is a startling statement. The writer would have been skeptical if he had not learned It's truth himself.
 Tn the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries this grewsome form of treat ment was the work of the barber. That hoc fof ffc txye in to the twentieth century. In a certain little side street in New York, crushed between two towering brick buildings, stands a timid story and half frame house. The suggestive striped pole which emblazons the art of the dweller within juts over the walk. In the win dow hangs a sign bearing the word "Cupping." If today were set back to t7OO, the pole alone would tell the sto- ". Times, they say. have changed, and so the sign.
 The barber Is a German. He was much surprised at the question asked. Everybody knew that cupping was a necessity, especially in the spring, he said. Sometimes, he added, he was sc busy that little time remained for his shaving and hair cutting of customers.
 "Ach, yes," said the barber, fit keeps me busy man. How strange you say that you thought 1t no longer was practiced. People come here morning, noon and night every day, but mostly do they come here in the spring and fall 1t Is then that the blood needs drawing off. If you have a pain in your head, you come to me. take my little cup, burn the air in 1t out, push down my little knives just behind your ear on the neck, and when the cup Is full take 1t away. If your headache is not better yet, take another cup, so be 1t that the bleeding stop not, upon the other side. Maybe your back pains; I cut you little on the side. Your arm pains; I draw the blood from your wrist"
 The barber barred his arm. The skin was crossed with tiny, pale hicks, like those one sees on the wrist of mor- phine victim.
 Twelve Is the number of cups draw at one sitting," the barber said, Tt is a bad pain that will not be gone then. If you come again the next day with the pain, draw off more until the ache has disappeared completely"
 The cups look like sherry glasses with the stems removed. The knife, or lancet, Is arranged like a name stamp. Pressure on spring plunger drives the little blades, which are ar ranged in pairs or triplets, into the skin. 1t is here that the skill of the operator comes into play. When the incisions are made in the neck too vio- lent, tap on the plunger might mean the severing or wounding of an artery. Pressure too light would not let the blood flow fast enough. The barber must have a trained touch.
 Upon the condition of the cup much depends. The air is exhausted by means of a tiny alcohol flame. This makes a vacuum. The cup is pressed on lightly, but firmly. The blood rush. es under the skin beneath its rim; then, like flash, the little knives are pushed down, and the bleeding begins. The operator never takes more than 12 cups at one sitting. That would mean per haps a half pint of blood.
 This system of bleeding for human ailments harks back to the earliest times. All through the middle ages 1t was the healing balm for the sufferings of mankind. The ancients firmly be- lieved that the loss of blood in this manner drew from their systems the 'noKious humors" which afflicted them. The advent of the modern school of medicine and surgery did away with the process as a universal therapeutic measure. 1t was not until the nine teenth century was nearly half com. pleted, however. that physicians aban- doned it as a practice.-New York Trib- une.