Talk:Bloodletting

message: 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
=== 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)
thread_title: older entries

message: 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)
thread_title:  Challenge to disambiguation 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Artifacts 

message: I read something once which actually explained the origin of bloodletting.  Someone wrote correct instructions for draining an infection, but a later generation misread "until the fluid is clear" as "until the blood is clear".  Combined with the belief that arteries carry air (that's why they're called arteries), they thought that blood in the arteries was a disease.  I thought Herophilos was the one who wrote the instructions, but maybe he was the one who misread them, or maybe I've confused him with some other Greek, starting with "H", who isn't Hipparchos or Hippocrates.  — Randall Bart (talk) 20:47, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Did Herophilos favor bloodletting? 

message: this used to be featured, and now it's start class? wat happaned? Thedudewithglasses 23:54, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: What the ****

message: Are there modern equivalents to bloodletting?  I've heard of recommendations to donate blood to reduce iron content, for example.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.28.164.120 (talk) 05:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  The primary treatment for polycythemias (elevated hemoglobin) is the modern form of blood letting.  Modern patients present with polycythemia from testosterone replacement therapy when using intra-muscular injectable forms due to its inadequate pharmacokinetics which "super-doses" the blood stream after injections and rapidly drops off, instead of mimicking natural hormone replacement via sustained release. http://www.eje-online.org/content/162/2/385.full.pdf.  Other forms of polycythemia benefit from "blood letting" too. 71.105.18.159 (talk) 19:22, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Modern bloodletting

message: I noticed there was no image medieval illustration of blood letting. If anyone wishes to expand the article on this topic, here's a picture that can be included. If anyone has more information on this illumination, please include it in the info over at Commons. I pretty sure it's from the 14th century.
Peter Isotalo 07:42, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Medieval info 

message: JFW | T@lk 02:38, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical review 

message: User:Geni added an image of bloodsticks.  A quick search reveals that this instrument is used to strike a "fleam" (another sharp instrument) into the vein of an animal (mostly horses?), to bleed it.  The whole article is about bleeding humans, so the article would need expansion, and some explanation, for this contribution not to be off topic. Perhaps the instruments of bleeding should have a subpage of their own. Power.corrupts (talk) 07:43, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bloodsticks 

message: In some religions (especially Mesoamerican, but allegedly also ancient Roman and Celtic paganism) people offered their blood to the gods. I think it should be mentioned.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.9.2.130 (talk) 19:52, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bloodletting as sacrifice 

message: The page states (without cite) that George Washington developed a throat infection "due to weather exposure"; surely in an article about an obsolete medical practice we can avoid other obsolete medical ideas.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.180.47.247 (talk) 02:50, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  George Washington 

message: I've always had a fear of needles and even at one point lied to the Red Cross about living in England to avoid having to donate blood.  When I turned 45 I decided to quit being a baby and to start saving lives.
Since I started donating blood, it has helped me lose weight.  I even emailed a doctor who has been researching bloodletting with my observation.  He mentioned he had not thought about the blood donating subject but said he sounded like he may include it in future research.  I think as someone else mentioned, there are some benefits.  Such as the helping of me to lose weight.  I changed very little other than the donating blood part and I was able to lose 65 pounds and keep it off.  Since I moved to Hungary, I haven't found a lot of places that speak English where I can donate blood.  I haven't had much luck losing any more weight.
Maybe you could add donating blood as a form of modern day bloodletting.  I know I could as well but I wanted to run it by you first.
I also think maybe the Red Cross should take other donations, even if they can't use them for donating maybe they can use them for research.
Thank you,
Kevin  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.97.29.18 (talk) 20:35, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Donating Blood is a form of modern day bloodletting - Here are my benefits 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: “In the ancient world”. … Is there any proof, that bloodletting was performed in Ancient Egypt? As far as I know, the Egyptian Papyri with medical content, that where found until now make no mention of bloodletting in humans. The rest of the chapter on bloodletting-history is excellent in content and style. Thank You. --Michael Eyl (talk) 10:03, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bloodletting in ancient Egypt? 

message: I'm just going to put links here, I'm not going to put any additional effort in as it will just be reverted by which autist that has some sort of control fixation with this particular wiki. I'm not saying there is such a person, but one has appeared on every wiki I've ever tried to add anything to. So here you go:
https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/ferritin-levels-are-associated-with-urate-and-gout-a-role-for-iron-metabolism-in-gout/
https://academic.oup.com/rheumatology/article/42/12/1550/1784793
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10616042  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.244.73.91 (talk) 14:45, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bloodletting as an emerging treatment for gout 

message: I noticed that the article jumps from the Middle Ages to the 19th century, while including some things such as George Washington's death in the 19th century despite it happening in 1799.  Unless anyone objects, I'm going to try and make a Modern Period section.  Vera0101 (talk) 14:47, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  No inbetween? 

message: Hi! I reverted your recent additions because I have some concerns about the content that I'm not able to fix myself. Please consider the following points and let me know what you think.
*First off, please review WP:EDITORIALIZING - we don't say that things are particularly notable in articles.
*Next, if we are going to talk about particular people who were historically significant, we should be giving dates. When was Patin the dean of the Paris Medical Faculty? When was William Cullen active in Scotland?
*More importantly, why are we talking about these individuals at all? We should be giving an overview of the practice of bloodletting, rather than providing anecdotes about random individuals. Please consider whether these two people particularly significant in the history of the practice.
*With regard to Charles II, you are directly stating that bloodletting was the cause of Charles II's death. That is not supported by the content or sources at Charles_II_of_England#Death - I'm not sure that the source you cited is strong enough to support an assertion along those lines.
*I haven't looked into the George Washington case, but again you are attributing his death to the bloodletting - are you certain that the one led to the other, rather than it being a contributory factor, or just an ineffective treatment for an ailment that killed him?
I hope this makes sense - let me know what you reckon. Best GirthSummit (blether) 17:14, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent additions 

message: If this picture was taken in 1860 then how is the blood in color but for some reason the rest is in black and white? Jdietr601 (talk) 01:04, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Color in the photo 

message: Is the following excerpt from the "Phlebotomy" section really true?:
It is practiced by specifically trained practitioners in hospitals, ***using modern techniques***, and is also known as a therapeutic phlebotomy.
I'm not sure if it's fair to say that only modern techniques are used.  I believe using leeches is still appropriate sometimes:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/leeches-still-used-modern-medicine Ambndms (talk) 11:54, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phlebotomy: Always modern techniques?