Bloodletting: The Oldest Procedure In Our Society

Bloodletting is one of the oldest procedures in our society. It dates all the way back from thousands of years ago where many different cultures practiced it. The Aztecs, Mayans, Mesopotamians, and Egyptians all were cultures that used this method. A physician named Galen, who was from the ancient Greek culture, went more into depth with his research. He found out that arteries were filled with blood and not air contrary to what many people thought around that time. (CITATION1) Galen had two major ideas about bloodletting. Galen believed that blood did not move, so it either stayed right where it was or it flowed out. Additionally, he thought that the balance of phlegm, yellow bile, blood, and black bile were the main origin of either being

King Charles II and President George Washington both died from the procedure. (CITATION) Bloodletting continued even into the middle ages. Barbers, as strange as it sounds, were actually the ones who commonly performed the procedure. The red and white striped poles in front of the barbershops seen today are in fact a tradition left behind from the ancient barber’s bloodletting. The red lines that swirl stand for the blood of course, the white is for the bandage or the dressing that covered the cut, and the actual pole symbolizes a cane that the individual would squeeze and hold on to so their veins would be able to show more. European colonists brought along the procedure of bloodletting when they came to America. What I found really interesting when I was doing research on this topic was what I mentioned previously, that our first president George Washington died from bloodletting (CITATION4). He was getting medical care for a throat infection and died when he had liters of blood drained from his body. Another person that died from bloodletting was King Charles II. He was having a seizure and the physicians automatically saw fit to remove nearly 16 ounces of his blood from his