Bloodletting

One of the traditional treatments for disease from before the Greeks to the present has been bloodletting, whether by knife, leech or cupping. According to the Esoterica Medica section of the LA Times online, in 2004 researchers learned that there may be good reason for bloodletting, as would seem likely in a practice that has endured for so long. The article is full of interesting tidbits including the one about the likelihood that bloodletting caused the death of the first president of the USA. Read the article: When Bleeding Was a Treatment.

Ancient Bleeding Cups

Hippocratic Method and the Four Humors