The story of bloodletting is intertwined in the mysterious fabric of medical lore; it originated from magic and religious ceremonies. The physician and priest were one and the same since disease was thought to be caused by supernatural causes. Witch doctors and sorcerers were called on to drive out the evil spirits and demons. Bloodletting was a method for cleansing the body of ill-defined impurities and excess fluid. The early instruments included thorns, pointed sticks and bones, sharp pieces of flint or shell, and even sharply pointed shark’s teeth. Miniature bow and arrow devices for bloodletting have been found in South America and New Guinea. A small bloodletting instrument resembling a crossbow was once used in Greece and Malta. Wall paintings dating from 1400 B. C. depict the use of leeches for drawing blood from human beings.
– From a PBS article: A Brief History of Blood-Letting
On a conference call today to discuss the mortgage-investment firm’s earnings, the chief executive officer talked about ‘blood-letting,’ a ‘popular prescription for many ills’ until the late 1800s, and the similarly abandoned view that life could be created by spontaneous generation to explain her ‘healthy dose of concern’ over the potential results of all the stimulus.
‘My hope is that as policy makers of the world continue to prescribe their remedies for the ailing economic patient, that they do not render it worse off,’ she said. ‘As with their predecessors, I suspect there is no doubt in the minds of our central bankers that they are the smartest they’ve ever been. Yet, I fear they are not the smartest they will ever be.’
This post was published at Liberty Blitzkrieg on Michael Krieger | Posted Friday Feb 27, 2015.
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