Go With the Flow (rebroadcast)
Big Picture Science
00:00
Blood Let - The Theory of Blood Letting
Blood was seen to have this astonishing power because it was associated with injury and death. The idea came about that if you removed blood from some one's body to the point where they were ideally still alive at the end of the process, you could balance the humours of the body. So that was the theory behind, well, blood letting, which, at least in recent years, was done with leeches. It sounds like a make work project for leaches. Ar when did they stop doing that, and was there any indication that it worked? Leeches in particular?
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