History of Phlebotomy
By: Lance Elmore
February 2022
"Bloodletting"
Bloodletting was an ancient medical practice of removing blood from a person’s veins or arteries for therapeutic purposes. Early Egyptians around 1000 bc used bloodletting to cure various diseases from acne to the plague. It was also believed bloodletting could remove evil spirits from individuals who were considered to be possessed.
Galen of Pergamon
In the 3rd Century, Galen of Pergamon, a Greek physician and surgeon, was credited with major medical contributions to the circulatory system. Among them, the differences between ‘dark’ blood (venous) and ‘light’ blood (arterial), he refuted a mainstream medical belief of the time, that arteries only carried oxygen. Galen was a proponent of venesection (bloodletting) which was met with great opposition from the Greek physicians and philosophers of his time. Many physicians of the 3rd Century believed bloodletting was a practice with dangerous outcomes because the “pneuma” or breath of life in a human flowed through the veins and arteries. They argued bloodletting would cause a person to lose their ‘life force”. We know today, that particular belief has some medical merit, if an individual loses large amounts of blood they can die. Despite such objections, Galen pressed on developing a complex system for removing blood from certain areas of the body. He deduced draining blood nearest the site of the disease or ailment would remove and cure the particular disease. This practice would carry on until the 1900’s.
The Fleam
By the 1800’s blood letting was a highly popular practice throughout Europe. The practice was so popular even Barbers in those times performed bloodletting. This is where the red and white stripes on barber poles originated. The stripes let customers know such services were performed at particular shops. Physicians used a device called a “fleam,” a wooden or brass stick that drove a blade into a person's vein. Cupping was also a method used to extract blood from individuals. Suction cups that caused bleeding blisters and leeches were used in an attempt to ‘cure’ the patient.
Unfortunately, the medical belief of bloodletting to remove disease, once established by Galen of Pergamon, became a reason for many diseases spread amongst the population. Instead of removing the disease from the body, they only spread the disease by handling the infected blood.
Phlebotomy
The word phlebotomy, translated from Greek origin, means to cut into a vein. Today our modern ‘bloodletting’ isn’t used to remove disease from a patient's body, but simply to gather samples of blood for diagnostic purposes. The use of sterile tools, and techniques, along with medical advancements has made obtaining blood much safer and less painful. We have come a long way.
