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(1/14) Let's talk about the ancient practice of BLOODLETTING👇When Charles II suffered a sudden seizure on the morning of 2 February 1685, his personal physician had just the remedy. He quickly slashed open a vein in the King’s left arm and filled a basin with the royal blood. 
(2/14) Over the next few days, the King's physicians gave enemas and urged him to drink various potions, including boiled spirits from a human skull. Charles was bled a second time before he lapsed into a coma and died.
(3/14) Even without his doctors’ ministrations, the King may have succumbed, yet his final days were certainly not made any easier by the relentless bloodletting and purging. By the time of Charles II’s death, however, bloodletting was standard medical practice.
(4/14) Bloodletting practices were ubiquitous in earlier centuries. Both the healthy and the sick were bled for medicinal purposes, to restore balance to the body. For many medical practitioners, it was the preferred treatment for countless ailments.
(5/14) Many physicians believed the “cutter’s art” was beneath their station, so they referred those in need of bleeding to barber-surgeons, who carried out this duty in addition to a diverse range of other services.
(6/14) The barber's pole originated from the rod that the patient gripped to make their veins bulge, thus making them easier to slice open. A brass ball at the top symbolized the basin that collected the blood.
(7/14) The pole's red and white stripes represent the bloodied bandages, which would be washed and hung to dry on the rod outside the shop. The bandages would twist in the wind, forming the familiar spiral pattern we see on the barber poles of today.
(8/14) While bloodletting may seem barbaric, it was considered a standard part of medical treatment in earlier periods. People in the past requested it in the same way people today might ask for antibiotics when visiting the doctor’s office. Photo from 1922: @ExploreWellcome
@ExploreWellcome (9/14) Take George Washington, who woke on the morning of 14 December 1799 complaining that he couldn’t breathe. Fearing his doctor would not arrive in time, Washington asked for the overseer of his slaves to step in and bleed him.
@ExploreWellcome (10/14) The cut was deep, and Washington lost nearly half a pint before the wound was closed. Eventually, the physicians arrived and proceeded to bleed Washington four more times in the next eight hours. By evening, America’s first president was dead.
@ExploreWellcome (11/14) Bloodletting reached its apogee in the early 19th century. During this period, leeching was the preferred method. This type of worm can suck several times its own body weight in blood and is a lot safer than cutting open a vein. This lead to the "Leech Craze."
@ExploreWellcome (12/14) Women would wade into leech-infested ponds with bare legs in order to attract the slimy bloodsuckers. Once the leeches had had their fill, they would fall off leaving the collector to then sell them to medical practitioners for profit. [Image: @ExploreWellcome]
@ExploreWellcome (13/14) But why did bloodletting remain so popular for so long? Despite advances in anatomy and diagnostics during the 18th and 19th centuries, therapeutics did not evolve quickly enough to match new understandings of the body. Can you think of a contemporary example?
@ExploreWellcome (14/14) I hope you enjoyed this thread! If you want to support my content and are interested in medical history, check out my book #TheButcheringArt, about the brutal and bloody world of Victorian surgery: amazon.com/Butchering-Art…
