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Barber-Surgeons' Shaving and Bleeding Bowls

A. Lawrence Abel, MS, MD, FRCS

JAMA. 1970;214(5):900-901.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Through the centuries of medicine, blood letting was a common practice. The first European representation of bleeding occurs on a Greek vase c 500 BC, now in the Louvre in Paris. Hippocrates, born at Cos in 460 BC, wrote that "venisection holds first place in conducting the treatment" of "acute infections... hypochondria... internal pains of the liver, heaviness of the spleen... collections of humours." At the time of the birth of Christ, barber-surgeons practiced in ancient Rome; they were called tonsores and cut hair, drew teeth, and bled at the public baths.

These treatments continued for hundreds of years. Galen in 200 AD prepared an elaborate treatise on bleeding and on his authority the practice extended to almost every disease and every country. The Arabs continued in Galen's tradition and the Anglo-Saxon leechbooks prescribed bleeding for most conditions. In Europe treatments were taken over by the monasteries, which became the . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the Princess Beatrice and Royal Marsden hospitals and Westminster Hospital Group, London.

Footnotes
Reprint requests to 48 Harley St, London W1.

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