The medical profession had become wedded to irrational and unjustifiable assumptions, There are only three fantasy technologies that lasted
for many centuries: alchemy, astrology, and Hippocratic medicine (bloodletting, etc.).
Bloodletting is the withdrawal of often small quantities of blood from a patient to cure or prevent illness and disease. Bloodletting was based on an ancient system of medicine in which blood and other bodily fluid were regarded as "humors" that had to remain in proper balance to maintain health. It was the most common medical practice performed by physicians from antiquity until the late 19th century, a span of almost 2,000 years
The benefits of bloodletting only began to be seriously questioned in the second half of the 1800s. While many physicians in England at the time had lost faith in the general value of bloodletting, some still considered it beneficial in some circumstances, for instance to "clear out" infected or weakened blood or its ability to "cause hæmorrhages to cease"—as evidenced in a call for a "fair trial for blood-letting as a remedy" in 1871.[11] Bloodletting persisted into the 20th century and was even recommended by Sir William Osler in the 1923 edition of his textbook The Principles and Practice of Medicine.[12]
One reason for the continued popularity of bloodletting (and purging) was that, while anatomical knowledge, surgical and diagnostic skills increased tremendously in Europe from the 17th century, the key to curing disease remained elusive, and the underlying belief was that it was better to give any treatment than nothing at all. The psychological benefit of bloodletting to the patient (a placebo effect) may sometimes have outweighed the physiological problems it caused. Bloodletting slowly lost favour during the 19th century, but a number of other ineffective or harmful treatments were available as placebos—mesmerism, various processes involving the new technology of electricity, many potions, tonics, and elixirs
http://en.wikipedia....ki/Bloodletting
“The Harvard biochemist L.J. Henderson [1878-1942] was supposed to have remarked ‘that it was only sometime between 1910 and 1912… that a random patient, with a random disease, consulting a doctor chosen at random, had, for the first time in the history of mankind, a better than 50-50 chance of profiting from the encounter.’”
Edited by stocks, 02 December 2012 - 01:43 PM.