During a long period, and in several countries, the barbers were the only
acknowledged blood-letters. Some of them were educated to the trade of
bleeding. Dr. Meade was once lecturer to the barber-surgeons, and, if I
mistake not, Dr. Abernethy; but the majority of them were as ignorant as
the tinkers, who also went about the country bleeding the people at both
vein and pocket.
In 1592 one Nicolas Gyer published a work entitled "The English
Phlebotomy, or Method of Healing by Letting of Blood." Its motto was, "The
horse-leech hath two daughters, which crye, '_Give, give_.'" The author
thus complains: "Phlebotomy is greatly abused by vagabond horse-leeches
and travelling tinkers, who find work in almost every village, who have,
in truth, neither knowledge, wit, or honesty; hence the sober practitioner
and cunning chirurgeon liveth basely, is despised, and counted a very
abject amongst the vulgar sort."
Many of the abbeys of Europe and Asia had a "phlebotomaria," or
bleeding-room, connected, in which the sacred (?) inmates underwent
bleeding at certain seasons. The monks of the order of St. Victor, and
others, underwent five venesections per year; for the "Salerne Schoole,"
1601, says,--
"To bleed doth cheare the pensive, and remove
_The raging furies fed by burning love_."
The priests seem to have overlooked Paul's advice, for such to marry, as
it was "better to marry than to burn." If the writer could unfold the
secrets of his "prison-house,"--as doubtless is the experience of most
physicians,--he could tell of worse habits of some modern priests than
this quinarial venesection.
"To bleed in May is still the custom with ignorant people in a few remote
districts" of England. In Marchland a woman used to bleed patients for a
few pence per arm.
Steele tells of a bleeder of his time who advertised to bleed, at certain
hours, "all who came, for three pence a head"--he meant arm, doubtless!
Mention is made of the Drs. Taylor (horse doctors), who drew blood from
the rabble as they would claret from a pipe. "Every Sunday morning they
bled _gratis_ all who liked a prick from their lancets. On such occasions
a hundred poor wretches could be seen seated on the long benches of the
surgery, waiting venesection. When ready, the two brothers would pass
rapidly along the lines of bared arms, one applying the white strip of
cloth above the elbow, the other following and immediately opening the
vein. The crimson stream was directed into a wooden trough that ran along
in front of the seats where the operation was performed."
It scarcely seems possible that such wholesale butchery could have been
openly performed but a hundred years ago! Yet it is still practised, but
with a little more decency.
In South America venesection is still performed by the barbers, who are
nearly all natives.
"A surgeon in Ecuador would consider it an injury to his dignity to bleed
a patient; so he deputes that duty to the Indian phlebotomist, who does
the work in a most barbarous manner, with a blunt and jagged instrument,
after causing considerable pain, and even danger, to the patient.
"These barbers and bleeders are considered to be the leaders of their
_caste_, as from their ranks are drawn the native _alcaldes_, or
magistrates; and so proud are they of their position, that they would not
exchange their badge of office (a silver-headed cane) for the cross of a
bishop.
"The most prominent figures at the Easter celebration are the barbers, who
are almost always Indians. They dress in a kind of plaited cape, and wear
collars of a ridiculous height, and starched to an extreme degree of
stiffness. In this class are also to be found the _sangradores_, or
bleeders, who, as of old, unite the two professions."
A curious scene is presented during each successive day of the "Holy
Week," when the effigies of the titular saints are brought out, and with
the priests, music, and banners, and the barbers to bear burning incense,
they are paraded before the superstitious, gaping, and priest-ridden
people.