Insane Ancient Medical Cures - Blood Letting

Blood Letting

Bloodletting was one of the most enduring and popular medical practices in history, originated by the Greeks and used up until the 19th century for, well, basically everything. If you were feeling under the weather back in the day there's a good chance it was because you just had too much damn blood or you had some bad blood that had to be removed.

Now, a person having too much blood may sound about as absurd as a person breathing too much air or you coming home to find too many naked supermodels in your bed. But, that's just because you don't know about the four humours. Don't worry, we won't hold your ignorance against you. Basically the theory was that the body was filled with four fluids (blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile) called humours and that any imbalance in the four was the root of all illness. Apparently blood can be a bit of a space hog and thus often some had to be bled out to make room for more fun stuff like phlegm and black bile (a.k.a. diarrhea), or so the theory went.

If you're wondering whether or not it works, the next time you're on your death bed with the flu, drag yourself out of bed and go downtown and give anywhere up to 4 quarts of blood; that's bloodletting for you, except you usually didn't get orange juice and a cookie after. Now, there is a chance you'll feel a bit better as you take a delirious blood loss inspired trip through the clouds on a golden unicorn, but we can assure you your flu probably won't be cured.