Phlebotomy, otherwise known as venipuncture, is the art of drawing blood from the human body. This skill has been practiced since the time before the birth of Christ, originating in early civilizations of the ancient Egyptians and Mayans approximately 3000 years ago. The understanding of how the human body works, including the substance that flows through each individual, has continuously been on the forefront of the mind of many researchers, as well as within the very culture of many communities. As a result, these explorers needed the use of various instruments; as a way to be able to chart, investigate, and cleanse the body of impurities or excess fluid. The art of phlebotomy was once viewed as horrific and repulsive, but it has become an art in which the human race has worked diligently at to bring a perception of healing and understanding towards the patient.
The practice of Phlebotomy originated from humorism. Humorism was a theory, later being discredited, that was adopted by ancient Greek and Roman philosophers explaining the structure and mechanisms of the human body. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, believed that there were four basic elements to existence: earth, air, fire, and water; these related to four basic humors: blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. Breaking it down another step, these humors were centered to particular organs: the brain, the lungs, the spleen, and the gall bladder. People who became ill were expected to have an imbalance of the four humors. According to the BC Medical Journal (2010), "treatments consisted of removing an amount of the excessive humor by various means such as bloodletting, purging, catharsis, diuresis, and so on." During the 3rd century, Galen, a Greek physician, surge...
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Works Cited
Davis, A., & Appel, T. (2010, July 7). Bloodletting Instruments. Retrieved November 10, 2013, from www.gutenberg.org/files/33102/33102-h/33102-h.htm
Greenstone, MD, G. (2010). The History of Bloodletting. BC Medical Journal, 52(1), 12-14. Retrieved from http://www.bcmj.org/premise/history-bloodletting
Greenstone, MD, G. (n.d.). The history of bloodletting | BC Medical Journal. Retrieved from http://www.bcmj.org/premise/history-bloodletting
Kansas Historical Society (1998, November). Cool Things - Bloodletting Tools - Kansapedia - Kansas Historical Society. Retrieved October 21, 2013, from http://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/cool-things-bloodletting-tools/10325
Office of News & Communications (2000, February 18). The Long, Respected History of Bloodletting | Duke Today Mobile. Retrieved October 21, 2013, from http://m.today.duke.edu/2000/02/blood218.html
In the article, Gawande shares a story from when he worked in a hospital as a resident. His first real procedure, placing a central line through a stout man’s heart to receive nutrition, would result in few problems if it were performed by experienced hands. However, knowing this is his first operation to be done alone, Gawande’s nervousness grew with every thought of what could go dramatically wrong. Before beginning, the author recollects studying all of the precise moves and cuts his superior named S. carried out on the same type of procedure on a person beforehand. After feeling informed and confident, Gawande begins by gathering all the necessary tools needed for the job. But as he thought he finished, S. chimes in reminding him of the multiple things he failed to remember to grab or setup. He uneasily shook off the mistakes, and began by locating the point on the man’...
In 1615 at the age of 37 Harvey became the Lumleian Lecture specializing in Surgery. William Harvey discovered his finding of the Circulation of Blood by ignoring medical textbooks and dissecting animals. He gained all or most of his learnings from observations of cutting open veins and arteries of living animals. Many people of this modern time thought because there weren’t any anesthetics that Harvey was cruel for cutting open living animals. I think that if it wasn’t for William Harvey and all of his studies and dissections that we wouldn’t be able to learn teach and save as many people as we can today. We as people have learned a lot from the many studies and dissections throughout Harvey’s lifetime. We have learned that blood, arteries, and veins are all within the same origin, blood in the arteries sent to the tissues are not stay there, the body‘s circulation mechanism was designed for the movement of liquid and that blood carrying air is still blood, the heart moves all movements of blood not the liver, hearts contract the same time as the pulse is felt, ventricle’s squeeze blood into main arteries, the pulse is formed by blood being pushed into arteries making them bigger, there are no vessels in the heart’s septum, lastly there is no to in from of blood in the veins there is only
Many of the subject’s were twins, mostly identical. Twins when through the worst of the surgeries, including blood transfusions. Doctors drained one twin of his blood and inject it into the other twin to see what would happen. Blood would be drawn from each twin in large quantities about ten cubic centimeters were drawn daily. The twins who were very young suffered the worst of the blood drawing. They would be forced to have blood drawn from their necks a very painful method. Other methods included from their fingers for smaller amounts, and arms sometimes from both simultaneously. The doctors would sometimes see how much they could withdraw until the patient passed out or died.
In the early 1800’s, before the use of anesthesia, many patients with life threatening issues would forgo surgery and choose the permanent path of death rather than undergo a painful, emotionally scarring procedure such as surgery before anesthesia. When surgeries did take place, they would be performed on the top floors of hospitals so that the other patients couldn’t hear the screams. More than 8,000 anesthesia-free operations were performed in the Ether Dome at Mass General Hospital, coincidentally the birthplace of the first surgery “without pain” (Mass General).
Danvers, an insane asylum in Boston, Massachusetts was the rumored birthplace of the procedure known as lobotomy (Taylor). Dr. Walter Freeman studied lobotomy, and he was the first to practice the procedure. Lobotomy began with electric shock to the forehead. Then the eye lids were folded back and an ice pick was used to sever the frontal lobes. The patient would have black eyes after this awful procedure. This was supposed to cure an insane person (“YouTube”).
Beginning around 460 BC, the concept of humoralism emerged throughout the written works of Hippocrates. These early works, some of the only medical works of this detailed nature to survive this period, delineated one of the first ways scholars and physicians viewed the body and more importantly illness. Shaped by the Hippocratics’ version of humoralism and his own interpretations of their written works, Galen resolutely supported the fundamental four-element theory, the notion of the four humors, and the essential practice of healing by applying opposites by physicians. However, Galen’s education in anatomy proved an effective advance in his medical reasoning away from a non-ontological view of illness into a considerably more ontological and
In recent years there has been an increase awareness regarding the potential risk of blood transfusion leading to increase scrutiny of its use by health care providers. (6). Studies have shown that by 1990s, the transfusion for CS has decreased to 1.1-1.6 % (7, 8) in some centers but remained relatively high (5.2-6.8%) in others (9, 10).Review of the available literature shows that need for transfusion varies in various countries. (11-14)
The Mayo Clinic defines a blood transfusion as “a routine medical procedure in which donated blood is provided to you through a narrow tube placed within a vein in your arm”. The first human blood transfusion on record was conducted by Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys, a French physician during the late 1600’s. Although Denys’ transfusions weren’t sound proof and often written off as unorthodox, he unknowingly ushered in a new era of medicine and laid the foundation for modern advances in Hematology. I choose this topic because I volunteer to donate blood four times a year alongside thousands of other people. On average these donations help save 4.5 million Americans that would die in a years’ time without a blood transfusion. These generous people
It was during this time that doctors and nurses, through experience also demonstrated that blood could be stored and then safely transferred from patient to patient saving countless soldiers’ lives.
In modern times, the experimentation on animals has led to just as many advances in medical science as there are in veterinary science and practice. Ibn Zuhr paved the way for basic surgical procedures that advanced over time as the anatomy of humans and animals were not seen as being one and the same. Blood transfusions came about through ...
I sat behind a large wall of glass, through which I studied the surgeons as they delicately inserted catheters into people’s wrists and examined X-rays. The nurses got so used to having me around that they didn’t mind taking a few moments out of their exhaustive schedules to show me how arteries work, the different types of blood clots, and ways for treating them. Mesmerized, I observed the surgeons cautiously pumped precisely measured fluid into the bodies of their patients, after which they inserted a small balloon at the site of clot blockage which helped compress and remove the built-up plaque. After the procedures ended, I couldn’t help barraging the surgeons with questions, and found their stories just as inspiring as their work. Not only did they give me great advice and hilarious anecdotes, but after listening to my own story and aspirations they each spurred me to pursue my dreams with greater
Siraisi, Nancy G. Medieval and early Renaissance medicine: an introduction to knowledge and practice. University of Chicago Press, 2009.
Blood transfusions are potentially life-saving procedure that can help replace blood lost due to surgery or injury. Every two seconds someone in the United States needs blood (Blood Facts 1). Blood has been used as a form of therapy for a variety of ailments dating back as far as the 17th century. There is no question that blood is an incredibly valuable resource. Over the years, there have been several significant advances made in not only the research of blood but also medicine. The history and research of blood transfusions has brought the discovery of blood types and the incompatibilities of said blood types.
Although church Dogma still dictated over society, scientist began to turn for supernatural causes such as possession and evil spirits to more scientific causes. Hippocrates, who as known as the father of modern medicine, recognize that the brain was the organ that interpreted sensory information from the world and that disease was not only in the body but also in the mind. He also believed that illnesses including mental illnesses were caused by imbalance within the body. In order to treat these illnesses balanced must be restored. One form of treatment thought to restore balance was bloodletting. Bloodletting was assumed to help, in patients that did not die because of the procedure and these practices continued for many years (Breitendfeld, Jurasic, Breitenfeld, 2014).
As previously mentioned, Hippocrates II (460 – 370 B.C.) was known as the father of medicine and although human dissection was forbidden because of religious beliefs, he dissected animals and studied the anatomy of bones. Hippocrates had some accuracy in osteology; however, he was not as accurate in his theories regarding the arteries, which he thought were filled with air because they appear empty in dead animals. In addition, he established the Doctrine of Humors which stated that the body is composed of four major fluids. Future researchers would follow the Doctrine of Humors until it was later proved false.