Phlebotomy: Ancient Medical Practice Becomes Modern Science

Medicine in the time of our ancestors was more often than not, a hit or miss endeavor and lacking the proper diagnostic methods of modern medicine ancient healers worked as much in the realm of faith as that of science. Human beings of ages past had as much desire for the relief of suffering as any patient may experience today, though quite often the treatments available in times past were found to be limited.Doubtless, throughout the ages a number of famed as well as unknown physicians, healers, medicine men and women discovered, developed and implemented any number of useful and innovative medical procedures; but lacking the precise scientific knowledge of the modern era the efficacy of any given treatment was open to debate. Who could say if it was the herb you were given, or the cold bath you endured that relieved your sore throat? Was it the burning of sacred incense or the application of accu-pressure that stopped your migraine headaches?The rise and continued popularity of phlebotomy - from early Mesopotamia on into the 20th century - was certainly attributable to both its spectacular demonstrability and medical science's limited cogency to disprove the claims of its adherents.What is, after all, the most basic intuition of anyone undergoing an illness? There is something, not right, something different, inside the patient. Something the patient wants taken out. The earliest phlebotomists, through either ignorance or simple negligence and greed played on this intuition, offering patients the most visual and literal exorcism of unseen bad humors: bloodletting.The ever familiar barber pole is perhaps the most common reminder of phlebotomy's checkered (or some might say, striped) past. For a large part of humankind's history medical treatment was not a highly formalized profession, but rather a common sense application of ritualized folk wisdom. Therefore it is not shocking to discover that the local barber, with his proficiency in handling sharp blades was also the primary applicant of bloodletting ‘treatment' in most cities and towns. He advertised this skill outside his shop in stripes of red (for blood) and white (for the tourniquet) around a stick similar to the one the patient grasped tightly during the procedure to expedite blood flow.Phlebotomy survived as a medical procedure the way most specious treatments did before the era of modern diagnostic methods. Those patients who survived obviously were saved by the letting of blood, those who had died were most certainly beyond hope to begin with. One such ‘incurable' phlebotomy patient was former American President George Washington who succumbed to a throat infection in 1799, but not before being drained of 9 pints of blood the intervening 24 hour period.Thankfully modern medicine has put an end to such barbarously ignorant methods of medical treatment. Though, ironically, phlebotomy (now often referred to as venopuncture) lives on - not as a misapplied practice of guesswork science - but as a vital component to the highly advanced art of modern diagnostic medicine. Modern phlebotomists generally serve to draw blood for testing, though certain illnesses, such as hemochromatosis and primary and secondary polycythemia use phlebotomy as a form of treatment.Additionally the skills of the modern phlebotomist are an essential part of the crucially important medical practices of blood donation and transfusion. As it might be expected most countries require course certification for medical personnel who pursue phlebotomist jobs, though in most cases the basic skills can be learned while already working in a nursing capacity.It is truly a wonder that one of medical sciences longest-lasting and most misapplied procedures has turned out to be one of its most indispensable tools.