In August 1791, at the age of 35, Mozart received a commission to compose a requiem for an unnamed patron.
At this time, Mozart was suffering from weight loss, anemia, headaches, syncope, etc., which made him think that this requiem song may have been written for himself. By November of that year, he was unable to get out of bed, and severe vomiting, diarrhea, joint pain and edema of his limbs continued to plague him, making it impossible for him to continue composing. He was convinced that he had been poisoned.
In order to save him, the doctors used the most popular treatment method at that time - bloodletting, repeated bloodletting. It has been estimated that Mozart may have lost at least about 2,000 milliliters (4 pints) of blood in the last week of his life. His sister-in-law, Sophie Hybel, recorded: "They bloodied him and gave him cold compresses on his head, but then he became weak and unable to exert himself, and then he lost consciousness and never woke up again." "After 24 hours, this probably the greatest musical genius of human history hung up.
Mozart before his deathbed
Medicine in medieval Europe was basically based on Hippocrates' theory of the four liquids. The four kinds of body fluids are blood, mucus, yellow bile and black bile, these four body fluids in the human body, not only determine the personality of the person, but also run in a way that no one knows, maintaining a delicate balance, if this balance is broken, then the person will get sick.
The purpose of treatment is to restore this balance, so how to restore this balance?
The doctor will first determine whether the patient has too much blood, too much mucus or too much bile, and then apply bloodletting, vomiting and enemas respectively.
Later, Claudius Galen (the most famous physician of the ancient Roman period) declared that bloodletting was the treatment of all problems in the body, including the treatment of heavy bleeding (negative negative positive?). ）。 Let's experience this theory for ourselves.
Now that the theoretical foundation has been built, the practical operation is left.
In the Middle Ages, medicine was basically an appendage of theology, so the so-called doctors were basically priests who came to work part-time.
Originally, bloodletting was a self-amusement within the priests' small circle, and it was said that bloodletting could reduce the priests' high sexual desires due to being single and make people more calm. Later, the priests were also responsible for bloodletting various patients.
At that time, the lancet was usually used to bleed, which was a curved blade or sharp blade mounted on the hilt of the knife. The name of the most authoritative medical journal now, The Lancet, comes from this.
The medieval lancet, the right side of the protrusion is the blade
Later, a bloodletting tool called a scarificator appeared, a steel box containing multiple spring blades, with different cutting depths, usually after using a scratcher and then using the cupping method to be able to suck out more blood.
Scratcher
However, in 1163, Pope Alexander III clergy forbade the help of others to bleed. This craft was lost from the church to the people.
As early as in Britain, hairdressers took on this heavy responsibility. Today, in front of many barbershops, you can still see the red, white and blue spinning lights, which were originally used to attract customers and provide bloodletting services, of which red and blue represent arterial blood and venous blood respectively.
Barber bloodletting requires sniffing, touching, and tasting blood to diagnose the condition. Bowls of blood were also placed on the windowsills of barbershops to attract customers, but a law was later passed requiring them to quietly pour the blood into the River Thames.
Bloodletting knives of the 13th century
So, if you have the opportunity to travel to medieval Europe, when you have shaved your hair in a barbershop and shaved your beard, the barber may ask you: Dude, do you want to bleed? There is a disease to cure the disease, no disease to maintain health...
The bloodletting tool set at the time
At that time, to what extent could bloodletting therapy be popularized?
Today, if a girl is out of love, she may talk to a girlfriend, buy and buy to relieve the pain in her heart, and so on. But in the Middle Ages, if you fell out of love, your family might find someone to put you a pint of blood to relieve your pain.
In 1623, the French physician Jacques Ferland attempted to treat lovesickness with surgical treatment. He recommended that "bloodletting is the most effective and safest treatment for lovesickness."
Queen Marie Antoinette of France (who was later sent to the guillotine with his old highway Yi XVI during the French Revolution) once hehemofe after giving birth in front of the Manchu court. (Watching childbirth was normal at the time, and if there had been vibrato at the time, the French people could probably have seen the queen live to give birth.) The queen fainted and was finally rescued by bloodletting. Of course, we don't know if bloodletting can really cure heavy bleeding or if the queen just woke up from bloodletting...
Marie Antoinette
In 1685, Charles II of England fainted while shaving his beard. His 14 doctors spent their lives bleeding the king, and in addition to that, the poor king went through enemas, vomiting, cupping, and ate gallstones from an East Indian goat. A poultice made from pigeon droppings was carefully applied to his feet. The doctors gave him a lot of blood again and again, and finally, when the king lost his breath, there was almost no blood in his body.
Coronation of Charles II
One day three years after stepping down as president, George Washington, the founding father of the United States, suffered from a fever and difficulty breathing from riding a snowy horse. His doctors were equally aggressive and refurbishable in giving him no blood. After a toss, the Founding Father was released about 2-4 liters of blood and died quickly.
Sir Byron, the great English poet, was infected with a severe cold, accompanied by fever and physical pain, and the doctor wanted to bleed him. Desperate to survive, he firmly opposed it, pointing out that in the past it was useless to be sick and bleed. But in the end, he succumbed to the doctor's chatter and said, "Come on, I've seen a lot of butchers, just let go of as much blood as you want, but hurry up." After 3 bloodlettings, the doctors were surprised to find that Byron's condition had deteriorated. In desperation, the doctors used their killer skills and used leeches to bleed in his ears. However, there was no egg, and Sir Byron died within a few days. The doctors said it was because Byron himself hesitated to delay the bloodletting.
Byron, who died at the age of 36
At that time, in addition to the above frightening bloodletting tools, there was a more terrifying killer, the leech, which was used to bleed in the parts that the blade could not reach, such as the rectum, was it a chrysanthemum?!
In 1850, a lady in London was sleeping with swollen tonsils and pain, and in order to relieve the suffering of the patient, the doctor who came to see the patient took a black, slippery leech from a portable clay pot. Its body writhed with hunger. The doctor threaded a needle with silk thread through the leech's tail, and then put the writhing leech "pendant" into a transparent glass tube, guiding the leech to place the hungry mouth tribe on the swollen tonsils...
When treating intestinal inflammation and prostate disease with leech bloodletting, one of the tricky questions for doctors is, how to get leeches into it?
A clever doctor invented a grooved metal rod in which leeches were stuffed in grooves (leeches were threaded to facilitate pulling out at the end of treatment) and then inserted together into the parts of the body that needed treatment. In 1833, a doctor named Osborne described the whole process: after shoving the leech deep into the patient's anus, "the metal rod was pulled out and the leech remained inside and tortured until it was full of blood." This "tortured" is really well used, and thinking about this process makes people's scalps tingle.
After the end of the Middle Ages, leeches were also used to treat women with irregular menstruation or dysmenorrhea, and the treatment process is your own brain supplement.
The doctors of that time were indeed more terrible than the butchers.
Besides, bloodletting also has enemas.
The theoretical basis for enemas also comes from the Roman medicine master Galen, who believed that under the right circumstances, bodily fluids would spoil and therefore need to be excreted through feces. If the stool stays in the rectum for too long and the frequency of intestinal excretion movement is not so high, then these dirty poisons will penetrate into the body. The rotten elements will be absorbed by the circulatory system, causing fever, abscesses, insanity and bleeding, and then there will be a world war, which will lead to an alien invasion...
Therefore, constipation is the source of all evil, and enemas are essential.
Galen himself was receiving an enema, and the puppy in the lower right corner seemed excited
In France in the 15th-16th centuries, enemas became a necessity as well as a very fashionable thing. Legend has it that Louis XIV (the one who bathed only 3 times in his lifetime in the previous article) enjoyed 2,000 enemas in his lifetime. 2000 times! In France, during the peak of obsession with enemas, many people frequently give enemas in order to "maintain health", even 2-3 times a day. There are many who have recorded themselves when Louis XIV was received by the king in an enema.
The comics of the time: Louis XIV, sitting in the world, was receiving an enema
The Duchess of Burgundy in France illustrates the popularity of this therapy very vividly. She had her servants drill under her skirt in front of the king to carry out an enema. Of course, during the enema, her body was carefully covered.
However, enemas are a little better than bloodletting, after all, bloodletting is easy to die.
Note: Some of the pictures in the text come from the "History of Absurd Medicine" And the rest of the pictures come from the Internet, the copyright belongs to the original author, if there is something inappropriate, please leave a message to inform, thank you very much!
Please contact the author for reproduction.
bibliography:
Lydia Kang et al., A History of Absurd Medicine.