A Brief History of Bloodletting Series: A History, P3

Shidonna Raven
3 hours ago
2 min read

May 30, 2012

Last Updated: January 31, 2025

Source: History

Photo Source: Unsplash,

Marie-Antoinette, for instance, seemed to benefit from a healthy dose of bloodletting while giving birth to her first child, Marie-Thérèse, in 1778, 14 years before the guillotine would shed more of the queen’s blood. As an excited crowd thronged her bedchamber, hoping to witness a dauphin’s arrival, the mother-to-be fainted, prompting her surgeon to wield his lancet. Marie-Antoinette immediately revived after the bloodletting—perhaps because the windows were simultaneously opened to let in fresh air.

America’s first president was less fortunate than France’s most infamous queen. On December 13, 1799, George Washington awoke with a bad sore throat and began to decline rapidly. A proponent of bloodletting, he asked to be bled the next day, and physicians drained an estimated 5 to 7 pints in less than 16 hours. Despite their best efforts, Washington died on December 14, leading to speculation that excessive blood loss contributed to his demise. Bloodletting has also been implicated in the death of Charles II, who was bled from the arm and neck after suffering a seizure in 1685.

By the late 1800s new treatments and technologies had largely edged out bloodletting, and studies by prominent physicians began to discredit the practice. Today it remains a conventional therapy for a very small number of conditions. The use of leeches, meanwhile, has experienced a renaissance in recent decades, particularly in the field of microsurgery.

Bloodletting as a medical procedure became slightly less agonizing with the advent in the 18th century of spring-loaded lancets and the scarificator, a device featuring multiple blades that delivered a uniform set of parallel cuts. Respected physicians and surgeons extolled the practice, generously prescribing it to their most esteemed patients.

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