December 30, 2018 Sunday
Bedtime Story
Bloodletting
Blood-letting was a treatment that was
universally employed for almost all known diseases of those times.
If given some time to ponder over it would
not be too difficult for you to come with a theory from where the practice of
bloodletting was inspired from.
Think about bleeding to health and perhaps
that might be a good enough hint.
If perhaps I add in the word “fertile woman”
then I think the puzzle is solved.
Yes, the logic (if you can call it that) of
bloodletting was modeled upon the menstruation that was known to man since time
immemorial.
Menstruation was often associated with
negativity and pollution and some thought that it was a process of the purging
of feminine body of her “bad humors”.
If that was the god’s way of cleansing then
we might as well emulate the process and reap our own rewards.
Let me, for the sake of posterity, record
the list of illnesses that were curable by blood-letting as listed in one of
the British medical text:
The list of diseases treatable by bloodletting
in the alphabetical order included acne, asthma, cancer, cholera, coma,
convulsions, diabetes, epilepsy, gangrene, gout, herpes, indigestion, insanity,
jaundice, leprosy, ophthalmia (an old term for eye inflammation), plaque, pneumonia,
scurvy, small pox, stroke, tetanus and tuberculosis.
This list is not comprehensive and includes
at least a hundred more that I would grow tired of writing down.
What is most remarkable is not the sheer
breath of the scope of the diseases that were curable with bloodletting.
Even more surprising is the fact that conditions
where patient was hemorrhaging such as nosebleeds of various etiologies, excessive
menstruation arising from various causes and bleeding from hemorrhoids were
also to be treated by bloodletting.
If you think that we have come out of this
madness you would be sadly mistaken.
Bloodletting, either surgically or with the
help of leeches, is still an integral part of various alternative systems of
medicines such as Indian Ayurveda, Unani and traditional Chinese system of
medicine that are taken very seriously both my masses and by learned men and
men highly placed in the society ranks.
My nurse who is suffering from a chronic form
of hypertrophic Lichen Planus (or perhaps psoriasis as different dermatologists
come to slightly different conclusions) was made to undergo bloodletting via
leeches in multiple sittings.
Not only was there no remission of her dermal
pathology after three sittings but on the other hand her systemic condition
greatly worsened such that her hemoglobin went down drastically greatly
weakening her so that eventually she landed up with blood transfusion.
It must be disclosed that this treatment
was not being performed by a quack in his private clinic but in an Ayurvedic
Medical College of repute in the heart of Bombay city by a team of doctors from
its department.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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