HUMAN BLOOD.
The medicinal employment of human blood is described by Pliny (lib. xxviii. cap. 105).
Beckherius says that human blood was employed in the treatment of epilepsy. Faustina, the wife of the philosophical emperor, Marcus Antoninus, anxious to have a child, drank the warm blood of a dying gladiator, and then shared her husband’s bed, and at once became pregnant, and brought forth the cruel Commodus. Human blood was also used in effecting “sympathetic cures.”—(“Medic. Microcos.” pp. 122, 128.)
But it was essential that the human blood so employed should be pure and undefiled; lovers who wished to increase the affection of their mistresses, were recommended to try an infusion of their own blood into the loved one’s veins. The blood of man and also that of some animals, notably the dog, sheep, etc., were employed in mania, delirium, cancer, etc. The method of transfusion was preferred. Epileptics would sometimes drink a draught of the warm blood caught gushing from the neck of a decapitated criminal; the blood of a man, just decapitated, drunk warm, cured epilepsy and restrained uterine hemorrhage.—(Etmuller, vol. ii. p. 272.)
Grimm alludes to the fact that the blood of innocent maids and boys was used as a remedy for leprosy; that of malefactors, in epilepsy.—(“Teut. Mythol.” vol. iii. p. 1173.)
See the discussion of this matter under the caption of “Human Skulls.” Consult the work “Blood-Covenant,” by Dr. H. C. Trumbull.
In regard to the conduct of the empress Faustina, see “History of the Inquisition,” Henry C. Lea, N. Y. 1889, vol. iii. p. 391.