Figure 9.—Persian spouted cupping glass, 12th century.
(NMHT 224478 [M-8037]; SI photo 73-4215.)

Nineteenth-century cuppers tended to blame the baths for the low status of cupping among surgeons. Dionis had described the baths in Germany as great vaulted halls with benches on two sides, one side for men and the other for women. Members of both sexes, nude except for a piece of linen around the waist, sat in the steamy room and were cupped, if they so desired, by the bath attendants. The customers’ vanity was satisfied by making the scarifications (which left scars) in the form of hearts, love-knots, and monograms.[99] Mapleson’s complaint against the baths in 1813 was typical of the reaction of the nineteenth-century professional cupper:

The custom which appears to have become prevalent of resorting to these Bagnios, or Haumaums, to be bathed and cupped, appears to have superseded the practice of this operation by the regular surgeons. Falling into the hands of mere hirelings, who practiced without knowledge, and without any other principle than one merely mercenary, the operation appears to have fallen into contempt, to have been neglected by Physicians, because patients had recourse to it without previous advice, and disparaged by regular Surgeons, because, being performed by others, it diminished the profits of their profession.[100]

[Larger Image]

Figure 10.—Cupping in the bath, 16th century. (From a woodcut held by the Bibliotheque Nationale. Photo courtesy of NLM.)

After a period of neglect, cupping enjoyed renewed popularity in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In that period a number of professional cuppers practiced in the cities of Europe and America. Both Guy’s and Westminster Hospitals in London employed a professional cupper to aid physicians and surgeons. Of these hospital cuppers, at least four, Thomas Mapleson, Samuel Bayfield, George Frederick Knox, and Monson Hills published treatises on the art of cupping, from which we gain the clearest account of cupping procedure.[101] Knox, who succeeded Mapleson as Cupper at Westminster Hospital, was petitioned by 59 medical and surgical students to write his practical and portable text.[102]

Instruments of the Professional Cupper