Dr. Reid says, "If the employment of the lancet was abolished altogether, it would perhaps save annually a greater number of lives than pestilence ever destroyed."
The fact of blood-letting having been practised by horse and cattle doctors from time immemorial is certainly not a clear proof of its utility, nor is it a sufficient recommendation that it may be practised with safety. During my professional career, the preconceived theories have commanded a due share of consideration; and, when weighed in the scale of uninfluenced experience, they never failed of falling short. If we grant that any deviation from the healthy state denotes debility of one or more functions, then whatever has a tendency to debilitate further cannot restore the animal to health. The following case will serve to illustrate our position: "A horse was brought to be bled, merely because he had been accustomed to it at that season of the year. I did not examine him minutely; but as the groom stated there was nothing amiss with him, I directed a moderate quantity of blood to be drawn. About five pints were taken off; and while the operator was pinning up the wound, the horse fell. He appeared to suffer much pain, and had considerable difficulty of breathing. In this state he remained twelve hours, and then died. Judging from the appearances at the post mortem examination, it is probable that a loss of a moderate quantity of blood caused a fatal interruption of the functions of the heart."
It is strange that such cases as these do not open men's eyes, and compel them to acknowledge that there is something wrong in the medical world. Such cases as these furnish us with unanswerable arguments against blood-letting; for as the blood, which is the natural stimulus of, and gives strength to, the organs, is withdrawn, its abstraction leaves all those organs less capable of self-defence.
Horse and cattle doctors have recommended bleeding when animals have been fed too liberally, or if their systems abound in morbific matter. Now, the most sensible course would be, provided the animal had been overfed, to reduce the quantity of food, or, in other words, remove the cause. If the secretions are vitiated, or in a morbid state, then regulate them by the means laid down in this work. For we cannot purify a well of water by abstracting a few buckets; neither can we purify the whole mass of blood by taking away a few quarts; for that which is left will still be impure. If the different parts had between them partitions impervious to fluids, then there would be some sense in drawing out of the vessels over-filled; but unfortunately, if you draw from one, you draw from all the rest.
In every disease wherein bleeding has been used, complete recovery has been protracted, and the animal manifests the debility by swelled legs and other unmistakable evidences. In some cases, however, the ill effects of the loss of blood, unless excessive, are not always immediately perceived; yet such animals, in after years, are subject to staggers, and diseases of the lungs, pleura, and peritoneum.
Dr. Beach says, "The blood is properly called the vital fluid, and the life of a person is said to be in the blood.[2] We know that just in proportion to the loss of this substance are our vigor and strength taken from us. When taken from the system by accident or the lancet, it is succeeded by great prostration of strength, and a derangement of all the functions of the body. These effects are invariably, in a greater or less degree, consequent on bleeding. Is it not, then, reasonable to suppose, that what will debilitate the strongest constitution in a state of health, will be attended with most serious evils when applied to a person laboring under any malady? Is it not like throwing spirits on a fire to extinguish it?
"Bleeding is resorted to in all inflammatory complaints; but did practitioners know the nature and design of inflammation, their treatment would be different. In fever it is produced by an increased action of the heart and arteries, to expel acrid and noxious humors, and should be promoted until the irritating matter is dislodged from the system. This should be effected, in general, by opening the outlets of the body, inducing perspiration; to produce which a preternatural degree of heat or inflammation must be excited by internal remedies. Fever is nothing more or less than a wholesome and salutary effort of nature to throw off some morbific matter; and, therefore, every means to lessen this indication proves injurious. Bleeding, in consequence of the debility it produces, prevents such indication from being fulfilled."
The inveterate phlebotomizers recommend and practise bleeding when "the animal has too much blood." There may be at times too much blood, and at others too little; but suppose there is—has any body found out any better method of reducing what they please to term an excess, than that of regular exercise in the open air, combined with a less quantity of fodder than usual? Or has any body found out any method of making good healthy blood, other than the slow process of nature, as exhibited in the results of digestion, secretion, circulation, and nutrition? Have they discovered any artificial means of restoring the blood to its healthful quantity when it is deficient? Have they found any means of purifying the blood, save the healthful operations of nature's secreting and excreting laboratory? Finally, have they found any safety-valve or outlet for the reduction of this excess other than the excrementitious vessels? And if they have, are they better able to adjust the pressure on that valve than He who made the whole machinery, and knows the relative strength of all its parts? In an article on blood-letting, found in the Farmer's Cyclopædia, the author says, "In summer, bleeding is often necessary to prevent fevers." Now, it is evident that nature's preventives are air, exercise, food, water, and sleep. Attention to the rules laid down in this work, under the heads of Watering, Feeding, &c., will be more satisfactory and less dangerous than that recommended by the Cyclopædia. If the directions given in the latter were fully carried out, the stock of our farms would be swept away as by the blast of a tornado. Such a barbarous system would entail universal misery and degeneracy on all classes of live stock; and we might then exclaim, "They are living, yet half dead—victims to an inconsistent system of medication!" But thanks to a discerning public, they just begin to see the absurdity and wickedness of draining the system of the living principles. Veterinary reform has germinated in the New England States, and, in spite of all opposition, has struck its roots deep into the minds of a class of men who have the means and power to send forth its healing branches, and apply them to their own interest and the welfare of their stock.
The same author continues: "Some farmers bleed horses three or four times a year." We hope the farmers have too much good sense to follow the wicked example of the former. Frequent bleeding is an indirect mode of butchery—killing by inches; for it gives to the blood-vessels the power to contract and adapt themselves to the measure of blood that remains. It impoverishes the blood, and leads to hydrothorax, (accumulation of water in the chest,) and materially shortens life. Mackintosh says, "Some are bled who cannot bear it, and others who do not require it; and the result is death." The conservative power of life always operates in favor of health, and resists the encroachments upon her province with all her might, and often recovers the dominion; but by frequent bleedings, she is exhausted, and, on taking a little more blood than usual, the animal drops down and dies; and the owner attributes to disease what, in fact, is the result of bad treatment.
"Patients who recover after general and copious bleedings have been employed, may attribute their recovery to the strength of their constitution.