"But yet those daies I graunt, and all the rest,
Haue in some cases just impediment,
As first, if nature be with cold opprest,
Or if the Region, Ile, or Continent,
Do scorch or freez, if stomach meat detest,
If Baths you lately did frequent,
Nor old, nor young, nor drinkers great are fit,
Nor in long sickness, nor in raging fit,
Or in this case, if you will venture bleeding,
The quantity must then be most exceeding.
"When you to bleed intend, you must prepare
Some needful things both after and before:
Warm water and sweet oyle both needfull are,
And wine the fainting spirits to restore;
Fine binding cloths of linnen, and beware
That all the morning you do sleepe no more;
Some gentle motion helpeth after bleeding,
And on light meals a spare and temperate feeding
To bleed doth cheare the pensive, and remove
The raging furies bred by burning love.
"Make your incision large and not too deep,
That blood have speedy yssue with the fume;
So that from sinnews you all hurt do keep.
Nor may you (as I toucht before) presume
In six ensuing houres at all to sleep,
Lest some slight bruise in sleepe cause an apostume;
Eat not of milke, or aught of milke compounded,
Nor let your brain with much drinke be confounded;
Eat no cold meats, for such the strength impayre,
And shun all misty and unwholesome ayre.
"Besides the former rules for such as pleases
Of letting bloud to take more observation;
. . . . .
To old, to young, both letting blood displeases.
By yeares and sickness make your computation.
First in the spring for quantity you shall
Of bloud take twice as much as in the fall;
In spring and summer let the right arme bloud,
The fall and winter for the left are good."
Wadd mentions an old surgical writer who divides his chapter on bleeding under such heads as the following:—1. What is to limit bleeding? 2. Qualities of an able phlebotomist; 3. Of the choice of instruments; 4. Of the band and bolster; 5. Of porringers; 6. Circumstances to be considered at the bleeding of a Prince.
Simon Harward's "Phlebotomy, or Treatise of Letting of Bloud; fitly serving, as well for an advertisement and remembrance to all well-minded chirurgians, as well also to give a caveat generally to all men to beware of the manifold dangers which may ensue upon rash and unadvised letting of bloud," published in the year 1601, contains much interesting matter on the subject of which it treats. But a yet more amusing work is one that Nicholas Gyer wrote and published in 1592, under the following title:—
"The English Phlebotomy; or, Method and Way of Healing by Letting of Bloud."
On the title-page is a motto taken from the book of Proverbs—"The horse-leach hath two daughters, which crye, 'give, give.'"
THE FOUNDERS OF THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON