The irresistible "bloody romance"

In early 1799, Jiaqing finally breathed a sigh of relief - that year, Qianlong, who had been the emperor for four years, passed away!

Another great figure died this year - Washington, the founding president of the United States, who died on December 14, 1799.

Washington died of excessive blood loss.

However, he did not suffer any external injuries during his lifetime, but only had a severe fever and sore throat caused by a cold.

You may be curious, why does a cold cause "excessive blood loss"?

Because more than 200 years ago in Europe and the United States, there was a therapy called "bloodletting" that was very popular.

The popularity is a bit like walking on the street today and watching people watching short videos - it would be awkward if they didn't.

When it comes to "blood-letting", some people may feel creepy - especially men, women, young and old who go shopping at the beginning of the month.

However, looking back in history, the skill of "bloodletting" has actually always been with us - sorry, I'm not talking about the current Chinese medicine bloodletting therapy.

Have you ever noticed the three-color column at the door of a barber shop?

The red, white and blue have nothing to do with France or the French flag.

Because the red, white and blue colors correspond to arteries, bandages and veins respectively.

In other words, the barbershops in the past could not only tidy up your scattered hair, but also perform "blood-letting treatment" for you . They were all-round "old craftsmen" who, in addition to their "main jobs" of haircutting and blood-letting, also performed a series of "side jobs" such as tooth extraction, urination and even craniotomy.

The question arises again. First, why is it the barber who does these things instead of the doctor?

Second, why did bloodletting exist? And why was it so popular?

The answer to the first question sounds very "rational".

The "surgeons" at that time disdained to take over this "minor operation" of "making a small incision to bleed". It seemed nothing wrong to let the barbers who made a living with their skillful hands do this trivial and delicate "ordinary" work.

To put it more "bloodily", the three-color pillars at the door of a barber shop are actually announcing to the outside world "I can bleed for you" rather than "I can cut your hair"!

As the saying goes, "Every profession has its own master." Among the "blood-letting experts" over the centuries, there really was a great one: Ambroise Pare, who is known as the "father of modern surgery."

This Frenchman started out as a barber, and gradually rose through the ranks to become a royal physician. He served four French monarchs in his lifetime!

So to speak, the "three-color column" is somehow related to France.

The answer to the second question involves Galen, a famous figure in medical history.

Claudius Galenus was a physician in ancient Rome and is considered the second most important medical authority after Hippocrates.

The great thing about Galen is that he "refined" the various original theories proposed by many predecessors and built a theoretical system that seemed very reasonable - thus, Galen became the "leader" of a school of thought.

The "blood circulation theory" he proposed emphasized that health depends on the balance of various body fluids - especially blood, and proper bloodletting is to expel the "black waste or waste gas" in the body to achieve the purpose of curing the disease.

Although Galen's (many) "medical" theories seem absurd and full of fallacies in modern times, Westerners have been convinced of these "lies" for 1,500 years!

We have no way of knowing how many people died from excessive blood loss, wound infection, etc. during these 1,500 years, but one thing we can be sure of is that "superstition and ignorance were one of the main themes of the era."

The reason for this is that the Roman Church, which is adept at mind control, not only has the highest authority to interpret the divine world, but also once had the highest authority to interpret "science".

Once upon a time, monasteries adhering to the humanitarian concept of "saving the dying and healing the wounded" possessed the most advanced medical technology and the best doctors of the time - of course, their main duties were often priests or nuns.

Throughout history, religion and science have often been incompatible. Scientific discoveries are bound to undermine the authority of religion. Therefore, any view that goes against tradition - even if it is correct - will bring about fatal disaster.

However, "thanks" to this damn plague, the Black Death that swept across Europe brought dark years to the world and also opened a corner of the curtain of a new era.

The glory of theology faded, humanism emerged, and countless pioneers who were curious about the world focused their attention on [people], or more precisely, [dead people].

Among this group of pioneers, perhaps the most "unprofessional" one is Leonardo da Vinci - in everyone's impression, he is a painter, but he did not leave many works in his lifetime.

Perhaps we will be amazed at how realistic Leonardo da Vinci's characters are compared to paintings from previous eras.

The core reason is that Leonardo da Vinci had seriously studied the dead.

Like many of his contemporaries, Leonardo da Vinci dissected cadavers—30 in his lifetime, according to his own account— and his deep observation and understanding of the human body’s internal structure enabled him to “restore” the human body’s anatomy.

It’s a pity that many of the new things he discovered in that era were “accidentally shelved” for more than 200 years.

If Leonardo da Vinci was an unknown pioneer in the Renaissance who truly discovered physiological contents such as the structure of the heart through dissection, then Vesalius , a "rich second generation" from an aristocratic family, took on the banner of "necropsy KOL".

Vesalius loved "playing" with corpses since he was a child. If it were today, he would probably be charged with "necrophilia" and "corpse theft", and then eat the "state lunch box" for free for many years. However, the society at that time was so chaotic that there were too many people who were convicted of "heresy" and sent to the gallows, killed in fights and love, died of illness, starvation, and childbirth. In addition, Vesalius was "excellent in the art of stealing", so this sneaky and shady thing never caused any big deal.

In 1543, the 28-year-old Vesalius completed his On the Fabric of the Human Body, which immediately caused a sensation throughout Europe - the sacred and correct Galen's theory actually "collapsed"? !

It is worth mentioning that in 1543, Copernicus published the famous "On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres" before his death, which is also called "On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres"!

"On the Fabric of the Human Body" once again shook the authority of theology on earth - the previous incident was the "Black Death", and "On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres" severely smashed the reputation of theology in the heavenly world.

Just like today, as long as someone dares to expose a scandal of a popular star, countless people will soon expose more scandals about this star. After Vesalius published "On the Fabric of the Human Body", people like Servetus and Colombo also contributed to the development of the "nuclear weapons" of the new era.

Of course, the pursuit of this "bloody romance" is bound to come at a price. Vesalius, like Caravaggio, died in exile, and Servetus was burned at the stake along with his works.

The road paved with the blood and bones of our predecessors awaited an Englishman named Harvey who embarked on a great journey.

In 1628, Harvey published "On the Motion of the Heart and Blood", gradually establishing a correct theory of blood circulation, thus opening the door to modern Western medicine.

In Harvey's time, anatomy as a branch of medicine was gradually becoming less of a dirty business that belonged only to basements and decay.

For example, the oil painting "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaas Toure" created by the Dutch painter Rembrandt in 1632 is enough to prove this point.

But, to be fair, Harvey and his "On the Motion of the Heart and Blood" did come to "ruin the party."

For for so many years, what was generally accepted was the all-encompassing, interconnected theoretical physiology built by Aristotle and Galen and supported by the Arabs - although this palace was already showing signs of collapse.

The ideological storm started in Britain, where bigwigs held different opinions and argued endlessly. As the influence of "On the Motion of the Heart and Blood" grew, people such as Descartes, Boyle, Hooke, Lowery, Lavoisier and others also joined this "adventure" to "get to the bottom of things".

Behind the thinking, debate and discovery, there are all kinds of power struggles. Lavoisier sacrificed his own head for the irresistible "bloody romance" - but no one knows who that Salome is.

It may be difficult for us to imagine that what is common sense for most people today - the heart pumps blood and oxygen to the whole body through the arteries, and then takes away "waste" through the veins - was explored by our ancestors for more than 2,000 years, and 1,500 of these years were affected by a wrong operating system.

Countless people have lost their lives because of wrong ideas, and countless people have lost their lives because of the pursuit of correct ideas.

Everything we take for granted now would have been considered “treasonous and life-threatening” every day in the past - maybe 1,500 years from now, when humans look back at us today, they will also feel similar “distress” and “incomprehension”.

——Interaction issues——

What do you know about blood circulation?

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