Do you know what this is?
by Terry Toole

An instrument like this was used for a very specific use in the early 1800s or before.

When Mr. Ray Houston brought this into the office last Wednesday, he asked if I knew what it was.

It looked like a knife, until he started opening the three blades.

He explained, that his grandfather, the late Warren A. Mc- Donald, was the owner of the knife back in the early 1800s. The different blades were used to bleed animals and humans if there seemed to be a need. Mr. McDonald was a surveyor, a preacher, a farmer and possibly a surgeon of animals and humans at times.

Mr. Ray explained that the red line in a barber pole indicated that a customer could get a bleeding treatment along with a shave and a hair cut. It seems that early barbers were also doctors, dentists and veterinarians or a close facsimile.

A Short History of Phlebotomy

The following article was found in a veterinary foundation writing:

Many times we find that there is a very close connection between man and beast when it comes to disease and medicine. Such is the case in bloodletting, venesection, phlebotomy, arteriotomy, scarification, bleeding, or to "breathe a vein." Opening a vein to remove blood, a procedure that was performed to remove the ill humors, blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile, was a widely used practice in the mid 1800s, but its usefulness was debated and questioned in the early 1900s.

Bloodletting is a procedure that goes back more than 3,000 years. Primitive man looked at disease as a curse that was cast upon him by evil spirits. Trepanning the skull was one form of releasing the evil spirits of disease. Later, witch doctors, sorcerers or the physician/ priest were called upon to cleanse impurities and demons from the body by bloodletting. Virtually every known medical condition at one time or another was treated by these methods. Specific indications have varied over the years, according to Ambroise Pare, French master barber-surgeon (1510-1590), to lessen the abundance of blood, diversion or revulsion, allure or draw down, and for sharp fevers.

From this point, I could go into the much written history of bleeding used for human ailments but will instead focus on the practice used for animals. Bleeding was performed on horses, cattle, swine, dogs, and sheep. As stated in the Manual of Operative Veterinary Surgery, by A. Liautard, M.D., V.M., 1892, under chapter 10, "Operations

On The Circulatory System," bleeding and venesection are first described. In this manual for the veterinary surgeon, the procedure was contra-indicated in all eruptive fevers, in anemic patients, and in those suffering with typhoid diseases and was labeled "old fashion." We had come a long way in medical discovery from the early 1800s. Puncture, scarification, cupping and leeches were used to bleed animals and humans.

By the way, the bleeding instrument above is called a Fleam and was used on animals, we think.

Bloodletting has been proven to be less effective treat in today's modern medical practices, although it is still used in some cases by specialists.