Localized bloodletting often involved scarification, which meant scraping the skin with a cube-shaped brass box containing multiple small knives, followed by cupping, which involved placing a dome-shaped glass over the skin and extracting the air by suction or prior heating.

Haematology is a branch of medicine and a sub-specialty of internal medicine. It focuses on the study, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases that can cause abnormalities in the blood and its various components.

The practice of phlebotomy (Greek phlebos = vein and temnein = to cut) has taken place for over five millennium. Bleeding could be done at many points of the body, chiefly the elbows and knees.

Bloodletting was considered of value in the treatment of hypertension, cases of comas, drowsy headaches and inflammation of the lungs. As much as 210 ounces were bled over a 60 day period.

Leeches have been used in medicine for over 2,500 years. As recently as the 19th century, leeches were used to treat everything from tonsillitis to hemorrhoids.

The history of herbalism is closely tied with the history of medicine from prehistoric times up until the development of the germ theory of disease in the 19th century. ... Evidence-based use of pharmaceutical drugs, often derived from medicinal plants, has largely replaced herbal treatments in modern health care.

In 1844, Irish physician Francis Rynd invented the hollow needle and used it to make the first recorded subcutaneous injections, specifically a sedative to treat neuralgia.

The ancient Egyptians and Babylonians and the later Greeks and Romans used the intestines of herbivorous animals for much the same purposes. The origin of the term catgut is obscure; it is not known if the intestines of cats were ever put to such uses (Britannica.com, Jan 29, 2019).

It is estimated that mortar and pestles were used for 6,000 years for food preparation - mostly for the grinding of spices. ... The Wedgewood Mortar and Pestle was created in 1759 from a particular type of earthenware, similar to porcelain.

In 1876, Annie Sullivan was Helen Keller's devoted teacher and companion who later became known to the world as "The Miracle Worker." Nearly blind herself, Annie regained her vision only after treatment by Dr. Henry Bradford at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear. Annie brought Helen to Dr. Bradford for treatment 20 years later.

Monitoring glucose (sugar) levels in urine or blood has always been part of the insulin users’ daily routine.  The first home tests involved boiling urine over an alcohol burner and observing color change after adding a chemical reagent.

During the American Civil War in 1861, both ether and chloroform had been in use for several years as methods of surgical anesthesia. Though both anesthetic agents were developed around the same time (the 1840s), chloroform soon emerged as the more widely used, as it took action faster and was non-flammable.

The stethoscope was invented in France in 1816 by René Laennec at the Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital in Paris. It consisted of a wooden tube and was monaural. Laennec invented the stethoscope because he was uncomfortable placing his ear on women's chests to hear heart sounds.

A magneto is an electrical generator that uses permanent magnets to produce periodic pulses of alternating current. The magneto also had a medical application for treatment of mental illness in the beginnings of electromedicine (neurology).

The origin of the microscope slide were pieces of ivory or bone, containing specimens held between disks of transparent mica, that would slide into the gap between the stage and the objective. These "sliders" were popular in Victorian England until the Royal Microscopical Society introduced the standard glass microscope slide.

Bloodletting, whether by a physician or by leeches, was based on an ancient system of medicine in which blood and other bodily fluids were regarded as "humours" that had to remain in proper balance to maintain health.

The practice of bloodletting began around 3000 years ago with the Egyptians, then continued with the Greeks and Romans, the Arabs and Asians, then spread through Europe during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Artificial leeches used a collecting chamber, which would produce a vacuum that sucked up the blood. It pierced veins before drawing out the blood in measured proportions with a pump. As gross as it sounds, this practice had immense social acceptance back then.

The English clergyman Stephen Hales made the first published measurement of blood pressure in 1733. ... However hypertension as a medical entity really came into being in 1896 with the invention of the cuff-based sphygmomanometer by Scipione Riva-Rocci in 1896, which allowed blood pressure to be measured in the clinic.