The situation of phlebotomy and wet cupping in traditional medicine of Iran

Abstract

The traditional and Islamic medicine is based on bringing out the wasted and hazardous materials from the body. For this reason well known ancient physicians used to do phlebotomy, wet cupping, vomiting, administer laxatives, enema and various other methods. Fortunately, wet cupping is known as an effective method in prevention and treatment for numbers of diseases even by medical society nowadays and there are increasing numbers of physicians who use this method. The other method used, is phlebotomy that can be recommended on different regions of the body and each of them has a special therapeutic effect but has not become known as well as wet cupping. The routine phlebotomy is the "blood transfusion" in which only one of the body vessels is used and the aim is to donate blood but the traditional medical aspect of phlebotomy is something completely different, which is applied only for therapeutic reasons (established on special body vessels and taking out significant amount of blood that might be applied of the arms, legs, frontal region or even sublingual vessels etc.) This article presents the effects of phlebotomy and wet cupping in the treatment of some diseases. An opinion for treatment of 43 diseases described by an ancient philosopher and physician named Jorjani is also collected in this article. Jorjani used phlebotomy and wet cupping beside medical treatment to get better results. His comments on the effectiveness of wet cupping and its indications and timing are also mentioned in this article.