MEDIEVAL PORTRAYALS OF BLEEDING
A marginal illustration in the Luttrell Psalter (fig. 417)
furnishes us with a realistic picture of the performance of
this ubiquitous craft. It shows a physician standing and
bleeding a patient from the right arm. The patient is seated
on a stool and holds a bowl in his left hand to catch the
blood. He keeps his right arm steady by propping it on a
staff or pole while the physician places his left foot on that
of the patient. This appears to have been a standard position
for this kind of operation. It occurs again, almost
feature by feature, in the representation of a similar scene
in the Grimani Breviary (fig. 418).[402]
In both cases the blood
is taken from the anticubital vein, in the crook of the elbow,
a preferred place for bloodtaking even today, since here one
of the principal veins comes close to the surface and exposes
itself in a relatively fixed position. The staff or pole, apart
from steadying the patient in a general sense, adds muscular
control to the operation, as it enables the patient to
increase or diminish the flow of blood by locking his fist
around the pole or conversely by relaxing his grip.
