RELIEF FROM DREARINESS OF DAILY ROUTINE
Dom D. Knowles attributes the phenomenal spread of
the practice of bloodletting in monastic life to the "general
feeling of physical malaise" brought about by an unbalanced
diet and the sedentary life of the monks, calling for
some violent form of relief.[409]
One of the attractive features
of its practice was that it gave relief from the dreariness of
the daily routine and was associated with a fortifying regime
of food, allowed in compensation for the loss of blood. This
gave to the occasion a touch of recreative pleasure, which
monastic discipline found it difficult to repress.
