Is it true that "bloodletting therapy" is still being used to cure diseases?

Recently, the media reported that a woman in Hunan Province suffered from breast cancer and was treated in a traditional Chinese medicine center. After more than a month of treatment, the main means of "bloodletting therapy", and finally her husband sent to the hospital because of wound ulceration, was diagnosed with severe anemia and even once critically ill. Subsequently, the local health authorities investigated and dealt with the Chinese medicine hall.

In fact, "bloodletting therapy" has been highly controversial. Experts have pointed out that "bloodletting therapy" is only applicable to a very small number of diseases, and is not effective for most of the diseases, but may cause greater side effects.

Multiple patients due to "bloodletting" delayed treatment

In fact, the woman in Hunan because of "bloodletting therapy" leading to severe anemia is not an isolated case. Nandu reporter query found that there have been a number of patients because of the use of "bloodletting therapy" and delayed treatment.

As early as 2011, an account named "buried bloodletting Jia Daifu" microblogging user sent a microblogging: "Today to this patient bloodletting, is the most bleeding one, a full 850 milliliters ... ... ..." The microblogging also linked to a photo of a woman lying on the side of the treatment bed, with several channels of blood slowly flowing down the back of her legs. In addition, there are many netizens who have posted pictures of their treatment at the clinic. A netizen said, "850 milliliters? The human body a *** only how much blood ah?" Subsequently, Beijing Dongcheng District Health Supervision Department intervened in the investigation.

August this year, a woman in Hunan, found in 2016 after suffering from breast cancer, did not go to the hospital to seek medical treatment, but to take the prescription, eat "vegetarian", the use of bloodletting therapy and other means of treatment, the results of a year and a half later, the woman's disease gradually deepened, the cancer of the right breast has grown like a ball of skin, and had no choice but to go to a regular hospital to seek treatment. The doctor shook his head and said, "It's too late".

Ancient "bloodletting therapy"

In fact, the Nandu reporter inquired that the "bloodletting therapy" is an ancient form of treatment, in China also has a history of thousands of years.

According to a number of documents, in the discourse of Chinese medicine, "bloodletting therapy" is also known as stabbing, stabbing blood, laxative blood, etc. Traditional Chinese medicine bloodletting therapy is to use three-pronged needles, millimetre needles, small needles and so on, puncture bloodletting. As far as the amount of bloodletting is concerned, it is usually 3 to 5 drops, and the site of bloodletting is usually the fingertip, ear tip, solar plexus point and tail middle point, and the amount of bloodletting is not large.

The Chinese medical text "Huang Di Nei Jing" has recorded: "stabbing the blood veins of the small collaterals" and "aster Chan is removed, and the evil blood is also removed", and it is believed that stabbing the collaterals and bloodletting can treat epilepsy, headache, mute, fever and wheezing, epistaxis and other illnesses. "Attacking the evil is the most efficient".

In the West, Hippocrates, the father of medicine, believed that disease was caused by the loss of balance of body fluids, bloodletting and sweating, emetic, as well as a method of balancing body fluids. Galen, a famous doctor in ancient Rome, established a set of complex bloodletting therapy on this basis, with far-reaching effects, so much so that in the Middle Ages, bloodletting has become a regular treatment for all diseases and health care on the European continent.

From the middle of the 19th century, more and more experiments proved the pathogenesis of different diseases, so many different therapies were used, and the crude bloodletting therapy gradually faded out of the historical stage.

It is still used in many institutions in China

But bloodletting has always existed in China.

A netizen who has received bloodletting therapy recalled to the Nandu reporter, "when the cold, the family often use a needle to pick through the skin, put a little blood out, the bleeding is generally not large, is a few milliliters, but because the needle is a metal, may cause skin infections, and then the medicine is gradually more and more, and then stop this therapy. "

Zhang Zheng, attending physician of endocrinology and metabolism of a hospital in Shanghai, said that today's bloodletting therapy is not completely out of the history stage, but also can be applied to a very small number of diseases such as true erythrocytosis and hemochromatosis. Erythrocytosis is due to abnormal bone marrow proliferation, the number of red blood cells increased significantly, because there is no effective inhibition of excessive bone marrow hematopoietic treatment, only through bloodletting to reduce excessive red blood cells, but also has been taken more often than a single collection of red blood cell bloodletting, rather than whole bloodletting. Hemochromatosis is due to iron metabolism disorder, too much iron is stored in the body leading to tissue and organ lesions, for such patients, in addition to minimizing iron intake and the use of iron chelators, through the direct vein moderate bloodletting is also a rapid improvement in the condition of the method.

"It should be emphasized that 'bloodletting' is an invasive operation with potential risks of inducing blood clots, increasing infections, and excessive blood loss, and in the absence of necessary regulation, it is easily abused by some 'charlatan doctors' , informal medical institutions blindly abused." Zhang Zheng said.