Fred Rosner

So in our masechta, it's a little bit different, but nevertheless, I'd like to discuss the whole concept of bloodletting in general.

And on this particular topic, I want to refer you to Fred Rosner's amazing article, which is available online, Bloodletting in Talmudic Times.

Dr. Rosner is one of the, uh, renowned experts in Jewish medical ethics, and this is an absolutely fantastic historical article.

At any rate, uh, what was bloodletting? Bloodletting is, um, an ancient theory that actually continued well into the 18th and even 19th century, that if you had too much blood, particularly if you had too much bad blood, you know, we have this expression in English, there's bad blood between us, the blood has different qualities called humors, and you could have a little bit too much of one humor or another humor.