10 Gruesome Medical Devices from Yesteryear

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4. Bacon’s Artificial LeechWhy mess with those pesky leeches when you can cut to the chase and use an “artificial leech” to promote bloodletting? Letting out blood from a patient was a common practice among medical practitioners for thousands of years. It wasn’t until the late 19th century that they realized that it was actually harmful, weakening patients and hastening their deaths. (George Washington could have conceivably survived a throat infection if he hadn’t been subjected to bloodletting.)Image courtesy of Physick.