Davis, Audrey, and Toby Appel. Bloodletting Instruments in the National Museum of History and Technology. Smithsonian Studies in History and Technology, number 41, 103 pages, 124 figures, 1979.—Supported by a variety of instruments, bloodletting became a recommended practice in antiquity and remained an accepted treatment for millenia. Punctuated by controversies over the amount of blood to take, the time to abstract it, and the areas from which to remove it, bloodletters employed a wide range of instruments. All the major types of equipment and many variations are represented in this study of the collection in the National Museum of History and Technology.

Official publication date is handstamped in a limited number of initial copies and is recorded in the Institution’s annual report, Smithsonian Year. Cover design: “Phlebotomy, 1520” (from Seitz, 1520, as illustrated in Hermann Peter, Der Arzt und die Heilkunst, Leipzig, 1900; photo courtesy of NLM).