Bleeding bowl, 1600-1700 Inv V13238

Seventeenth-century surgeons did a lot of bloodletting. In those day these were various conceivable reasons necessitating bloodletting. In some cases the remedy was worse than the ailment. The surgeons worked on the principle that the bodily fluids losing their equilibrium caused illness. In order to correct this imbalance one of these fluids, in this case blood, had to be drained off. To this end an incision was made in an artery and the blood spurting from the wound was collected in a bowl. This bowl, by the way, was also used for shaving when the surgeon was pursuing his other trade, that of barber.