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How much to take out?
If one makes an otherwise healthy and vigorous man a blood-letting, the amount of blood left should be as much as a strong, thirsty man can drink water on a train.
If one is physically weak, the bloodletting should be as much as entering an egg of ordinary size. For a blood-letting, which is made beyond the measure, weakens the body just like a downpour, which falls on the earth without measures, damages them.
What do you use to catch the blood?
The blood vessels for collecting the blood were made of tin or silver, they had straight sides at first, but in the late 17th century they assumed a slightly convex form. Basically, each bowl could serve as a bloodletting cup, some 18th century bowls show a calibration with an ounce of lines ...
A pelvis built for John WORRELL in Norwich in 1689, who in 1693 was the head master of the Norwich Bath Surgeons' Guild, appears to be the only connecting link between this type of pelvis and bloodletting practice: the strange fact that we have no evidence for which of the instruments that came on us were really used as blood vessels. Even this one instrument may even have been the cause of a century-long misunderstanding. From Michael CLAYTON comes the somewhat annoying statement that probably any instrument could have served this purpose; Since most of the alleged Aderlassbecken date from the period 1625-1730, one wonders, which have been used since then until the end of the 19th century.
Where to go with the blood?
"... the cupping in the bath-rooms near the stove, and the cupping and bathing in private homes, were exempted from the prohibition, that the blood would not be poured or flown into the streets, but would be caught and buried" (John Bapt. History of the entire medical system in the former Principality of Würzburg, representing the Middle Ages and the sixteenth century, Würzburg 1825 p.102) - a sensible arrangement of the city of Würzburg in the late 16th century: the blood was not allowed to be dumped into the gutter or into the river.
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