Since Galen believed that blood was the most important of the humors, bloodletting, usually initiated with a blade called a lancet, was prescribed to treat everything from fever and headaches to menstruation. Some of this blood, though, ended up back in the patient, where it was consumed to treat epilepsy. So popular was this practice that public executions routinely found epileptics standing close by, cup in hand, ready to quaff their share of the red stuff.
