g,
generally stressed nature's power of cure. This school of medicine
advocated a return to clinical observation and a reduction of activist
intervention. Treatments such as bloodletting, it was felt by the
neo-Hippocratists, might merely serve to weaken the patient's strength
and hinder the healing processes of nature.[40]

A rival group of medical theorists also flourished in this period. The
iatrophysicists, who concentrated on mechanical explanations of
physiological events, remained adherents of bloodletting. Their support of
the practice ensured its use at a time when the first substantial
criticism of it arose.

_Instrumentation and Techniques_

Sharp thorns, roots, fish teeth, and sharpened stones were among the early
implements used to let blood.[41] Venesection, one of the most frequently
mentioned procedures in ancient medicine, and related procedures such as
lancing abcesses, puncturing cavities containing fluids, and dissecting
tissues, were all accomplished in the classical period and later with an
instrument called the phlebotome. _Phlebos_ is Greek for "vein," while
"tome" derives from _temnein_, meaning "to cut." In Latin, "phlebotome"
becomes "flebotome," and in an Anglo-Saxon manuscript dating from A.D.
1000, the word "fleam" appears. The phlebotome, a type of lancet, was not
described in any of the ancient literature, but its uses make it apparent
that it was a sharp-pointed, double-edged, and straight-bladed cutting
implement or scalpel similar to the type later used for splitting larger
veins.[42]

Several early Roman examples of phlebotomes have been collected in
European museums. One, now in the Cologne Museum, was made of steel with a
square handle and blade of myrtle leaf shape. Another specimen, made of
bronze, was uncovered in the house of the physician of _Strada del
Consulare_ of Pompeii. This specimen, now in the Naples Museum, is 8 cm
long and 9 mm at the broadest part of the blade, and its handle bears a
raised ring ornamentation.[43] A number of copies of Roman instruments
have been made and some have passed into museum collections. Some of the
copies were commissioned by Sir Henry Wellcome for the Wellcome Historical
Medical Museum collection and the Howard Dittrick Historical Medical
Museum in Cleveland. They emulate the size, color, and aged condition of
the originals and make it very difficult for the inexpert to distinguish
an original from its replica. It is, however, imposs