Mythological and Scientific Blood
Mythological and Scientific Blood

Summary/Abstract: Given its controversial history, from divine essence to a mere organic fluid, blood has been at the heart of various theories, approaches and rituals since ancient times, engendering both fascination and fear. Subject to professionalized medicine, it was also subject to manipulation and exploitation according to needs, and therefore in danger of becoming the provider of scientific opportunism and, at times, abuse. Until the scientific revolution, huge quantities of blood were thought to be produced and destroyed daily within the human body. The key moment in history was the replacement of Galen’s treatment of the venous and arterial systems as two separate systems by William Harvey’s concept that blood circulated from the arteries to the veins “impelled in a circle, and is in a state of ceaseless motion”. Despite the discovery of blood flow dynamics, the science of blood didn’t instantly become a domain of its own, but played the game of mythology by using the same type of mystification. Confusion over the territory of each still prevails nowadays, and the question whether their intergrowth is necessary in the general stream of history or not represents the stake of the present paper.

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