Gwyneth Paltrow’s cupping weals |
Gwyneth Paltrow, the Hollywood star, was responsible for raised eyebrows
when she attended a New York film premiere recently. She was wearing
a dress, the back of which was cut sufficiently low to reveal a number
of circular weals on her skin. These were the result of her having received
a treatment known as “cupping”, to be specific “dry
cupping”, so called to distinguish it from “wet cupping”,
a once popular method of phlebotomy, in which the skin was scarified
and blood drawn from the wound by suction. In cupping, glasses were placed
on the skin and the air exhausted from them.
There seems to be some confusion about the process. An article in The
Daily Telegraph on July 10 said that it is described as a “form
of acupuncture” or “middle-class leeching”, although,
personally, I can see no justification for relating it to either of these
therapies. I suppose one might draw a parallel between wet cupping and
leeching as the extravasation of blood is the object of both procedures,
but this does not apply to dry cupping. The article also said that the
procedure originated in China and was brought to Europe by the Jesuits
in the 13th or 14th century. However, both wet and dry cupping were mentioned
in the collection of writings known as the Hippocratic Corpus and were
practised by the Greeks in the fourth century BC. It was a depletive
treatment based upon the humoral theory of medicine and involved creating
a vacuum in the cupping vessel that was supposed to draw the offending
humours to the site where the cups were applied. In the 19th century
it was considered to be an effective form of counter-irritation. Dry
cupping was employed for a wide range of conditions including paralysis,
chest pains, flatulence and indigestion, pneumonia, nosebleeds, menorrhagia
and lumbago.
One of the earliest instruments used for cupping was a gourd, the hard
rind of the fruit of members of the family Cucurbitaceae. In fact the
Latin name used in medicine for a cupping glass was “cucurbitula”.
The natives of North America used about two and a half inches of a buffalo
horn with a hole bored in its tip. The medicine man would place it on
the skin and suck out the air, afterwards plugging the hole. In the 16th
century the Egyptians used horns fitted with a valve made from sheepskin
that could be used to prevent the access of air to the exhausted vessel.
Glasses fitted with a side-arm, known as “spouted glasses”,
were used in Persia in the 12th century, and these were
exhausted by suction through this. Metal cups were used from classical
times and were particularly useful because they could be transported
without fear of breakage. Cups were originally made from bronze, but
brass and pewter cups were employed in 18th century and by the late 19th
century they were being made from tin. To use them, a piece of flax or
linen was burnt in the vessel before it was applied to the skin and,
as the air inside it cooled, a vacuum was formed.
In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, cupping was often performed
by bath attendants, and the public baths of the late 18th and early 19th
centuries usually employed a cupper. In 1838, Mr Gaylor, who was the
keeper of the public baths attached to Manchester Infirmary, was paid
eightpence for each operation but he had to provide his own cupping apparatus
and spirit. In addition, the street directories of the 19th century often
contain lists of “cuppers and bleeders” who offered their
services to the general
public.
The 19 century saw the introduction of many medical inventions, and these
included devices for cupping. Instead of heating the glasses by dropping
burning tow or flax into them, with the attendant risk of burning the
patient, a spirit lamp, sometimes shaped like a teapot with a thick cotton
wick protruding from the spout, was used for this purpose. Some cupping
glasses were made with threaded nozzles in their bases so that they could
be attached to a syringe that was used to exhaust the air they contained.
These were sometimes known as “mechanical leeches”. Many
velvet-lined mahogany cases containing brass syringes, tubes with rectal
and vaginal nozzles, stomach tubes and cupping glasses were made, and
these could be used for administering enemas, douching, pumping out the
stomach and drawing breasts, as well as wet and dry cupping. Glasses
with an opening in the base, to which a rubber bulb was attached, were
on sale in the second half of the 19th century and were an economical
substitute for use in dry cupping.
Although cupping was little used in Britain in the 20th century, it was
still employed on the continent, particularly in rural areas. In her
book, ‘Every month was May’, published in 1949, Evelyn Eaton
described her treatment for fever and a sore throat in a remote corner
of pre-war France by Mère Mercredi. While she was lying prone,
stripped to the waist, on a couch, approximately two dozen thick-edged
cupping glasses were immersed in hot water. A pinch of cotton was set
alight and tossed into one of them that was then up-ended and placed
firmly on her back. The flame went out and as it cooled some of her flesh
was sucked into the cup. This was repeated several times and the cups
left in position for 20 minutes before being removed. The following morning
she had recovered from the fever and sore throat, but her back was bruised
and painful.
The clinics that offer this treatment today at costs ranging from £45
to £95 appear to have reverted to early methods. One practitioner
warms the cups by dropping a piece of burning paper into each one, and
another rubs the inside of the cups with alcohol which she then ignites
with a piece of burning cotton wool before applying them. Opinions on
whether the treatment is beneficial are mixed,
In recent years, we have seen the revival of the use of leeches in microsurgery,
and of a number of moribund alternative therapies such as homoeopathy,
hydropathy and magnetism. What can we expect in the future? Possibly
we may see a return of phrenology, galvanism, moxibustion, issues and
setons, perhaps even the use of the pomelling hammer for gout. Will we
once more be able to buy magnetic corsets or electric suspensory bandages?
Maybe the Carbolic Smoke Ball or Dr Carter Moffat’s Ammoniaphone
will be marketed again. I await the future with interest and a certain
degree of trepidation. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal