The Watchtower provides a comment on the writings of Aretaeus in the pamphlet “How Can Blood Save Your Life?” (Copyright 2000). In Part 2 - titled “Blood--Vital For Life”, “What of Using Blood as Medicine?” section of the blood pamphlet, part of the third paragraph states the following:
“Was blood used as medicine in Roman times? The naturalist Pliny (a contemporary of the apostles) and the second century physician Aretaeus report that human blood was a treatment for epilepsy.”
The Watchtower implies that Pliny and Aretaeus reported the idea of people using human blood as a legitimate “medical treatment” for epilepsy. As described in another thread ( http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.asp?id=8964&site=3#106110 ), page 64 of the book titled “Flesh and Blood” clearly shows Pliny describing people who bathed in blood instead of drinking or eating blood as a possible cure for leprosy and not epilepsy. Oops! Something, the Watchtower failed to mention to its readers while trying to rationalize a blood eating and/or transfusion ban.
So what about this Aretaeus fellow? Who was this second century doctor and what do we know about him?
The actual information used by the Watchtower is found in the book “Aretaeus, The Cappadocian.”, Edited and Translated by Francis Adams, LL.d., Printed for the Sydenham Society, London, 1856. On pages 470 and 471, Book I - Cure of Chronic Diseases, Chapter IV - Cure of Epilepsy, there is this quotation:
“It is told, that the brain of a vulture, and the heart of a raw cormorant, and the domestic weasel, when eaten, remove the disease; but I have never tried these things. However, I have seen persons holding a cup below the wound of a man recently slaughtered, and drinking a draught of the blood! O the present, the mighty necessity, which compels one to remedy the evil by such a wicked abomination! And whether even they recovered by this means no one could tell me for certain. There is another story of the liver of a man having been eaten. However, I leave these things to be described by those who would bear to try such means”.
The above quotation confirms that Aretaeus did report that human blood was used for epilepsy. But did Aretaeus say human blood was used as a “medical treatment” as the Watchtower blood pamphlet suggests?
As clearly seen in the above quotation, Aretaeus reported “stories” or what we would call “old wise tales”. Examples of “old wise tales” include standing upside down to cure the hiccups, applying butter to treat a burn or wearing a garlic chain around one’s head to prevent a cold. All of the above examples are not true “medical treatments” but are “stories” or “tales”. When something is categorized as a “story” or “tale”, they have been proven not to treat the disease or symptom.
Clearly, Aretaeus also reported the “stories” of eating a liver, a vulture’s brain, a cormorant’s heart and a weasel as cures of epilepsy. Aretaeus was very clear in this section of the book. These “old wise tales” did not work. And Aretaeus, a doctor, did not consider any of them, including human blood, as a “medical treatment” for the disease.
From pages 468 to 473 of the book, Aretaeus provides second century medical treatments or practices to reduce fits caused by epilepsy. They included a number of herb remedies, diet restrictions and even sexual practices.
The Watchtower blood pamphlet writers also left something else out when dealing with Aretaeus. The Watchtower’s blood pamphlet gives the impression that Aretaeus, as a doctor, and other respected medical people of the second century used human blood drinking as a standard treatment and did not object to the issue.
But the writings of Aretaeus show he had major concerns over the cannibalistic and murderous act that took place on humans to obtain the human blood. Men were murdered in order to obtain their blood. Aretaeus considered the murdering of people for blood wrong, and he called the murder a “wicked abomination”.
In supporting a partial blood transfusion ban, the Watchtower writers seem to miss the point that a lot of writers of the old Christian world such as Tertullian were making. Blood drinking was not the issue of these great works. The earlier Christians were more concerned with the murdering of innocent humans and the cannibalistic acts of eating their flesh and blood after being murdered. Early Christians and a lot of other people, such as Aretaeus, were trying to get the point across that it was wrong to kill people.
With donor blood, no killing is involved. There is no religious or ritualistic aspect involved in modern blood transfusions. The practice of eating blood of slaughtered humans, which Aretaeus was against, is wholly dissimilar from accepting donor blood. Because the transfusion of donor blood or blood fractions practices did not then exist, no one knows how early Christians would have felt about this practice.
In the next post, I have provided Appendix 1. In Appendix 1, I have typed out Chapter 4, Cure of Epilepsy from the book “Aretaeus, The Cappadocian.”, Edited and Translated by Francis Adams, LL.d., Printed for the Sydenham Society, London, 1856.
Comments would be appreciated.
Hawk