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BLEEDING

Volume 3 · 235 words · 1797 Edition

therapeutics; see Medicine-Index. As a surgical operation, see Surgery-Index.

Bleeding at the Nose, called Epistaxis. See Medicine-Index.

Bleeding is also used for a hemorrhage or flux of blood from a wound, rupture of a vessel, or other accident. See Hemorrhagy.

Bleeding of a Corpse, is a phenomenon said to have frequently happened in the bodies of persons murdered, which, on the touch, or even the approach, of the murderer, began to bleed at the nose, ears, and other parts; so as formerly to be admitted in England, and still allowed in some other parts, as a sort of detection of the criminal and proof of the fact. Numerous instances of these posthumous hemorrhages are given by writers. But this kind of evidence ought to be of small weight: for it is to be observed, that this bleeding does not ordinarily happen, even in the presence of the murderer; yet sometimes in that even of the nearest friends, or persons most innocent; and sometimes without the presence of any, either friend or foe. In effect, where is the impossibility that a body, especially if full of blood, upon the approach of external heat, having been considerably stirred or moved, and a putrefaction coming on, some of the blood-vessels should burst, as it is certain they all will in time?

Bleeding is also used for the drawing out the sap of plants, otherwise called tapping. See Tapping.