Medicine Through Time Gallery: Bleeding - Hell?
The Bleeding Bowl
From antiquity through the 19th century, there have been a large variety of vessels used to catch blood. These would originally have been made of stone or pottery. In the 18th and 19th centuries they were more commonly tin or pewter, though some rare silver examples are known. The image below shows a pewter bleeding bowl dating from late 18th Century. It is inscribed 'St B H' indicating it was originally used at the famour St Bartholomew's Hospital in London (the oldest surviving hospital in England dating back to its origins as Priory founded in 1123).
Bleeding bowls have inner concentric rings in ounce increments to measure the amount of blood. Bleeding bowls may easily be confused with porridge bowls which look very similar but do not have the concentric rings.