How Can Blood Save Your Life?
Blood—Vital For Life
WHAT OF USING BLOOD AS MEDICINE?
Paragraph 4 states the following:
"Blood in its more everyday form did not . . . go out of fashion as an ingredient in medicine and magic," reports the book Flesh and Blood. "In 1483, for example, Louis XI of France was dying. 'Every day he grew worse, and the medicines profited him nothing, though of a strange character; for he vehemently hoped to recover by the human blood which he took and swallowed from certain children.'"
Gee, I actually went and got the book. Its actual title is "Flesh and Blood A history of the Cannibal Complex.
Yep, you got it folks this book deals with the gory concept of eating flesh and blood. It gives a disgusting account of human history on people eating blood and vampires and werewolves. The quote the Watchtower uses is found in the 3rd Chapter titled "The Red Elixir". The title I think refers to how special blood was.
The actual quote found at the bottom of page 68 and top of 69 (which the Watchtower got right for the most part is as follows):
"Blood in its more everyday form did not ,o course, go out of fashion as an ingredient in medicine and magic. In 1483, for example, Louis XI of France was dying. 'Every day he grew worse, and the medicines profited him nothing, though of a strange character; for he vehemently hoped to recover by the human blood which he took and swallowed from certain children.'17
In the book there was a superscript number 17 at the end of this quote. This takes us to page 196 in the bibliography index
17 Chronques de France, 1516, f.ccii. quotes by Soane in Notes and Quieries, February 28 1857.
I have no idea why the WTS writer omitted the "o course" in the WTS blood pamphlet. I also think the book meant to say "o[f] course".
However, my interest was did Louis the XI actually eat children's blood.
A good book on this subject is "Louis XI the universal spider" by Paul Kendall, WW Norton & Company Inc. New York, 1997.
The book, which uses many sources of those for and against Louis XI, has Chapter 25 titled "The Last Withdrawal". This section dealt with Louis on his death bed. I quote page 365:
The King neglected no resource, heavenly or otherwise, by which he might prolong life. In his last year he spent several hundred thousand livres on offerings, not only to his favorite shrines and churches in France but to the Three Kings of Cologne, Our Lady of Aachen, St. Servais of Utrecht, St. Bernadino of Aquila, various saints in hte Kingdom of Naples, St. James of Compostella in Spain, St. John Lateran in Rome. For relics and remedies he combed the West. From the Pope he borrowed the "corporal," the altar line, over which S. Pter himself supposedly had sung Mass. One of his best sea captains, George Bissipat, "George the Greek," he dispatched with three ships all the way to that outpost of the known world, the Cape Verde Islands off the west coast of Africa, "to seek out some things that were important to the health of his person." These "things" were undoubtedly, great sea tortoises; bathing in the blood of such beasts was regarded, in medicinal lore, as a remedy for leprosy. And it may be that the last months of Louis's life were darkened, and his seclusion partly explained, by his fear, apparently groundless, that the skin inflammation from which he suffered signified that dread disease.* Laboring under this fear, Louis besought the aid of his friend Lorenzo the Magnificent .......
The Asterisk found after the word "disease" takes you to the bottom of page 365 and the following is read
* His use of this remedy may possibly indicate the orgin of the story, put about by the princes after his death, that he drank infants' blood
So Louis was possibly bathing in tortise blood because Louis thought (wrongly) he had leprosy!!!!
So what does this tell us. Well it looks like the Watchtower writers decided to quote a legend into their blood pamphlet instead of the facts!!!!!!
While we are at, and not to bore you, but there is this quote of paragraph 2 in the same section of the blood pamphlet:
While modern therapy employing blood did not exist back then, medicinal use of blood is not modern. For some 2,000 years, in Egypt and elsewhere, human "blood was regarded as the sovereign remedy for leprosy." A physician revealed the therapy given to King Esar-haddon's son when the nation of Assyria was on the leading edge of technology: "[The prince] is doing much better; the king, my lord, can be happy. Starting with the 22nd day I give (him) blood to drink, he will drink (it) for 3 days. For 3 more days I shall give (him blood) for internal application." Esar-haddon had dealings with the Israelites. Yet, because the Israelites had God's Law, they would never drink blood as medicine.
Now go to page 64 of the Flesh and Blood book and read this quote of paragraph 2:
For almost two thousand years, blood was regarded as the sovereign remedy for leprosy. According to Pliny, when this diease, in Egypt, ‘fell upon princes, woe to the people; for, in the bathing chambers, tubs were prepared, with human blood, for the cure of it'.
Seems to me at least according to Pliny, people in Egypt were bathing in it and not drinking as the Watchtower's paragraph implied.
hawk
p.s - hope you liked it waiting!!!!
- Note edited to reflect waiting's excellent observation noted below