The Táin Bó Cuilaigne (the Cattle Raid of Cooley) is an Iron Age epic of valour, bravery, and bloodshed which has been compared with the Iliad. It features a range of violent heroes engaged in bloody and improbable deeds, which are supposed to have taken place in Ireland around the first century BC or before.
One medical episode tells of the warrior Ceithern being so badly wounded in battle that his entrails were falling from his body.1 He called for a doctor, only to be told that nothing could be done for him. Clearly dissatisfied with his consultation, Ceithern struck the doctor on the flat of the forehead so hard the doctor’s brains burst from his ears and from the sutures of his skull, and demanded a second opinion. A second doctor was duly brought, offered the same opinion as the first, and received the same violent response. In all, 15 doctors (clearly slow learners) were “struck off” in this manner before one was found, Fínghin, who agreed to treat the patient.
He proposed a choice of treatments: either “watchful waiting” (a period without treatment, followed by treatment if necessary) or some Iron Age “big ticket” technology. Patient preference was the deciding factor, and Ceithern chose the technological approach. First the board of his chariot was bound to his stomach to keep his intestines from falling out, and he then received a blood transfusion. This however did not involve willing human donors, but a herd of cattle who were rounded up, killed and reduced to a barrel of marrow, bones, meat and hides. Ceithern was steeped in this mixture for three days and nights, and as the mixture oozed into his cuts he made a remarkable recovery—this was before the days of bovine spongiform encephalopathy—and was soon fit to join battle again, with no reported ill effects from his bovine blood transfusion.
This pioneer in transfusion medicine, Fínghin, may have been working some time around 100BC or before, and The Táin itself was not written down until around the eighth century. The next practical investigations of blood transfusion by more direct methods occurred in the seventeenth century when Denys, Lower, and others took up where Fínghin left off. Their studies of the transfusion of blood between animals and humans therefore represent a 1800 year gap between Fínghin’s initial research and its implementation.
Footnotes
We welcome articles up to 600 words on topics such as A memorable patient, A paper that changed my practice, My most unfortunate mistake, or any other piece conveying instruction, pathos, or humour. If possible the article should be supplied on a disk. Permission is needed from the patient or a relative if an identifiable patient is referred to. We also welcome contributions for “Endpieces,” consisting of quotations of up to 80 words (but most are considerably shorter) from any source, ancient or modern, which have appealed to the reader.
References
- 1.Jackson KH. London: Penguin; 1971. A Celtic miscellany: translations from the Celtic literatures. [Google Scholar]