wildehacked asked: OKAY I have an 18th century terrible medicine question. Do you know if there was a specific place on the body doctors would blister? Like, would a person be more likely to have cupping scars on their back, or their ribs, or? did they just not discriminate much?

Back and chest were the most popular in men, generally there was an attempt for symmetry because [some bullshit about balance]. In women, the back only because breasts got in the way. Arms and legs were generally uncommon because there’s a lot of movement there and a wide expanse of skin was better for minimizing extraneous damage. Also they DID actually know the abdomen was full of important squishy stuff so they were more hesitant to, you know, burn someone seriously there.

Tags: specifically along the spine if they were doing the back or on the upper part of the chest (the pectoral area) generally not the sides of the ribs because their arms would press there and cause a lot of pain and irritation but the chest was v popular i do not have a citation for this but i could cite myself if you like jones //only mostly dead// p twenty-whatever asked and answered wildehacked only mostly dead okay also now that my thesis is done and submitted i'm just converting that tag into general medical history also i'm pretty sure they sometimes did the lower back but that makes me chew on my fist because K I D N E Y S so like i try not to think about it too much