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Historian to lecture on medieval bloodletting, transfusion
22-Oct-09
FREDERICK, Md.--The history of bloodletting and transfusion will be the topic of a lecture Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. in the Marx Center at Hood College.
Janet Sorrentino, Ph.D., associate professor of history at Washington College, will give a lecture entitled "Blood: Theory and Therapy from Medieval Bleeding to Modern Transfusion." Sorrentino will discuss the 19th-century practice of removing often considerable quantities of blood from patients to cure or prevent illnesses and disease theories about blood and related medical treatments from the Middle Ages to the modern era. The talk will include illustrations of the technology, some of which Sorrentino describes as harrowing, that was used to carry out the procedures.
Sorrentino, a historian of medieval Europe and the history of science and medicine, earned a bachelor's degree from Southern Methodist University, and bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.
The lecture is sponsored by the department of history. For more information, contact Emilie Amt, Hildegarde Pilgram Professor of History, at (301) 696-3696 or by e-mail at amt@hood.edu.