Biblical Implications of Drinking Blood
from Google Books (8kun prevents me from posting short URL)
1874: The Health Reformer: A Bloody Beverage.
https://books.google.com/books?id=fto1AQAAMAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=%22drinking%20blood%22%20torture&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q=%22drinking%20blood%22%20torture&f=false
NOTE: The Brighton Abattoir was a slaughterhouse located in Brighton, Boston. It operated across Market Street from the Brighton Stock Yards, as cattle would be located into rail cars of the Boston and Albany Railroad and transported west from the yards. (wiki)
A Bloody Beverage.
SOME time since, a paragraph was going the rounds of the papers which gave an account of the wonderful beneficial results to be obtained from drinking the warm blood of slaughtered animals. It was stated that a gentleman who was very much reduced by disease had found astonishing benefit from this practice at a slaughtering establishment known as the “Brighton Abbattoir," near Boston. Encouraged by his success, a number of others had commenced the revolting practice also, among whom were several ladies. A recent journal informs us that there are now more than one hundred individuals who daily visit the Brighton establishment to drink the blood of the animals butchered there. There is said to be some prospect that a hotel will be built for the accommodation of the frequenters of the place.
Speaking of one of the earlier persons who sought relief at this sanguinary establishment, a journal says, “One gentleman from Boston, a consumptive, was so feeble that he could scarcely get to the abattoir ; he can now knock down his bullock, and take his inatutinal blood-cocktail regularly." The perversity of human nature is indeed astonishing. How strange it is that people will cling to old superstitions and follies, and even eagerly seize and endorse new absurdities rather than receive a single ray of truth in its beauty, purity, and simplicity. People will allow themselves to be tortured almost to death with sinapisins, blisters, drafts, and other counter-irritants. They will swallow croton, cod-liver, caster, or angle worm, oil with avidity.
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A Bloody Beverage, cont.
They will open their mouths, and with the utmost complaisance allow the 'doctor to deluge their stomachs with the most loathsome compounds that medical ingenuity and chemical skill can produce. They will drink putrid ale, adulterated wine, bad whisky, and barrels of “ hitters " and “ tonics," with the mistaken notion that these vile compounds are “ strengthening." These dirty practices are all bad enough, but what shall we say of people whose moral sense has become so obtuse that they can view with pleasure the tortures of a dying brute, while their mouths “ water" for blood; who have lapsed so far into savage barbarism that they can sip with delight the warm, red lifeblood fresh from a dying creature's veins‘? The most charitable thing we can say of them is that they have so long violated nature's laws and ignored her teachings that their moral sense is wholly subverted, their natural instincts obliterated, and their natural taste perverted.
But, laying aside all moral and esthetic considerations, is it true that any physical benefit may be derived from drinking the blood of animals, as claimed by the advocates of this practice! A moment’s consideration of the matter will settle the question. What qualities has blood to recommend it as a remedy ’ ! Is it good to quench thirst! None but blood-thirsty people could regard it thus. Is it good food?
Doubtless it is somewhat nutritious, but how.
Much inferior to the various esculent fruits and vegetables ! “ But is n't it strengthening’!" says one. If by strengthening is meant stimulation, which is not strengthening at all, then we can answer in the affirmative. Blood is stimulating; that is, it is poisoning. It contains the elements of death, as well as those of life.
Whatever apparent benefit may be derived from drinking blood is wholly due to its stimulant effect ; and by stimulation must not be understood anything but that which is abnormal, antivital, and wholly opposed to the best interests of the vital economy.
The project of constructing a hotel for the accommodation of the devotees of blood-drinking, betokens the same kind of enterprise that led a San Francisco gas company to erect seats in their works for the convenience of the crowds of invalids who came there to breathe the filthy gases emanating from the retorts, with the baseless hope that by so doing they might find relief from their aches and pains, all the legitimate results of the violation of nature's laws. How absurd to conceive that a person who has become sick by some transgression of physical laws can be awed by committing a worse sin! and yet almost the whole system of druggery is founded on this very principle.
Our advice to the poor people who are drinking blood at Brighton is to abandon the disgusting habit at once, and leave the horrid practice in the hands of degraded Patagonians, savage North American Indians, and, perhaps, a few demoralized butchers. J. H. K.
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