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Over the Back Fence By HANK HENRY The ways we look at blood have changed P hlebotomists were around even before the ancient Greeks coined that name for one who draws blood. I've been told that back in those days the term also included people who used blood as part of a pagan religious sacrifice, but that part dropped out of the definition of the word over the years. What remained was bloodletting as part of a medical procedure that soon became a major part of every doctor's training right up to the 1800s. Years ago, Nora and I went to a small museum in Virginia that housed medical equipment of ancient times, and times not so ancient. One of the devices consisted of a wooden block with four or five small knives mounted on short springs inside. The medical practitioner would hold the cocked device against the arm or leg of the patient and press the trigger. The small knives would enter the flesh, blood would spurt, and the patient would leave, convinced that the shedding of some of his blood had somehow renewed his body and driven out whatever "humors and pestilential worms" that might have been keeping the customer from recovery. This medical treatment usually was applied to the upper classes, as those of lower status did not have the funds to pay a doctor. Some of our founding fathers suffered through that torture. It is amazing what a change a couple of centuries can make. Even as recently as 50 years ago, there were few in the medical field whose sole duties were to draw blood. A retired doctor once told me that in his day, blood drawing was just another chore for practically anyone in the office, including the doctor himself. I happen to have what phlebotomists call "disappearing veins." For many people, the practitioner can palpitate or tap the veins near the elbow and they will stand right out. Not for me, though. When I went for my physical before entering the service 56 years go, my blood was drawn by a nurse who obviously had very little experience in the process. She looked at my right arm and moved her index finger back and forth near the elbow, trying to feel where the best vein was located. Settling on one,she swabbed the area with alcohol, inserted a needle, pulled back on the plunger, and nothing came up into the tube. This experience was duplicated at a slightly different spot on my arm; it was like an oil driller hitting a dry hole. The poor lady taped up the two attempts on my right arm, then repeated the procedure twice on the left arm. She was getting flustered, so I suggested she try for blood from the back of my hand. That one worked. These days, blood is no longer drawn as a method of curing people, but rather for tests to reveal information about the patient's physical condition. In recent years, I have had to have a blood sample taken once a month to make sure that a drug I take is keeping my blood thin enough to avoid a stroke. My condition had no noticeable symptoms and was discovered when I was still working for Jackson County. The county Health Department had a wellness program for the employees that called for tests once a year. One of these involved my riding an exercise bike while a nurse listened to my heart with a stethoscope. When that was finished, the nurse told me I had better see my own doctor, because she had heard what could have been extra beats of my heart. To make a long story a bit shorter, it turned out that I had atrial fibrillation, a condition where the top two chambers of the heart no longer pump much blood, leaving the entire chore to the lower chambers, the ventricles. In my case, there were no symptoms, but if the problem hadn't been found, the blood entering the atrium chambers might have thickened and fallen to the bottom of the atrium chambers. There it might have slowly become thick enough to cause a stroke or a heart attack. So I have become something of a specialist on the vein-finding ability of phlebotomists. I am glad that they are now specialists who draw blood every day. The two in the lab at my doctor's office _ Rene and Mike _ make the job look easy, but it really is an art to find a vein hidden below the surface and hit it every time. (Hank Henry is a retired Jackson County commissioner and a former radio and television announcer. Call him at 772-9055.) Prime Times front page Mail Tribune front page Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA