{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,30]],"date-time":"2026-07-30T11:19:21Z","timestamp":1785410361012,"version":"3.56.0"},"reference-count":41,"publisher":"Cambridge University Press (CUP)","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,17]],"date-time":"2026-06-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1781654400000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["cambridge.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Med. Hist."],"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>\n                    <jats:italic>Torri\u2019r Llech<\/jats:italic>\n                    (\n                    <jats:italic>TLl<\/jats:italic>\n                    ) (Welsh for \u2018breaking the rickets\u2019) was a bloodletting practice which remained popular in Wales from at least the mid-nineteenth up to the mid-twentieth centuries. The practice involved cutting the ear (pinna) to induce bleeding. Indications were numerous and dynamic. Vernacular medical practices, including bloodletting, have enjoyed a long history in Wales and were influenced by a multitude of conceptual paradigms over the centuries. By drawing on original oral histories, newspaper accounts, as well as existing secondary source material, this article aims to situate\n                    <jats:italic>TLl<\/jats:italic>\n                    within the wider framework of bloodletting practices in Wales and Britain more broadly. In doing so, this paper also considers the ways in which\n                    <jats:italic>TLl<\/jats:italic>\n                    changed over time and how this dynamism proved a persistent threat to the authority of official medical institutions in Wales. By then discussing how\n                    <jats:italic>TLl<\/jats:italic>\n                    itself appeared to draw on diverse conceptual frameworks, it is argued that it may more accurately be defined as a practice within the confines of popular humoralism \u2013 a syncretic medical paradigm influenced by humoralism, astrology, Christianity, as well as local belief systems. Ultimately,\n                    <jats:italic>TLl<\/jats:italic>\n                    exhibited remarkable longevity and may have been practised as late as the 1970s\u201380s in parts of the Upper Swansea Valley, potentially representing the latest example of a humoral bloodletting practice native to the British Isles. This analysis challenges more linear narratives of biomedical ascendancy, showcasing how\n                    <jats:italic>TLl<\/jats:italic>\n                    coexisted with orthodox medicine in a pluralistic medical marketplace in which Welsh patients consistently exercised agency over their own care.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1017\/mdh.2026.10068","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,17]],"date-time":"2026-06-17T12:14:20Z","timestamp":1781698460000},"page":"1-21","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/policypage","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["\u2018An Old Welsh Custom\u2019: What does the bloodletting practice of\n                    <i>Torri\u2019r Llech<\/i>\n                    reveal about vernacular medical practice in Wales?"],"prefix":"10.1017","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7456-8382","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Thomas Alexander","family":"Khan-White","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/04t4q4w41","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"Worshipful Society of Apothecaries"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Max","family":"Cooper","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01qz7fr76","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Brighton and University of Sussex"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"56","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,17]]},"reference":[{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref11","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2307\/jj.14491544.5"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref15","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/1754-0208.12872"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref33","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.4997\/JRCPE.2014.117"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref30","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/CBO9780511518706.007"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref8","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/mdh.2023.29"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref9","first-page":"231","article-title":"Which Craft?: Witches, Gypsies, and the Fenyw Hysbys in Eighteenth-Century Wales","volume":"8","author":"Tallis","year":"2019","journal-title":"Preternature"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref38","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2307\/587167"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref3","first-page":"163","volume-title":"Poverty and Health in Interwar South Wales","author":"Thompson","year":"2006"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref14","first-page":"9","article-title":"Gutun Owain and the Art of Bloodletting for Nervous Diseases","volume":"98","author":"Hawkins","year":"2023","journal-title":"Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological and Historical Society"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref10","first-page":"4","volume-title":"Physick and the Family","author":"Withey","year":"2013"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref32","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/S0025727300005391"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref27","first-page":"8","volume-title":"Health and Society in Twentieth-Century Wales","author":"Michael","year":"2008"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref17","first-page":"15","volume-title":"Italians in Wales and Their Cultural Representations, 1920s-2010s","volume":"1","author":"Chezzi","year":"2015"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref34","first-page":"93","volume-title":"The Principles and Practice of Medicine: Twelfth Edition","author":"Osler","year":"1935"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref37","first-page":"55","volume-title":"Secondary School Selection: A British Psychological Society Inquiry","author":"Vernon","year":"1957"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref20","first-page":"590","article-title":"\u201cI should have thought that Wales was a wet part of the world\u201d: Drought, Rural Communities and Public Health, 1870\u20131914","volume":"30","author":"Waddington","year":"2016","journal-title":"Social History of Medicine"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref40","first-page":"206","article-title":"The Legacy of Humoral Medicine","volume":"4","author":"Lagay","year":"2002","journal-title":"AMA Journal of Ethics"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref41","first-page":"14","article-title":"Torri\u2019r Llech","volume":"102","author":"Wiliam","year":"2008","journal-title":"Llafar Gwlad"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref2","first-page":"133","volume-title":"Welsh Folklore and Folk-custom","author":"Jones","year":"1930"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref12","first-page":"17","volume-title":"Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce","author":"Starr","year":"1998"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref36","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.7591\/9781501724497"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref6","first-page":"7","volume-title":"The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity","author":"Porter","year":"1997"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref22","first-page":"13","article-title":"Welsh Witchcraft Revelations and Ruins: The Example of Mari Berllan Biter","volume":"11","author":"Tallis","year":"2022","journal-title":"Preternature"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref21","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/S0956793312000064"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref23","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/09677720211016442"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref29","first-page":"221","volume-title":"The Healers: A History of Medicine in Scotland","author":"Hamilton","year":"1981"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref19","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/S0956793324000025"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref24","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1179\/043087769798241636"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref31","first-page":"38","volume-title":"Yorkshire Diaries and Autobiographies in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries","author":"Eyre","year":"1877"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref39","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/0-306-48094-8_8"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref16","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/03631990221114065"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref13","first-page":"228","article-title":"Therapeutic bloodletting in Ireland from the medieval period to modern times","volume":"121","author":"Grace","year":"2021","journal-title":"Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Section C"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref1","first-page":"286","volume-title":"Folk-lore of West and Mid-Wales","author":"Davies","year":"1911"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref18","first-page":"22","volume-title":"Abstract of British Historical Statistics","volume":"20","author":"Mitchell","year":"1971"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref7","volume-title":"Privatizing Health Services in Africa","author":"Turshen","year":"1999"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref25","first-page":"22","article-title":"Medical Practice in Early Modern Wrexham and Cardiff","volume":"29","author":"Withey","year":"2018","journal-title":"The Welsh History Review"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref35","first-page":"416","volume-title":"A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Britain","author":"Waddington","year":"2004"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref4","first-page":"223","volume-title":"Noble Ways: Lay-bys In My Life","author":"Noble","year":"2010"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref26","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/14780038.2015.1088682"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref5","first-page":"2","volume-title":"Medical Cultures, Therapeutic Properties, and Laws in Global History","author":"Tilley","year":"2021"},{"key":"S0025727326100684_ref28","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/0305-7488(83)90184-6"}],"container-title":["Medical History"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/services\/aop-cambridge-core\/content\/view\/S0025727326100684","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,17]],"date-time":"2026-06-17T12:14:25Z","timestamp":1781698465000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/product\/identifier\/S0025727326100684\/type\/journal_article"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,17]]},"references-count":41,"alternative-id":["S0025727326100684"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1017\/mdh.2026.10068","relation":{},"ISSN":["0025-7273","2048-8343"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0025-7273","type":"print"},{"value":"2048-8343","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,17]]},"assertion":[{"value":"\u00a9 The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press","name":"copyright","label":"Copyright","group":{"name":"copyright_and_licensing","label":"Copyright and Licensing"}},{"value":"This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that no alterations are made and the original article is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press or the rights holder(s) must be obtained prior to any commercial use and\/or adaptation of the article.","name":"license","label":"License","group":{"name":"copyright_and_licensing","label":"Copyright and Licensing"}},{"value":"This content has been made available to all.","name":"free","label":"Free to read"}]}}