Unlike their Medieval counterparts, modern doctors have the luxury of stopping their patients from bleeding to death utilizing miracles like epinephrine, blood-clotting drugs, or even the modest band-aid.
Despite this, hospitals in Switzerland continue to utilize "The Secret," a Middle Ages incantation, to stop blood flow during heart surgery.
No one has bothered to undertake any scientific investigation into the efficacy of this folk treatment until today, most likely due to the predictability of the outcome, as per IFL Science.
However, new research has finally put "The Secret" to the test, and the results are completely predictable.
"'The Secret' is part of a mystical notion of medicine," the study's authors argue.
"It is a relic of Middle Ages medicine, when medicine was reduced to its most basic form and done by monk-practitioners, or sorcerers, based on one of the miracles described in the synoptic gospels as 'Jesus curing the bleeding woman.'"
The process, which is secretly passed down from one "Secret Maker" to another, consists of "a healing formula or prayer that is claimed to activate superior energies to assist cure the sufferer."
Surprisingly, the study's authors claimed that "this blood charm is commonly performed in the French-speaking region of Switzerland," and that it has even been designated by UNESCO as a "intangible heritage" piece.
The researchers examined the bleeding outcomes of 200 patients having invasive cardiac operations in Switzerland to measure the blood-blocking effectiveness of this hidden spell.
Surprisingly, 76% of participants felt that "The Secret" would prevent them from severe bleeding and even asked their surgeon to execute the ceremony.
Half of the patients were offered regular care, while the other half received standard care plus "The Secret".
The Bleeding Academic Research Consortium (BARC) scale was used to assess outcomes, which ranks the degree of blood loss from one to five.
The results showed that "The Secret" made no difference at all, and bleeding outcomes were nearly comparable between the two groups.
72% of those who heard the prayer had no bleeding, 16% had a BARC score of one, and 12% had a BARC score of two.
Before modern medicine, in places of North America where the labor was tough and a doctor was a day's ride away - the Ozarks, Appalachian mining communities, and among the lumberjacks of the Great North Woods - there was a trade, a form of faith-healing, truly - called blood stopping, as per Mental Floss.
Bloodstoppers and their strange medical marvels have been handed down through the years, though I had never heard of them until lately.
Here's how the old-school blood stoppers worked. It was actually rather simple, assuming you had the Power.
You just uttered the sixth stanza of the 16th chapter of Ezekiel while traveling to the East in the presence of a bleeder:
"And when I walked by thee and beheld thee filthy in thine own blood, I said unto thee, Live; yea, I said unto thee, Live, when thou wast great in thy blood."
The wound in issue, it is stated, would then stop bleeding. This was a common procedure, however, rumor has it that each blood stopper had its own proprietary technique.
According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, one blood stopper "lost everything and concentrated on the person harmed," visualizing himself "there holding the blood back and shouting, 'It's stopping, it's stopping, it's stopped.'"
