Heroic medicine

Heroic medicine, also referred to as heroic depletion theory, was a therapeutic method advocating for rigorous treatment of bloodletting, purging, and sweating to shock the body back to health after an illness caused by a humoral imbalance. Rising to the front of orthodox medical practice in the "Age of Heroic Medicine" (1780–1850),^[2] it fell out of favor in the mid-19th century as gentler treatments were shown to be more effective and the idea of palliative treatment began to develop.^[3]