The ancient surgical bloodletting method of arteriotomy.

Methods of bloodletting were widely known in antiquity and were used for the cure of numerous illnesses and symptoms, caused mainly by the supposed excess of blood in the body. This article presents and discusses arteriotomy, a surgical method of bloodletting, appearing after the 1st century AD in the texts of Celsus, Galen, Antyllus, and Severus. The texts were studied either in their primary language or in a translation. Secondary references were only used for comparing the ancient technique to modern surgical methods.