Bloodletting

Born of Desperation

Disease is one of the most feared things in Ravengrin. Medicine, treatment, and healing are expensive, beyond the monetary scope of the common villager.
And in a land where divine healing has disappeared, where life is cheap to those in power, disease riddles the countryside. It decimates entire communities, takes the lives of poor, weak, and aged without discrimination. The most feared disease of all is The Mourning, but it is by no means the only affliction that ravages the land.
In times like this, cheap medicines, false treatments, and faux cures are sometimes more dangerous than the disease itself. The slightest hope of cure in the eyes of an afflicted villager is better than living your days out in suffering, only to ultimately perish.
Sometimes, these apothecaries are well meaning, but more often than not, they care nothing for the wellbeing of their client - these "physicians" are only there to manipulate the client's desperation to turn out a profit.
Often, these treatments are purely fake, but have no affect on the actual patient - tonics, potions, and incenses. Some, however, do far more damage than good.
One such treatment is the art of bloodletting.

Sanguine Malpractice

Therapeutic phlebotomy, or bloodletting, is the process of surgically removing portions of a patient's blood. Physicians say, or maybe believe, that it is in the blood of a creature where disease resides, and so removing the blood removes the disease.
There are two methods of bloodletting: the most common is through incision, allowing a certain amount of the patient's blood to drain before the cut is bandaged. Unfortunately, this treatment often leads to infection, and limbs can be lost as a result of such practice.
The second method is through leeches. Certain amounts of leeches are attached to the patient's arm or leg, and allowed to feed on the patient's blood. Some apothecaries have detailed charts for how many leeches should be used and for how long they should be allowed to remain, but most simply make arbitrary decisions.
Bloodletting results in weakness and fatigue, and usually does more harm for the patient's ability to combat the disease than good. If too much blood is drained, it can directly kill the patient. Bloodletting by incision also risks infection and anemia. However, such practice is rampant in the central lands of Ravengrin.

Divine Intercession

But all hope is not lost.
A sect of priests of Prion, whose dogma also includes medicine, have sworn to root out these corrupt physicians and put an end to malpractices such as bloodletting, and bring whatever healing they can to the peoples of the land.
Unfortunately, while their goal is righteous, they are woefully under equipped and barely have more knowledge of medicine than the malpractitioners themselves.