= Solution
\b[Translation.] A <cupping vessel> may also be needed in <chronic diseases>, even when they have already continued for some time, whether because the bodily material is corrupted or because the wind is in a disordered condition; likewise in some <acute diseases>, if the body needs to be relieved but the patient's strength does not permit <blood> to be let from a <vein>. This remedy is less forceful and therefore safer; nor is it ever dangerous, even if used in the midst of an attack of <fever>, or while <food> remains undigested. Accordingly, where <bloodletting> is needed, if opening a <vein> presents an immediate danger, or if the disorder is also situated in a particular part of the body, one should resort to this instead. We must nevertheless understand that, just as there is no danger here, so the protection is weaker, and that a violent malady cannot be met except by an equally forceful remedy.
\b[Critical interpretation.] <Celsus> is comparing local cupping with general <venesection>, rather than distinguishing a scientifically established safe treatment from a dangerous one. His absolute claim of harmlessness and his rule that severe <disease> requires an equally forceful intervention need criticism, even though the concern for the patient's limited reserve is sensible.
\b[The instrument and the historical explanation.] \i[Cucurbitula] means a <cupping vessel>, not a vegetable prescribed as <food>. Earlier in the same chapter, <Celsus> describes bronze cups using burning material and horn cups from which air is withdrawn through an opening. Reduced internal <pressure> holds the cup against the <skin>. He distinguishes <wet cupping>, over incised <skin>, from <dry cupping>, over intact <skin>; the present comparison with <bloodletting> chiefly concerns the former, while the reference to disordered wind belongs to his broader account of cupping. \i[Materia] and \i[spiritus] are his explanatory categories: “corrupted material” and <pathological wind in ancient medicine> should not be silently relabelled as demonstrated <bacterial infection> or a modern measurement of gas. \i[Cruditas] means a state of incomplete <digestion>, not a specific modern <disease>. <On Medicine by Aulus Cornelius Celsus>[II.11.1–6: cup construction, scarified versus intact skin, and the assigned comparison]{ref}
\b[Criticism available in 1865.] A cautious practitioner could agree that the patient's condition limits the use of depletory measures, and that a local complaint does not automatically require general <bloodletting>. But neither premise proves that local <bloodletting> is needed. The important distinction is between comparing the burdens of two interventions and establishing a benefit from either. By 1864, <John Hughes Bennett> was arguing that <venesection> could not remove established inflammatory exudation and that routine depletion in <pneumonia> weakened the processes needed for recovery. His account supplies contemporary grounds for dissenting from the final maxim: a severe inflammatory <disease> might call for support rather than an equally violent intervention. This was an argument available before the examination, although his particular theory of inflammatory repair is itself historical. <Treatment of Inflammation by John Hughes Bennett>[1864, pp. 142–143, arguments against depletion and for supporting nutritive processes]{ref}
\b[Present-day assessment.] The absolute statement “never dangerous” is false. <Wet cupping> can cause <blood loss> and <anaemia>, and both forms of cupping can cause <burns>, <scars> and <infection>. Current research does not establish cupping as an effective general remedy for <fever> or internal inflammatory <disease>. A skin mark or extracted <blood> is an observed local effect, not by itself evidence that the cause of an internal <disease> has been removed. The defensible part of the paragraph is the concern for the patient's reserve, not its assurance of harmlessness or its equation of severity with therapeutic violence. <Cupping by NCCIH>[Evidence and Safety: limited quality of efficacy evidence; burns, scars, infections and anaemia from repeated wet cupping]{ref}
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