cupping

the process of drawing blood to the surface of the body by the application of partially evacuated glass cups, as for relieving internal congestion.

A method of heat stimulation in which small, warm cups, bowls or drums are placed on the skin in order to increase local blood supply.

The process of pulling extra blood to the skin surface by placing a cup (Cupping glass) in which the air pressure can be reduced, mouth down onto the skin surface. Cups with an integral rubber squeeze bulb for reducing pressure in the cup were available from the Sears catalog in the early 1900s. Historically, however, the reduced pressure was usually produced by heating the air in the cup before application and then allowing it to cool after the cup was pressed onto the skin. A man growing up on the East coast in the 1930s recalls that before the application of each cup to his father’s chest or back (for fever reduction), a lighted wad of cotton dipped in alcohol would be stuck into the inverted cup for a few seconds. Someone from West Texas remembers hearing about the cups being held inverted over the spout of a steaming Teakettle. A man growing up in East Texas said his mother would heat an empty soft drink bottle in boiling water, quickly wrap the bottle in a cooled towel, and then place the bottle, mouth down, on bothersome skin eruptions. In other parts of the world, animal horns with the tip end cut off were placed on the skin and pressure reduced by sucking on the tip. This is similar to a child’s practice of briefly sucking on a hurt finger. Cupping was mentioned in English writing as early as 1519 and even in Greek medical treatises of Hippocrates’ time.