In 1847, German inventor Carl Baunscheidt was sitting in his room in pain, his hand aching from arthritis. He was swatting at hungry mosquitos until he finally gave up and allowed one to bite his hand. As the wound swelled, he was surprised when felt a bit of relief.
“How, in a quite simple and natural manner, the morbid matter that may be found in the body, may be extracted from the suffering parts, and removed without the loss of blood,” Baunscheidt wrote about the experience in the 1865 edition of his book Baunscheidtism, or a new method of cure.
