“Red has always connoted blood in all its ambiguous, multivocal meanings “ wrote Melissa Meyer in her 2005 book Thicker Than Water: The origins of blood as symbol and ritual. There are so many examples of this in the rich tradition of Judaism. At a brit, the Jewish circumcision ceremony, the community responds in unison and chants a verse from Ezekiel (16, 6):
“וָאֶעֱבֹר עָלַיִךְ וָאֶרְאֵךְ מִתְבּוֹסֶסֶת בְּדָמָיִךְ וָאֹמַר לָךְ בְּדָמַיִךְ חֲיִי וָאֹמַר לָךְ בְּדָמַיִךְ חֲיִי
– And when I passed by you, and you were weltering in your blood, and I said to you – In your blood you shall live, and I said to you – In your blood you shall live.” At the brit, blood is life affirming. But when expelled from the uterus, blood symbolizes the missed opportunity for life and transmits ritual impurity. As if to emphasise the multivocal meanings of the color, the most important ritual of purification described in the Torah (Numbers 19) required the ashes of a heifer. And not just any heifer. A red one, known as para adumma (פָרָה אֲדֻמָּה) the red cow.
זֹאת חֻקַּת הַתּוֹרָה אֲשֶׁר־צִוָּה יְה’ לֵאמֹר דַּבֵּר אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְיִקְחוּ אֵלֶיךָ פָרָה אֲדֻמָּה תְּמִימָה אֲשֶׁר אֵין־בָּהּ מוּם אֲשֶׁר לֹא־עָלָה עָלֶיהָ עֹל׃ וּנְתַתֶּם אֹתָהּ אֶל־אֶלְעָזָר הַכֹּהֵן וְהוֹצִיא אֹתָהּ אֶל־מִחוּץ לַמַּחֲנֶה וְשָׁחַט אֹתָהּ לְפָנָיו׃ וְלָקַח אֶלְעָזָר הַכֹּהֵן מִדָּמָהּ בְּאֶצְבָּעוֹ וְהִזָּה אֶל־נֹכַח פְּנֵי אֹהֶל־מוֹעֵד מִדָּמָהּ שֶׁבַע פְּעָמִים׃
This is the ritual law that the LORD has commanded: Instruct the Israelite people to bring you a red cow without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which no yoke has been laid. You shall give it to Eleazar the priest. It shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence. Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the Tent of Meeting.
In many other cultures, both sacred and taboo objects are colored red. Here is Meyer (p9):
Indians bloodied or reddened sacred statuettes and stones. Sacred trees in Madagascar and Estonia were painted with blood. Greeks tinged Dionysian statues red. Romans touched up Jupiter's face with red colorants prior to festivals. In the Congo and West Africa, some native groups marked the new moon by applying fresh red pigment to sacred statues. The Chukchi daubed sacred tent poles and charms with blood.
Nothing evinced women's fertility more than the color red. Across cultures, many believed that menstrual blood retained in the womb formed a fetus. This most powerful substance was of particular concern when it had obviously not gone to create a child. The Zaramo of Tanzania extensively ritualized mkole tree sap, which turned from white to red, powerfully symbolizing female fertility cues. Fathers gave Nepalese girls red clothing at menarche. Unmarried girls wore red beaded necklaces. Pubescent Navajo girls wore red sashes during their puberty ritual, the kinaalda. Menstruating women often protected their communities by marking themselves red. Women of the Brazilian Tapuya, African Gold Coast, and Kaffir painted their bodies red. Among Victoria tribes, menstruating women were painted red from the waist up. Menstruating Australian Dieri women wore red pigment around their mouths. In India, menstruating women wore blood-stained scarves around their necks."
THe blood of the young and the Failed start-up AMbrosia
The Mishnah on today’s page identified the color of blood as "that which flows from a wound” (איזהו אדום? כדם המכה). On page 19b the Talmud returns to the color of blood:
אמי ורדינאה א"ר אבהו כדם אצבע קטנה של יד שנגפה וחייתה וחזרה ונגפה ולא של כל אדם אלא של בחור שלא נשא אשה ועד כמה עד בן עשרים
The Sage Ami of Vardina says that Rabbi Abbahu says: It is red as the blood that flows from the smallest finger of the hand, which was wounded and later healed and was subsequently wounded again. And this is not referring to the finger of any person, but specifically to the finger of a young man who has not yet married a woman. And furthermore, this does not mean any young man; rather, until what age must he be? Until twenty years old.
Rabbi Abahu who lived in Israel in the third century, declared that there was something special about the blood of a young person - or rather, that of a young unmarried man. It looked different. There is no truth to that declaration: the blood of the young and the blood of the old are identical in color. Even the blood of a person with obstructive pulmonary disease (and hence a slightly lower oxygen content) appears identical to that of a perfectly healthy person; only a machine might tell them apart. Rabbi Abahu wasn’t the only one who believed that certain sources of human blood had special properties. The Roman naturalist and author Pliney the Elder (23-79 CE) lived some two-hundred years before Rav Abahu. He thought it hard to find anything more marvellous than menstrual blood:
On the approach of a woman in this state, must will become sour, seeds which are touched by her become sterile, grafts wither away, garden plants are parched up, and the fruit will fall from the tree beneath which she sits. Her very look, even, will dim the brightness of mirrors, blunt the edge of steel, and take away the polish from ivory. A swarm of bees, if looked upon by her, will die immediately;
For Pliney, menstrual blood could do all manner of things: It kills, animates, and blunts knives all at once. Today you can also find claims that a young person’s blood will heal you (though not that it blunts knives).
In 2016 a startup called Ambrosia offered to sell you a therapeutic blood transfusion from “donors age 16-25.” And the cost of a dose of this young person’s plasma? A mere $8,000. The company’s chief executive is Jesse Karmazin, who graduated medical school but never completed any other medical training. Ambrosia claimed it was running a clinical trial, though it was doing nothing of the sort, and by mid -2017 some 600 people had been gullible enough to part with their $8,000. All of this was a bit much, even for the fairly patient U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In February of this year the FDA issued a statement that shut down the company:
Simply put, we’re concerned that some patients are being preyed upon by unscrupulous actors touting treatments of plasma from young donors as cures and remedies. Such treatments have no proven clinical benefits for the uses for which these clinics are advertising them and are potentially harmful. There are reports of bad actors charging thousands of dollars for infusions that are unproven and not guided by evidence from adequate and well-controlled trials. The promotion of plasma for these unproven purposes could also discourage patients suffering from serious or intractable illnesses from receiving safe and effective treatments that may be available to them. We strongly urge individuals to consult their treating physicians prior to considering the use of such products for aging indications or for the treatment of conditions such as dementia, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease or post-traumatic stress disorder given the known and unknown risks associated with their use
(By the way, in 2016 Karmazin and the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine had reached an agreement: Karmazin voluntarily agreed to cease practicing medicine in the state, and left, apparently for Florida. As others have noted, this tactic is typically used by doctors who are threatened with the loss of their medical license.)
It would of course be a wonderful thing if indeed a young person’s blood could transmit new life and vigor into the old. It does just that, when we transfuse it into those who have anemia, hemophilia or life-threatening blood loss from trauma. It doesn’t kill bees or reverse aging but its life sustaining properties are plentiful. Now go donate some.
[Partial repost from here.]
