The cups or suckers represented between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries one of the most common techniques, together with bloodletting, for taking blood from venous vessels. They were used to decrease the amount of blood present in the circulation and eliminate, according to the Hippocratic theory, excess mood. In fact, it was Hippocrates (5th and 4th centuries BC) who taught how to apply the suction cups and how to scarify or cut the skin to release the blood that had collected there, and to indicate the diseases against which to resort to them (including these are sciatica, earache and neuralgia). In the widespread use in medieval and modern times, the amount of blood to be eliminated was usually established by the doctor, where the practical act was carried out by the surgeon barber. In this way, therefore, a small bloodletting was carried out, certainly less risky than the use of the hands typically used for this practice.