Phlebotomo-graphy, or Phlebotomy and Writing in Flaubert

The aim of this paper is to elucidate the intricate link between phlebotomy and writing in Flaubert. Phlebotomy, that is, the old medical practice of bloodletting through the incision of a vein made by a sharp medical tool or lancet, is not at all foreign to Flaubert. As biographers such as Geoffrey Wall, Frederick Brown, and more recently Michel Winock, have noted, Flaubert personally underwent such a medical procedure in order to treat his epilepsy. Flaubert’s first epileptic attack was in 1844, before he had started work on his chef d’œuvre, Madame Bovary, a text that is also the concern of this paper. Epilepsy then, according to Wall, was “not yet understood,” and was even left as a “nameless condition” in Flaubert’s case, which also meant that “there was still no effective treatment for it” (Wall 80). Worse, it was also considered a “stigma” (Wall 80n), which did not help in its understanding and treatment. When epilepsy struck, it was “a hopeless, loathsome, incomprehensible thing and its victims were subjected to a drastic regime” (Wall 80). For Flaubert, phlebotomy constituted part of that regime. In fact, as Winock points out, based on Flaubert’s letters to Louise Colet and Ernest Chevalier, Flaubert’s first epilepsy attack of 1844 was indeed treated with phlebotomy—three bloodletting processes performed simultaneously, to be specific—administered by his brother Achille (66). More generally, for Flaubert’s regime of phlebotomy, “a device like a small tap, known as a ‘seton collar,’ was attached to his neck to facilitate regular bleeding” (Wall 80). Flaubert’s father, a medical surgeon himself, also played a significant part in the treatment, as he, according to Brown, “bled [Flaubert] profusely” (Brown 138).¹ Phlebotomy continued as part of Flaubert’s treatment even when he was moved to the countryside at Croisset, as he underwent “repeated washing, bloodletting, and swimming” (Wall 80).

Wall argues that Flaubert’s experience of having survived the attacks of epilepsy had an influence on his writing and artistic experimentation: “Flaubert subsequently observed and described his nameless condition with great acuity. We might say from the evidence of his letters, that he learnt to live with it, to inhabit it imaginatively as a unique province of his mind, dark and dangerous though it was. … Once he knew that he could survive the recurrent intimate disaster of the attack, he could begin to learn from it, even to experiment with it” (80). But surely, phlebotomy as treatment, which was not painless, and involved at that time the huge risk of death by excessive bloodletting, must have had an equally significant impact on Flaubert. It would be surprising if Flaubert never thought that the letting of blood enabled him not only to survive the illness but also to continue with his lifelong passion for writing. In fact, Flaubert in 1854 does acknowledge his debt to phlebotomy. This time, having received phlebotomy by leeches rather than the insertion of a seton to treat syphilis, he writes in a letter to Louis Bouilhet: “I have suffered severely! Finally, since yesterday, it has gotten better, thanks to the leeches and the ice” (Correspondance 2:652). And no doubt thanks to this treatment of phlebotomy, Flaubert could continue work on Madame Bovary, which was already well under way by 1854. One could say, then, that the flow of blood in Flaubert’s case not only sees to the flow of life, but also the flow of words. Put another way, there is an undeniable or intimate link between phlebotomy and writing in Flaubert, and that is the argument I will put forth in this paper through a reading of Madame Bovary.

In the Shadow of Phlebotomy, or Reading in Madame Bovary

Madame Bovary, in short, could be said to be akin to phlebotomy and writing. It is about flows: it deals with the problematic of letting flow female passion and desire, or more specifically, Emma Bovary’s yearning for a lifestyle according to her fantasies and imaginations, which include having a lover. Such passion and desire, however, run counter to nineteenth-century French...