Therapy of the future

Cupping is an ancient therapeutic practice, which was depicted in paintings inscribed on the walls of King Tutankhamun's tomb built thousands of years ago. It was also practiced by Assyrians, Chinese, Japanese, Arabs as well as Europeans many centuries ago.

In recent years, cupping has returned as a cure within the framework of so-called "non-traditional medicine". However, its controversial methods of practice take different forms.

Doaa Mahgoub, a physician at the Emergency Unit of King Abdulaziz University hospital in Saudi Arabia's Western city of Jeddah, says that sucking impure blood follows the same traditional methods used in Saudi Arabia and other Arab and Islamic countries thousands of years ago.