ABSTRACT
Among the many kinds of uncleanness, one of the most redoubtable is that due to the shedding of blood, or to contact with blood that is flowing, as, for instance, blood spilt on the battlefield, or issuing from a wound, or the catamenial discharge, etc. Many very prevalent customs among the primitives, varying more or less in detail, are designed to utilize the magic virtues inherent in blood by causing certain persons and things to participate in it. The blood, while it is a liquid, or a collection of reddish clots, is at the same time a vital principle, an unseen force. It is fighting another force, alike unseen, a malignant principle, an evil influence, which is the disease. The defilement that accrues to a murderer must be enormous, and the peril to which he subjects his circle no less formidable.
