The state of the art treatment apparently consists in part of blood-letting, or more particularly, drawing off a pint or so of blood at regular intervals. Awareness of this prompted me to think about whether there may be or may have been some populations over history in which PV was prevalent, and thus where bloodletting would have made a noticeable clinical difference. My sense is that this is not the case, though, because onset of PV according to available literature most common beyond the age of 40, and the vast majority of our ancestors would not have made it to that ripe age. Nevertheless, here is an instance where bloodletting is literally a life saver in the modern world.

from your posts it sounds like you buy into accupuncture, but I could be reading wrong. Anyhow, you said this:

“You’re seeing a distinction where there is overlap. Modern exercises for distributing Qi evenly around the body also, amazingly, help improve circulation. Who’d a thunk it eh?”

So which of the following is the actual health claim that accupuncture makes?

1) The body contains a magical energy which is designed to support, heal, and create life that can be manipulated through the application of needles to specific points on the body to address specific health claims (though this mysterious all-powerful energy seems to have an effect just barely better than placebo at best and works best on self-limiting and subjective ailments, strange for such a mysterious and powerful force).

or….

2) Irritating tissue with needles might cause increased blood flow, causing health benefits that are nonspecific or not particularly evident.

you can’t have it both ways.

Keep in mind, this was supposed to relieve a headache. Kinda worked…my fingers were throbbing somewhat, so it de-emphasized the pain that was continuing to exist in my head.

As you can see , the first character is qi.

Qi (in its traditional, not simplified, form) combines the radicals (basic parts) for air and rice, whereas xie is a very common radical in and of itself. I don’t know the history of the characters, but no, the relationship between the two certainly isn’t obvious.

“Although I do remember reading about a rather rare ailment which is relieved by giving blood”

I think you mean blood-letting.
Yes, I can think of two: Haemochromatosis and Polycythaemia.

Three of my wife’s four sibs – two are twins – have haemachromatosis and donate blood regularly to keep their iron levels within the normal range.

In polycythaemia, the problem is too many red blood cells which thicken the blood and can lead to strokes unless blood is removed periodically.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_overload

this is just for background info not science based research.

I am more than a little worried that people who practise and represent bloodletting as a legimate medical proceedure are probably not going to be of the opinion that disease can be spread through blood and as such may not stricting adhere to good sterilization proceedures.

I finally found a dictionary, that had the word shiraku in it. The kanji are 刺絡 (thorn/to pierce+entwine). With that I did find a few thousand google results.
Shiraku does in fact mean blood letting, and it is in fact linked to acupuncture, as this BS page is eager to point out. You can google translate it to get an idea.

http://www.kotyuten.com/shirakutoha/index.html