The Mishnah related that a woman once came to Rabbi Akiva and told him that she had observed a bloodstain. He asked her whether she perhaps had a wound. She replied that she had a wound, but it had healed. He asked whether it was possible that it could open again and bleed. She answered in the affirmative, and Rabbi Akiva declared her clean. Observing that his disciples looked at each other in astonishment, he told them that the Sages did not lay down the rule for bloodstains to create a strict result but rather to produce a lenient result, for says, "If a woman has an issue, and her issue in her flesh is blood" — only blood, not a bloodstain.