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I’m not sure about you, but leeches have always occupied a major role in my subconscious. I’ll attribute that to an early brush with a colony of the hermaphroditic dears, a somber first viewing of Stand By Me, and a cathartic summer spent impaling buckets full of them onto fish hooks (walleyes freaking love them). The kinds of leeches that suck blood can handle a load up to five times their size, a meal that can last them the next six months. If you’ve ever had a leech sidle up to you, you probably won’t be surprised to learn about their three sets of jaws and the “chitinous saw” that goes to work on your epidermal layer. But like some kind of afterthought, they secrete anesthetizing agents and blood thinners into the leeching zone–a combo that makes them popular in the medical world. Leeches are still used today, especially in skin grafts. Patient response has been described as “amazingly stoic.” And while we’re discussing burrowing/sucking “healers”, might as well consider the maggot.This man employed the squirming masses to help a patient’s bedsores:
Dugas put the eggs on the patient’s bedsores, just as doctors had done with his grandmother’s infections. The eggs hatched as maggots, fed on the infected tissue, turned into flies, and flew away. Dugas applied more eggs. Within four weeks the patient’s sores were clean and filled with healthy tissue. Far from preparing to amputate, Dugas sent the man to a local hospital to receive skin grafts.
Yeah, I’ll take the leeches.
did you know that leeches have 32 brains?
posted by Eric on 5-19-2007 at 12:54 am
But leeches have been employed elsewhere too, utilising their storm-detecting powers…
“The Tempest Prognosticator, also known as the Leech Barometer, is an invention by George Merryweather in which leeches are used in a barometer. The twelve leeches are kept in small bottles inside the device; when they become agitated by an approaching storm they attempt to climb out of the bottles and trigger a small hammer which strikes a bell. The likelihood of a storm is indicated by the number of times the bell is struck.”
(from Tempest Prognosticator at Wikipedia)
posted by violet/riga on 5-19-2007 at 1:39 am
32? They must not have an actual brain then, but just little bundles that control different aspects of movement and reaction. I think worms are like that.
I like the aptness of the name Merryweather.
I’m not too surprised that patients have handled these things well. My personal experience with major illness is that it enables us to put things in perspective. I had my first colon exam in the hospital. In light of everything else it was no big deal at all to have some guys finger up my bum.
posted by Bassman on 5-19-2007 at 7:33 am
I was fascinated by the use of leeches and maggots by the lead character in the Outlander book series by Diana Gabaldon. Claire is a twentieth century nurse/physician who gets transported back to 18th century Scotland and winds up in the Colonies, pre-revolutionary war. She uses maggots to clean a wound and leeches to save a surgical site. It’s a fun series to read.
posted by Heidi on 5-21-2007 at 8:20 am