Ads
related to: medical leech treatment
Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The most common complication from leech treatment is prolonged bleeding, which can easily be treated, but more serious allergic reactions and bacterial infections may also occur. [5] Leech therapy was classified by the US Food and Drug Administration as a medical device in 2004. [22]
Through the early decades of the century, hundreds of millions of leeches were used by physicians throughout Europe. [32] One typical course of medical treatment began the morning of 13 July 1824. A French sergeant was stabbed through the chest while engaged in single combat; within minutes, he fainted from loss of blood.
Leeches have been used in medicine from ancient times until the 19th century to draw blood from patients. In modern times, leeches find medical use in treatment of joint diseases such as epicondylitis and osteoarthritis, extremity vein diseases, and in microsurgery, while hirudin is used as an anticoagulant drug to treat blood-clotting disorders.
While H. medicinalis has long been used in hirudotherapy, and is approved by the US FDA as a prescription medical device, a 2007 study employing genetic analysis found that the species being marketed as H. medicinalis, possibly for decades, was the recently distinguished H. verbana. [11]
Franz Anton Maulbertsch's The Quack (c. 1785) shows barber surgeons at work. Bloodletting set of a barber surgeon, beginning of 19th century, Märkisches Museum Berlin. The barber surgeon was one of the most common European medical practitioners of the Middle Ages, generally charged with caring for soldiers during and after battle.
Hirudo verbana is a species of leech. [2] Hirudo verbana has long been used as a medicinal leech under the species H. medicinalis, but has recently been recognized as a separate species distinct from the traditional or European medicinal leech of that name. [2] [3]
Discover the latest breaking news in the U.S. and around the world — politics, weather, entertainment, lifestyle, finance, sports and much more.
Hirudin is a naturally occurring peptide in the salivary glands of blood-sucking leeches (such as Hirudo medicinalis) that has a blood anticoagulant property. [2] This is essential for the leeches' habit of feeding on blood, since it keeps a host's blood flowing after the worm's initial puncture of the skin.