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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.
Leeches were often gathered by leech collectors and were eventually farmed in large numbers. A unique 19th-century "Leech House" survives in Bedale, North Yorkshire on the bank of the Bedale Beck, used to store medicinal leeches until the early 20th century. Manchester Royal Infirmary used 50,000 leeches a year in 1831. The price of leeches ...
Hirudo verbana feeds on blood (hematophagy).During a blood meal, a leech rhythmically contracts its muscles to draw blood from a host animal into the crop for storage. It can consume over five times its own weight in blood in one feeding.
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.
Chondroitin is a natural part of cartilage that has long been used to treat arthritis. However, the American College of Rheumatology cautions against using chondroitin for treating knee or hip ...
Numerous medical conditions that can cause similar symptoms to gout. This includes other types of inflammatory arthritis like RA, psoriatic arthritis, and septic arthritis.