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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.
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.
Most of the adverse effects stated in this list are associated with only a small percentage of cases; they should be understood as potential risks rather than as certainties. Herbs, treatments, and constituents with known or suspected adverse effects
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.
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. Once satiated, a leech detaches from its host. Hirudo verbana uses anticoagulants when it feeds, so its bite wounds continue bleeding for some time ...
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Hirudo is a genus of leeches of the family Hirudinidae. It was described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae. [2] The two well-accepted species within the genus are: [3] Hirudo medicinalis Linnaeus, 1758; Hirudo nipponia Whitman, 1886
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.