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Leeches became especially popular in the early 19th century. In the 1830s, the French imported about 40 million leeches a year for medical purposes, and in the next decade, England imported 6 million leeches a year from France alone. Through the early decades of the century, hundreds of millions of leeches were used by physicians throughout Europe.
Leeches can cause airway obstruction, severe respiratory distress, hemoptysis, or hematemesis. Blood loss leading to acute anemia can be deadly in children or small animals. [3] Disease transmission has not been recorded in this species. Treatment for a leech infestation starts with attempting to remove the parasites manually with artery forceps.
In the proboscisless leeches, the jaws (if any) of Arhynchobdellids are at the front of the mouth, and have three blades set at an angle to each other. In feeding, these slice their way through the skin of the host, leaving a Y-shaped incision. Behind the blades is the mouth, located ventrally at the anterior end of the body.
Back of Macrobdella decora – note the row of orange dots down the middle and the two sets of black ones on the sides.. Macrobdella decora is a medium-sized leech, growing between 5 and 8.5 cm (2.0 and 3.3 in) long, and weighing from 1.48 to 3.69 grams (0.052 to 0.130 oz).
In medieval and early modern European medicine, the medicinal leech (Hirudo medicinalis and its congeners H. verbana, H. troctina, and H. orientalis) was used to remove blood from a patient as part of a process to balance the humors that, according to Galen, must be kept in balance for the human body to function properly.
Wheaton says the leeches were created two different ways: For long shots, they used skateboard grip tape, and for the closeups used a combination of latex, blood makeup and rubber cement.
Leeching (medical), also called Hirudotherapy, the use of leeches for bloodletting or medical therapy Leeching (computing) , using others' information or effort without providing anything in return Image leeching , direct linking to an object, such as an image, on a remote site
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