30 June 2004The leech is backMedically approved, as a matter of fact. Hirudo medicinalis has a long, more-or-less respectable history as an instrument of healing, so to speak, and at least two physicians out here in the not-so-wetlands are putting them to good use. I leave for someone else the task of writing the joke about how the French firm Ricarimpex has received FDA approval to market leeches in the US. Oooh, I had no idea leeches were still being used in medicine. It's still creepy. Posted by: Babs at 9:56 AM on 30 June 2004And after all that they keep asking to borrow money too... Posted by: McGehee at 10:17 AM on 30 June 2004actually leeches are pretty useful. the most innovative treatment i had heard about was for reattached severed limbs. it seems that it takes a while for the smaller blood vessels to realign; so, blood pools in the limb reducing oxygen delivery to the injury. by leeching out the pooled blood, as it were, the limb gets a better chance to heal properly. even so, when getting out of the lake and find one stuck to your foot it can be an unpleasant experience. Unpleasant? I was traumatized by Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, but my wife is really squeamish about the thought of leeches. Posted by: McGehee at 2:28 PM on 4 July 2004 |