Another blast from Europe's medieval medical past are medicinal leeches. Similar to bloodletting, leeches were utilized to draw out the "bad blood" that medieval physicians believed caused many of their patients' ailments.
In modern medicine, however, leeches are used in reconstructive surgery to provide a vacuum effect that helps stimulate blood circulation. This process is crucial to help kick start blood flow into, for example, a reattached finger.
Covered by sucking leeches! BBC video.Miichael Palin experiments with a traditional Russian health therapy in Estonian capital Tallinn by allowing a doctor to cover him in sucking leeches. Fascinating video that is definitely not for the faint hearted! Taken from BBC travel documentary, Palin's New Europe.
References:
PubMed: "Does garlic protect against vampires? An experimental study. Owing to the lack of vampires, we used leeches" http://bit.ly/IKOrY
Top 10 Bloodsuckers: Leech.AnimalPlanetTV.
Posted at Clinical Cases and Images. Stay updated and subscribe, follow us on Twitter and connect on Facebook.
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