" Jalaukavacharanam " or application of leeches is an important method of treatment in diseases like tumours, certain types of arthritis, oedema skin disorders etc., according to ayurveda. This method of treatment is part of the surgical procedure described in the science of medicine. A detailed description regarding the various morphological details of different varieties of leeches is also se...

BACKGROUND There are case reports and small series in the literature relating to the use of medicinal leeches by plastic surgeons; however, larger series from individual units are rare. The aim of this article is to present a comprehensive 4-year case series of the use of medicinal leeches, discuss the current evidence regarding indications, risks, and benefits and highlight the recent updates ...

The hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) is among the most intriguing and imperiled amphibians in North America. Since the 1970s and 80s, western populations of the Ozark and eastern subspecies in Missouri have declined by nearly 80%. As a result of population declines, the Ozark hellbender was recently federally protected as an endangered species, and the eastern subspecies was granted pr...

Previous studies showed that sensory feedback from the body wall is important and sometimes critical for generating normal, robust swimming activity in leeches. In this paper, we evaluate the role of sensory feedback in intersegmental coordination using both behavioral and physiological measurements. We severed the ventral nerve cord of leeches in midbody and then made video and in situ extrace...

leech therapy was popular for many centuries. while many research studies have supported the medical use of hirudo medicinalis, other species have not received that much attention. due to the large demand and lack of supply, more research is needed to justify the medical use of other species. ibn al quffprovided general guidelines on differentiating between the beneficial and toxic types of lee...

two 60 day experiments on predation behavior of leeches were conducted concurrently. in the first, medicinal leeches, hirudo orientalis (utevsky and trontelj, 2005) were fed to satiation on bovine blood and subsequently transferred into two large opaque plastic containers of equal size but with differing temperatures, 6-7?c and 23-24?c, containing starved erpobdella octoculata (l.). at the high...

OBJECTIVE The implementation of leech therapy for surgical flaps is not always logistically easy or comfortable for patients or healthcare providers. We examine different methods of placing sutures in the medicinal leech, Hirudo medicinalis, to make the implementation of leech therapy easier. METHODS Sixteen leeches were randomly divided into 3 groups: a control group, a deep anchoring suture...

The use of medicinal leeches (Hiruda medicinalis) is becoming more common after plastic surgery to control venous congestion of skin grafts. We describe a patient with Aeromonas hydrophila infection whose graft was treated with medicinal leeches. The infection required systemic antibiotic therapy. A. hydrophila is the predominant bacterial flora in the gut of the leech, where it plays an essent...