Surgeons still use leeches to improve the success rates of surgery, such as when reattaching severed fingers as their saliva prevents post-surgery blood clotting inside veins. The medicinal leech ...

In the Victorian era Britain used over 42 million leeches a year for medical blood-letting. It was an industry worth around £1m per annum, even at 19th Century prices, and a quarter of that ...

The trade in medicinal leeches was enormous. In 1833 alone, approximately 42 million leeches were imported into France for medicinal use and 30m were sent to the US from Germany every year. Collecting ...

Photomacrograph of the medicinal leech Hirudo verbana. Leeches are aquatic, blood sucking, segmented worms, which mainly feed on mammalian blood. In a single feed they can consume over 3 times their ...

Medicinal leeches can grow up to 20cm (8in) long, making them one of the UK's largest native leeches. They can be found in a variety of freshwater habitats, including ponds, lochs, ditches ...

Medicinal leeches, or Hirudo medicinalis, live in ponds and ditches where they feed on amphibians and grazing animals. They are also a protein-rich snack for others in the ecosystem. Their numbers ...

ANKARA, November 19. /TASS/. Customs officials at Istanbul International Airport have confiscated 5,000 medicinal leeches from two Russian citizens after they could not produce the paperwork for ...