Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie,
Speaker 1: I want you to imagine an alternate universe not that
Speaker 1: far removed from our own. Everything's pretty much like it is,
Speaker 1: except instead of depending on save batteries for our power,
Speaker 1: depending on electric circuits, we depend on blood sucking leeches.
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say potatoes or onions. Well,
Speaker 1: that's that's another that's another multiverse. They're infinite multiverses involving
Speaker 1: various substances of power, alternate energy, but in this case,
Speaker 1: blood sucking leeches. All right, well, I guess you know,
Speaker 1: a long time ago, this actually was something that was
Speaker 1: a universe in place where our ancestors in which they
Speaker 1: did depend on leeches. Yeah, yeah, for ages and ages.
Speaker 1: Of course, you know, leeches were used in in in
Speaker 1: medicine just to cure about anything, and we'll get to
Speaker 1: that in a minute. But but the the key point,
Speaker 1: the key Victorian point where you can sort of imagine
Speaker 1: this uh alternate universe of leech power breaking off and
Speaker 1: becoming real. We can we look back to a particular
Speaker 1: invention by the name of the Tempest Prognosticator. This was
Speaker 1: developed by Yorkshire's George Merryweather and it showed up in
Speaker 1: the Great Exhibition at London's Crystal Palace in eighteen fifty one.
Speaker 1: Now this is a device that ended up not making
Speaker 1: a splash. Didn't really impress anybody then, Uh, the science
Speaker 1: didn't hold up. But it was grounded in the idea
Speaker 1: that leeches consents impending changes in the weather via changes
Speaker 1: in the electromagnetic state of the atmosphere. Ah, so sort
Speaker 1: of a barometer of sorts. Weather thought, And I love
Speaker 1: the name of a tempest prognosticator. Yeah, Like even as
Speaker 1: he was naming it, he wanted to get a little
Speaker 1: away from the leach aspect of the invention. Um, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's a beautiful invention. It looks kind of like
Speaker 1: a like a crystal chandelier if that chandelier had little
Speaker 1: tubes with leeches in them, or or Merry go round
Speaker 1: and instead of magical horses, you had glass vials filled
Speaker 1: with leeches. That's what I had described it to myself
Speaker 1: as is this kind of tiny ornate iron carousel with
Speaker 1: these twelve glass jars that were fitted around the carousel,
Speaker 1: and then each of those contained a leech, and according
Speaker 1: to Professor Mark Settle he's also a curator for the
Speaker 1: American Museum of Natural History, the glass was to be
Speaker 1: transparent so that the leeches could see each other and
Speaker 1: agree amongst themselves as to the prognostication. Yeah, you need
Speaker 1: a leech quorum to be to be met. And this
Speaker 1: this is how they would tell everybody whether or not
Speaker 1: the weather was changing. If any leech climbed up and
Speaker 1: into the escape tube, its weight would dislodge a piece
Speaker 1: of whale bone, which would release a hammer that would
Speaker 1: ring the bell announcing inclement weather. Is on hand, I
Speaker 1: love it. I love the simplicity of it. But yet
Speaker 1: it's it's all hinge ng on the idea that these
Speaker 1: these leeches a are are tuned to these electro electromagnetic
Speaker 1: forces in this very specific way, and that they are
Speaker 1: looking to each other for guidance. Uh, that there's some
Speaker 1: sort of a social hierarchy within the leech society that
Speaker 1: will come into play and make this device work. Well,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like the special order of weather monks
Speaker 1: among leeches, right, Um, I mean that's with Crystal Palace
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty one. That is one place I've always wanted
Speaker 1: to time travel too, and now even more so because
Speaker 1: think about all of these wacky things that you've got to,
Speaker 1: not only the Crystal Palace itself, it was just an
Speaker 1: amazing piece of architecture. Yeah, and so so many of
Speaker 1: those invations there would have each been a portal off
Speaker 1: to a different multiverse verse had it really taken off.
Speaker 1: So you're saying there's a possibility that I could somehow
Speaker 1: time travel there? Is that what you're saying, Well, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe that's that's a whole another podcast, right, but maybe Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: the point of this is that obsession abounds with leeches,
Speaker 1: and for good reason. We will find out because leeches
Speaker 1: have some really important properties. But first let's discuss what
Speaker 1: they are as an organism. What is a leech really? Well,
Speaker 1: when you're talking about a leech, of course, you're talking
Speaker 1: about hundreds of species. Some people currently there's you're looking
Speaker 1: at account between six hundred and seven hundred species, but
Speaker 1: some people think there could be as many as ten
Speaker 1: thousand species out there in the world. Because we're discovering
Speaker 1: new species of leech on a pretty regular basis here um.
Speaker 1: So they range in size from leeches that are just
Speaker 1: over just a one centimeter in length to twenty five
Speaker 1: centimeters in length UM. Some of them actually are not
Speaker 1: blood suckers. Some feed on decaying plant material. But it's
Speaker 1: the more famous kinds that that we tend to associate
Speaker 1: with leeches, the blood suckers, right, especially those that attached
Speaker 1: to human skin. Those are the ones most of most
Speaker 1: interest to human beings. Those are the ones we are
Speaker 1: most familiar with. And what we're talking about here nuts
Speaker 1: and bolts. A blood sucking animalid worm, and as you say,
Speaker 1: they can grow up to about twelve inches, and not
Speaker 1: all of them are sanguivorous. That's the term for blood suckers.
Speaker 1: One of the best known leaches is called the medicinal leech,
Speaker 1: and it has a sucker at each end of the
Speaker 1: underside of its body. One sucker at the end contains
Speaker 1: the animal's mouth and the other sucker acts as a
Speaker 1: suction cup when the leach attaches itself to its victim,
Speaker 1: and once attached this is so great. The leech slashes
Speaker 1: its victim's skin with its sharp teeth and sucks the
Speaker 1: blood and it injects the wound with a substance that
Speaker 1: keeps blood from clotting. Really important. We'll talk about that later. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hirodo medicinalysis, the medical leach. I also love that it's
Speaker 1: it's it's three jaws. Now, not all leeches have three jaws.
Speaker 1: Some have to to to jaw leeches. That's gonna make
Speaker 1: a V shaped wound, But the three jaws make this
Speaker 1: Y shaped wound for sucking. Now, you see them on
Speaker 1: the land, you see them on an arm or something,
Speaker 1: and they look kind of slow and wiggly, just some
Speaker 1: sort of you know, just sting worm that can't move
Speaker 1: around all. They much been in the water. That's where
Speaker 1: they can really move. They use this undulating motions, wave
Speaker 1: like like motion to propel themselves through the water. And then,
Speaker 1: like you said, they attached on they feed and while
Speaker 1: they're feeding, well basically they are two different acts that
Speaker 1: this applies to, but feeding and mating. Once they've started
Speaker 1: on that, you can actually cut a leech in half
Speaker 1: and it won't notice. It'll just finish because they really
Speaker 1: they're the laser focused on the zone, right, they're in
Speaker 1: the zone. Yeah, And another thing is that they don't
Speaker 1: just fill up with blood and as we do when
Speaker 1: we fill up with burgers or whatever, just kind of
Speaker 1: groan and and fall asleep. That's because the blood never
Speaker 1: really coagulates. They've got the anti coagulating agents that is
Speaker 1: circulating around in their body. So it's not like they
Speaker 1: sit there and they become a lump and they just
Speaker 1: you know, hang out for eighteen months asleep, although they
Speaker 1: can subsist for eighteen months without food. But they are
Speaker 1: quite mobile even with these really full bellies. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: don't eat for a long time, but when they do eat,
Speaker 1: they really go for it. They'll remain in place for
Speaker 1: thirty minutes to six hours or more, filling up with
Speaker 1: a blood and if they can. For instance, you can
Speaker 1: take four or five leeches attached them to a rabbit
Speaker 1: and drain the life from it in just half an hour.
Speaker 1: That's how quick. And they can reach eleven times their
Speaker 1: actual size, uh, their their normal size as they bloat
Speaker 1: up on that blood. Pretty convenient right now, they have
Speaker 1: to make every every meal count. They'll attached to skin,
Speaker 1: but they've also been known to attach to eyeballs, uh,
Speaker 1: orifices in the throat um. There's a there's an account
Speaker 1: Napoleon's troops were marching from Egypt across the Sinai Peninsula
Speaker 1: to Syria, and so they're they're really parched. They've come
Speaker 1: across some water. They just fall upon it to start
Speaker 1: drinking as much as possible. But there were leeches in it,
Speaker 1: and so a number of the soldiers end up with
Speaker 1: leeches in their throat. There's some swelling, there's some choking,
Speaker 1: there's some death. Really her into stuff. All right. Well,
Speaker 1: let's add to a nightmare fuel by describing one leech
Speaker 1: species in particular which is fairly new to the roundup
Speaker 1: of leeches. And Uh, we're talking about a leech that
Speaker 1: goes by I don't on the street name of the
Speaker 1: t rex leech. Yes, we're talking about Tyronto bidella rex,
Speaker 1: the tyrant leech king. Uh. This guy reaches up to
Speaker 1: forty four point five millimeters in length and goes right
Speaker 1: for the body orifices of specifically the nose in the mouth.
Speaker 1: Um and uh, most generally it's feeding on aquatic animals,
Speaker 1: aquatic mammals rather uh and again go to the nose,
Speaker 1: the mouth and then they'll name me. Stay there for
Speaker 1: a week at a time, feasting. Yeah, this was discovered
Speaker 1: in two thousand and ten, uh in the Upper Amazon,
Speaker 1: when scientists plucked from the nose of a girl one
Speaker 1: of these t rex is who had recently been bathing
Speaker 1: in a river. So if that's not all just kind
Speaker 1: of like, okay, that's that's slightly uncomfortable. And now consider
Speaker 1: that the t rex has ferociously large teeth lining a
Speaker 1: single jaw. So this is an even even different variation.
Speaker 1: We have the three job, we have the two job,
Speaker 1: and now this is the one job leech, but with
Speaker 1: the teeth to make up for it. Well, and it's
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's even more dramatic. We see pictures of
Speaker 1: it because really we're talking about a leech that is
Speaker 1: less than three inches long, and then you see the
Speaker 1: teeth in comparison, and it's just kind of recoil a bit.
Speaker 1: But the t retch leech uses its teeth to saw
Speaker 1: into the tissues of mammals orifices. So again we're talking
Speaker 1: eyes eurefas rectum's jos sawing into it with its teeth.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, on that note, we're gonna take a break,
Speaker 1: and when we come back, we're going to discuss the
Speaker 1: role of the leach as the healer and uh also
Speaker 1: look a detective. All right, Now that you've had a
Speaker 1: palate cleanser with stamps dot com and we can get
Speaker 1: away from the old t rex, let's talk about leeches
Speaker 1: back in the day. Yeah, so leeches, they've been used
Speaker 1: in medicine for thousands of years and the once once
Speaker 1: believed to remove illness causing humors from the blood. So
Speaker 1: this is based in and very uh non scientific ideas
Speaker 1: about how the body works. I mean, some of the
Speaker 1: arguably the best ideas of the time, but still ideas
Speaker 1: that did not hold water. These are the humors of
Speaker 1: the body. We're talking about phlegm and blood and file.
Speaker 1: So the idea is that you let someone bleed a
Speaker 1: bit and that helps to balance out those different humors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: your humors are out of whack and you need to
Speaker 1: get rid of the bad blood. So yeah, you end
Speaker 1: up treating everything from gout to flash once to mental
Speaker 1: illness with a hefty dose of leeches. Uh. It's it's
Speaker 1: interesting that the word leech itself is derived from the
Speaker 1: Anglo Saxon word looks to heal, and medieval doctors actually
Speaker 1: called themselves leeches, which is interesting because I've run across
Speaker 1: that before, and I thought maybe it was used mockingly,
Speaker 1: you know, to say, oh, well he's just a leeches. No, no,
Speaker 1: I think with pride, I am a leech. What can
Speaker 1: I do for you today? Uh? Yeah, physicians applied lea
Speaker 1: just to areas like the gums, lips, the nose, fingers,
Speaker 1: and even quote the mouth of the womb, according to
Speaker 1: a medical text from So why would they do that?
Speaker 1: Because granted, there are a lot of crazy ideas that
Speaker 1: have become that have had their day in history treating
Speaker 1: using some sort of natural creature or a derivative in
Speaker 1: in order to attempt to treat some sort of malady.
Speaker 1: But in this case, we're coming down to two key
Speaker 1: things about the leach. First of all, when a leech
Speaker 1: attack attaches, like many parasitic organisms, it uh, it is
Speaker 1: desensitizing the sensations, so you're not feeling the pain of
Speaker 1: it actually uh slicing into your flesh for a meal.
Speaker 1: But then, of course the other thing is your wound.
Speaker 1: This freshly cut wound is a font from which this
Speaker 1: leech wishes to drink and does not want that font
Speaker 1: to close before it has had its fill. So the
Speaker 1: leech has um an anticoagulant in its saliva as well.
Speaker 1: That prohibits the the the coagulation of blood keeps it flowing. Okay,
Speaker 1: So it's a end way to blood let someone because
Speaker 1: they can't really feel it, and it's a way to
Speaker 1: keep that blood flowing too. Damaged tissues, right, So it
Speaker 1: gives a fresh supply to any sort of damaged tissues.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing. It became so popular in the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century that the species became endangered in Europe. In
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty three, French doctors imported forty one million, five
Speaker 1: hundred thousand leeches. Yeah, I was reading how in the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century had governments that were imposing carraffs and trade bands.
Speaker 1: There was a leech smuggling operation on the Russian border,
Speaker 1: and and this was all the more difficult to because
Speaker 1: of the time. Breeding efforts weren't all that successful, so
Speaker 1: you just had leech catchers going out into the wild
Speaker 1: and just harvesting them, to the point that that the
Speaker 1: medicinal leech was in danger of extinction at one point,
Speaker 1: and to this day it's it's rarity in the in
Speaker 1: the wild is partially attributed to over harvesting. So you know,
Speaker 1: physicians of old were sort of onto something, right, this
Speaker 1: idea that maybe this could help in terms of bringing
Speaker 1: fresh blood to damage tissues. On the other hand, you
Speaker 1: have to say that the leech's ability to cure or
Speaker 1: wildly overseated, so flatulence probably not cured by this. In fact,
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that they used it for, um,
Speaker 1: And that's kind of what we think of today, is
Speaker 1: that this was this barbaric use of leeches. It's like saying, oh,
Speaker 1: I have a migraine, Well, let a wolverine chew on
Speaker 1: your leg and you'll get over that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But no, that does not work. It doesn't work. But
Speaker 1: at heart, that the end of the reason, like the
Speaker 1: core reason that the leech does have a place in
Speaker 1: modern medicine is that at heart, as a parasite, a
Speaker 1: leech is a manipulator of human physiology, much like a
Speaker 1: doctor in in in a very broad um scheme of things.
Speaker 1: So if you want to manipulate the way tissues work,
Speaker 1: a lot of times we're always looking to nature for examples,
Speaker 1: for for some bio inspiration on how nature has evolved
Speaker 1: to tackle a problem. So here's a case where this
Speaker 1: teacher has evolved over millions of years to uh be
Speaker 1: an expert at manipulating blood flow through tissue. And so
Speaker 1: when a doctor, a modern doctor, needs to manipulate blood
Speaker 1: flow through tissue, we turned to the leech. That's right,
Speaker 1: and that's why they are now the comeback kid. And
Speaker 1: now they are the symbiotic sort of parasite as as
Speaker 1: opposed to one that's just uh one that we should
Speaker 1: fear and that seems barbaric. In medieval medicine, Yeah, for instance,
Speaker 1: tissue grafting and limb reattachment surgery, this is a big one.
Speaker 1: Surgeons sometimes use the leeches to remove pools of congested
Speaker 1: blood from swollen areas that interfere with the circulation and
Speaker 1: can cause tissue death following surgery. Um. So this in
Speaker 1: addition to the way that the the herodin the intercollegulate
Speaker 1: prevents clotting in the local anesthetic in it that that
Speaker 1: also features some antibiotic properties. Yeah, and this uh actually
Speaker 1: sort of came to light more in a case in
Speaker 1: nine five in which there was a harder toward physician
Speaker 1: who was having a hard time reattaching the ear of
Speaker 1: a five year old child. The tiny veins kept clotting,
Speaker 1: and so it's really difficult to try to um reattach
Speaker 1: something with these minute veins, right, so the physician thought,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll use a leech and lo and behold he
Speaker 1: did it. It helped those tiny little minute veins to
Speaker 1: get fresh blood, and the ear was saved, and people
Speaker 1: began to reconsider the leecher's role in medicine. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: and as as your point out a specifically with microsurgery,
Speaker 1: where you're dealing with these tiny blood vessels that that
Speaker 1: are very difficult to manipulate. Yes, since then, lee just
Speaker 1: have helped to save lives and limbs, reducing severe and
Speaker 1: dangerous venous and gorgement post surgery and fingers toes, ears,
Speaker 1: scalp reattachments, limb transplants, skin flap surgery, and breast reconstruction. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and there are other areas where that where researchers
Speaker 1: are looking at possible applications. UM. For instance, uh uh.
Speaker 1: Andreas Michelson, a researcher at the University of Duisburg Essen
Speaker 1: in Germany, suggests that leech therapy may lessen the pain
Speaker 1: and inflammation associated with osteo arthritis. Um. You know this,
Speaker 1: of course, is a debilitating disease where the bones can
Speaker 1: grind against one another and the cartilage is worn down
Speaker 1: over time. So in order to get medicinal leeches for use,
Speaker 1: how do you how do you go about it? Still
Speaker 1: collect them in the backyard. Well, collecting leeches is one way,
Speaker 1: and certainly leeches are collected, I should point out not
Speaker 1: only for medicinal use, but also is bait and fishing.
Speaker 1: And in order to collect leeches, I was I was
Speaker 1: thinking maybe it involves some you know, hard on his
Speaker 1: luck individual just taking a dive into the leechy waters
Speaker 1: and then coming out and plucking them off. But generally
Speaker 1: what it involves is like beef kidneys in a bag.
Speaker 1: Just put beef kidneys in a bag. They go for it.
Speaker 1: Like I said, their their their taste is rather simple.
Speaker 1: So in a sense they're rather easy to catch. That
Speaker 1: sounds about right, Yeah, beef kidneys in a bag that
Speaker 1: they are then submerged into water and then the leeches come.
Speaker 1: Then you can the bag out and you've got a
Speaker 1: bunch of leeches, all right. So I wonder if that's
Speaker 1: one of the techniques that bio Farm, which is a
Speaker 1: company based in Britain, uses because they are the go
Speaker 1: to source for leeches in the medical community, and they
Speaker 1: provide tens of thousands of leeches every year to hospitals
Speaker 1: and dozens of countries, and two species are commonly used
Speaker 1: in leech therapy, and they can last for about up
Speaker 1: to ten days. Okay, so they're definitely male safe. You
Speaker 1: can send them to the mail. They're males. Now. The
Speaker 1: downsides here are that sometimes they slip off patients and
Speaker 1: they reattach themselves in unwanted places. Yeah, it's a bit
Speaker 1: like hurting kittens in some respects. They have to just
Speaker 1: you have to put gas around the surgical side and
Speaker 1: just really limit where they can go and say this
Speaker 1: is the only spot you're allowed to feed from right here.
Speaker 1: This is the one second down side. They fill up,
Speaker 1: they get full, they fall off. Yes, okay, of course
Speaker 1: you can replace that one with another one. But for
Speaker 1: those who just cannot even stand the idea of a
Speaker 1: leech sucking on them, even though it might save their life. Uh.
Speaker 1: There is Nadine Connor who is a University of Wisconsin
Speaker 1: atmos and scientists who in two thousand and one helped
Speaker 1: develop a mechanical leech. The device looks a little bit
Speaker 1: like a small bottle attached to a section cup, and
Speaker 1: it delivers that anti coagulating drug. Then the most important
Speaker 1: part right to damage tissue and then gently sucks out
Speaker 1: as much blood as needed, never drops off and says, oh,
Speaker 1: I need a nap. So it's like all the power
Speaker 1: of the leech, but without the having to deal with
Speaker 1: the drama and the attitudes and the prima donna of
Speaker 1: the leech. Yeah, there's no like separate dressing room. It's
Speaker 1: just it doesn't care. This mechanical leech. Now, another advantage
Speaker 1: of the mechanical leech is that up to twenty of
Speaker 1: patients that are treated with real leeches developed infection caused
Speaker 1: by aeromanus hydrophilia of bacteria that leaves and lives in
Speaker 1: the leech is gut. And these infections are easily treated
Speaker 1: with antibiotics. But again, it's another reason to ry and
Speaker 1: remove ourselves from having to depend on a natural parasite. Indeed,
Speaker 1: if this hasn't changed your ideas of leeches or you know,
Speaker 1: cast it a new light of how leeches can operate
Speaker 1: out there in the world, you have to consider this
Speaker 1: next scenario. Uh, it's a it's a bit like Sherlock Leach, right,
Speaker 1: Sherlock Leach. Yes, you can imagine the leech creeping onto
Speaker 1: the scene of the crime and you know, wearing the hat,
Speaker 1: smoking the pipe, playing the violin. It's not quite like that.
Speaker 1: So about ten years ago, uh, we had this guy
Speaker 1: named Peter Cannon and uh, this is in Tasmania. He
Speaker 1: ties up a seventy one year old woman in a
Speaker 1: remote home, steals several hundred dollars in cash, and uh,
Speaker 1: the thing he doesn't realize that he's committing this crime
Speaker 1: is that he has a leech attached to him. And
Speaker 1: it is and this is luck would have it. It's
Speaker 1: just finished feeding on him as he's perpetrating this crime
Speaker 1: and does what a leech does when it's filled up,
Speaker 1: It drops off and then he takes off. Right. So
Speaker 1: this scene of the the scene of the crime. So
Speaker 1: you can imagine the detectives coming in. They're looking around
Speaker 1: and then somebody thinks to themselves, hey, there's a full
Speaker 1: leech on the ground. I wondered that as anyway involved.
Speaker 1: And because they all checked themselves and said, I don't
Speaker 1: have lee, you know that the victim of the crime
Speaker 1: doesn't have any leech bites. So where did this mysterious
Speaker 1: leech come from? That's so that's clearly bloated on blood. Well, Uh,
Speaker 1: the case had remained unsolved up until forensic experts extracted
Speaker 1: DNA from the leeches gut contents, and then they matched
Speaker 1: up fingerprint profiles to those on a record for Cannon.
Speaker 1: Peter Cannon, the perpetrator here, and then he ended up
Speaker 1: leading guilty and and they had him. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: this is such a great story because here's this jerk
Speaker 1: who tied up this old lady. Thought he was being
Speaker 1: really clever. He was probably on foot going through the bush,
Speaker 1: got one of these leeches stuck to him, made off
Speaker 1: scott free. He thinks that. Eight years later he gets
Speaker 1: hold over. I think it's for a drug offense, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he gets cross checked with that database. Bam. Detective Leech
Speaker 1: is on the case. I wonder if they let into
Speaker 1: it by saying, so, Mr Cannon, have you ever had
Speaker 1: a leech attached to your body? And he's stone for
Speaker 1: a curve, like, what what can they possibly have on me?
Speaker 1: And then the leech they bring the leech in, the
Speaker 1: leech like points at him through the class. I think
Speaker 1: that's the one exactly what happened. I think he had
Speaker 1: a pipe in the hat and everything. It's elementary nice,
Speaker 1: all right. Before we leave this topic that I would
Speaker 1: do want to mention I mentioned that that to overharvesting
Speaker 1: of reaches leeches is one of the reasons that medicinal
Speaker 1: leeches are rare in the natural world today. Another suspected
Speaker 1: reason is that when leeches are young, they can't yet
Speaker 1: attach to larger mammals. They have to attach to frogs.
Speaker 1: So one theory is that as the as the frogs
Speaker 1: become more scarce, then it's harder for young leeches to
Speaker 1: get those first couple of meals that they need in
Speaker 1: order to reach adulthood. So there you go. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's another case for the circle of life and how
Speaker 1: everything effects everything else, right, yeah, and uh, and that
Speaker 1: includes the leach. So yeah, we hope that you feel
Speaker 1: a little, uh, a little more informed about the leech
Speaker 1: and about the use of leech, of the leech in medicine.
Speaker 1: And certainly the next time you say watch stand by
Speaker 1: me or just go swimming in the local watering hole,
Speaker 1: you'll you'll reconsider that lovely creature that has perhaps attached
Speaker 1: to your body if you want to learn more about
Speaker 1: leeches and everything else that we cover, well you can
Speaker 1: get somewhere very special. Yeah, go to stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. That's the mothership. That's where we
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Speaker 1: And Hey, if you want to get in touch with
Speaker 1: us a more an old fashioned way, a more one
Speaker 1: on one way, well Julie has the answer for it.
Speaker 1: That's right. If you want to tell us in detail
Speaker 1: about your own leech stories, especially Robert, I know he
Speaker 1: wants a lot of detail on to attaching to your mind. Um,
Speaker 1: you can describe it and then send it to blow
Speaker 1: the mind at discovery dot com for more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works
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