WEBVTT - Latching on to Leeches 0:00:01.560 --> 0:00:04.720 Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:16.200 Works dot com. Hey, guys, welcome to the podcast. This 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:18.040 is Alison I don't know, it's a science editor how 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:20.680 stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:23.560 writer and how stuff Works dot Com. And uh, you know, 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:26.840 I think we all love stories of of of science 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:29.480 getting it right and scientists, you know, really nailing something 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:32.199 with their experiments and inventions. You know, it gives us 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:36.960 you know, everything from uh you know penicillin too. You know, 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:40.280 robots that can tell us what wine to have with dinner, 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:43.879 you know that kind of stuff. Indeed stuff Yeah, so 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:49.520 I mean, you know, robot crowd pleaser. Yeah. In Japan. Uh, 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.159 we love stories where where science works. But I I 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:55.640 also really love these stories where science really ends up 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:59.080 just on a winding goat path to nowhere. And uh 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:01.320 and one of one of my favorite examples of this, 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:03.560 at least that I've discovered in in the last year, 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:08.759 so uh comes to a courtesy of Yorkshire is George Merryweather. 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:13.960 And this is back in the eighteen hundreds. He invented 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:16.840 this thing called the tempest Prognosticator. That is a pretty 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:20.120 fancy title. Yeah, and I've seen some some photographs of 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:22.880 the of some replicas of it. It basically looked like 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:25.479 a steampunk merry go round, all right, you know it's 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:28.080 very Victorian era kind of an invention. Uh, you know, 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:33.040 it's eighteen fifties, eighteen fifty one actually and uh except 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:36.440 instead of little um, little wooden animals to ride on 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:39.600 in the school miniature carousel deal, Uh, there were little 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:41.959 glass bottles and each one had a leech in it, 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:46.760 a nice little, you know, fat bloodsucking slug type worm creature. 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:51.040 Doesn't sound well. It was on display at the World's 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:55.360 Fair and the Great, the Great Exhibition London's Crystal Palace, 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:59.440 and the whole purpose of this was it was a barometer. 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:03.840 Essential of course, the barometer is the divice you know, 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:05.960 of course, a barometer. The whole deal is, you know, 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:09.000 it's for atmospheric pressure in all and um, and atmospheric 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:10.760 pressure is one of the key indicators of what the 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:13.240 weather is going to do and how to leaches enter 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:16.560 into this holy equation. Well, apparently there's like this, you know, 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:18.520 there's all there are all these folk tales about like oh, 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:20.320 if you go outside and you see a wooly worm 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:22.440 halfway up a trunk. It means there's gonna be a tornado. 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:24.440 You know, there's all you know, that kind of stuff. 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:27.160 And apparently there was like some sort of folk tradition 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:30.720 about leeches being able to tache. Yeah, yeah, And I 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:32.280 guess it's kind of like you're in a time when 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:35.680 science there's a lot of enthusiasm about science, and sometimes 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:39.680 science gets mixed up with some thoroughly unscientific ideas like this. 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:45.440 And so this idea emerged that leeches could sense electromagnetic 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:50.320 changes in the atmosphere them. So naturally, what you do 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:52.840 is you build a little carousel type device with all 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:55.840 these with these twelve glass vials, each one has a 0:02:55.880 --> 0:03:00.360 little little leech in it. And if they that the 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.240 ideas that the leeches will sense this change in the 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:06.000 air and they'll start crawling up the tube to get 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:09.360 to an escape area, all right. And if they go 0:03:09.480 --> 0:03:12.520 up then they will sit, they'll trigger this little hammer 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:15.160 that'll ring a bell which will let be the owner 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:18.679 of the tempes prognasticator know that some some bad weather 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:21.480 is coming his way. Okay, so a couple of things 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:25.560 here about the tempest problem. What if you have an 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:28.160 outlier leech who really just likes to climb up the tube, 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:30.680 you know, bec and get cozy up there, maybe take 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:33.360 a little leech nap or whatever. And then how do 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:35.240 you figure out like is it six out of the 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.240 twelve leeches or eight of the twelve or do all 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:40.440 twelve leeches have to crawl up and you know hit 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:42.800 the hammer and sound the bell? How does this work? 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:46.400 And what if leeches are influencing one another's behavior, like 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:48.600 one leech crawls up, then oh that guy's gone up. 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:50.200 You must know something, So I'm gonna go up to 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:52.840 I mean, how does this all work? Yeah? I think 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.240 you're clearly thinking about it more than the guy who 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:57.640 invented it, Like these are some questions you should have 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:01.960 been asking. Um. But the interesting thing thing about it 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:04.119 is you can you can actually see a working replica 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:08.880 of this at a barometer exhibition in Devon, England, and 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:12.880 then there's also one at the Whitby Museum in North Yorkshire. 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.200 Um So, anyway, I was really fascinated. That comes courtesy 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:21.680 of Mark Siddall's excellent leech blog bidela Nea, which apparently 0:04:21.680 --> 0:04:25.720 means leach News and Victorian web dot Org. Great. Yeah, 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:31.760 so there's something still enriched or yeah, enriched by bad science. 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:34.360 So so that's some bad science to start off. Well, 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.080 let's let's before we get all crazy on Merryweather. I 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.600 would like to give him credit for trying, right, some 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:43.320 of these crazy ideas succeed. Who knows, Yeah, I mean 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:46.080 and and it's I actually like to envision what the 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:48.880 world could have been like had this work, you know, 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:50.760 really taken up. Like what if we were living in 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:54.680 an age where things like the leech barometer or um 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.000 or some of the other crazy ideas that take far 0:04:57.040 --> 0:04:59.600 too long to explain were like the predominant science in 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:02.479 ACTU work. So today we were like, oh, I don't 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:03.800 know what the weather is going to do tomorrow. I 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.279 gotta go get a fresh pail of leeches for my 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:09.680 for for my machinery. You know. Well, I feel sure 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:13.440 that in some parallel universe perhaps they are, hopefully so. 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:17.840 But in this world leeches uh are pretty much used 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:22.960 for um basically one thing. Second blood yep, suckond blood. 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:24.960 That's what they're good for. Let's let's do a little 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:28.440 review of the leech. Okay, so it's not just the leech, 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:30.719 of course, there are many different species, are hundreds in 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.600 facts six hundred and fifty um and they arranged in 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:36.000 size it can be anywhere from one centimeter to a 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:38.920 little less than a foot. And of course they live 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:41.280 in and around water. I have to say, when I 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:44.640 was were proposed this podcast topic, I kept on thinking 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:49.120 of that scene by a the scene from stand By Me. Yeah, yeah, 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:52.760 that's that's my premier exposure to that. That one's pretty gross. 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:55.839 Stephen King also I hit us with a pretty grotesque 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:59.760 one in the novel It. I don't remember that well. 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:02.200 I do because it was pretty traumatic when I read 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:08.280 it at like age twelve or something. So some leeches, 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:10.400 not all of them, feed on blood. Some of them 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:13.599 are known to uh ingest a little plant material, decaying 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:17.000 plant materials specifically, and they really live just about anywhere 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:20.000 there's water. Yeah, they prefer fresh, but I've seen some 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.040 reports of them living in pretty salty popping up it's 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:27.720 pretty salty water too. So how do they find their host? Well, 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:31.720 they apparently detect things like skin oils, blood, heat, carbon 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:35.240 dioxide that we're breathing out blood and heat mean right, yeah, 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:37.880 blood and heat not blood heat. That sounds like you've 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:39.920 ever heard of that scientific It sounds like a really 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:46.040 cheesy like cop film blood heat and they and they 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:48.720 sniff out some carbon dioxide, right yeah, yeah, and they 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:50.920 can you know you when you see them on skin, 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:52.640 of course, they're they're kind of like little slugs and 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:55.119 they don't have a lot of movement, but in water 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:57.360 they're pretty swift. They can just swim around all over 0:06:57.400 --> 0:06:59.480 the place. That's their abotat, Yeah, with a nice little 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:03.560 undulating motion they have. They have two suckers, one on 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:06.680 each end. The rear suction cup helps the leech to 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:10.640 move around on dryer surfaces, um, like you know, your 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:14.280 thigh or whatever. Uh and uh, and to attach the 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:16.560 host in the front suction cup. That's where you have 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.400 a mouth with like throe with these three sharp jaws 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:23.239 which leave a y shaped bite. Okay, I wasn't familiar 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:25.480 with the shape of the bite. Yeah, I don't know 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:27.360 that I've ever had a leech attached to me. I 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:31.880 have not, thank thee. Yeah, I definitely slam in some 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:36.560 waters where I could have gotten one. But yeah, yeah. 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:39.480 So they don't feed all that often, but when they do, 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:43.840 they eat an insane amount. Um. You said it a 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:46.440 statistic in here that said a four or five large 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:48.680 leeches can drain the life from a rabbit in half 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:52.720 an hour, and they're they're basically these blood balloons. Yeah, 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:54.800 and they can reach several times their own body way. 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:57.240 Imagine that you sat down to a meal and you 0:07:57.320 --> 0:08:00.320 just kept eating and eating and eating. I mean, I 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:02.120 don't know how much you weigh now, you probably don't 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:04.400 want to give that away on air, but just eating 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:06.800 several times your body weight, yeah, it would be pretty grass. 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:08.280 I mean, it seems like I mean, I think ticks 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:10.400 do pretty much the same thing. It's like, I guess, 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:14.560 a pretty pretty common like parasite practice and also things 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:17.119 like you know, monitor lizards, you know other creatures where 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.600 when you get that one meal, you just bet yourself silly. Yeah, 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:22.400 and then you can just spend the rest of the 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:25.640 time digesting it. Yeah. And they eat for quite a 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:28.880 while too. Sometimes they can remain in place for as 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.720 little as thirty minutes, but like six hours, just filling 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:35.000 up on that blood. Well. So the cool thing is um. 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:38.040 The saliva has a host of really interesting components, and 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:42.040 some of them are anesthetic and anti coagulants um and 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:46.160 there's one in particular called Harridan harudin It's like sharooken 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:50.880 and street fire, so the host doesn't feel the incision, 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:55.120 and you know, their their meal can continue uninterrupted without 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:58.240 any blood cloths, without the host noticing. I'm assuming yeah, 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:00.800 and they they just keep gorging them else and blood 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:02.640 and then bang oh if they get enough and they 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:06.520 roll their fat little selves off to digest the meal. Yeah. 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.480 I was really and impressed by by a couple of 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:12.199 the things that ran across because if they're do tell 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:15.560 them yes, definitely, Like well, first of all that and 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:18.040 you can find pictures of this. They can attach to 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.240 your eye that is really terrible and you have to 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:23.360 be careful removing them because you're like, oh, I pulled 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:25.080 the leech off, but they're still like leech head in 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:27.520 my eyeball, you know, kind of situation which is just 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:30.079 And they can attach to your throat and I mean, 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:32.640 of course they can attach to your yeah, but now 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:36.040 just the outside of the inside, which there was this 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.840 incident where Napoleon's troops were marching from Egypt across the 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:43.800 Sinai Peninsula to Syria and this is like they get 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:46.080 really thirsty, right, so what do you do. You start 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:49.000 drinking all the water you can find even when they're 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:51.080 just a bunch of leeches in the water. So they 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:53.520 ended up getting leeches inside their mouth and in their throat, 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:55.760 and like some guys ended up sort of coming to 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.240 blood loss, but other people they were the leeches were 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:01.679 just drinking blood out of the inside of their throat 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:04.120 and it was just like making it just caused all 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:08.080 this like swelling, and then they couldn't breathe, and it's grotesque. 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:11.480 That is a really terrible way to die. Imagine you 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:14.280 probably didn't even know, you know, And would it be 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:16.920 worse to now? I wonder in that instance, like I 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:18.840 don't know why I can't breathe, or I know I 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:22.040 can't breathe because leeches are, you know, sucking on my 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:25.080 throat and slowly killing me. I wonder if knowledge is 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:26.880 better or worse in that instance. I don't know. You 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.040 need something like really sharp to start munching on. I 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:32.840 guess like wheat fins or something, you know, some cool 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:36.480 ranch doritos so you can unlatch them. Of course, leeches 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:39.319 as healers is not a new concept at all. We've 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:44.080 been using them for ages um and yeah, particularly in medicine, 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:47.880 And why don't you tell us about the humors. Oh yeah, yeah. 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:50.240 So you know there's the old uh you know, kind 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:52.680 of like medieval idea that the body is ruled by 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.280 four humors and uh, and when these humors get out 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.360 of balance, that did you out? Did you look up 0:10:57.400 --> 0:10:59.400 what the four humors were? I'm out of trouble. Remember 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:02.080 what the four are? There's there's bile, and there's blood, 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:04.560 and then there are two other kind of nasty things. 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:08.560 I think it's maybe, um, okay, I can't remember. Okay, 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:10.240 so but therefore them you can look them up there. 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:12.319 I don't know why I'm forgetting the other ones. But uh, 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:14.320 but anyway, you know, these things get out of balance 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:18.000 and then they can cause everything from like schizophrenia to 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:21.720 flash onnes you know, it's like any kind of medical problem. 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:23.600 It's like, oh, well, your humors are out of whack, 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:26.320 let's throw some leeches of that problem. I would like 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:27.880 to go to the med school where you only have 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:30.920 to learn about humors. Back in the day, people, Um, 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:35.880 you haven't the medieval medical schools. Yeah, and so leeches 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:38.400 they pretty much threw leeches or not through I guess 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.000 they gently attached the leeches to to any of these 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:43.000 any and all of these illnesses. Well, right, Well, I 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:44.600 guess one of the things, you know, which we'll get 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:46.480 to in a second, is they there are things that 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.839 they can be very useful for indeed, and we'll get 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:51.160 to those. Yeah, And I guess it's kind of like 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:53.120 if you know you're in you're in the Middle Ages, 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:55.920 and especially if you're I mean granted, in the Middle 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.000 Ages there were areas where people were actually thinking about 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:01.240 what they were doing, but they necessarily have like the 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:05.000 same scientific principles and standards to to to to make 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:07.280 sure you know what you're doing. So you know, it's 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:08.560 just kind of like throwing a lot of things at 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:11.600 the wall and seeing what sticks, but not necessarily you know, 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:16.240 rigorous sis just through a lot of leeches at a problem, 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:18.600 see what trash. Yeah, but I mean in a sense, 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:20.680 it does make sense if you have something that you 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:23.960 know it works or you know, maybe it works on um, 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:26.400 you know, when you have a pool of blood sitting 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:28.959 there and a leech can suck that up, then I mean, 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:31.120 why not you know, try to extend the boundaries of 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:34.559 that particular therapy, and maybe that's what they're doing. Yeah, 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:38.200 it was just without regulation or you know, our science 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:40.760 necessarily Again in check, it seems like it would be 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.440 a fun time to be a medieval doctor. Yeah. Generally 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:45.600 when you think of medieval medicine, you think fun time. 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:50.440 But but anyway, so yeah, but for the longest Yeah, 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:53.760 the medicinal use of leeches was was big business. Like 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:57.400 nineteenth century governments even had to impose tariffs and trade 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:00.000 bands because, like, people were using so many of them. 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.400 It's like they were at the verge of extinction at times. 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:06.160 There was even leech smuggling going on around the Russian border. 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:10.839 So I love the ideas, you know, blood drinking parasites 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:15.480 as currency. Yeah, totally. And then um, the problem was 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.560 was that breeding efforts weren't all that successful, and so 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:22.400 some areas there were actually leeches were collected, you wrote, 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:24.640 to the point of near extinction. Yeah, And I wonder 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:26.400 what it was like to be a leach collector, Like, 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:28.400 was it basically you just your head down to the 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:31.120 leech pond and you stick your arm in. I think, see, 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:32.880 I feel like I've read something about someone that was 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:35.319 a leach collector, but it might have been something fictional. 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:39.439 But you'll have to enlighten us on and Twitter when 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:43.600 you find it. So in reality, um, the leaches probably 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:46.920 had little effect on all of these different illnesses they 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:49.800 were used to treat. And by the late nineteenth century 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.920 or so that the blood letting had fallen out of favor. Yeah, 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:54.920 because it wasn't working for most things, and it kind 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:57.800 of became viewed as barbaric and it just wasn't refined 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.840 enough and you know again and it wasn't doing most 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:03.719 of what it claimed to do. But then there was 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:07.400 a resurgence in modern medicine. And really essential to this 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:12.120 is the particular what the what the substance in question 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:16.640 is is rudin again and especially the medical in the 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:24.800 medical leech, which is here do medicinallys um say that again, No, 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:31.400 it's just the medical leech in this podcast, right. So, Um, 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:33.680 something that I was thinking about when we were talking 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:37.520 about doing this podcast was, Okay, we have this resurgence 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.400 of leeches in modern medicine. You know, why don't we 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:42.880 just use drugs that are derived from the herod in 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:47.000 the polypeptide that you know that conhibit the enzyme thrombin 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:49.480 from inducing blood clouds. Why don't why don't we just 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:51.720 you know, derive substances from this in the lab and 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:54.520 you know, and in fact we have we do have 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:56.560 drugs like this. So it just made me wonder if 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:59.080 leeches would fall out of favor, because maybe you'd rather 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:01.960 pop a pill then, you know, slap a leech on. Well, 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:03.960 I think like some of the things working in its favors. 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:08.160 I understand that hedin herodin is it'cause you don't get 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:09.560 a lot of it from a from a from an 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:12.880 individual leach if you try and harvest it, and and 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:16.160 and I understand it's like that's synthesizing. It is rather 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:21.040 problematic and complicated as well. Um. But but also leeches 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.520 are pretty easy to to to maintain. I think you 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:26.520 have to like change their water a lot, but you 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:28.520 know you can you can like mail them and stuff. 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:30.240 I mean not like in an envelope and like a 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:34.120 little a special procedure. Please don't mail as any leaches. 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.360 But but but you know, they're they're pretty hardy, um, 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:40.080 and they're easy to apply and and it's like pretty 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:41.760 easy to regulate. It's like you need to drain more 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:45.200 blood slap on another leech. You know. Well, in particular, 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:47.960 surgeons have found them pretty useful and cheat by the way, 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.360 they're pretty cheap, right, well, so surgeons have found them 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:54.800 pretty useful for particular kinds of surgeries like tissue grafting 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:58.040 or say I have to reattach a limb, Hey, I 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:01.520 might want to have some leeches backups waiting to be used. 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:04.200 And they're handy because of course they can remove the 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:07.480 pools of congested blood from swollen areas that are going 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:11.680 to interfere with circulation and that can cause tissu death eventually, 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:13.760 you know, to post surgery. Yeah, it all comes back 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:16.560 to this a lot. First the heroine, which is an antacoguant, 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:21.200 and then also the the sliva also has these local 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:24.000 anesthetic an aesthetic properties that also have to I think 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:26.480 they can have sort of an anti biotic kind of 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:29.000 reaction as well. Yeah, the sliva is kind of a 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:32.480 natural medicine chest of all sorts of interesting stuff. And 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:34.600 another interesting thing that you're talking about was that the 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:39.240 leech is really handy in microsurgery. Yeah, and that's when 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:43.040 you're talking about reattaching these really tiny veins like in 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:46.880 a child for example. Yeah. Yeah, there was a case 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:49.760 where um, a Harvard physician was he was having a 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:51.640 lot of trouble reattaching the year of a five year 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:54.760 old and uh, because they're all these little tiny veins 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:57.440 and they keep clotting, and he was able to successfully 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.560 use leeches to to help it. Because again they're they're 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:02.680 kind of like they're little pumps, you know, you put 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:04.800 them on and they start. They cause blood to circulate 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:07.399 and they keep it from clotting. Um. I'm tempted to 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:12.560 make some really convoluted metaphor about about economic resurgence, but 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:16.000 I'm going to hold that. Yeah, apparently these are sometimes 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:19.760 they're also sometimes used with with diabetics, uh, because you 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:23.080 end up with this like with thicker blood and uh, 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:26.560 and there's a higher risk of blood clots. So again 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:31.440 the heroinin can potentially be used to promote a better 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:34.800 circulation or at least in in cases where it supposes 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:39.399 a serious threat. And then you also came across a 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:42.719 German gentleman, a researcher by the name of Andrea Snickelsson. 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:45.040 And he's out of or at least he was at 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:50.840 the time out of the University of Dusburg Essen in Germany. Apologies, 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:53.679 I hope I had to hit that German pronunciation. Okay, 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:58.160 but this gentleman was suggesting that leech therapy may lessen 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:02.040 the pain and inflammation associated with osteoarthritis. Um um, you 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:04.600 guys know that's you know, an inflammatory disease, and the 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:07.600 bones can grind against one another because the card hass 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:10.600 been worn down. It's incredibly painful, a lot of daily 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:14.320 pain that arises with this condition. And I was confused 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:17.600 as to how this, how how leeches might tie into 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:24.120 osteoarthritis until I remembered that, you know, the the saliva 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:26.720 of a leech, it does have so many substances, and 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:28.600 so the reason why leeches might be used in this 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:32.200 instance isn't for the bloodletting, but rather for the anesthetic, 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:37.400 the analgesic properties of that saliva, and so um. Nicholson 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:39.560 has done a couple of small studies. He did one, 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:42.360 I think it had an end of sixteen or so, 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:46.040 and uh, it was by no means definitive, but he 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:49.080 tested it out and um, you know, gave the patients 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:52.919 half the patients treatment with leech therapy, just a single treatment, 0:18:52.960 --> 0:18:56.680 and then a half with whatever prescribed corsotherapy was out 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:00.600 at the time. And uh, with this single treatment they did. Uh, 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:03.960 the osteoarthritists. Patients did report, in fact some lessening of pain. 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:07.520 Um and in fact the effects from that one single 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:09.760 treatment lasted for up to a month. I believe the 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:12.600 study had said, um, so it's kind of interesting. And 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.200 then again, you know, he he couldn't drop the leech 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:18.920 and it's promised for osteoarthritis, so he looked into it later, 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:21.680 bigger study I think it was in two thousand three, 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:25.760 fifty one patients and the same thing. Your control group 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:28.240 got whatever prescribed, of course the therapy. A couple of 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:32.119 people got leech therapy, and again he thought that people 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:36.680 reporting significantly less pain, although the effect dropped off I 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.520 think after a week in this case. So it's kind 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:41.480 of interesting. And even more interesting is Robert and I 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:45.119 were talking about this podcast right before we went in 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:47.520 the studio. You know, we'd like to nail this down 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:50.800 so tightly for you guys listeners. And if there's an 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:53.720 editor here who overheard our conversation, and she grew really 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:59.280 interested that leeches could be used for steo athritists, especially 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:02.359 as she was allergic to painkillers. So we may have 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:04.639 turned someone on at how staff works dot com to 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:07.840 using leeches which I thought was interesting. We'll see we 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:09.399 have to follow up with her how that works, and 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:11.080 maybe she could make a guest appearance on her show 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:13.760 sometimes tell us how it's going. Now. One thing to 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:16.639 keep in mind with the leeches is that apparently up 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:24.919 of patients treated with the leeches developed infections caused by 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.560 back to I'm gonna I'm gonna try and call it 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:33.479 say the bacteria aero mons hydrophilia. Alright, that's my guests anyway, 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:37.960 at that particum pronunciation. Anyway, So these infections are apparently 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.760 not that huger deal. They can be treated with antibiotics 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:42.879 and uh, but it's led some researchers should try and 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:47.479 develop artificial leeches, robot leeches, I guess, like little pumps 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:49.880 and all. But I've been going of the problems there 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.280 is that again, leeches are cheap, they're easy to use. 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:54.640 If you need more, you can just slap on another one, 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:57.720 and uh, you know, so the technology hasn't exactly picked 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.000