Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, guys, welcome to the podcast. This
Speaker 1: is Alison I don't know, it's a science editor how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science
Speaker 1: writer and how stuff Works dot Com. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: I think we all love stories of of of science
Speaker 1: getting it right and scientists, you know, really nailing something
Speaker 1: with their experiments and inventions. You know, it gives us
Speaker 1: you know, everything from uh you know penicillin too. You know,
Speaker 1: robots that can tell us what wine to have with dinner,
Speaker 1: you know that kind of stuff. Indeed stuff Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, robot crowd pleaser. Yeah. In Japan. Uh,
Speaker 1: we love stories where where science works. But I I
Speaker 1: also really love these stories where science really ends up
Speaker 1: just on a winding goat path to nowhere. And uh
Speaker 1: and one of one of my favorite examples of this,
Speaker 1: at least that I've discovered in in the last year,
Speaker 1: so uh comes to a courtesy of Yorkshire is George Merryweather.
Speaker 1: And this is back in the eighteen hundreds. He invented
Speaker 1: this thing called the tempest Prognosticator. That is a pretty
Speaker 1: fancy title. Yeah, and I've seen some some photographs of
Speaker 1: the of some replicas of it. It basically looked like
Speaker 1: a steampunk merry go round, all right, you know it's
Speaker 1: very Victorian era kind of an invention. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's eighteen fifties, eighteen fifty one actually and uh except
Speaker 1: instead of little um, little wooden animals to ride on
Speaker 1: in the school miniature carousel deal, Uh, there were little
Speaker 1: glass bottles and each one had a leech in it,
Speaker 1: a nice little, you know, fat bloodsucking slug type worm creature.
Speaker 1: Doesn't sound well. It was on display at the World's
Speaker 1: Fair and the Great, the Great Exhibition London's Crystal Palace,
Speaker 1: and the whole purpose of this was it was a barometer.
Speaker 1: Essential of course, the barometer is the divice you know,
Speaker 1: of course, a barometer. The whole deal is, you know,
Speaker 1: it's for atmospheric pressure in all and um, and atmospheric
Speaker 1: pressure is one of the key indicators of what the
Speaker 1: weather is going to do and how to leaches enter
Speaker 1: into this holy equation. Well, apparently there's like this, you know,
Speaker 1: there's all there are all these folk tales about like oh,
Speaker 1: if you go outside and you see a wooly worm
Speaker 1: halfway up a trunk. It means there's gonna be a tornado.
Speaker 1: You know, there's all you know, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And apparently there was like some sort of folk tradition
Speaker 1: about leeches being able to tache. Yeah, yeah, And I
Speaker 1: guess it's kind of like you're in a time when
Speaker 1: science there's a lot of enthusiasm about science, and sometimes
Speaker 1: science gets mixed up with some thoroughly unscientific ideas like this.
Speaker 1: And so this idea emerged that leeches could sense electromagnetic
Speaker 1: changes in the atmosphere them. So naturally, what you do
Speaker 1: is you build a little carousel type device with all
Speaker 1: these with these twelve glass vials, each one has a
Speaker 1: little little leech in it. And if they that the
Speaker 1: ideas that the leeches will sense this change in the
Speaker 1: air and they'll start crawling up the tube to get
Speaker 1: to an escape area, all right. And if they go
Speaker 1: up then they will sit, they'll trigger this little hammer
Speaker 1: that'll ring a bell which will let be the owner
Speaker 1: of the tempes prognasticator know that some some bad weather
Speaker 1: is coming his way. Okay, so a couple of things
Speaker 1: here about the tempest problem. What if you have an
Speaker 1: outlier leech who really just likes to climb up the tube,
Speaker 1: you know, bec and get cozy up there, maybe take
Speaker 1: a little leech nap or whatever. And then how do
Speaker 1: you figure out like is it six out of the
Speaker 1: twelve leeches or eight of the twelve or do all
Speaker 1: twelve leeches have to crawl up and you know hit
Speaker 1: the hammer and sound the bell? How does this work?
Speaker 1: And what if leeches are influencing one another's behavior, like
Speaker 1: one leech crawls up, then oh that guy's gone up.
Speaker 1: You must know something, So I'm gonna go up to
Speaker 1: I mean, how does this all work? Yeah? I think
Speaker 1: you're clearly thinking about it more than the guy who
Speaker 1: invented it, Like these are some questions you should have
Speaker 1: been asking. Um. But the interesting thing thing about it
Speaker 1: is you can you can actually see a working replica
Speaker 1: of this at a barometer exhibition in Devon, England, and
Speaker 1: then there's also one at the Whitby Museum in North Yorkshire.
Speaker 1: Um So, anyway, I was really fascinated. That comes courtesy
Speaker 1: of Mark Siddall's excellent leech blog bidela Nea, which apparently
Speaker 1: means leach News and Victorian web dot Org. Great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's something still enriched or yeah, enriched by bad science.
Speaker 1: So so that's some bad science to start off. Well,
Speaker 1: let's let's before we get all crazy on Merryweather. I
Speaker 1: would like to give him credit for trying, right, some
Speaker 1: of these crazy ideas succeed. Who knows, Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: and and it's I actually like to envision what the
Speaker 1: world could have been like had this work, you know,
Speaker 1: really taken up. Like what if we were living in
Speaker 1: an age where things like the leech barometer or um
Speaker 1: or some of the other crazy ideas that take far
Speaker 1: too long to explain were like the predominant science in
Speaker 1: ACTU work. So today we were like, oh, I don't
Speaker 1: know what the weather is going to do tomorrow. I
Speaker 1: gotta go get a fresh pail of leeches for my
Speaker 1: for for my machinery. You know. Well, I feel sure
Speaker 1: that in some parallel universe perhaps they are, hopefully so.
Speaker 1: But in this world leeches uh are pretty much used
Speaker 1: for um basically one thing. Second blood yep, suckond blood.
Speaker 1: That's what they're good for. Let's let's do a little
Speaker 1: review of the leech. Okay, so it's not just the leech,
Speaker 1: of course, there are many different species, are hundreds in
Speaker 1: facts six hundred and fifty um and they arranged in
Speaker 1: size it can be anywhere from one centimeter to a
Speaker 1: little less than a foot. And of course they live
Speaker 1: in and around water. I have to say, when I
Speaker 1: was were proposed this podcast topic, I kept on thinking
Speaker 1: of that scene by a the scene from stand By Me. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's my premier exposure to that. That one's pretty gross.
Speaker 1: Stephen King also I hit us with a pretty grotesque
Speaker 1: one in the novel It. I don't remember that well.
Speaker 1: I do because it was pretty traumatic when I read
Speaker 1: it at like age twelve or something. So some leeches,
Speaker 1: not all of them, feed on blood. Some of them
Speaker 1: are known to uh ingest a little plant material, decaying
Speaker 1: plant materials specifically, and they really live just about anywhere
Speaker 1: there's water. Yeah, they prefer fresh, but I've seen some
Speaker 1: reports of them living in pretty salty popping up it's
Speaker 1: pretty salty water too. So how do they find their host? Well,
Speaker 1: they apparently detect things like skin oils, blood, heat, carbon
Speaker 1: dioxide that we're breathing out blood and heat mean right, yeah,
Speaker 1: blood and heat not blood heat. That sounds like you've
Speaker 1: ever heard of that scientific It sounds like a really
Speaker 1: cheesy like cop film blood heat and they and they
Speaker 1: sniff out some carbon dioxide, right yeah, yeah, and they
Speaker 1: can you know you when you see them on skin,
Speaker 1: of course, they're they're kind of like little slugs and
Speaker 1: they don't have a lot of movement, but in water
Speaker 1: they're pretty swift. They can just swim around all over
Speaker 1: the place. That's their abotat, Yeah, with a nice little
Speaker 1: undulating motion they have. They have two suckers, one on
Speaker 1: each end. The rear suction cup helps the leech to
Speaker 1: move around on dryer surfaces, um, like you know, your
Speaker 1: thigh or whatever. Uh and uh, and to attach the
Speaker 1: host in the front suction cup. That's where you have
Speaker 1: a mouth with like throe with these three sharp jaws
Speaker 1: which leave a y shaped bite. Okay, I wasn't familiar
Speaker 1: with the shape of the bite. Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: that I've ever had a leech attached to me. I
Speaker 1: have not, thank thee. Yeah, I definitely slam in some
Speaker 1: waters where I could have gotten one. But yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So they don't feed all that often, but when they do,
Speaker 1: they eat an insane amount. Um. You said it a
Speaker 1: statistic in here that said a four or five large
Speaker 1: leeches can drain the life from a rabbit in half
Speaker 1: an hour, and they're they're basically these blood balloons. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they can reach several times their own body way.
Speaker 1: Imagine that you sat down to a meal and you
Speaker 1: just kept eating and eating and eating. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know how much you weigh now, you probably don't
Speaker 1: want to give that away on air, but just eating
Speaker 1: several times your body weight, yeah, it would be pretty grass.
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like I mean, I think ticks
Speaker 1: do pretty much the same thing. It's like, I guess,
Speaker 1: a pretty pretty common like parasite practice and also things
Speaker 1: like you know, monitor lizards, you know other creatures where
Speaker 1: when you get that one meal, you just bet yourself silly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you can just spend the rest of the
Speaker 1: time digesting it. Yeah. And they eat for quite a
Speaker 1: while too. Sometimes they can remain in place for as
Speaker 1: little as thirty minutes, but like six hours, just filling
Speaker 1: up on that blood. Well. So the cool thing is um.
Speaker 1: The saliva has a host of really interesting components, and
Speaker 1: some of them are anesthetic and anti coagulants um and
Speaker 1: there's one in particular called Harridan harudin It's like sharooken
Speaker 1: and street fire, so the host doesn't feel the incision,
Speaker 1: and you know, their their meal can continue uninterrupted without
Speaker 1: any blood cloths, without the host noticing. I'm assuming yeah,
Speaker 1: and they they just keep gorging them else and blood
Speaker 1: and then bang oh if they get enough and they
Speaker 1: roll their fat little selves off to digest the meal. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was really and impressed by by a couple of
Speaker 1: the things that ran across because if they're do tell
Speaker 1: them yes, definitely, Like well, first of all that and
Speaker 1: you can find pictures of this. They can attach to
Speaker 1: your eye that is really terrible and you have to
Speaker 1: be careful removing them because you're like, oh, I pulled
Speaker 1: the leech off, but they're still like leech head in
Speaker 1: my eyeball, you know, kind of situation which is just
Speaker 1: And they can attach to your throat and I mean,
Speaker 1: of course they can attach to your yeah, but now
Speaker 1: just the outside of the inside, which there was this
Speaker 1: incident where Napoleon's troops were marching from Egypt across the
Speaker 1: Sinai Peninsula to Syria and this is like they get
Speaker 1: really thirsty, right, so what do you do. You start
Speaker 1: drinking all the water you can find even when they're
Speaker 1: just a bunch of leeches in the water. So they
Speaker 1: ended up getting leeches inside their mouth and in their throat,
Speaker 1: and like some guys ended up sort of coming to
Speaker 1: blood loss, but other people they were the leeches were
Speaker 1: just drinking blood out of the inside of their throat
Speaker 1: and it was just like making it just caused all
Speaker 1: this like swelling, and then they couldn't breathe, and it's grotesque.
Speaker 1: That is a really terrible way to die. Imagine you
Speaker 1: probably didn't even know, you know, And would it be
Speaker 1: worse to now? I wonder in that instance, like I
Speaker 1: don't know why I can't breathe, or I know I
Speaker 1: can't breathe because leeches are, you know, sucking on my
Speaker 1: throat and slowly killing me. I wonder if knowledge is
Speaker 1: better or worse in that instance. I don't know. You
Speaker 1: need something like really sharp to start munching on. I
Speaker 1: guess like wheat fins or something, you know, some cool
Speaker 1: ranch doritos so you can unlatch them. Of course, leeches
Speaker 1: as healers is not a new concept at all. We've
Speaker 1: been using them for ages um and yeah, particularly in medicine,
Speaker 1: And why don't you tell us about the humors. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So you know there's the old uh you know, kind
Speaker 1: of like medieval idea that the body is ruled by
Speaker 1: four humors and uh, and when these humors get out
Speaker 1: of balance, that did you out? Did you look up
Speaker 1: what the four humors were? I'm out of trouble. Remember
Speaker 1: what the four are? There's there's bile, and there's blood,
Speaker 1: and then there are two other kind of nasty things.
Speaker 1: I think it's maybe, um, okay, I can't remember. Okay,
Speaker 1: so but therefore them you can look them up there.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm forgetting the other ones. But uh,
Speaker 1: but anyway, you know, these things get out of balance
Speaker 1: and then they can cause everything from like schizophrenia to
Speaker 1: flash onnes you know, it's like any kind of medical problem.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, well, your humors are out of whack,
Speaker 1: let's throw some leeches of that problem. I would like
Speaker 1: to go to the med school where you only have
Speaker 1: to learn about humors. Back in the day, people, Um,
Speaker 1: you haven't the medieval medical schools. Yeah, and so leeches
Speaker 1: they pretty much threw leeches or not through I guess
Speaker 1: they gently attached the leeches to to any of these
Speaker 1: any and all of these illnesses. Well, right, Well, I
Speaker 1: guess one of the things, you know, which we'll get
Speaker 1: to in a second, is they there are things that
Speaker 1: they can be very useful for indeed, and we'll get
Speaker 1: to those. Yeah, And I guess it's kind of like
Speaker 1: if you know you're in you're in the Middle Ages,
Speaker 1: and especially if you're I mean granted, in the Middle
Speaker 1: Ages there were areas where people were actually thinking about
Speaker 1: what they were doing, but they necessarily have like the
Speaker 1: same scientific principles and standards to to to to make
Speaker 1: sure you know what you're doing. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: just kind of like throwing a lot of things at
Speaker 1: the wall and seeing what sticks, but not necessarily you know,
Speaker 1: rigorous sis just through a lot of leeches at a problem,
Speaker 1: see what trash. Yeah, but I mean in a sense,
Speaker 1: it does make sense if you have something that you
Speaker 1: know it works or you know, maybe it works on um,
Speaker 1: you know, when you have a pool of blood sitting
Speaker 1: there and a leech can suck that up, then I mean,
Speaker 1: why not you know, try to extend the boundaries of
Speaker 1: that particular therapy, and maybe that's what they're doing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just without regulation or you know, our science
Speaker 1: necessarily Again in check, it seems like it would be
Speaker 1: a fun time to be a medieval doctor. Yeah. Generally
Speaker 1: when you think of medieval medicine, you think fun time.
Speaker 1: But but anyway, so yeah, but for the longest Yeah,
Speaker 1: the medicinal use of leeches was was big business. Like
Speaker 1: nineteenth century governments even had to impose tariffs and trade
Speaker 1: bands because, like, people were using so many of them.
Speaker 1: It's like they were at the verge of extinction at times.
Speaker 1: There was even leech smuggling going on around the Russian border.
Speaker 1: So I love the ideas, you know, blood drinking parasites
Speaker 1: as currency. Yeah, totally. And then um, the problem was
Speaker 1: was that breeding efforts weren't all that successful, and so
Speaker 1: some areas there were actually leeches were collected, you wrote,
Speaker 1: to the point of near extinction. Yeah, And I wonder
Speaker 1: what it was like to be a leach collector, Like,
Speaker 1: was it basically you just your head down to the
Speaker 1: leech pond and you stick your arm in. I think, see,
Speaker 1: I feel like I've read something about someone that was
Speaker 1: a leach collector, but it might have been something fictional.
Speaker 1: But you'll have to enlighten us on and Twitter when
Speaker 1: you find it. So in reality, um, the leaches probably
Speaker 1: had little effect on all of these different illnesses they
Speaker 1: were used to treat. And by the late nineteenth century
Speaker 1: or so that the blood letting had fallen out of favor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it wasn't working for most things, and it kind
Speaker 1: of became viewed as barbaric and it just wasn't refined
Speaker 1: enough and you know again and it wasn't doing most
Speaker 1: of what it claimed to do. But then there was
Speaker 1: a resurgence in modern medicine. And really essential to this
Speaker 1: is the particular what the what the substance in question
Speaker 1: is is rudin again and especially the medical in the
Speaker 1: medical leech, which is here do medicinallys um say that again, No,
Speaker 1: it's just the medical leech in this podcast, right. So, Um,
Speaker 1: something that I was thinking about when we were talking
Speaker 1: about doing this podcast was, Okay, we have this resurgence
Speaker 1: of leeches in modern medicine. You know, why don't we
Speaker 1: just use drugs that are derived from the herod in
Speaker 1: the polypeptide that you know that conhibit the enzyme thrombin
Speaker 1: from inducing blood clouds. Why don't why don't we just
Speaker 1: you know, derive substances from this in the lab and
Speaker 1: you know, and in fact we have we do have
Speaker 1: drugs like this. So it just made me wonder if
Speaker 1: leeches would fall out of favor, because maybe you'd rather
Speaker 1: pop a pill then, you know, slap a leech on. Well,
Speaker 1: I think like some of the things working in its favors.
Speaker 1: I understand that hedin herodin is it'cause you don't get
Speaker 1: a lot of it from a from a from an
Speaker 1: individual leach if you try and harvest it, and and
Speaker 1: and I understand it's like that's synthesizing. It is rather
Speaker 1: problematic and complicated as well. Um. But but also leeches
Speaker 1: are pretty easy to to to maintain. I think you
Speaker 1: have to like change their water a lot, but you
Speaker 1: know you can you can like mail them and stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean not like in an envelope and like a
Speaker 1: little a special procedure. Please don't mail as any leaches.
Speaker 1: But but but you know, they're they're pretty hardy, um,
Speaker 1: and they're easy to apply and and it's like pretty
Speaker 1: easy to regulate. It's like you need to drain more
Speaker 1: blood slap on another leech. You know. Well, in particular,
Speaker 1: surgeons have found them pretty useful and cheat by the way,
Speaker 1: they're pretty cheap, right, well, so surgeons have found them
Speaker 1: pretty useful for particular kinds of surgeries like tissue grafting
Speaker 1: or say I have to reattach a limb, Hey, I
Speaker 1: might want to have some leeches backups waiting to be used.
Speaker 1: And they're handy because of course they can remove the
Speaker 1: pools of congested blood from swollen areas that are going
Speaker 1: to interfere with circulation and that can cause tissu death eventually,
Speaker 1: you know, to post surgery. Yeah, it all comes back
Speaker 1: to this a lot. First the heroine, which is an antacoguant,
Speaker 1: and then also the the sliva also has these local
Speaker 1: anesthetic an aesthetic properties that also have to I think
Speaker 1: they can have sort of an anti biotic kind of
Speaker 1: reaction as well. Yeah, the sliva is kind of a
Speaker 1: natural medicine chest of all sorts of interesting stuff. And
Speaker 1: another interesting thing that you're talking about was that the
Speaker 1: leech is really handy in microsurgery. Yeah, and that's when
Speaker 1: you're talking about reattaching these really tiny veins like in
Speaker 1: a child for example. Yeah. Yeah, there was a case
Speaker 1: where um, a Harvard physician was he was having a
Speaker 1: lot of trouble reattaching the year of a five year
Speaker 1: old and uh, because they're all these little tiny veins
Speaker 1: and they keep clotting, and he was able to successfully
Speaker 1: use leeches to to help it. Because again they're they're
Speaker 1: kind of like they're little pumps, you know, you put
Speaker 1: them on and they start. They cause blood to circulate
Speaker 1: and they keep it from clotting. Um. I'm tempted to
Speaker 1: make some really convoluted metaphor about about economic resurgence, but
Speaker 1: I'm going to hold that. Yeah, apparently these are sometimes
Speaker 1: they're also sometimes used with with diabetics, uh, because you
Speaker 1: end up with this like with thicker blood and uh,
Speaker 1: and there's a higher risk of blood clots. So again
Speaker 1: the heroinin can potentially be used to promote a better
Speaker 1: circulation or at least in in cases where it supposes
Speaker 1: a serious threat. And then you also came across a
Speaker 1: German gentleman, a researcher by the name of Andrea Snickelsson.
Speaker 1: And he's out of or at least he was at
Speaker 1: the time out of the University of Dusburg Essen in Germany. Apologies,
Speaker 1: I hope I had to hit that German pronunciation. Okay,
Speaker 1: but this gentleman was suggesting that leech therapy may lessen
Speaker 1: the pain and inflammation associated with osteoarthritis. Um um, you
Speaker 1: guys know that's you know, an inflammatory disease, and the
Speaker 1: bones can grind against one another because the card hass
Speaker 1: been worn down. It's incredibly painful, a lot of daily
Speaker 1: pain that arises with this condition. And I was confused
Speaker 1: as to how this, how how leeches might tie into
Speaker 1: osteoarthritis until I remembered that, you know, the the saliva
Speaker 1: of a leech, it does have so many substances, and
Speaker 1: so the reason why leeches might be used in this
Speaker 1: instance isn't for the bloodletting, but rather for the anesthetic,
Speaker 1: the analgesic properties of that saliva, and so um. Nicholson
Speaker 1: has done a couple of small studies. He did one,
Speaker 1: I think it had an end of sixteen or so,
Speaker 1: and uh, it was by no means definitive, but he
Speaker 1: tested it out and um, you know, gave the patients
Speaker 1: half the patients treatment with leech therapy, just a single treatment,
Speaker 1: and then a half with whatever prescribed corsotherapy was out
Speaker 1: at the time. And uh, with this single treatment they did. Uh,
Speaker 1: the osteoarthritists. Patients did report, in fact some lessening of pain.
Speaker 1: Um and in fact the effects from that one single
Speaker 1: treatment lasted for up to a month. I believe the
Speaker 1: study had said, um, so it's kind of interesting. And
Speaker 1: then again, you know, he he couldn't drop the leech
Speaker 1: and it's promised for osteoarthritis, so he looked into it later,
Speaker 1: bigger study I think it was in two thousand three,
Speaker 1: fifty one patients and the same thing. Your control group
Speaker 1: got whatever prescribed, of course the therapy. A couple of
Speaker 1: people got leech therapy, and again he thought that people
Speaker 1: reporting significantly less pain, although the effect dropped off I
Speaker 1: think after a week in this case. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of interesting. And even more interesting is Robert and I
Speaker 1: were talking about this podcast right before we went in
Speaker 1: the studio. You know, we'd like to nail this down
Speaker 1: so tightly for you guys listeners. And if there's an
Speaker 1: editor here who overheard our conversation, and she grew really
Speaker 1: interested that leeches could be used for steo athritists, especially
Speaker 1: as she was allergic to painkillers. So we may have
Speaker 1: turned someone on at how staff works dot com to
Speaker 1: using leeches which I thought was interesting. We'll see we
Speaker 1: have to follow up with her how that works, and
Speaker 1: maybe she could make a guest appearance on her show
Speaker 1: sometimes tell us how it's going. Now. One thing to
Speaker 1: keep in mind with the leeches is that apparently up
Speaker 1: of patients treated with the leeches developed infections caused by
Speaker 1: back to I'm gonna I'm gonna try and call it
Speaker 1: say the bacteria aero mons hydrophilia. Alright, that's my guests anyway,
Speaker 1: at that particum pronunciation. Anyway, So these infections are apparently
Speaker 1: not that huger deal. They can be treated with antibiotics
Speaker 1: and uh, but it's led some researchers should try and
Speaker 1: develop artificial leeches, robot leeches, I guess, like little pumps
Speaker 1: and all. But I've been going of the problems there
Speaker 1: is that again, leeches are cheap, they're easy to use.
Speaker 1: If you need more, you can just slap on another one,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, so the technology hasn't exactly picked
Speaker 1: up speed. Meanwhile, they're plenty of Like I was looking
Speaker 1: at a website that supplies leeches medically. Weirdly enough, they
Speaker 1: have like a section for also like leeches for fishing.
Speaker 1: Raise them is bait. So it's kind of weird to
Speaker 1: get your medical supplies and your bait shop needs met
Speaker 1: by the same website, but you know whatever. But it's
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. Like they you know, they ship them out.
Speaker 1: They have they have a section where they show the
Speaker 1: little containers that they ship them in and you can
Speaker 1: even this is really cool. You can get like a
Speaker 1: special like kind of the only way I can describe
Speaker 1: it is like a cookie jar for leeches. It's like
Speaker 1: a really like elaborate looking like container to keep your
Speaker 1: leeches in. It looks really cool. I don't see why
Speaker 1: leeches haven't caught on his pets. Well, you know, they
Speaker 1: probably look pretty cool on a tank, like swimming around,
Speaker 1: you know, no, no doubt. Yeah, I'm sure they would
Speaker 1: come and you know, sit on your finger, no problem.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's like a little blood. Yeah, and if you
Speaker 1: have heart problems, think of the you know, they you
Speaker 1: could you just want them nibble on your finger for
Speaker 1: a little while. What could happen? Now? One thing you
Speaker 1: would you would actually asked when we were going over that.
Speaker 1: You were like, well, they do leeches ever, like suck
Speaker 1: the blood out of other leeches after they're fill full
Speaker 1: of blood, right, so in the leech tank in the
Speaker 1: each jar and I looked it up and apparently they
Speaker 1: have they have observed it with medical leeches like they
Speaker 1: were I think they were specifically seeing if it would happen. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it did. Like they put it. They put a
Speaker 1: lettle leach feed get it, let it, got it nice
Speaker 1: and swollen up with blood. I think they used cows
Speaker 1: blood in the experiment and then they put it in
Speaker 1: with some other leeches and they were like they just
Speaker 1: they went after it and they sucked it dry and
Speaker 1: killed it. So it's a leech eat leech world. Yeah. Indeed, well,
Speaker 1: so far the US Food and Drug Administration has cleared
Speaker 1: the way for medical leeches um because they are available
Speaker 1: for treatment. And I think that was back in che
Speaker 1: thousand four, right. And it's it's interesting the way they
Speaker 1: carry it off. I mean, the you know, the very
Speaker 1: medical um, you know application of a blood sucking parasite. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like they take the they rinse the skin,
Speaker 1: clean it, you know, and make sure it's nice and clean,
Speaker 1: and they out. So you're you're talking about the leech
Speaker 1: therapy have to actually actually apply it for you know,
Speaker 1: something from one of these methods you can then you
Speaker 1: but you need to put up like a gauze barrier
Speaker 1: to keep the leach from moving away from the area.
Speaker 1: And wanted, Yeah, you want because you want it to
Speaker 1: feed on this particular area. And sometimes you know, there's
Speaker 1: it's kind of like getting your cat to do something.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like they never want to actually do it,
Speaker 1: so you put the leach down. Sometimes leech doesn't want
Speaker 1: to feed, so you have they have to draw a
Speaker 1: little blood from the patient like with the with the
Speaker 1: needle and then like squirt it onto the area and
Speaker 1: get to start to get the leach riled up and
Speaker 1: interested feeding. So that's kind of you can lead a
Speaker 1: leech to blood, but it's difficult to make him drink, right. Okay,
Speaker 1: If that hasn't impressed you enough about leeches and they're
Speaker 1: various interesting qualities, we have a last story for you
Speaker 1: about leeches. Yeah, and this one is that this is
Speaker 1: another tip that that comes off of of Mark's bidella
Speaker 1: Nea blog, which is again like it's all leeches, uh
Speaker 1: and and he covers like a literally cool stuff, like
Speaker 1: you know, there's one entry had just about like leeches
Speaker 1: in various mythologies and about how they tie in. So
Speaker 1: it's really cool stuff. But he related this one bit
Speaker 1: and this was about eight years ago. Apparently, Um, this
Speaker 1: guy like broke into this uh seventy one year old
Speaker 1: woman's home in Tasmania, all right, and he makes off
Speaker 1: with all this money, a whole bunch of cash that
Speaker 1: she had like squirrelled away, you know, and drew bead
Speaker 1: or something and uh and the the the assailant didn't
Speaker 1: realize that there was going a leech it attached to
Speaker 1: him and it was like, you know, some some sort
Speaker 1: of leech that's all over the island there and uh,
Speaker 1: and so it fed and dropped off of him, and
Speaker 1: police were able to collect the leech and and collect
Speaker 1: the blood all right, and then get the DNA out
Speaker 1: of the blood and use that as DNA evidence against
Speaker 1: the the guy who broke into the home. So that's
Speaker 1: pretty amazing, like like my whole thing, I guess with
Speaker 1: the with the leeches though, it's kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like if you've ever seen a movie or something
Speaker 1: where like a dude's a hacker, you know, he's like
Speaker 1: really learns how to hack a system, and then then
Speaker 1: the authorities come in, They're like, we should throw you
Speaker 1: in prison, but we have one jet with this job
Speaker 1: for you, and only you can fix it. You know.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like the leech is a parasite, so
Speaker 1: it's learned how to hack the human system for its
Speaker 1: own needs. But then we're thanking this analogy. This is
Speaker 1: one of my marks. This is this one actually maybe
Speaker 1: makes sense. And but and then we've come around to
Speaker 1: him and said, hey, we've got a purpose. We've got
Speaker 1: a purpose for you. We got a job that only
Speaker 1: you can do. Because you've learned how to manipulate the system.
Speaker 1: We needs you to go in there and manipulate it
Speaker 1: for us. So yeah, So I think the bottom line
Speaker 1: of that story is if you're afraid of being robbed
Speaker 1: or burglar eyes, just keep a lot of leeches around
Speaker 1: the house. Yeah, we'll catch perpetrator, no problem. Yeah, live
Speaker 1: live in the middle of a pond. It's possible. So
Speaker 1: I think that wraps it up for leeches this week.
Speaker 1: What do you what do you think about oils with
Speaker 1: your mouth? Oh? Yeah, let's see what we have here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got I got some mail here from liam Um.
Speaker 1: He wrote in about our lefties Ruling the World podcast,
Speaker 1: and so he had some to share. Um. He said,
Speaker 1: when I play racquetball, I find that I have a
Speaker 1: huge advantage over others. I only ever play against right
Speaker 1: handed people, and they get really aggravated when they find
Speaker 1: that I don't have a back swing they do. I
Speaker 1: play mostly with my right but instead of using a backswing,
Speaker 1: I switch hands to my left, so I never have
Speaker 1: to use a backswing. I don't know what a backswing is,
Speaker 1: but I asson this makes sense to racket balls, to racketballers.
Speaker 1: I wish I could do this with other sports as well,
Speaker 1: but I can't swing a bat, throw a ball, or
Speaker 1: really kick with my left See. I can't do any
Speaker 1: of those things either, So I don't know why I
Speaker 1: grew up this way. Maybe mimicking people around me when
Speaker 1: playing games. But I like to think of myself as
Speaker 1: a right handed lefty. So there you go. That's pretty interesting. Welliam,
Speaker 1: you can't see you, but I'm saluting you with my
Speaker 1: left hand right now. We also heard from Amy Claire
Speaker 1: uh ambidextrous Amy Claire, who wanted to hear more about
Speaker 1: being ambidextrous in our Left Handed podcast. Maybe we'll get
Speaker 1: one we'll get around to that someday. Yeah, definitely. And uh.
Speaker 1: And then also Paul wrote in and he says, uh,
Speaker 1: in response to your call out, I'm a right handed guitarist,
Speaker 1: because yeah, we were very interested in, like in playing
Speaker 1: right handed guitar. And I was also wondering, like how
Speaker 1: the right handed guitarist, I mean left handed guitarist um
Speaker 1: seduce women that they're trying to teach to play guitar.
Speaker 1: But anyway, he says, I'm a right handed guitarist, but
Speaker 1: I know people with left handed guitars. On our right
Speaker 1: handed guitar, you strung with your right hand and do
Speaker 1: the opposite on the left handed guitar, which is always
Speaker 1: confused me. Wouldn't you think you would use your right
Speaker 1: hand for the more precise part of playing fingering on
Speaker 1: the on the fret board, And yet I have, and
Speaker 1: there is no way I can do it the other
Speaker 1: way with a left handed guitar. And he says, anyway,
Speaker 1: I love the show. If you got a great work,
Speaker 1: I would like to know what kind of music you're
Speaker 1: playing on a guitar. Paul, Yeah, that was a key
Speaker 1: detail you left, So you left us hanging. I heard
Speaker 1: left handed people at their own sinister secret form of music.
Speaker 1: Lefties do rule. Hey, so, if you guys want to
Speaker 1: tell us more about your left handedness or leeches, send
Speaker 1: us an email at science stuff at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com, or hook up with us on Facebook. Facebook
Speaker 1: we're stuff in the Science Lab and on Twitter we
Speaker 1: are lab stuff. So yeah, let us know if you
Speaker 1: have had any experiences with leeches attack attaching to you,
Speaker 1: either with your knowledge or again without your permission. All right,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening, guys. For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, is that how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
Speaker 1: the house stof works dot com home page.