Re: Leeches (Re: Metric Time (was Re: Why not 13 months? (Was La Systeme Metrique))

Amara Graps (agraps@netcom.com)
Tue, 17 Oct 1995 18:51:12 GMT

julian@gatwick.Geco-Prakla.slb.com (Julian Fitzherbert) writes:

>In article <45gtv8$fdp@news.ox.ac.uk>, idaniel@jesus.ox.ac.uk (Illtud Daniel) writes:
>>>Hmm, didn't doctors used to use leeches for healing once? I'm glad they
>>>stopped doing that!
>>
>>No they haven't. There's a leech farm in South Wales which is doing
>>very nicely thanks.

>A bit off geology but what the heck - its science. They use leeches to keep
>the blood flowing. I beleive this is particularly important when reattaching
>sawn off fingers and the like. Apparently maggots also have a modern medical
>use. Yuckity Yuk Yuk but it all works. And now back to geology with apologies
>to those who just lost their lunch :)

Last Spring I ran across some ads in the Journal of Hand Surgery on leeches
for sale, and thought it was sufficiently bizarre to scan in, and put at my
Web site ("Stranger then Fiction"). So you can see for yourself, they are
really used successfully in modern medicine.

See: http://www.amara.com/stranger/stranger.html

Amara

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Amara Graps email: agraps@netcom.com
Computational Physics vita: finger agraps@sunshine.arc.nasa.gov
Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/
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"If you gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into
you." --Nietzsche