Before 1500 AD, the Egyptians pioneered the bloodletting therapy of medical leeches. By the beginning of the last century, Europeans were more superstitious that medical leeches could suck blood from the human body. Regardless of headaches and brain heat, they used medical leeches for blood sucking treatment. Later, with the development of medicine, this superstitious treatment method was gradually abandoned. However, in recent years, the new use of medical leech in medicine is receiving widespread attention.
Plastic surgeons use medical leeches to eliminate blood stasis in the vascular occlusion area after surgery and reduce the occurrence of necrosis, thereby increasing the success rate of tissue transplantation and breast formation operations. When replanting or transplanting fingers, toes, ears, and noses, medical leeches use medical leeches to suck blood, which can unblock the veins and greatly increase the success rate of the operation.
This is because the salivary glands secrete hirudin, an anticoagulant, and histamine-like substances that dilate blood vessels when they suck blood. In 1987, the leech research group of the Institute of Aquatic Animals of the Chinese Academy of Sciences collaborated with the Department of Orthopedics of the Third Affiliated Hospital of Hubei Medical. The first application of leech to treat blood stasis after replantation of severed fingers was the first in China. Several successful cases were widely praised at home and abroad.
The various active substances contained in the saliva of medical leech are receiving extensive attention from scientists from all over the world, and have become a hot topic in the utilization of resource animals. In 1984, American leech expert Dr. Sawyer founded the world's first leech farm and biochemical drug company in West Wales, UK. The hirudin and hyaluronidase produced by the company have been sold to Europe, America and Japan, and also sold Tens of thousands of live medical leeches.