Detoxication by Medicinal Leeches (Hirudo medicinalis)

Medicinal leeches (Hirudo medicinalis) attacking and killing adult amphibians

Diverse molecular data demonstrate that commercially available medicinal leeches are not Hirudo medicinalis.

The European medicinal leech is one of vanishingly few animal species with direct application in modern medicine. In addition to the therapeutic potential held by many protease inhibitors purified from leech saliva, and notwithstanding the historical association with quackery, Hirudo medicinalis has been approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration as a prescription medical device...

Historical Article: Hirudo medicinalis: ancient origins of, and trends in the use of medicinal leeches throughout history.

Blood letting and the therapeutic use of Hirudo medicinalis date back to ancient Egypt and the beginning of civilisation. Their popularity has varied over the years, reaching such a peak in Europe between 1825 and 1850 that supplies were exhausted. Towards the end of the century they fell out of favour and, during this period, the leech, once used by the physicians of emperors and influential a...

On exploration of geometrically constrained space by medicinal leeches Hirudo verbana

Leeches are fascinating creatures: they have simple modular nervous circuitry yet exhibit a rich spectrum of behavioural modes. Leeches could be ideal blue-prints for designing flexible soft robots which are modular, multi-functional, fault-tolerant, easy to control, capable for navigating using optical, mechanical and chemical sensorial inputs, have autonomous inter-segmental coordination and ...

First Isolation of a Giant Virus from Wild Hirudo medicinalis Leech: Mimiviridae isolation in Hirudo medicinalis

Giant viruses and amoebae are common in freshwater, where they can coexist with other living multicellular organisms. We screened leeches from the species Hirudo medicinalis for giant viruses. We analyzed five H. medicinalis obtained from Tunisia (3) and France (2). The leeches were decontaminated and then dissected to remove internal parts for co-culture with Acanthamoeba polyphaga. The genome...