Healing Leeches
Today, researchers are turning their attention to traditional, but largely forgotten, medical practises. After maggots being used to cleanse infected wounds, it is now the turn of the leech — the vampire of our marshes — to return to treatment rooms, for our greatest benefit. And thanks to research, vast new perspectives may soon see the light of day.
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On his hospital bed, Claude Castagno has his eyes fixed to his left hand. At the end of his index finger, emerging from a large plaster, a small black-greenish worm is wriggling. It’s a leech, about to dine on his blood. Well attached to the swollen flesh thanks to its posterior suckers, the leech sweeps its head over the finger surface before suddenly driving in the 300 teeth contained in its triple jaw…
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