Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-m9kch Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-02T11:14:31.026Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Why We Need to Save the Medicinal Leech

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2009

Roy T. Sawyer
Roy T. Sawyer
Affiliation:
51 Llanyrnewydd, Penclawdd, West Glamorgan SA4 3JN, Wales
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Once abundant throughout its range, the medicinal leech became endangered largely because it was so widely used by doctors for blood-letting in the 19th century. France alone imported more than a thousand million over the century. Since then demands for research purposes have greatly increased following the discovery that this leech contains a potentially very valuable anticoagulant of human blood. Protection for the species is urgently needed, says the author. One school class could unknowingly wipe out the whole of a small remnant population.

Type
Research Article
Information
Oryx , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , October 1981 , pp. 165 - 168
Copyright
Copyright © Fauna and Flora International 1981

References

1.Ackernecht, E.H. 1967. Medicine at the Paris Hospital, 1794–1848. Johns Hopkins.Google Scholar
2.Arndt, W. 1940. Als Heilmittel gebrauchte stoffe. Q. Blutegel, 524–73. Die Rohstoffe des Tierreiches Q. Berlin.Google Scholar
3.Blair, W.N. 1928. Notes on Hirudo medicinalis, the medicinal leech, as a British species. Proc. Zool. Soc. London 1927: 999–1002.Google Scholar
4.Dresscher, T.G.N. and Engel, H. 1946. De Medicinale Bloedzuiger in Nederland. Natuurhist. Maanblad. 35:47–9.Google Scholar
5.Egidy, H.E. 1844. Die Blutegelzucht, nächst ausführlicher Beschreibung der Blutegel, seiner Arten und Varietäten. 185pp.Google Scholar
6.Elliott, J.M., and Mann, K.H. 1979. A Key to the British Freshwater Leeches. Freshwater Biological Association. Scientific Publication no. 40. 72pp.Google Scholar
7.Fermond, C. 1854. Monographie des Sangsues Médicinales. Paris. 512pp.Google Scholar
8.Harding, W.A. 1910. A revision of the British leeches. Parasitology 3:130–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9.Haycraft, J.B. 1844. On the action of a secretion obtained from the medicinal leech on the coagulation of the blood. Proc. Roy. Soc. London 36:478–87.Google Scholar
10.Lukin, E.I. 1957. On the distribution of the medicinal leech in the USSR. Zool. Zh. 36:658–69.Google Scholar
11.McCarthy, T.K. 1975. Observations on the distribution of the freshwater leeches (Hirudinea) of Ireland. Proc. Roy. Ir. Acad. Sci. 75:401–51.Google ScholarPubMed
12.Martin, J. 1845. Histoire Pratique des Sangsues. Paris.Google Scholar
13. Minelli, A. 1979. Hirudinea. Fauna d'Italia 15:1–152.Google Scholar
14.Moquin-Tandon, A. 1846. Monographie de la Famille des Hirudinées, 2nd ed. 448pp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15.Reynoldson, T.B. 1952. A record of the leech Hirudo medicinalis from Islay, with brief mention of other species. Scot. Nat. 64:164–6.Google Scholar
16.Reynoldson, T.B. 1956. An Anglesey record of the medicinal leech Hirudo medicinalis L. Trans. of the Anglesey Antiquarian Soc. and Field Club 1956:54.Google Scholar
17.Rolleston, J.D. 1939. F.J.V. Broussais, 1772–1838: His Life and Doctrines. Proc. Roy. Soc. Med. 32:408.Google Scholar
18.Sawyer, R.T. 1972. North American Freshwater Leeches, Exclusive of the Piscicolidae with a Key to All Species. University of Illinois Press, Urbana. 155pp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
19.Sawyer, R.T. 1978. Domestication of the world's largest leech for developmental neurobiology. Year Book of the American Philosophical Society:212–3.Google Scholar
20.Sawyer, R.T., Lepont, F., Stuart, D.K. and Kramer, A.P. 1981. Growth and reproduction of the giant glossiphoniid leech Haementeria ghilianii. Biol. Bull. 160: 322–331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
21.Sineva, M.V. 1944. Observations on breeding the medicinal leech. Zool. Zh. 23,6:293–303.Google Scholar
22.Warwick, T. 1961. The vice-county distribution of the Scottish freshwater leeches and notes on the ecology of Trocheta bykowskii (Gedroyc) and Hirudo medicinalis L. in Scotland. Glasgow Nat. 18:130–5.Google Scholar
23.Zapkuvene, D.V. 1972. Breeding and growing of medicinal leeches under laboratory conditions. Lietuvos TSR Moksl. Acad. Darb. Ser. C. (In Russian Trudy Acad. Nauk Litovski CCP, Ser. B) 3,59:71–6.Google Scholar