Today’s average patient feels some discomfort, if not outright disgust, when faced with the prospect of using Hirudo medicinalis, a faceless aquatic invertebrate with a thirst for blood. You may feel that. However, this parasite has been touted as a panacea by various ancient medical traditions. This parasite can be found in ancient Egyptian tomb wall paintings and traditional portraits of the Hindu god Dhanvantari associated with Ayurveda. And in medieval and early modern Europe, where it was believed that impure blood disrupted the balance of body fluids and caused disease, the creature was seen as a kind helper, always ready to free the patient’s unwanted plasma. I did. As British medical historians Robert G.W. Kirk and Neil Pemberton write in their 2013 book The Hill, the worms have long been hailed as a gentle alternative to lancets, and in the early 19th century the so-called It became known during the era of Hillmania. As a “tool for treating physicians.” In 1828, the French hospital system alone prescribed tens of millions of leeches for conditions ranging from insomnia to smallpox.
The nematode quickly fell out of favor as the humoral concept of disease gave way to the germ theory, but two centuries later, the nematode is regaining public imagination. In the past few decades, the slimy creatures have returned to hospitals in far fewer numbers, but Karl Peters Bond of Biofarm Hill Farm in Hendy, Wales, has been breeding medicinal leeches since 1812. He estimates that the creature is now used all over the world. There are hundreds of thousands of hospitals, most with specialized burn and plastic surgery departments. Whatever their other abilities, leeches have proven to be excellent at sucking blood, making them a non-invasive and precise method for restoring blood flow to patients recovering from reconstructive or cosmetic surgery. We provide. People are now exploring leech therapy as an alternative treatment for various illnesses. Marina Abramovic, a 77-year-old Serbian performance artist, recently claimed that this practice, along with garlic drops and other Old World remedies, helped her treat Lyme disease. (A new line of skin care and wellness products developed by Abramovich and the holistic practitioner who first treated her with leeches was launched in January.) And the rate of aging may be slowed, or at least As becoming invisible becomes an increasingly obsessive collective pursuit, beauty techniques, both new and very old, are growing. Just tongue scraping (proven to reduce oral bacteria), colon therapy (some claim to detoxify the intestinal tract), bee sting therapy (thought to relieve inflammation), and cupping (Oriental medicine) is the same as The practice of applying suction through a heated cup, which is thought to promote healing and reduce muscle pain, has recently made a comeback in the beauty and wellness world, and so have leeches.
Renaissance-era women sometimes attached leeches to the skin behind their ears to achieve pale skin, but today the 2-inch-long predators are now used on humans to refresh their skin and reduce wrinkles. is applied directly to the face. This experimental procedure can be considered a natural alternative to microneedling, a cosmetic treatment that makes small incisions in the skin to improve skin texture. Clinics like LA Leeches in Pacific Palisades, Calif., and Beyond Wellness in Tampa, Fla., are also offering old-fashioned variations on the vampire facial, a high-tech procedure in which a patient’s plasma is removed, spun in a centrifuge, and reinjected. providing. In this case, a mixture of human blood and leech saliva is used, and the leech saliva is extracted from inside the creature. Applying this mixture to the skin will probably have a rejuvenating effect.
Although leeches are not the panacea our ancestors believed, they are notable for the cocktail of anticoagulants, analgesics, anti-inflammatories, and antibacterial agents they naturally secrete during feeding. Beyond its scientifically supported (as of 2004, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) role as a blood circulation aid in post-surgical wards, It is still used as a treatment in Western Europe. It is increasingly used as a health therapy by naturopaths and other holistic healers in the Middle East and increasingly around the world. “Interest in this therapy is increasing because the rates of chronic diseases are rising,” says Dr. Corbinian Gauss, a German internal medicine specialist who practices Hildtherapy in the resort town of Lanserhof Tegernsee in the Bavarian Alps. . Analgesic and anti-inflammatory treatment for patients suffering from conditions such as osteoarthritis. (Like acupuncture, leeches are rarely the first resort in Western medicine, but they are also not particularly controversial when used for conditions such as joint pain.) In addition to their potential therapeutic effects; , Gauss believes this treatment provides a rare opportunity to reconnect with humans. Short-term symbiosis between humans and annelids in nature.
The procedure itself requires a high tolerance for abnormality rather than pain. A leech bite is obviously no sharper than an acupuncture needle prick. After months of starvation, the creature locks its three interlocking tooth-lined jaws onto its host, drawing a thin stream of blood through its wiggling, animal-like body, which pulsates and swells until 30 minutes later. Hill left on his own after an hour. . And how do they kill time while Hill works? “Many patients have started pulling out their smartphones” and recording videos of their procedures, Gauss said. In fact, although the curative effects of this therapy are uncertain, its theatrical effects cannot be denied. It’s no coincidence that among Hill’s most famous connoisseurs in modern times is world-famous performance artist and rapper and singer-songwriter Machine Gun Kelly, known not only for his music but also for his gothic provocations. . One could even imagine that the obvious Y-shaped incision this worm makes in her skin becomes her symbol of status in the wellness world, much like the circular marks left by cupping. Like her model Miranda Kerr, leech lovers may consider adopting. In 2017, she told Goop that she rescued several leeches that fed on her face as part of a beauty treatment, and then released them into a koi pond at the park. Her home in Malibu.