Medicine Through Time Gallery: Bleeding - Hell?
Leeching
An alternative to the lancet or scarificator is the leech.
Since antiquity in Greece, Rome and Syria, leeches have been used to
suck blood from many sites on the body. Leeches
attach to the skin via 3 sharp teeth, inject an anticoagulant so the
blood won’t clot, and then suck up the blood until they are full.
Leeches were carried in a variety of containers. As leeches can inch along surfaces (like their cousins, worms) containers had to have something to keep the leeches in, whilst allowing air to circulate. Early jars would have had a cloth tied over the lip to prevent escape.
By the mid 19th Century leech jars were mostly ceramic with perforated lids, like the one shown here. Some leech jars are large decorative ceramic containers with multi-colored floral and other motifs. These often are inscribed "leeches" in decorative lettering.
Leeches have a made a comeback in the last 25 years of medicine. They are used to treat patients who have had a limb re-attached to stimulate blood circulation. Pharmaceutical companies have also synthetically reproduced the anti-clotting chemical, hirudin, contained in leech saliva.