Does blood letting by leeches serves any health purposes?

Question

A few decades back many people used to get blood letting by leeches for some health concerns?Is there some scientific research which supports this type of blood letting performed on human bodies for serving any health purposes? '

Answer 1

In the case when a limb vascular vessel has been damaged, leeches would drain the pooling blood that can compress and cause more damage, and the leech action is to make the blood better flowing, allowing improved circulation around the damaged tissues.
But that is something that is done by surgeons who know what they are doing. Getting leeches on you outside of medical justification, supervision and recommendation is asking for trouble.

Answer 2

Leeches are used to treat venous congestion. If, you were to cut your finger off, you should gather it up (place it in a plastic bag within another bag containing ice), and run off to the emergency room. Assuming the trauma isn't too severe, the microsurgeon will reattach the finger. Arteries have relatively thick walls and have relatively high blood pressure. This means that these vessels can often be sewed together & the blood pressure will keep the vessel open. Veins have thinner walls & have lower blood pressure. So the mechanical repair is more difficult and because of the low blood pressure, clots are more likely to form. If this happens, then blood has a way to get into the finger, but no way to return to the body - this is venous congestion. The finger will be red and swollen due to the accumulation of blood. Without continous blood flow through the finger, it will die. :-(

Now it's time for leeches to the rescue!!! A leech will be placed on the finger and will drain blood from it. However, this is not the major thereauptic benefit. For a leech to feed from a victim, it must prevent blood from clotting. Leech saliva contains anticoagulants that ensure continued blood flow as the leech sucks its meal (yum). Getting back to our finger... The leech will have a blood meal about 5 - 8 times its body weight (!) over about 20-30 minutes and will drop off. The wound left at the bite site will continue to ooze blood for several hours. So now there's a way to perfuse the tissues with blood. Blood enters the finger through the newly reattached arteries and exits the finger via the bite wound left by the leech. This flow of blood is sufficient to keep the tissues alive until you grow new blood vessels. I've placed a URL below from a company that sells leeches to the medical & research community that describes the medical use of leeches (beware, there are some gory pictures here).

Aside from what I've mentioned above, blood letting does not serve any medical purpose.

Answer 3

Under a few circumstances, yes. The tissue damage must be such that removing blood from it will help it to heal; some injuries (not many) qualify.

Answer 4

Yes it does, it helps with an infection that is left untreated for a varies amount of time, also it works faster than any antibiotics, it also helps for the regrowth of the skin after the infection is under control.

Answer 5

Leeches are used by plastic surgeons and head and neck surgeons to reduce swelling in flaps used to repair defects left by major resections for cancer or trauma.

Answer 6

Yes, it is actually useful to keep blood from clotting and to remove swelling.