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Leeches: Oh Hell No! · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's here. And this is the
0:16
Speaker 1: leeches episode that we've all been waiting for for about
0:20
Speaker 1: a million years. Yeah, this is I love this kind
0:23
Speaker 1: of stuff though, because there's the general you know, stuff
0:28
Speaker 1: you should know, classic bug slash animal kind of show. Okay,
0:32
Speaker 1: got it, but then you got your whole second half
0:34
Speaker 1: of the episode, which is super interesting. Yep. I mean
0:39
Speaker 1: the other stuff is interesting too, but you know what
0:40
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a it's a I know, it's a
0:44
Speaker 1: basically a perfect stuff you should Know episode. Dave Ruce
0:47
Speaker 1: called it a S Y s K softball as if too,
0:51
Speaker 1: as if to say that he couldn't have gotten it wrong.
0:54
Speaker 1: It was just too great of a stuff you should
0:56
Speaker 1: know topic. Yeah, he did a great job, though, always does.
0:58
Speaker 1: He did great Yep. So we're talking leeches, and I
1:01
Speaker 1: think Chuck this actually this episode was inspired by our
1:05
Speaker 1: dentistry episode where we talked about using medical leeches for
1:08
Speaker 1: dentistry all the way up until like the nineteen teens.
1:11
Speaker 1: I think leeches on the gums not a pleasant thought, no,
1:16
Speaker 1: And it sounds bonkers and wacky um and repulsive, but
1:21
Speaker 1: they have come back into fashion in some medical circles,
1:25
Speaker 1: and not just like new ag circles, like actual medical circles.
1:30
Speaker 1: So it's like you said, we're gonna make this kind
1:32
Speaker 1: of a two parter in a one one episode, let's
1:36
Speaker 1: do it. So we're talking leeches, and we should probably
1:39
Speaker 1: start with leech biology. And if you want to know
1:42
Speaker 1: what a leech is, uh is cousin to, you need
1:46
Speaker 1: look no further than a few inches underground and some
1:49
Speaker 1: fertile soil at our friend the earthworm, which was another
1:53
Speaker 1: great stuff you should know episode. Yeah, that was a
1:55
Speaker 1: really good one. But yeah, if you want to get
1:57
Speaker 1: up close and look at a leech, which you probably
1:58
Speaker 1: are not prone to do, uh, they are ringed, just
2:01
Speaker 1: like our little friends the earthworm. They have thirty two
2:04
Speaker 1: segments in their little gross looking bodies and they inch
2:10
Speaker 1: along like worms stew as well. They have you know,
2:13
Speaker 1: a head sucker up at the front and a sucker
2:16
Speaker 1: in the rear. No jokes necessary there, Yeah, oral an
2:22
Speaker 1: anal is it really called the anal sucker. It's also
2:26
Speaker 1: called the anterior imposterior sucker too, and or the party
2:31
Speaker 1: in the this is in the front, party in the rear. Sure,
2:35
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell the day was joking. I figured it
2:37
Speaker 1: was called an anal sucker, but uh yeah, they just
2:39
Speaker 1: inch along just like an inch worm or a worm
2:43
Speaker 1: might by expanding and contracting and using those suckers. That's right. Um.
2:49
Speaker 1: I saw that the the oral sucker, the the anterior sucker,
2:54
Speaker 1: was the one that's typically used for feeding, and that
2:57
Speaker 1: the sucker on the rear is the one that you
3:00
Speaker 1: us to help propel the leech forward. Um. I didn't
3:04
Speaker 1: see definitively that it can't feed on the rear anal sucker,
3:09
Speaker 1: but um, it's possible it can't. I did see that
3:12
Speaker 1: it's primarily used for locomotion, So whatever science writer wrote
3:16
Speaker 1: that was hedging their bets. Yeah. The other thing I
3:18
Speaker 1: thought was interesting was land leeches, which we're not going
3:21
Speaker 1: to talk too much about because you know, most of
3:23
Speaker 1: the leeches that we're acquainted with you will find in
3:25
Speaker 1: the water. But land leeches do a a tick like thing,
3:31
Speaker 1: and they're both bloodsuckers. Like remember how ticks will attach
3:34
Speaker 1: to a plant and then just like start snapping their
3:37
Speaker 1: little lobster claws everywhere hoping something walks by. Yeah, they're like, hey,
3:42
Speaker 1: come get me somebody. The land leach does a similar
3:45
Speaker 1: thing and attaches the rear sucker to a branch or
3:47
Speaker 1: a leaf or something and then just sort of does
3:50
Speaker 1: a little shimmy shake with her head, hoping that something
3:53
Speaker 1: will walk by so it can just stick its little
3:55
Speaker 1: face into it. It's just there in chimmys and it's like,
3:58
Speaker 1: you'd like this, huh, you'd like that, Come get it.
4:00
Speaker 1: And they're both bloodsuckers, and they both do very desperate
4:03
Speaker 1: things to attach to a body. I know they also
4:07
Speaker 1: un I know tis Yeah, I know. Ticks and leeches
4:13
Speaker 1: both also share the trait of um being able to
4:17
Speaker 1: um detect c O two as a way to detect prey,
4:20
Speaker 1: at least the land leeches too. So yeah, that definitely
4:23
Speaker 1: stuck out to me as well. UM. And I feel
4:26
Speaker 1: like there's some really great myths out there on the
4:28
Speaker 1: Internet that we're gonna get to just um crush, crumble
4:33
Speaker 1: myth crushers. Yeah, that's perfect myth. We're gonna crush those myths, um.
4:38
Speaker 1: And one of them is that leeches have thirty two brains,
4:40
Speaker 1: which is definitively false. No, they have thirty two body segments.
4:45
Speaker 1: And you will see people on the internet that say
4:48
Speaker 1: they have a brain in each segment, but they don't.
4:50
Speaker 1: They have to brains, one up front and one in
4:54
Speaker 1: the back, and like a lot of little critters that
4:57
Speaker 1: can be cut off and still function. You can cut
5:00
Speaker 1: their brain off and they can survive and do quite well. Yeah.
5:05
Speaker 1: The reason that people say thirty two brains, by the way,
5:08
Speaker 1: that's what Google says. If you just type in leech brain,
5:10
Speaker 1: it serves you up leech has thirty two brains. There's ganglia,
5:15
Speaker 1: which are basically relay stations between these two brains in
5:19
Speaker 1: each of the segment, and those segments can those ganglia
5:24
Speaker 1: can make each segment function autonomously and be responsible for
5:28
Speaker 1: some other stuff. So that's why people are like, yeah,
5:31
Speaker 1: each one's a brain, but it's it's really not. It's
5:33
Speaker 1: not each a brain. It's just kind of like an extended,
5:36
Speaker 1: stretched out segmented brain. Yeah, but they're notren't thirty two
5:39
Speaker 1: ganglia either, right, The ones on each end are kind
5:43
Speaker 1: of fused together, so there's twenty one total. Yeah, that's
5:46
Speaker 1: that's what I saw. See that the computers are all wrong. Yeah,
5:51
Speaker 1: Google's got it wrong again. It's the computer, right. Sure,
5:57
Speaker 1: it sounds like, Wow, I'm really getting old. The computer
6:00
Speaker 1: is wrong. Yeah, it's you sound like somebody who like
6:04
Speaker 1: types under the keyboard like this, right, computers wrong? Remember
6:11
Speaker 1: what I said to you, like fourteen years ago before
6:13
Speaker 1: we were even podcast hos, I remember what I say.
6:19
Speaker 1: You pay me the high compliment of saying that when
6:21
Speaker 1: I type, I type very loudly, especially when I'm into it,
6:24
Speaker 1: that it sounds like the loneous monk away. I can't
6:28
Speaker 1: believe you remember that. Oh yeah, it was a very
6:30
Speaker 1: high compliment as far as I took it, like I
6:33
Speaker 1: had a tattooed on my arm bit, my inner arm bit,
6:37
Speaker 1: and I made you me get the same type. She's like,
6:40
Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense, but I love you. Uh so.
6:44
Speaker 1: Leech species are about six to seven hundred of them,
6:48
Speaker 1: and they generally fall into three categories depending on what
6:52
Speaker 1: they eat. Um because you know, we know they're blood suckers,
6:56
Speaker 1: but not all of them are exclusively blood suckers. No,
7:01
Speaker 1: And if they're blood suckers, they are called two of
7:03
Speaker 1: the greatest words. Take your pick, uh sanguivorous or hamado
7:08
Speaker 1: fadgis either way, it means that they subsist on blood.
7:11
Speaker 1: They're not. They don't want any of your skin or
7:13
Speaker 1: your flesh, or your muscles or great steak. They just
7:16
Speaker 1: want the blood. But yeah, like you said, not all
7:19
Speaker 1: of them are are blood suckers. There's some called worm
7:22
Speaker 1: leeches that eat an entire invertebrates, very very small invertebrates.
7:27
Speaker 1: But they they don't they don't really care about the
7:29
Speaker 1: blood or else they're they're not just interested in the blood.
7:32
Speaker 1: But most leeches, as far as we as as we
7:35
Speaker 1: think of leeches, are sanguivorous. Yeah, but the other two
7:38
Speaker 1: categories are pretty horrifying. And how they get their blood
7:42
Speaker 1: out It's like one sounds really bad and then the
7:45
Speaker 1: next one doesn't sound much better. Kind of thing. Uh.
7:48
Speaker 1: The jawed leeches the one that we're most uh commonly,
7:52
Speaker 1: you know, when you're when you're watching stand by me
7:55
Speaker 1: and poor little Will wheat and gets a leech on
7:57
Speaker 1: his pp Which, now that we've seen that, and now
8:00
Speaker 1: that I should say, now that we've researched this, they
8:03
Speaker 1: got it so wrong. Those kids really did it wrong
8:06
Speaker 1: when they remove the leeches, Oh for sure, and it's
8:10
Speaker 1: probably unlikely that that leech would have made his way
8:13
Speaker 1: to its pp that quickly. Yeah, you never know. I
8:18
Speaker 1: heard they do like kind of a warm, secluded area
8:21
Speaker 1: to do their work. Will Eaton used to listen to
8:24
Speaker 1: the show. I wonder I doubt if he still does.
8:26
Speaker 1: Oh shout out to two thousand ten. Will He's like,
8:31
Speaker 1: quit talking about my BP. But that's the jawed leech,
8:35
Speaker 1: the one that you know, the one that's kind of
8:37
Speaker 1: the most common and most familiar with. And it's we're
8:40
Speaker 1: gonna talk about medicinal leeches later. That's what they use there.
8:43
Speaker 1: But these things will feed on almost anything that they
8:47
Speaker 1: can latch onto that has blood. Um, mammals, frogs, birds, fish,
8:53
Speaker 1: basically anything that can get a hold of that has
8:55
Speaker 1: blood it will latch onto. They strongly prefer mammals, though
8:58
Speaker 1: the rest of this stuff is just kind of junk
9:01
Speaker 1: food basically formed from where I can tell. Can we
9:04
Speaker 1: talk just for a second about how the jawed leeches, um,
9:08
Speaker 1: how they do their thing. Yeah, with those little razor
9:11
Speaker 1: sharp teeth, let's do it. It's scary. So they have
9:14
Speaker 1: like if you look at a picture of a jawed
9:17
Speaker 1: leech mouth, everybody says it looks like a Mercedes emblem,
9:20
Speaker 1: and and it does. There's really no better way to
9:22
Speaker 1: put it. But if you zoom in closer, there's a
9:24
Speaker 1: bunch of little teeth on there right called denticles, and
9:28
Speaker 1: they act as like circular saws. So like the leech
9:31
Speaker 1: itself starts making this kind of sucking motion or inhale
9:34
Speaker 1: exhale really quickly and creates us like suction within its
9:38
Speaker 1: body cavity. So when it's when it puts its lips
9:41
Speaker 1: on you, it actually creates suction. And then when it
9:44
Speaker 1: uses those little denticles that act as like little circular saws,
9:47
Speaker 1: it just keeps sawing deeper and deeper into your skin,
9:50
Speaker 1: finally reaching a blood vessel. When it strikes gold, red gold,
9:55
Speaker 1: which you and I would call blood, it just sucks
9:57
Speaker 1: out into the leach because it's created a vacuum pump. Yeah,
10:01
Speaker 1: and I love this. Where did you get this, uh
10:03
Speaker 1: that that you sent? Do you remember? I think pure
10:09
Speaker 1: side of the Day. I don't remember I wrote down
10:12
Speaker 1: everything else, but this might be the paraside of the
10:14
Speaker 1: day site because it sounds like like this one part
10:17
Speaker 1: sounds like it was written by a Midwestern exterminator. When
10:20
Speaker 1: they're talking about anything basically can attach to anything like sandpaper, glass, paper, velcrow,
10:27
Speaker 1: fine wire, plastic, wicker work, fabric. Yeah, just like lists
10:31
Speaker 1: all these weird things out that I guess that they've
10:34
Speaker 1: put a leech on and it's stuck to. That was
10:36
Speaker 1: a great Midwestern impression. By the way, it says even
10:40
Speaker 1: vertically positioned surfaces coated with vasoline are no major problem
10:45
Speaker 1: for a leech to climb. Uh. The deal with these
10:48
Speaker 1: teetho is that they're so sharp that it's more scalpel
10:53
Speaker 1: like in the I mean, a leech bike can hurt
10:56
Speaker 1: mainly in land leeches, but it's not. When you hear
10:59
Speaker 1: like razor teeth, you think it would be super painful.
11:02
Speaker 1: But they're so sharp that they really don't hurt that bad. Right. Yeah,
11:05
Speaker 1: and let's crumble another myth here. You want to sure
11:09
Speaker 1: leech saliva contains anesthetic myth or not? Uh? By the way,
11:15
Speaker 1: I like that, we're myth crumblers now instead of crushers. Yeah,
11:19
Speaker 1: that's right, I like crumbler better. Okay, cool, Um, that
11:25
Speaker 1: is a myth. Awesome, Yes, another myth crumbled boom. There's
11:31
Speaker 1: a TV show in there, I think, I think so.
11:33
Speaker 1: It's very graphics heavy, like whenever we do the myth,
11:36
Speaker 1: it'll just crumble away. Look a cookie. Oh that's a great,
11:39
Speaker 1: that's great, but it will use it as a wipe
11:41
Speaker 1: from one scene to the other. You and your wipes,
11:44
Speaker 1: I can't wait. Go ahead and say it, Star White
11:47
Speaker 1: Star wipe, the king of all wipes. Yeah, but this
11:52
Speaker 1: crumble wipe, we really might be onto something. Uh yeah,
11:56
Speaker 1: there is no I mean you can find textbooks that
12:00
Speaker 1: that say that too, right, Yeah, it's it's all over
12:02
Speaker 1: the place. There's a lot of misinformation about leeches, it
12:05
Speaker 1: turns out, but that is one that and they do
12:07
Speaker 1: have all sorts of cool stuff in their saliva um
12:10
Speaker 1: that are amazing. They do amazing things, and we'll talk
12:13
Speaker 1: more about those, but those are not Uh. Anesthetic is
12:16
Speaker 1: not one of them. It's just that for the jawed leeches,
12:20
Speaker 1: there there little semi circular denticals that they use as
12:25
Speaker 1: circular saws are so sharp and there's they go so
12:29
Speaker 1: um such a what's the word was the opposite of deep?
12:33
Speaker 1: Oh so shallow into your skin that you you might
12:37
Speaker 1: not feel them being there. That's what it is, right,
12:41
Speaker 1: opposite a deep. They just can't pick one, uh, there's
12:45
Speaker 1: also the jaw less leech. Was the other kind, which
12:49
Speaker 1: includes the giant amazon leach, which can grow to what
12:52
Speaker 1: like eighteen Yeah, look up a picture of these things.
12:57
Speaker 1: It's it's it's horrifying. How how long think about it?
13:01
Speaker 1: They say that your wrist to your elbow is the
13:05
Speaker 1: same length as your foot. Have you ever heard that?
13:09
Speaker 1: I haven't, but I'm looking and there's no way my
13:11
Speaker 1: foot smaller than that. That's I think that's an optical illusion,
13:14
Speaker 1: is it really? Let's just say it is. So I've got, like,
13:18
Speaker 1: I wear size eleven, and I could see that being
13:20
Speaker 1: that that would mean that a leech is actually almost
13:25
Speaker 1: one and a half times the length. One of those
13:27
Speaker 1: leeches is one and a half times the length of
13:30
Speaker 1: the distance from my wrist to my elbow. Can you
13:33
Speaker 1: imagine having one of those on you? Not on me?
13:36
Speaker 1: But when you look up photos of the giant amazon leach,
13:40
Speaker 1: all you see your pictures of people with them, like, hey,
13:43
Speaker 1: I put it on my arm to show you how
13:45
Speaker 1: big it is. It's yeah, it's frightening. Those are the
13:48
Speaker 1: same people who seek out insects on the Schmidt stinging
13:51
Speaker 1: pain index cycle. Uh, but this one, you know, I
13:55
Speaker 1: said there were two different, equally horrifying ways in which
13:58
Speaker 1: they can draw blood. This one doesn't have the circular
14:00
Speaker 1: salt teeth. It has a hypodermic needle, basically a proboscis
14:05
Speaker 1: that it sticks into your body and draws it out,
14:08
Speaker 1: just like you would drawing blood. Yep, which I don't
14:12
Speaker 1: know which is worse, the denticles, the three dentical saws,
14:17
Speaker 1: or proboscis coming out of a leech. Can we take
14:22
Speaker 1: a break and think about it. Yeah, let's all right,
14:24
Speaker 1: we'll be right back. M h. What's your result? Which
14:52
Speaker 1: is worse? I've decided I don't have to choose. I
14:55
Speaker 1: think they're both terrible and awful, and I don't want
14:57
Speaker 1: either one of them happening to me or anyone love
15:00
Speaker 1: or care about. Oh thank you? Am I in that
15:03
Speaker 1: group that includes you, Buddy, okay, Jerry, Jerry of course? Sure, Dave, yes,
15:09
Speaker 1: Dave too? Who else you got? What about the other? Dave? Sure?
15:14
Speaker 1: Dave Kustin, M I'm sorry, Dave Kuston, sure for sure.
15:20
Speaker 1: Olivia Julia Layton grab grab sir Frank chair. Oh yeah, sure,
15:27
Speaker 1: of course. Remember when he used to have our regular
15:29
Speaker 1: guest producers just float in and out. There's Matt Noel
15:35
Speaker 1: care about them too, don't want leeches on them either.
15:39
Speaker 1: Who else guests produced us? I don't know. I'm sure
15:43
Speaker 1: there are people out there that actually know this though.
15:45
Speaker 1: My friend I forgot to say something at the top
15:48
Speaker 1: of this episode, and I wonder if you can indulge
15:50
Speaker 1: me on a tangent of epic proportions. Yes, my sweet
15:57
Speaker 1: niece Mila, I think I've told you before. She's gotten
16:00
Speaker 1: some parts of movies. The big one, her first big
16:05
Speaker 1: one where she's like one of the main characters, is
16:08
Speaker 1: coming out February on Hulu. It's huge. It's a big
16:12
Speaker 1: twentieth Century Fox production called No Exit. It will be
16:16
Speaker 1: out on Hulu on February. She does. I saw the trailer.
16:21
Speaker 1: She gave me chills. She plays a kidnapped young girl
16:26
Speaker 1: who is just terrified and has to be rescued by
16:29
Speaker 1: a slightly older girl, Havannah Rose Lou. Wow, that's super exciting.
16:35
Speaker 1: It is very exciting. We're all very proud, and I
16:37
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure everybody knew about it in case
16:39
Speaker 1: you wanted to see it in a cash calumar right,
16:43
Speaker 1: yeah's rolling in it. She couldn't even drive. She's got
16:47
Speaker 1: like a whole garage full of cars already. Wow, that
16:50
Speaker 1: is super cool. That is awesome. Uh, my daughter is
16:53
Speaker 1: funny and fun but like she can't act up. Tried
16:55
Speaker 1: to see if she could. She can't. It takes a
16:58
Speaker 1: lot more than personnel city. Like, you've got to really
17:01
Speaker 1: have talent. It's absolutely true. It's like really tough for
17:04
Speaker 1: an adult to watch a child actor most of the time.
17:06
Speaker 1: If she does superbly well, I mean she's well, that's
17:09
Speaker 1: what I was saying. We're all really really proud of her.
17:11
Speaker 1: She does like actual great work in this movie. So
17:14
Speaker 1: way to go, Mila, Way to go Milan. Uh, to
17:16
Speaker 1: me a text when that's out so we can watch it. Okay,
17:19
Speaker 1: I will. I'll send you the trailer too, all right,
17:22
Speaker 1: So back to leeches. Oh yeah, definitely sending the trailer.
17:25
Speaker 1: Um they are. I mean, we have fossils of leeches
17:28
Speaker 1: from four million years ago, and they do it seems
17:32
Speaker 1: like they can see better when they're younger. They do
17:34
Speaker 1: have what's called simple eyes where they can kind of
17:37
Speaker 1: see blurry, shadowy, fuzzy things. Uh, and the young uns
17:41
Speaker 1: kind of rely on that. But I think when they
17:43
Speaker 1: get older, I guess their eyesight either fails or they
17:46
Speaker 1: just get so good at sensing vibration that they don't
17:50
Speaker 1: really need those eyes. Yeah, I read that it's the latter.
17:53
Speaker 1: That they they're so good at sensing vibrations. They have
17:56
Speaker 1: little hairs on their bodies that act as century organs
17:59
Speaker 1: so that they can they can detect like movement in
18:02
Speaker 1: the water. And I'll tell you what, I can really
18:04
Speaker 1: relate to leeches because after I saw my niece Mila
18:08
Speaker 1: and the trailer for No Exit coming out February, the
18:11
Speaker 1: hairs on my arm we're standing on and I could
18:14
Speaker 1: have detected vibrations in water with those things. That is
18:18
Speaker 1: a Hodgemen level plug. Thank you. It's good. Leeches. No, no no, no,
18:23
Speaker 1: we don't need Leeches are amazing swimmers. Uh. They can
18:27
Speaker 1: kind of inch along in the water very definitely. And
18:31
Speaker 1: then when they hit your skin, they're gonna probably not
18:35
Speaker 1: go towards your bits, but they will probably hit you
18:38
Speaker 1: around the ankles or the shins or someplace and try
18:41
Speaker 1: and do their thing down there. Because it's thin skin,
18:43
Speaker 1: they have less to deal with. Um. So one of
18:47
Speaker 1: the things we said that there um there, they're saliva
18:50
Speaker 1: really does have some pretty neat compounds in it, and
18:53
Speaker 1: like things that science is just now you know that
18:55
Speaker 1: whole arrogance of science that science went through after it
18:58
Speaker 1: was like, oh, all this is just witchcraft and folk magic.
19:02
Speaker 1: We can't be associated with this, and they turn their
19:05
Speaker 1: backs on some like legitimately good stuff. Leeches was one
19:08
Speaker 1: of them, and they're just now as we'll talk about
19:10
Speaker 1: coming back around to like really looking into leeches, because
19:13
Speaker 1: they're kind of a medical marvel gift from nature itself.
19:17
Speaker 1: And the reason why is because in its saliva it
19:20
Speaker 1: contains a bunch of chemicals, not the least of which
19:22
Speaker 1: is called I believe here you didn't you think I'm
19:25
Speaker 1: pronouncing that correctly. That sounds right, I'm thinking here, you didn't.
19:32
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, it's a and we'll talk about it more
19:35
Speaker 1: in depth in a minute. But it is pretty amazing
19:37
Speaker 1: that this thing that allows them just to feed better
19:41
Speaker 1: because it thins the blood and it doesn't coagulate and
19:45
Speaker 1: it just gives them dinner. It's pretty amazing that it
19:49
Speaker 1: actually has like legitimate medical properties. Yeah, because it's so
19:53
Speaker 1: powerful when that leech and injects some of its saliva
19:56
Speaker 1: containing here you didn't in it um, like your blood
20:00
Speaker 1: starts flowing. And one of the things you'll find is
20:01
Speaker 1: that if you get a leech bite, once that leech
20:04
Speaker 1: is gone, whether you get it off of yourself or
20:07
Speaker 1: it fills up and wanders off, you're gonna still keep
20:10
Speaker 1: bleeding for up to ten hours afterward because that here
20:14
Speaker 1: it in is so so powerful as as far as
20:17
Speaker 1: anticoagulants go. Also, so there's another compound in there. I
20:21
Speaker 1: can't remember which one it is, but it's a vasodilator,
20:24
Speaker 1: which means it opens up your blood vessel so that
20:26
Speaker 1: more blood pumps out more freely. Yeah, I mean this
20:29
Speaker 1: is a little evolutionary miracle of a of a well
20:32
Speaker 1: it's not a bug, but slug. Yeah. Uh. They will
20:40
Speaker 1: drink blood like crazy. They will drink as much as
20:44
Speaker 1: ten times their body weight sometimes because they're a bit
20:48
Speaker 1: like the camel of the of the lake in that
20:52
Speaker 1: they go a year or so, sometimes many months at
20:55
Speaker 1: least between meals and they can store this stuff up
20:59
Speaker 1: and a little power where they have these enzymes because
21:02
Speaker 1: you know, blood will eventually go bad, but they have
21:05
Speaker 1: enzymes that protect it and keep it fresh. Yeah. And
21:08
Speaker 1: there's another thing that they're studying with leeches these days
21:11
Speaker 1: is it's um, it's a microbiota and its stomach and
21:15
Speaker 1: it's gut, just like they're studying our microbiota, which I
21:17
Speaker 1: think is the most fascinating thing of all time. They're
21:20
Speaker 1: also setting leeches to figure out what's going on in
21:22
Speaker 1: there to keep the blood from spoiling, because you know,
21:25
Speaker 1: they might go six months or a year between meals.
21:28
Speaker 1: It doesn't take them that long to digest it, but
21:30
Speaker 1: it still takes weeks and weeks for a leech to
21:33
Speaker 1: digest its its meal. And it takes long enough that,
21:36
Speaker 1: I mean a leach probably only feeds a few times
21:39
Speaker 1: in its life, I believe, yeah, because they don't live
21:41
Speaker 1: that long. I mean, but I think no more than
21:44
Speaker 1: a few years probably max. That would be my guess.
21:47
Speaker 1: As well, we should talk about the tyrant king leech,
21:51
Speaker 1: the Taranta della rex and this is a one jawed
21:55
Speaker 1: sucker that uh is also in the Amazon River. And
21:59
Speaker 1: these are the stuff of nightmares because this is one
22:03
Speaker 1: of those leeches that's like, forget the ankle, forget the shin.
22:07
Speaker 1: What I really like is to get inside of you
22:09
Speaker 1: and up in that mucus membrane so it will get
22:13
Speaker 1: into your nasal cavity. You can be a kid, and
22:16
Speaker 1: there are many reports of kids and teenagers who were
22:19
Speaker 1: bathing in the Amazon or playing in the Amazon and
22:23
Speaker 1: ended up with a leech up their nose or somewhere
22:27
Speaker 1: like deep within their nasal cavity, which is the stuff
22:29
Speaker 1: of nightmares to me. It gets even worse than that
22:32
Speaker 1: because they found these kinds of leeches in eyeballs, like
22:36
Speaker 1: attached to the mucus membrane around your eyeball, your urethra
22:43
Speaker 1: so so much they will block the your ability to pee,
22:46
Speaker 1: your anus or your vagina, have one there than the
22:50
Speaker 1: other two places, or your vagina. They found leeches in vaginas,
22:53
Speaker 1: these kind of leeches. And the other worst part about them, Chuck,
22:56
Speaker 1: is that you know a leech that's feeding on you externally,
23:00
Speaker 1: like a typical jawed leech. It'll feed for maybe twenty
23:03
Speaker 1: to thirty minutes something like that. These guys stick around
23:06
Speaker 1: for weeks, maybe months, And sometimes people detect that they
23:11
Speaker 1: have one of these internal leeches because they they they
23:16
Speaker 1: feel what's called foreign body movement, like there's something moving
23:20
Speaker 1: around inside of them and their bodies like m I
23:23
Speaker 1: might want to get this checked out, because I'm about
23:25
Speaker 1: to puke everything up right now. Oh man, I just
23:29
Speaker 1: can't help but think of when I pulled that spider
23:31
Speaker 1: out of Emily's ear cavity and she was like, it's
23:34
Speaker 1: something like buzzing, Like that's not a good sign. Oh man,
23:40
Speaker 1: that was so funny. I mean, it was funny for me,
23:42
Speaker 1: and she handled it pretty well. I gotta say, can
23:45
Speaker 1: we read that thing from eight thirty five since we're
23:48
Speaker 1: just at the maybe the grossest part of this whole episode.
23:51
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, go ahead, hit it. Do you know the
23:53
Speaker 1: one I'm talking about? I think so? Yeah. Okay, So
23:58
Speaker 1: there was a there was a case study that mentioned
24:00
Speaker 1: on a site, a historian site called Jerry Walton dot
24:03
Speaker 1: com g E. R. I Walton dot com, who is
24:06
Speaker 1: a historian, and she wrote about a girl who was
24:08
Speaker 1: gathering watercress in and there was a leech that went
24:13
Speaker 1: around her ankle and then for some reason, the leech
24:16
Speaker 1: made its way all the way into the girl's leg
24:20
Speaker 1: and just climbed up to her thigh where finally her
24:23
Speaker 1: thigh was about twice it's natural size, tents red and
24:27
Speaker 1: shining and very painful. And finally the doctor like cut
24:31
Speaker 1: out this blood clot of blood and puss, he says,
24:36
Speaker 1: which you say, which he drained and emptied into a bowl.
24:40
Speaker 1: On emptying the matter from the bowl on a clean
24:43
Speaker 1: flag outside the door, the girl's mother was surprised to
24:46
Speaker 1: find among it a leech, coiled up, quite alive and
24:49
Speaker 1: moving actively. Yeah, I mean, this isn't something leeches are
24:53
Speaker 1: known to do, like burrow and move around inside your body,
24:56
Speaker 1: like from the skin, like they'll crawl up your nose
25:00
Speaker 1: or if you swallow one. This um limnatis uh niloticta
25:05
Speaker 1: is one of the ones that doesn't have the power
25:08
Speaker 1: to break the skin with its little teeth or jaw,
25:10
Speaker 1: so it it hangs around and waits for you to
25:13
Speaker 1: drink it, or a cow to drink it, so like
25:15
Speaker 1: they'll get in that way. But they are not known
25:17
Speaker 1: to generally do what happened in this girl right now,
25:20
Speaker 1: which is why a hundred and eighty five years later,
25:24
Speaker 1: eighty seven years later, we're talking about it on stuff.
25:27
Speaker 1: You should know because it is so messed up that
25:30
Speaker 1: almost fainted when I first read it, And it takes
25:32
Speaker 1: a lot to make me feel like I could faint
25:34
Speaker 1: if I if I don't stop imagining like putting myself
25:39
Speaker 1: here in this situation. Yeah, I mean that's horrifying. Um
25:43
Speaker 1: hasn't happened a ton since then, because that was right, right, No,
25:47
Speaker 1: it is extremely rare. And even like you said, that
25:49
Speaker 1: one that will um that will like when you you'll
25:52
Speaker 1: drink it up and it attaches um. That's actually killed.
25:56
Speaker 1: Some people famously killed some of napoleon soldiers in Egypt
25:59
Speaker 1: and seventeen. They drank from a water source that a leech,
26:03
Speaker 1: some leeches attached to like their esophagus, and as they
26:07
Speaker 1: became engorged from feeding, it blocked the soldiers airways and
26:11
Speaker 1: some of them died from suffocation. Yeah, I mean, what's
26:14
Speaker 1: probably not gonna happen almost certainly, as you're not gonna
26:16
Speaker 1: be bled out by leeches. But there have been cases
26:20
Speaker 1: where people have gone to the emergency room with like
26:23
Speaker 1: more than a hundred leeches on them and they were
26:26
Speaker 1: anemic or lightheaded or both, and so that can happen.
26:30
Speaker 1: But you're generally not going to die from a leech, I'll,
26:33
Speaker 1: you know, unless you're in Napoleon's army, right right. The
26:37
Speaker 1: need deserved it. So you want to talk about how
26:40
Speaker 1: leeches reproduced because that's pretty interesting as well. Sure they're hermaphroditic. Yep,
26:47
Speaker 1: they have male and female sex organs. Uh, they are
26:51
Speaker 1: internal sex organs, and they do make you know. They
26:54
Speaker 1: have uh, they have sperm, they have eggs, they have ovaries,
26:59
Speaker 1: and in order to mate, they get together. And I
27:02
Speaker 1: thought we had talked about this before. It was some
27:05
Speaker 1: insect that did something similar, probably ticks maybe, where they
27:10
Speaker 1: attached to each other and kind of just line up
27:12
Speaker 1: where their parts should be and the sort of fit.
27:18
Speaker 1: The male produces a container like a syringe light container
27:22
Speaker 1: of sperm called a spermataphor, and it pierces the skin
27:26
Speaker 1: near that sex organ, and I guess they say it's
27:29
Speaker 1: close enough for rock and roll. And they somehow find
27:33
Speaker 1: a way to the ovaries, and then they produce these
27:36
Speaker 1: little cocoons that are very hardy. Yeah, out of a
27:39
Speaker 1: little part of their body called the clitellum. It produces
27:42
Speaker 1: a thick fluid that the the fertilized eggs are are
27:46
Speaker 1: enshrouded in in that cocoon. And then they attached the
27:49
Speaker 1: cocoons to like plants or put them in the mud
27:52
Speaker 1: or something like that. In a few weeks or months later,
27:55
Speaker 1: um baby leeches hatch and and they just they hatch
27:59
Speaker 1: like fully formed and just grow over time as they
28:02
Speaker 1: feed um. But they they do this reciprocally. Yeah, that
28:07
Speaker 1: was right. Where each leech fertilizes one another's eggs. So
28:13
Speaker 1: as the leeches um mate, they are um fertilizing one
28:18
Speaker 1: another's eggs. They're both receiving amp and sending um sperm.
28:24
Speaker 1: And it's pretty neat. It's it's kind of a real
28:26
Speaker 1: tip for ted arrangement. It is. And those cocoons are
28:29
Speaker 1: really hardy. Dave talks about it, says that they're tough
28:33
Speaker 1: enough to be swallowed by waterfowl and just go right
28:36
Speaker 1: through them and come out the other end and be okay,
28:39
Speaker 1: which gave rise to the famous saying that went through
28:43
Speaker 1: me like a leech cocoon through a waterfowl, which is
28:47
Speaker 1: what I always say. Sure, no, it was good. What
28:55
Speaker 1: about the kangaroo leach? I think that one bears mentioning
28:57
Speaker 1: as well too, as as far as reproduct. Yeah, they kangrew.
29:01
Speaker 1: I mean, these things come out kind of ready to
29:03
Speaker 1: take on the world. They don't need a lot of care,
29:05
Speaker 1: but they are doting parents in some cases, which is
29:08
Speaker 1: pretty interesting, especially the kangaroo leach, which has a little
29:13
Speaker 1: a little pouch like a marsupial does, and they carry
29:16
Speaker 1: around their little leech in the pouch until they're ready
29:19
Speaker 1: to think for themselves, which is sort of adorable and
29:22
Speaker 1: so and this definitely was from the Daily Parasite dot com,
29:26
Speaker 1: but they said that the leech um basically shoots them
29:30
Speaker 1: the pouch of baby leeches explosively onto a passing frog
29:34
Speaker 1: when it's ready, when it says like, fly away, a
29:36
Speaker 1: little Berris's time for you to to live on your own,
29:39
Speaker 1: to make sure that they get a good first meal.
29:42
Speaker 1: So some poor frog gets splattered with baby leeches because
29:45
Speaker 1: because it happened to be in the wrong place at
29:47
Speaker 1: the wrong time. I mean, I wonder if I know
29:52
Speaker 1: what they can't kill a human? Can leech just kill
29:54
Speaker 1: a sure fish or a frog? I think they can
29:57
Speaker 1: kill livestock if if you don't get them off. I
30:00
Speaker 1: think one of the reasons they have trouble killing humans
30:02
Speaker 1: is because we have opposable thumbs, and we can get
30:04
Speaker 1: them off. We can get them off a lot easily easier.
30:07
Speaker 1: I read that poor elephants will will be driven like
30:10
Speaker 1: almost crazy when a leech gets up inside of its
30:13
Speaker 1: trunk like, and I thought, yeah, there's a lot of
30:16
Speaker 1: like animals are just s o l in a lot
30:19
Speaker 1: of cases. So yeah, I think they can think they
30:21
Speaker 1: can kill animals because they can't get them off as easy.
30:24
Speaker 1: Poor elephants. I know, I feel sucking that water up
30:27
Speaker 1: have been fun mhmm, very sad. So I say we talk.
30:32
Speaker 1: We we give everybody, the good people, some advice about
30:35
Speaker 1: how to get rid of a leech if you find
30:37
Speaker 1: one on you, and then let's take a break hop
30:39
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, like I said, you don't need to
30:42
Speaker 1: be too freaked out, even though it's pretty scary looking.
30:45
Speaker 1: They're not poisonous, you're not. They don't carry or they
30:48
Speaker 1: haven't at least been known to carry um human blood
30:51
Speaker 1: born diseases. Yeah, anytime there's like a blood sucker, you
30:54
Speaker 1: kind of might want to worry about that, but not
30:56
Speaker 1: in this case. But what you want to do is
30:59
Speaker 1: don't panic and just tear it off of you because
31:02
Speaker 1: it might detaching, part of it might get left kind
31:05
Speaker 1: of like a tick. Again, you don't want any of
31:07
Speaker 1: it left in your skin, right right, because that that
31:10
Speaker 1: remnant usually the jaw can get infected um. And another
31:15
Speaker 1: one that you want to do is you don't want
31:16
Speaker 1: to treat it too rough, like you might want to
31:18
Speaker 1: beat it up and and um and really show it
31:21
Speaker 1: who's boss, but you don't. You want to treat it
31:23
Speaker 1: very gently because if you like squeeze a leech or
31:27
Speaker 1: a lot of people recommend putting a little table salt
31:30
Speaker 1: or even like alcohol or lemon juice on a leech,
31:33
Speaker 1: if you disturb it biologically like they're physiologically like that,
31:38
Speaker 1: you might make it vomit. And that's bad because it's
31:41
Speaker 1: vomiting up some of its stomach contents into your body
31:45
Speaker 1: and you can get an infection from that as well.
31:48
Speaker 1: So the key here is to treat the leech very
31:51
Speaker 1: gently and go against every fiber of your screaming nerves
31:56
Speaker 1: in your entire body. Will just be like, oh fiddle
31:59
Speaker 1: d d there's a leech on me. I better carefully
32:02
Speaker 1: remove it. He dial up the stuff you should know
32:05
Speaker 1: episode and listen all the way through the thirty two
32:08
Speaker 1: minutes until I get to the point where they tell
32:11
Speaker 1: us to be gentle and just use a little Dave said,
32:15
Speaker 1: like a credit card or your fingernail or something, and
32:18
Speaker 1: gently kind of press on the side of its head,
32:20
Speaker 1: hopefully it will detach that sucker. And then Dave said
32:25
Speaker 1: to flick it off before it reattaches. And that is
32:29
Speaker 1: an understatement. Yeah, I mean, you're just trying to break
32:32
Speaker 1: that seal that the leech creates with its mouth and
32:35
Speaker 1: your skin, and then enough for it to be like,
32:37
Speaker 1: hey man, what the heck, so that it pulls its
32:39
Speaker 1: jaws out too as well. Um, and again, that wound's
32:43
Speaker 1: gonna bleed for maybe ten hours. I saw in a
32:46
Speaker 1: Popular Science article. So just you gotta clean the wound,
32:50
Speaker 1: you gotta dress it, and you're gonna have to redress it,
32:53
Speaker 1: probably more than once because it's kind of just keep bleeding. Yeah.
32:55
Speaker 1: I feel like I had a leech on me at
32:57
Speaker 1: one point or another when I was a kid, but
33:01
Speaker 1: nothing stands out story wise, but I'm pretty sure I
33:05
Speaker 1: remember it happening. You. I don't think I've ever had
33:08
Speaker 1: a leach on me. I've had plenty of ticks, but
33:11
Speaker 1: never elach. Keep that street going. I'm trying what I say.
33:16
Speaker 1: I'm trying. I steer clear of fresh water, salt water.
33:21
Speaker 1: You don't get in the water. I don't go to
33:23
Speaker 1: Japan or Indonesia. I'm pretty I'm steering clear of the leeches.
33:28
Speaker 1: I see. That's my problem is I am one to
33:31
Speaker 1: jump in any body of water that I can jump in.
33:35
Speaker 1: I remember once when I was a kid and we
33:38
Speaker 1: had this creek that we used to swim in, and
33:40
Speaker 1: we were hanging out with some kid who didn't normally
33:43
Speaker 1: hang out with us, and he saw the first of
33:44
Speaker 1: us go into this creek and start swimming and he
33:48
Speaker 1: goes that kid wants dysent terry or something like that,
33:52
Speaker 1: and I mean, we're like ten. I don't know how
33:54
Speaker 1: this kid even knew about dysent terry, but I knew
33:57
Speaker 1: what he was talking about enough to be like, Oh,
33:59
Speaker 1: you don't want that. You can get that from creeks.
34:01
Speaker 1: I better steer clear of creeks. That has made a
34:03
Speaker 1: huge impression on me. Yeah, with the creeks behind my house.
34:07
Speaker 1: So I just I don't know. I'll always try and
34:09
Speaker 1: get water if I can. Oh. The other thing that
34:12
Speaker 1: scared me too in that same creek, with somebody saying
34:14
Speaker 1: like what about water moccasins? Like there they always everybody
34:18
Speaker 1: always has a story about how somebody jumped into a
34:20
Speaker 1: pit of water moccasins, and that was that. So that
34:24
Speaker 1: kind of steered me clear of creeks too, So you
34:26
Speaker 1: get it, I get it, don't really regret it. All right, Well,
34:29
Speaker 1: let's have a little pause for the cause, and we will.
34:33
Speaker 1: Jesus just turned into Johnny fever r I P. By
34:35
Speaker 1: the way, Howard Heman? What he just passed away? What
34:40
Speaker 1: a b s year already for celebriting man. I'll tell
34:45
Speaker 1: you who turned out to be a great person in retrospect?
34:48
Speaker 1: Was Bob Saget. My goodness read any of the tributes
34:51
Speaker 1: to him, pretty heartwarming. You should read. Have you read
34:54
Speaker 1: John stamus as eulogy? Amazing dude, I think very highly
34:59
Speaker 1: a Bob sagging out, but also John Steams and weirdly
35:03
Speaker 1: John Mayer. Uh, I don't know if you were any
35:05
Speaker 1: of that stuff. I didn't know. They were good buddies.
35:07
Speaker 1: He wrote some John Mary a lot. She didn't like
35:09
Speaker 1: his music, but she thinks he's pretty cool and uh yeah,
35:12
Speaker 1: So that's how we kind of got sucked into the
35:14
Speaker 1: whole Bob sag It death thing. Alright. And Jeffrey Ross,
35:18
Speaker 1: who he was a really good friend of Bob. My
35:20
Speaker 1: brother worked with Saga and he remember years ago saying
35:23
Speaker 1: that he was like the nicest dude. Yeah, he's he
35:26
Speaker 1: seems to have been the real deal for sure. Alright,
35:28
Speaker 1: pe everybody who we've lost this year, how about that?
35:32
Speaker 1: And that let's take a break and we're going to
35:33
Speaker 1: talk about blood letting right after this. M okay, chuck.
36:03
Speaker 1: So we're finally at part two thirty five minutes in.
36:07
Speaker 1: What we're talking about the history of blood letting um
36:09
Speaker 1: and using medicinal leeches and just a brief overview of
36:13
Speaker 1: blood letting. It's based on the humoral theory of health
36:18
Speaker 1: and disease, which says that we have four humors, right,
36:21
Speaker 1: We've got um, blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile.
36:27
Speaker 1: And over time people said, I think bloods like the
36:30
Speaker 1: real like money, money, humor. We need to keep things
36:34
Speaker 1: in balance. So if you want to keep everything in
36:36
Speaker 1: balance to be healthy, you need to get rid of
36:39
Speaker 1: some excess blood. That's the real problem. And so for
36:41
Speaker 1: a long time people use like knives or whatever and
36:45
Speaker 1: cut your into your veins to to bleed you out
36:48
Speaker 1: to remove some of that blood. And somewhere along the
36:51
Speaker 1: way people said, I think leeches are a better a
36:53
Speaker 1: better treatment for this because it's a lot gentler and
36:56
Speaker 1: kindler than cutting into somebody's arms. Uh, and you probably
36:59
Speaker 1: don't is nearly the amount of blood We covered this
37:04
Speaker 1: years ago. It had to have been in one of
37:06
Speaker 1: our weird medical top tens. And I know we talked
37:11
Speaker 1: about medical leeches at some point, but here we go again,
37:16
Speaker 1: because they used them a lot back then. Um. I
37:21
Speaker 1: think the early nineteenth century is when in Europe they
37:25
Speaker 1: were like, this is really the best kind of treatment
37:28
Speaker 1: we've ever heard of. We would call that the Golden
37:31
Speaker 1: Age at least so far of leeching or leech mania, yeah,
37:37
Speaker 1: of losing blood via leach And there was a man,
37:39
Speaker 1: specifically a doctor in Paris, Dr Francois would that be
37:44
Speaker 1: Brusa m hm okay, And he was. He was a
37:49
Speaker 1: physician in Paris who he basically was like, you know what,
37:53
Speaker 1: everything that's wrong with anyone is inflammation of your intestines.
37:56
Speaker 1: It all goes back to that. So anybody that comes
37:59
Speaker 1: by my clim my military hospital, the first thing that
38:02
Speaker 1: we're gonna do, I don't care what you say is
38:04
Speaker 1: wrong with you, is we're going to throw fifty leeches
38:07
Speaker 1: on your body right out of the gate. To see
38:10
Speaker 1: what happens. Yeah, he earned the nickname le Vampierre de
38:14
Speaker 1: la medicine, which seems appropriate. But he was hugely popular,
38:20
Speaker 1: so much so that um and leeches were hugely popular too.
38:23
Speaker 1: But the ideas of Brussay were so popular that, um,
38:27
Speaker 1: he even reached into the fashion world where people would
38:30
Speaker 1: wear like dresses with leeches embroidered all over him. Like
38:34
Speaker 1: leech mania seems to be a really good descriptor of
38:37
Speaker 1: this period of time. And I saw and I could
38:40
Speaker 1: not find what happened. But Britannica said that his his
38:46
Speaker 1: theories about blood letting and leeches were hugely influential until
38:51
Speaker 1: a cholera epidemic in eighteen thirty two and his methods
38:54
Speaker 1: proved disastrous and he fell out of favor. Interesting. I
38:57
Speaker 1: couldn't see what happened, but you can probably guess that
39:00
Speaker 1: a lot of people die because he mistreated them by
39:03
Speaker 1: blood by you know, massive blood lighting or whatever. But
39:08
Speaker 1: it seems to have ended that that leech mania thing.
39:11
Speaker 1: And then, like we said before, um, the leeches is
39:14
Speaker 1: kind of fell to the wayside because modern medicine was like, no,
39:18
Speaker 1: that's that's claptrap, that's quackery. We need to separate ourselves
39:21
Speaker 1: from that, even if there was really something to it. Yeah,
39:24
Speaker 1: and if you're wondering, you know that it takes a
39:26
Speaker 1: lot of leeches. It's not like a doctor would have
39:28
Speaker 1: like six or eight of these laying around. Um, you know,
39:31
Speaker 1: thirty five million medical leeches were being imported every year
39:35
Speaker 1: into France alone in the eighteen thirties. And if you're
39:38
Speaker 1: asking yourself, how do you get this many leeches? You
39:42
Speaker 1: get him the old fashioned way. There were people like
39:45
Speaker 1: leech I mean, Dave calls him leech gatherers or leech hunters.
39:48
Speaker 1: They would wade into waters with their pants rolled up
39:52
Speaker 1: or maybe no pants at all, and they would get
39:56
Speaker 1: leeches to attach to themselves and then pull them off
39:59
Speaker 1: and sell them. And yeah, and Jerry Walton's website I
40:04
Speaker 1: saw she wrote that they would, in this manner gather
40:07
Speaker 1: about five leeches a day. It's crazy. We're doing a
40:10
Speaker 1: good job. It is crazy. It's very because she wrote
40:13
Speaker 1: a whole post on leech gathering as a weird profession
40:16
Speaker 1: that that finally kind of fellow the wayside, and it
40:20
Speaker 1: did indeed fell the wayside until I think the seventies,
40:24
Speaker 1: when some daring adventurous UH physiologists started studying what's called
40:31
Speaker 1: herudo therapy UM, and it was it became kind of
40:36
Speaker 1: important first in reconstructive surgery. And it just makes uttering
40:41
Speaker 1: complete sense that you would use it for this. So
40:44
Speaker 1: I guess they were starting to study it in the seventies,
40:46
Speaker 1: but it wasn't until when a plastic surgeon name named
40:51
Speaker 1: Joseph Upton like really put it to the test. I
40:53
Speaker 1: get the impression it was mostly clinical or lab studies
40:56
Speaker 1: and maybe UM just kind of posture elation. And Upton said,
41:01
Speaker 1: I'm trying. I'm at the end of my rope. I'm
41:04
Speaker 1: gonna get it is pretty amazing. There was a boy,
41:06
Speaker 1: a five year old boy in Boston who went in
41:09
Speaker 1: and said, my right, HEEA was bitten off in the pock.
41:14
Speaker 1: It was dog and very sad. I'm just kind of
41:19
Speaker 1: getting around UM. But that all ends well, don't worry.
41:22
Speaker 1: That's the reason I'm telling that joke. UH. He reattached
41:25
Speaker 1: the ear, but the tissue was suffering from necrosis. It
41:29
Speaker 1: was starting to turn black and die because it was
41:32
Speaker 1: swelling up with blood that couldn't go anywhere. It was
41:34
Speaker 1: pulling up and becoming stagnant and This is a you know,
41:38
Speaker 1: this was an ongoing and still is an ongoing issue
41:41
Speaker 1: when you're trying to reattach a body part to get
41:44
Speaker 1: that blood flow not just going one way but going
41:46
Speaker 1: the other way. Like they can attach a major artery
41:49
Speaker 1: to send blood to a thing, but they don't attach
41:52
Speaker 1: all the little tiny veins that send blood back away
41:55
Speaker 1: from it, so that chance than that risk of pooling
41:58
Speaker 1: is always there. So this doctor Upton said, you know what,
42:02
Speaker 1: I remember reading this, just stay with me, kid, this
42:05
Speaker 1: crazy article about leech therapy. And he said, let's give
42:10
Speaker 1: it a shot, and he ordered thirty leeches, had him
42:13
Speaker 1: shipped overnight from Britain from a leech farm. They attached
42:17
Speaker 1: two of them to this kid's ear and the leeches
42:21
Speaker 1: did the work. And we're sucking that blood up enough
42:24
Speaker 1: to where it regained its color and he made a
42:27
Speaker 1: complete recovery. Yeah, And it did that by um that vasodilation,
42:32
Speaker 1: so it improved blood flow. It kept that that blood
42:35
Speaker 1: from um coagulating so it wasn't clotting, so it was
42:38
Speaker 1: flowing even more smoothly um. And the leeches themselves were
42:43
Speaker 1: pumped steadily pumping the blood out, so there wasn't any
42:46
Speaker 1: blood to pool and turn ransom and become stagnant. So
42:50
Speaker 1: and the veins can do amazing thing. Your blood vessels
42:53
Speaker 1: do spectacular things. Whenever they they face an obstacle, they
42:57
Speaker 1: will figure out a way to go around and grow
42:59
Speaker 1: around and make new actions. So by using leeches, you
43:02
Speaker 1: are giving those veins enough breathing room to kind of
43:05
Speaker 1: figure it out themselves and reconnect and and you know,
43:09
Speaker 1: reinstitute that kind of blood flow out of that area.
43:13
Speaker 1: It's pretty spectacular. And that was like everybody just found
43:17
Speaker 1: the closest leech and put it on their shoulder and
43:20
Speaker 1: the leech like shook its hands on either side of
43:22
Speaker 1: its head and triumph. So leeches kind of came back
43:25
Speaker 1: like in a big way starting in the nineteen eighties
43:28
Speaker 1: and science has really been taking them seriously ever since.
43:30
Speaker 1: It's amazing. It's almost like they are meant to do this.
43:33
Speaker 1: This is their one little function that can benefit humankind.
43:38
Speaker 1: Uh so much though that in two thousand four the
43:40
Speaker 1: FDA said medical leeches approved. Uh, it's actually approved. And
43:46
Speaker 1: this is where I definitely remember us talking about it.
43:48
Speaker 1: It's it's approved as a medical device. I know what
43:51
Speaker 1: you're thinking of what we did an entire episode on maggots,
43:56
Speaker 1: and they're also approved as a medical device for similar
44:00
Speaker 1: off but really removing like dead and infected tissue. And
44:04
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's what you're thinking about. I don't know.
44:06
Speaker 1: Pretty amazing for both of them, though, so they are
44:10
Speaker 1: legit medical devices. I think the actual quote from the
44:14
Speaker 1: FDA was for the purpose of overcoming the problem of
44:18
Speaker 1: venus venus congestion by creating prolonged localized bleeding. It sounds
44:24
Speaker 1: like something Galen would have written. Uh, and they are
44:27
Speaker 1: this is this sort of sad part is their single use.
44:30
Speaker 1: So they use these leeches and then they euthanize them
44:35
Speaker 1: an alcohol instead of I don't know, take him outside,
44:38
Speaker 1: throw them in the shrubbery. Well, I mean, there's got
44:42
Speaker 1: to be something you can do, especially if you leave
44:45
Speaker 1: them on until they are done. It seems like, yeah,
44:49
Speaker 1: we could kind of retire them or let them go
44:51
Speaker 1: off and digest their meal in like a used leeches
44:55
Speaker 1: jar or something like that. I just I think it's
44:58
Speaker 1: sad an old folks on for leeches. Sure, at least
45:04
Speaker 1: let him stay alive for the next few weeks so
45:06
Speaker 1: that they can digest that meal and enjoy it like
45:09
Speaker 1: this is just the worst kind of using somebody. You know. Well,
45:12
Speaker 1: there was that one attorney, that lawyer years ago who
45:17
Speaker 1: had a couple of leeches that that he said, uh
45:20
Speaker 1: saved his life and he kept them in a jar
45:23
Speaker 1: like a good guy, but he was a little wacky.
45:26
Speaker 1: He actually named them and would supposedly asked their opinion
45:31
Speaker 1: on on cases that he was handling as as a
45:35
Speaker 1: lawyer and looking at like how they swim as some
45:39
Speaker 1: sort of divining uh indicator of how he should uh
45:44
Speaker 1: which direction is case should go crazy? Kind of like
45:48
Speaker 1: that octopus in the World Cup. I don't know, Oh yeah, yeah,
45:51
Speaker 1: I remember that, yeah, exactly like um and there's that
45:55
Speaker 1: was Thomas Erskine and he there he's part of this
45:58
Speaker 1: really interesting article from j Store Daily by Amelia Soft
46:03
Speaker 1: that I think rus found. That's it's really good if
46:06
Speaker 1: you're into that, if you want to read about that
46:07
Speaker 1: whole leech mania, because it was way more than just
46:11
Speaker 1: the medical profession. It was like the whole society just
46:13
Speaker 1: kind of revered Leach for kind of like what you said,
46:17
Speaker 1: almost like they were intended to do this, that's how
46:19
Speaker 1: they kind of saw it, and they really kind of
46:22
Speaker 1: respected lee just for a while, because Yeah, but while
46:24
Speaker 1: the medical community is legitimately using them, the wellness community
46:28
Speaker 1: is probably over using them. Uh. There are clinics in Arizona,
46:34
Speaker 1: there's some in England and other parts of the world
46:36
Speaker 1: where their leech therapy is really far reaching and basically
46:40
Speaker 1: saying it can help with everything from arthritis to cancer,
46:44
Speaker 1: to carpel t Herp's to hemrhoids. Uh. I'm not sure
46:48
Speaker 1: exactly where that treatment, how that goes, but I have
46:51
Speaker 1: a pretty good idea. Yeah, but um, there are other
46:56
Speaker 1: uses therapeutically that doctors are looking into, but they are
47:00
Speaker 1: round me saying like, places like this you need to
47:03
Speaker 1: be really wary of because the jury is still out
47:06
Speaker 1: on a lot of this stuff. And I don't know
47:08
Speaker 1: if we should go back to the you know, the
47:11
Speaker 1: seventeenth century Europe or wherever that was, right, right, But yeah,
47:15
Speaker 1: they do think that they're anti inflammatory properties, anti tumor properties,
47:20
Speaker 1: like in those leeches saliva. It's pretty neat, so you
47:23
Speaker 1: never know. Keep keep an ear out for for a
47:27
Speaker 1: leech update in ten years from US. Okay, maybe ellech
47:32
Speaker 1: will be in the Senate by then. There's already a
47:35
Speaker 1: few in there. I would say, hey, yo, uh, you
47:39
Speaker 1: got anything else? Chuck? I got nothing else. Chuck's got
47:43
Speaker 1: nothing else everybody, which means it's time for listener mail.
47:50
Speaker 1: Hey guys, I no, you don't always worry about pronunciation,
47:54
Speaker 1: but us it's different on an oft repeated phrase, and
47:59
Speaker 1: I just can't help my self, so we're gonna allow this, Robin.
48:03
Speaker 1: We usually don't take pronunciation emails very seriously because we
48:07
Speaker 1: famously mispronounced things almost on purpose, right almost. Uh. The
48:14
Speaker 1: Arctic Fox episode is the latest. And Josh said the
48:17
Speaker 1: phrase gras, where he correctly left the PA silent but
48:23
Speaker 1: incorrectly said fat graw and French is fat with a
48:27
Speaker 1: silent last letter like foi gras instead of gross silent e.
48:33
Speaker 1: But a soft C loosely sounds like grass. Doubtless you
48:39
Speaker 1: were doing your best, but foi gras is a decidedly
48:41
Speaker 1: different thing from a kuda grass. Okay, to teach French
48:47
Speaker 1: too little people, What I generally say is that the
48:50
Speaker 1: last letter of silence. So if there's an E that
48:52
Speaker 1: means a consonant in front of it, isn't the last
48:55
Speaker 1: letter and is not silent. That's the difference between PETI
48:59
Speaker 1: and tait mm hmm with an E on the end
49:03
Speaker 1: or not. You don't have to read my message on
49:06
Speaker 1: the show. Please take it, dare you not to, but
49:09
Speaker 1: please take the message to heart. And now back to
49:12
Speaker 1: the adorable Arctic Fox. And that is Robin. Who is
49:18
Speaker 1: she her? In Victoria b C. Great town, that Victoria BC. Robin,
49:25
Speaker 1: thank you very much for that a little French lesson.
49:27
Speaker 1: It's been many, many years since I had one. I
49:30
Speaker 1: will try to remember from now on everyone says kuda
49:34
Speaker 1: gra though everyone says it, yeah, but everybody's got it wrong,
49:38
Speaker 1: you say, I mean, it's Americans saying you say kuda
49:41
Speaker 1: grass at the next dinner party and prepared to be
49:44
Speaker 1: laughed out of their yokol. I'm gonna I'm gonna try
49:47
Speaker 1: a different one. I'm gonna say kuda Okay. That's good, okay, see,
49:52
Speaker 1: and just just make everyone if you want to get
49:57
Speaker 1: in touch with us, like Robin did with a little
49:59
Speaker 1: French lesson, the little Italian lesson, who knows some other
50:02
Speaker 1: kind of lesson, We don't care. We want to hear it.
50:04
Speaker 1: You can send it to us via email at Stuff
50:07
Speaker 1: podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you should Know
50:13
Speaker 1: is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
50:15
Speaker 1: My heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts,
50:19
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