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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
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Abstract

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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

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