Why We Need to Save the Medicinal Leech

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Abstract
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.

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