William Wordsworth was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads (1798).
Bloodletting is the withdrawal of blood from a patient to prevent or cure illness and disease. Bloodletting, whether by a physician or by leeches, was based on an ancient system of medicine in which blood and other bodily fluids were regarded as "humours" that had to remain in proper balance to maintain health. It is claimed to have been the most common medical practice performed by surgeons from antiquity until the late 19th century, a span of over 2,000 years. In Europe, the practice continued to be relatively common until the end of the 19th century. The practice has now been abandoned by modern-style medicine for all except a few very specific medical conditions. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the historical use of bloodletting was harmful to patients.
Romney Marsh is a sparsely populated wetland area in the counties of Kent and East Sussex in the south-east of England. It covers about 100 square miles (260 km2). The Marsh has been in use for centuries, though its inhabitants commonly suffered from malaria until the 18th century. Due to its location, geography and isolation, it was a smuggler's paradise between the 1600s and 1800s. The area has long been used for sheep pasture: Romney Marsh sheep are considered one of the most successful and important sheep breeds. Criss-crossed with numerous waterways, and with some areas lying below sea level, the Marsh has over time sustained a gradual level of reclamation, both through natural causes and by human intervention.
Hirudo medicinalis, the European medicinal leech, is one of several species of leeches used as "medicinal leeches".
Cupping therapy is a form of alternative medicine in which a local suction is created on the skin with the application of heated cups. Its practice mainly occurs in Asia but also in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. Cupping has been characterized as a pseudoscience and its practice as quackery.
Bonnington is a dispersed village and civil parish on the northern edge of the Romney Marsh in Ashford District of Kent, England. The village is located eight miles (13 km) to the south of the town of Ashford on the B2067.
Prof Magnus GustafRetzius FRSFor HFRSE MSA was a Swedish physician and anatomist who dedicated a large part of his life to researching the histology of the sense organs and nervous system.
Hirudin is a naturally occurring peptide in the salivary glands of blood-sucking leeches that has a blood anticoagulant property. This is fundamental for the leeches’ habit of feeding on blood, since it keeps a host's blood flowing after the worm's initial puncture of the skin.
Aeromonas hydrophila is a heterotrophic, Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium mainly found in areas with a warm climate. This bacterium can be found in fresh or brackish water. It can survive in aerobic and anaerobic environments, and can digest materials such as gelatin and hemoglobin. A. hydrophila was isolated from humans and animals in the 1950s. It is the best known of the species of Aeromonas. It is resistant to most common antibiotics and cold temperatures and is oxidase- and indole-positive. Aeromonas hydrophila also has a symbiotic relationship as gut flora inside of certain leeches, such as Hirudo medicinalis.
"Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood" is a poem by William Wordsworth, completed in 1804 and published in Poems, in Two Volumes (1807). The poem was completed in two parts, with the first four stanzas written among a series of poems composed in 1802 about childhood. The first part of the poem was completed on 27 March 1802 and a copy was provided to Wordsworth's friend and fellow poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who responded with his own poem, "Dejection: An Ode", in April. The fourth stanza of the ode ends with a question, and Wordsworth was finally able to answer it with seven additional stanzas completed in early 1804. It was first printed as "Ode" in 1807, and it was not until 1815 that it was edited and reworked to the version that is currently known, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality".
The Hijama, also known as cupping are an ethnic group in India known for practicing cupping therapy. The word Hijama has been derived from the Arabic word Al Hajm, means "sucking", referring to this therapy. A practitioner was called a Hijama in Arab countries, and the name was used in India as well.
Leeches are segmented parasitic or predatory worms that comprise the subclass Hirudinea within the phylum Annelida. They are closely related to the oligochaetes, which include the earthworm, and like them have soft, muscular segmented bodies that can lengthen and contract. Both groups are hermaphrodites and have a clitellum, but leeches typically differ from the oligochaetes in having suckers at both ends and in having ring markings that do not correspond with their internal segmentation. The body is muscular and relatively solid, and the coelom, the spacious body cavity found in other annelids, is reduced to small channels.
"Resolution and Independence" is a lyric poem by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth, composed in 1802 and published in 1807 in Poems in Two Volumes. The poem contains twenty stanzas written in modified rhyme royal, and describes Wordsworth’s encounter with a leech-gatherer near his home in the Lake District of England.
"Anecdote for Fathers" is a poem by William Wordsworth first published in his 1798 collection titled Lyrical Ballads, which was co-authored by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. A later version of the poem from 1845 contains a Latin epigraph from Praeparatio evangelica: "Retine vim istam, falsa enim dicam, si coges," which translates as "Restrain that force, for I will tell lies if you compel me."
Hematophagy is the practice by certain animals of feeding on blood. Since blood is a fluid tissue rich in nutritious proteins and lipids that can be taken without great effort, hematophagy is a preferred form of feeding for many small animals, such as worms and arthropods. Some intestinal nematodes, such as Ancylostomatids, feed on blood extracted from the capillaries of the gut, and about 75 percent of all species of leeches are hematophagous. The spider Evarcha culicivora feeds indirectly on vertebrate blood by specializing on blood-filled female mosquitoes as their preferred prey. Some fish, such as lampreys and candirus, and mammals, especially the vampire bats, and birds, such as the vampire finches, hood mockingbirds, the Tristan thrush, and oxpeckers also practise hematophagy.
Direct thrombin inhibitors (DTIs) are a class of anticoagulant drugs that can be used to prevent and treat embolisms and blood clots caused by various diseases. They inhibit thrombin, a serine protease which affects the coagulation cascade in many ways. DTIs have undergone rapid development since the 90's. With technological advances in genetic engineering the production of recombinant hirudin was made possible which opened the door to this new group of drugs. Before the use of DTIs the therapy and prophylaxis for anticoagulation had stayed the same for over 50 years with the use of heparin derivatives and warfarin which have some well known disadvantages. DTIs are still under development, but the research focus has shifted towards factor Xa inhibitors, or even dual thrombin and fXa inhibitors that have a broader mechanism of action by both inhibiting factor IIa (thrombin) and Xa. A recent review of patents and literature on thrombin inhibitors has demonstrated that the development of allosteric and multi-mechanism inhibitors might lead the way to a safer anticoagulant.
Hirudo is a genus of leeches of the family Hirudinidae. It was described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae.
This late Georgian Bedale Leech House in Bedale, North Yorkshire, England, is a unique example of a building constructed to keep live medicinal leeches healthy prior to their sale by the local apothecary to doctors and private individuals for the purpose of blood letting as a medical procedure to cure or prevent a variety of illnesses and diseases.
Limnatis nilotica is a species of leech in the family Hirudinidae. It is hematophagous, living on the mucous membranes of mammals.
Marcello Brunelli was an Italian neurophysiologist and academic.
