You may have heard about leeches being used indiscriminately to treat all kinds of illnesses, from cancer to mental illness in the 19th century. The discrediting of general "bleeding" as a ...

Leeches are blood-sucking animals that have two suckers used to attach to other creatures and feed. Getty Images/iStockphoto “Leeches are blood-sucking endoparasite segmented worms characterized ...

It was like being crushed by an airplane full of leeches. I knew what it felt like to be a victim of national liberation. ... It was more like walking the plank, actually. There was never any ...

Before modern miracles, medicine was a nightmare. Discover the brutal, bizarre, and often deadly treatments of the past.

Grazing cattle usually provide the juice, but you'll do. The leeches aren't too discriminating, and they're hungry. Real hungry. "What are we doing in the forest?" Oh, sorry. To get to the swamps ...

But leeches aren’t just useful at crime scenes. These creatures’ sanguineous appetites have also come in handy for scientists, who are hoping to use them to solve another mystery: the diversity of ...

From the column: "Some quack thought bleeding patients with leeches cured illness. ... A bureaucrat in Washington decided to ...

Leeches could soon make a medical comeback after a study found they could relieve pain. Patients with osteoarthritis in their knees reported an amazing improvement 24 hours after the blood-suckers ...

But waiting in the wings is something formidable. I was shocked to see the leeches eating the toadlets Naturalist and all-round wildlife guru John Walters sent us to a remote pool in Dartmoor ...

Once upon a time, doctors were convinced that using leeches and drawing the blood of patients cured illness. No matter how widely accepted that error was, leeches ...