The Love Bite Of A Leech

Closely related to earthworms and used for hideous bloodletting since the Middle Ages, the transgender medicinal leech now helps to control scar tissue following reconstructive surgery.

- David Profumo

ONCE widely consulted as a weather prophet and with an enduring reputation as both a loathly bloodsucker and a source of healing, the medicinal leech is now quite rare in the wild. There are some 600 species of leech worldwide, not all of them sanguivorous. Our two principal varieties are the carnivorous horse leech (Haemopis sanguisanga) that has no equine connection, ‘horse’ being merely an old word for ‘coarse’, and Hirudo medicinalis itself, an amphibious invertebrate with natural stocks now confined to a few populations around Kent and Norfolk.

Closely related to earthworms, they possess a flexible, hydrostatic skeleton, 10 stomachs along each side of the body, a sheathed penis and a female orifice. The anus is notoriously hard to locate, its usual position being occupied by a posterior mouth. Although hermaphroditic, leeches do copulate, but alternate gender during their lifetime. Perhaps not exactly a beautiful worm, its slightly flattened olive-green body sports several thin orange lines and can increase to six times its length when engorged.