Leeches
Top three reasons why Edward Cullen is Hirudo medicinalis.
- He is a vampire.
- He is a "source of unplesant emotions to victims and bystanders alike" (http://www.eol.org/pages/401376).
- His kids are miniature adults.
Coming back to the real world:
The part that makes leeches different from the remainder of the annelid family is the fact it posesses teeth that are necessary for feeding. In most other aspects, it is built along the same type of body structure.
Three jaws inside of its mouth allow it to latch onto its mammalian host, sucking out the blood with the aid of a natural anesthesia in its fangs.
Leeches do not need to feed very often, and are able survive without feeding for up to six months.
They can survive even longer, by ingesting some of their own body tissues (an interesting use of identical segments).
The picture to the right illustrates how leeches are used in medicine. Since medival times, leeches have been used in medicine, though today's techniques are somewhat more refined than those of the 1600s.
Though there are few cases as extreme as the one pictured, it is undoubtedly clear that leeches can be useful.
Leeches are commonly used on areaswhere backed-up blood has caused swelling; they are allowed to feed in order these areas to reduce the swelling.
The folks in the 1600s used leeches for a much wider range of maladies because they thought that leeches could diffrenciate between 'good' blood and 'bad' blood, and would only suck out the 'bad' blood.
