A lesson in leeches

After a long lay-off, leeches are back in business.

Looking like black ribbons, the leeches swim with a serpentine movement in a plastic tank full of water. The people at Artsoulist Agrotech Sdn Bhd do a brisk business of exporting farm-raised leeches to the UK for medical purposes.

Leeches were once the bright stars of an ancient medical practice when bloodletting was all the rage.

The Egyptians used them, as did the Greeks and Indians, and much later medieval Europe. Physicians prescribed leeches for everything, from headaches to obesity, eye disorders to brain congestion, even mental illness!

Special suckers: A leech hoovering up someone’s blood.

They went out of fashion in the 1960s – but not for long.

Leeches started making a comeback in the West in the 1980s, with the advent of microsurgery. They have become especially useful in plastic and reconstructive surgery for their ability to suck up excess blood and prevent blood clots, thereby helping to keep tissues alive.

For the sake of a better story, I volunteer to “host” a leech, and manage to persuade the people at Artsoulist to let me have one to experience for myself the medieval practice of bloodletting.

I lift the lid and poke at one. The creature feels wet and cool, like a chilled strand of fettuccine. Hardwired to be repulsed by anything that writhes, I quickly retract my finger.

Leeches, by virtue of being slimy and wriggly, are high on my “icky” list, but I psyche myself to donate a tablespoon or two of blood to one lucky leech.

“Leeches are contortionists,” says Artsoulist Agrotech executive director, Asmadi Awang, 28.

“They can stretch out till they are as slender as a toothpick,” he explains, indicating that it’s OK to tug on a leech that has stubbornly gripped onto the side of the tank.

The thing is, I once accidentally “broke” an earthworm. I was terribly upset and took the pieces to a neighbour who was a nurse and insisted she put the worm back together again with a band-aid.

Poor woman. Poor worm.

So I shift my attention towards another and fish a nice, hungry-looking one out of the water and put it onto my arm.

The leech, thrilled that it’s in for an early lunch, humps along, its back arched like a cat on the prowl.

Reaching the back of my palm, Lenny – already I have named it! – brushes its head against my skin, its 300 microscopic teeth sawing through my flesh.

I read somewhere that the leech’s saliva anaesthetises the wound area, dilates the blood vessels to increase blood flow and prevents the blood from clotting. The anaesthetic in the leech’s saliva explains why I only feel the slightest prick.

“Leeches can consume between five and 20ml of blood – 10 times their body weight in a single feeding. After two to four hours, the leech will drop off,” explains Asmadi.

Othman Ghouse rears leeches for export to England.

“The use of these medicinal leeches is not widespread in Malaysia, as not much research has been done. A local university is currently conducting a study, but it is still at the teething stage,” he adds.

With Lenny on my hand, I head to Malacca for my next stop – a leech farm.

Getting bitten by these medicinal leeches is an occupational hazard for Othman Ghouse, 43. He raises the Hirudo medicinalis by the thousands. The Hirudo medicinalis was cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration in June 2004 as a “medical device”.

Othman and his partner were one of the 100 outfits selected by Artsoulist Agrotech to participate in a leech breeding programme and awarded RM50,000 for capital.

“My partner and I started this project in September 2007,” says Othman.

I crouch gingerly next to one of the six ponds for a closer look. On one side of the 18m x 6m pond, water lilies grow in abundance.

“We plant the water lilies as it provides food and shelter for the leeches,” says Othman.

I stir the clear water with my hand, and soon a dozen or so leeches start to swim towards me like piranhas. Before they get too close, I quickly yank my hand out. Hah! But in my haste and excitement, I almost fall head first into the sandy bottom . . . and then they would have had the last laugh.

While most of us stay clear of these slimy bloodsuckers, there are those who seek them out stealthily. Othman tells me intruders have broken into a few leech farms up north in Kedah and Perak.

“They can fetch up to RM60 a kilogramme, so as precaution, I recently installed fencing all around,” he says.

“Rearing leeches caught my attention because it’s something new,” says Othman.

Isolated in a corner of the farm is a smaller cement pond. I peer inside and see ripples forming on the surface of the murky water. I can’t make out what’s swimming underneath, until I spot a bucketful of catfish next to it.

“So you rear catfish too?” I ask.

“No, I use the pond to store market-bought catfish that I feed to the leeches,” explains Othman.

He demonstrates by stuffing two squirming catfish into a wire cage, and dunks them into one of the ponds, using a pumping motion to agitate the water. Within minutes, the once alive and squirming catfish have been bled to death by 30 or so leeches.

I tell Othman I think it would be more humane if the catfish were let loose into the pond, then they would at least have a fighting chance and the leeches would have to work their suckers off for their meal.

“If the fish carcass floats around in the pond, it might contaminate the water. It’s easier to remove the carcass by placing the fish in a cage,” Othman says.

“For now, I’m going to concentrate on breeding leeches only. They’re simple to rear compared to fish and prawn. We just have to maintain the condition of the pond so it’s similar to padi fields and swamps. We do not have to change the water, and feeding cost is minimal. On top of that, a leech breeds four times in its lifecycle,” he adds.

If farming leeches is so easy, then why are medicinal leeches raised in sterile, laboratory conditions in Britain? I ask Asmadi later.

“Hirudo medicinalis is native to South-East Asia and Europe. The leeches are raised in tanks in the UK to replicate its native living condition. Researchers from a university in the UK who have studied leeches farmed in Malaysia found that our leeches contain a potent enzyme that is not available in leeches raised in the UK. They credit that to the condition of our soil,” he replies.

Feeding frenzy.

A trip to and from Malacca and three episodes of Prison Break later, Lenny has grown from a skinny little thing to a big round one filled with blood. But still he isn’t done with me yet. A friend offers to burn him off with a lit cigarette, but I refuse.

“Eight hours! It’s been way to long,” Asmadi tells me when I ring him up.

“Push the anterior sucker aside using your fingernail and then do the same with the posterior sucker to remove it. Try not to let the leech reattach itself,” he advises.

My squeamish threshold being quite low, I decide to try a less hands-on approach. I remember Asmadi telling me leeches should be kept in purified water, so I grab a bottle of mineral water and pour a little over the leech. Thank God, it works! The leech writhes and releases its jaw, dropping into the cookie jar I hold open beneath it.

Wiping off the traces of blood on my hand reveals a Y-shaped imprint, much like a Mercedes Benz emblem. I soak some tobacco in water and dab it onto the wound (a jungle survival tip), before sealing it with gauze and plaster.

As Asmadi warned me, the wound, infused with the leech’s anti-clogging enzyme continues to bleed for the next 10 hours.

“Used leeches are like syringes that can walk. In hospitals, after a single use, they are carefully disposed off by dipping them in alcohol to stop diseases carried in the blood like hepatitis A and AIDS from spreading,” reveals Asmadi.

I wonder if the animal rights activists are outraged, so I log onto the PETA web site. Oddly enough, there isn’t a single mention of medicinal leeches on their website, nor is there a photo of Alicia Silverstone standing naked in a swamp covered in leeches.

But we have a bond, Lenny and I, so I can’t bring myself to terminate him. He now lives in an aquarium on a table next to my bed. That should keep my sister out of my room.

http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2008/2/23/lifefocus/20185761&sec=lifefocus