Authors : Shital Deshmukh
Page Nos : 173-175
Description :
The leech has been used extensively among people for bloodletting since ancient times in the treatment of various disorders. Hirudino medicinalis, has also proven effects in medicine and pharmacology. Medicinal leeches secrete saliva containing about 60 different proteins. These achieve a wide variety of goals useful to the leech as it feeds, helping to keep the blood in liquid form and increasing blood flow in the affected area. Several of these secreted proteins serve as anticoagulant (such as hirudin), platelate aggregation inhibitors (most notably apyrase, collagenase, and calin), vasodilators, and proteinase inhibitors. The saliva contains an anesthetic substance, as leech bites are generally not painful.The physiological effect of this secretion was determined not only by hirudin which inhibits coagulation by thrombin binding but also by components blocking the contact stage of blood coagulation.
