There is no way on this earth that I would ever let a leech or a maggot anywhere near my body to suck blood. Makes me want to vomit just thinking about it. :vomit:

Really?
 

Leah,
One time when I was a young lad, I was wading in a lake. When I got out, I had a whole family of leeches on my leg. A big black momma leech and about ten little white baby leeches. It took forever to pull them off...

[wanders away, whistling nonchalantly...]

smartass question
 

So what do UK blood banks do for blood????

My wife is not supposed to give blood because she had mono & it caused her to have a false positive for hepatitis.

Blood letting definately works.
If for instance, all the people with high blood pressure slashed their wrists, there would be a lot less people with high blood pressure.:p

Happy Monkey how horrible that must have been.
I can remember about 15 yrs ago I was visiting friends who lived up near Coffs Harbour, Bellingen, ( they were neighbours of mine here in Sydney, city folk) they moved their family up there so I went and visited. We found a leech and we were playing with it when all of a sudden at attached itself to the palm of my hand, well you have never heard a girl scream so loud like I did, my scream echoed through the mountains/valley and everyone around me where in a fit of laughter whilst I was running around screaming for help. Now I look back at it it was rather funny, but very scary. I always remember that move that River Phoenix was in where a huge leech attached itself the one of the boys penis. What was that movie called again? :eek:

Re: smartass question
 

I've got a relative in the blood business. They used to move a lot of product overseas including Germany and Japan but I don't know about the UK.

That's right, thanks for that.:D

Howzabout a leech on your eye!?
 

My buddy was vacationing in Australia when he got leech attached to his eyeball! There was a lump under his eyelid for the whole two hour drive back to civilization. The doctors left him under a hot lamp for fifteen minutes and the leech fell out from under his eye.

Donating blood
 

Yeah - it's the same for me - I lived in England my whole life until 1999 when I moved to Brussels - I started giving blood in about 2001, but after a couple of times (they take it anyway, then throw it away if you fail screening) I received a letter asking me to stop donating...

It's a shame - I'd always been a bit nervous about giving blood, and once I got over it and started, I was told that I had to stop. Bah!

-- Pete.

Low tech solution
 

I was at a gathering of my extended family, and my various uncles just pulled them off. I was pretty young, so my memory isn't 100% clear, but I do remember that they really can stretch.

As a lawyer for Medicare, I had a case where a lady had a pressure sore on her leg and when they unwrapped the dressings, 150 maggots fell out. So they cleaned her up, dressed the wound again, and about a week later, 30 or so more maggots. Then, she ended up at the hospital about a week or so later...you guessed it, more maggots. The nursing home presented several arguments in its defense: that the maggots could have hatched within 12 hours after a fly landed on her; that she must have gotten them when she went outside; that maggots only eat dead tissue so they were beneficial, etc. I jumped all over the last argument: the screw-fly maggot eats both live and dead tissue, so it's not beneficial...and, of course, where is the informed consent of the patient? Maggot therapy does exist, but they use (sexually) sterile and very clean maggots.

Sorry. Had to rant. Back to work now.

Harry