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Leeches

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 I felt immensely intrigued and amused by a short newspaper report in Chosun-Ilbo the other day(September 18, Tuesday) that leeches, those ugly, creepy and repulsive worms, are one of the lucrative items of import from England to Korea these days, and are in increasing demand for medical use. They are used very effectively for treating the patients, especially those whose finger bones are broken or severed by accident and joined up together through surgical operation.

     Hungry leeches are let loose on the operated fingers and they suck blood to their belly's limit. In the course of sucking leeches are said to absorb the unnecessary bad blood and secrete an anticoagulant called ‘hirudin’ to ensure the better flow of blood, and consequently help reconnect and regrow the severed fine blood vessels, quickening the entire healing of the wound.  

     Why should they be imported? Don't we have leeches here in Korea? You may well ask. Of course we have our indigenous leeches, but ours are small in size and weak in sucking power, while the imported ones are much larger, stronger and consequently more powerful. These so called "medicinal leeches" were formerly used in medicine widely for bloodletting in European countries including England.

     This article in the newspaper reminded me immediately of an English poem which I had read long before. Interestingly enough, William Wordsworth (1770-1850), one of the most famous English poets, mentioned about the very leeches in a short narrative poem titled "Resolution and Independence," written in 1802, more than 200 years ago from now.
One day the poet goes out for a walk on the moor and meets with an extremely old and apparently very poor old man. This man is so called a leech-gatherer, gathering leeches to sell for his livelihood in the waters. At first the young poet feels great pity for the old and poor man, but soon he feels greatly surprised and even ashamed to find unbelievably stout, firm and cheerful mind in that decrepit old man. The poet ends the poem by saying that he will think of the leech-gatherer on the moor whenever he feels his life too weary or heavy to bear.

     Throughout the poem the use of leeches was not directly mentioned, simply because, I think, most of the readers of the poem at Wordsworth's time were supposed to know of the medical use of them. However, there also was a footnote to the leeches, most probably for the modern readers like you and me as follows: "aquatic, bloodsucking worms formerly used for medical purposes." It can be concluded from the simple facts above that leeches had been widely and long used in England, but the advance of modern medicine in the 20th century and after has made them out of use and forgotten.

     But these worms have come to life from oblivion with great pomp and circumstance in our time. They are arriving by airplane at Inchon International Airport from England, kept in an aquarium specially designed and delivered through the "quick service" at the request of the hospitals. People starve the leeches hungry for about three months and once used they are disposed of, because they would not suck blood for another three months. Apart from the finger-bone treatment they are said to be very effective for treating diabetes, various toe and skin ulcers and inflammation of blood vessels.

     My memory of leeches goes back to the time when I was a little boy in the country. Leeches abounded in the shallow and muddy streams, ponds, and particularly in the paddy fields. Often we found one or two or sometimes several of them stuck on the calves of our legs while we played, fished or swam in the streams or worked in the paddy fields. They were real pests, so abominable, detestable and crawly! What a sight! Think of a worm that sucks your precious blood so much! And so cunningly, slyly and silently without causing any pain!  

     It was not easy for us to tear them off once they caught on our skin. When we pulled them off with effort using our fingers, blood flew out profusely from the bitten place. Often they swelled up like a ball by sucking our blood to the point of bursting out and fell off themselves. They were simply and plainly evils. Yucky! Yucky! Yucky!

     Quite naturally and rightly the name of this yucky worm is often used figuratively to describe or express somebody unpleasant, bad or undesirable. It seems it is rarely used in a good sense. It is used for a person who extorts profits from or sponges on others as in, "They are leeches feeding off the hardworking majority like a leech." Or for a person persistently and desperately clinging to others as in, "He has been hanging around her like a leech."

     But you should remember that this negative and pejorative use of the word is  only quite a modern phenomenon resulting from the decline and disuse of the worms. As a matter of fact, the word had long been used for the "medical doctor" as a noun and "to cure" as a verb before the modern medicine has made it obsolete. William Shakespeare preferred it to physician. Even in the many writings of the 19th century leech was commonly found in the place of a surgeon or a doctor. Still it is often spoken as a joke or a dialect among the British as in, "Leeches kill with licence."  

     For me now leeches are more than medically good and useful worms. As the leech-gatherer had given a valuable moral lesson in life to William Wordsworth, leeches have awakened me to an important understanding of nature: No creature is worthless or useless in the divine scheme of things. All are inseparably linked to every mode of being. Even the meanest of created things, or forms most vile and brute, the dullest or most noxious, do not exist divorced from good. Nothing is so low as to be scorned by man.  We must not judge everything and anything in haste as good for nothing.
     (October 10, 2007)

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강조자님의 댓글

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I have learned about the some medicinal effect, in the way of
an anticoagulant action, of the leech-bites in my medical
student days.

Medical use of leeches aside, I am surprised to learn that a leech means a medical doctor, even though I have already known other slangs such as a butcher(for a surgeon) or a shrink (for a psychiatrist).

I often say that he or she is like a leech when somebody is buttonholing me, acts like a loan-shark or a freeloader.

Following your lead, I searched yahoo.com to find Wordsworth's poem of Resolution and independence, composed of 20 stanza.

In the last stanza:

【 In that decrepit Man so firm a mind.
"God," said I, "be my help and stay secure;
I'll think of the Leech-gatherer on the lonely moor!" 】

I became to like the ending of this poem greatly.
Great Thanks to You, Prof. Lee!

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Thank you, Dr. Kang, glad to hear a comment from a very appropriate person like you on this essay.
I cannot help but admire your patience and inquiring mind : to find out the whole text of Wordsworth' poem "Resolution and Independence" to read. I also like the poem and especially the ending of it.
Thanks again to you, Dr. Kang!

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답 글이 많이 답지하면 참 재미있을 텐데요!

제가 서울의대동기들(22회)의 모임 Cafe'에 이교수님의 글을
올렸는데 거기에 나온 답 글을 여기에 올려봅니다.

1. 서울대 약리학교수:
Wordsworth를 인용하며 또한 거머리의 약리학을 거론하는
이창국교수님은 아시는 것이 많군요. Hirudin은 혈액응고기전
중 fibrin형성을 억제하는 일종의 fibrinolytic agent인데 요즘은 genetic engineering기법으로 유사물질을 만듭니다. 우리나라
모 제약회사에서도 생산하는 것으로 알고 있습니다. 피 잘 빨고
통통한 거머리를 수입한다니 놀랍군요.
아마도 뭔지 모르는 paramedics의 돈벌이 수작이 아닌지
의심스럽군요. 사족으로, 저명한 oral anticoagulant인
Warfarin이 쥐 잡는 rodenticide에서 유래한지 아시죠.

1. 미국에서 활동 중인 정형외과의사:
Leech는 Hand surgeon들이 많이 쓰고 있습니다. Replant
surgery나 심한 Trauma 환자의 손이나 발의 Venous return이
좋지 않을 때 Leech를 사용하여 Venous blood를 제거하여
Arterial blood flow를 촉진시키기 위한 수단이지요.
나도 어렸을 때는 거머리한테 많이 물려 보았습니다.

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강 박사님,
저의 보잘 것 없는 글을 널리 PR 해주셔서 감사합니다. 참 재미 있네요.
저 개인 앞으로 온 독자들의 소감들 가운데서 다음 두개만 소개해 오리겠습니다.

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박용세님의 댓글

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낯설은 이창국 교수님

저는 코리아타임스 애독자인데 오늘 신문에서
투고하신 Leeches 를 재미있게 읽고서 우편으로
실례합니다

이전부터도 늘 교수님의 글은 흥미있고 교훈적이면서
아니 영문학을 하시는 분은 이렇게 멋지신가라고 생각이 듭니다
오늘 글을 읽으면서 교회목사님이 이런 멋진 설교를 하신다면 얼마나 좋으랴 싶었습니다

바쁘신데 길게 쓸수 없고 앞으로도 자주 자주 투고해서 즐겁게 해주세요

저는 70대후반의 치과의사입니다
광주에서 박용세 배

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애독자님의 댓글

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저는 39 년 째 코리아 타임즈를 구독하는 독자입니다.

늙어 가면서 더 꼼꼼히 신문을 읽게 되어 즐겁고 보람찬
생활을 보내면서 많은 상식과 지혜를 터득해 왔습니다.

특히 교수님을 비롯한 분들의 수필과 세계적 전문가(학자)
들의 기고문이나 매주 토요일(최근에는)에 전재되는 타임즈지의 심층 취재 보도는
인생을 돌아 보고 세계의 그늘진 곳을 들여다 보며 많은 것을 느끼고 아프게도 하는 기사죠.

교수님이 동물 프로를 즐겨 본다는 기고문도 읽고 저와 같은 취미를 가진 것에도 순수한 즐거움을 느꼈죠.

이 번에도 거머리에 관한 글을 읽으면서 한 귀절이 제가 동물 프로를 보면서 터득한 진리(?)와 너무나
흡사한 귀절을 표명하셨기에 하도 반가와 인용하면서 감사함을 표합니다.

"No creature is worthless or useless in the divine scheme of things."

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