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Hirudotherapy
''Hirudo medicinalis'', or the European medicinal leech, is one of several species of leeches used as medicinal leeches. Other species of ''Hirudo'' sometimes also used as medicinal leeches include ''Hirudo orientalis, H. orientalis'', ''Hirudo troctina, H. troctina'', and ''Hirudo verbana, H. verbana''. The Asian medicinal leech includes ''Hirudinaria manillensis'', and the North American medicinal leech is Macrobdella decora, ''Macrobdella decora''. Medicinal leech populations were reduced significantly in many countries during the 19th century due to the high demand in medical contexts, and remain endangered in many countries today. Morphology The general morphology (biology), morphology of medicinal leeches follows that of most other leeches. Fully mature adults can be up to 20 centimeters in length, and are green, brown, or greenish-brown with a darker tone on the Dorsum (biology), dorsal side and a lighter ventral side. The dorsal side also has a thin red stripe. These or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blood
Blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. Blood is composed of blood cells suspended in blood plasma. Plasma, which constitutes 55% of blood fluid, is mostly water (92% by volume), and contains proteins, glucose, mineral ions, and hormones. The blood cells are mainly red blood cells (erythrocytes), white blood cells (leukocytes), and (in mammals) platelets (thrombocytes). The most abundant cells are red blood cells. These contain hemoglobin, which facilitates oxygen transport by reversibly binding to it, increasing its solubility. Jawed vertebrates have an adaptive immune system, based largely on white blood cells. White blood cells help to resist infections and parasites. Platelets are important in the clotting of blood. Blood is circulated around the body through blood vessels by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leeches
Leeches are segmented parasitic or predatory worms that comprise the subclass Hirudinea within the phylum Annelida. They are closely related to the oligochaetes, which include the earthworm, and like them have soft, muscular segmented bodies that can lengthen and contract. Both groups are hermaphrodites and have a clitellum, but leeches typically differ from the oligochaetes in having suckers at both ends and ring markings that do not correspond with their internal segmentation. The body is muscular and relatively solid; the coelom, the spacious body cavity found in other annelids, is reduced to small channels. The majority of leeches live in freshwater habitats, while some species can be found in terrestrial or marine environments. The best-known species, such as the medicinal leech, ''Hirudo medicinalis'', are hematophagous, attaching themselves to a host with a sucker and feeding on blood, having first secreted the peptide hirudin to prevent the blood from clotting. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hirudin
Hirudin is a naturally occurring peptide in the salivary glands of blood-sucking leeches (such as ''Hirudo medicinalis'') that has a blood anticoagulant property. This is essential for the leeches' habit of feeding on blood, since it keeps a host's blood flowing after the worm's initial puncture of the skin. Hirudin (MEROPS I14.001) belongs to a superfamily (MEROPS IM) of protease inhibitors that also includes haemadin (MEROPS I14.002) and antistasin (MEROPS I15). Structure During his years in Birmingham and Edinburgh, John Berry Haycraft had been actively engaged in research and published papers on the coagulation of blood, and in 1884, he discovered that the leech secreted a powerful anticoagulant, which he named hirudin, although it was not isolated until the 1950s, nor its structure fully determined until 1976. Full length hirudin is made up of 65 amino acids. These amino acids are organized into a compact N-terminal domain containing three disulfide bonds and a C-term ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anopheline
''Anopheles'' () is a genus of mosquito first described by the German entomologist J. W. Meigen in 1818, and are known as nail mosquitoes and marsh mosquitoes. Many such mosquitoes are vectors of the parasite ''Plasmodium'', a genus of protozoans that cause malaria in birds, reptiles, and mammals, including humans. The ''Anopheles gambiae'' mosquito is the best-known species of marsh mosquito that transmits the ''Plasmodium falciparum'', which is a malarial parasite deadly to human beings; no other mosquito genus is a vector of human malaria. The genus ''Anopheles'' diverged from other mosquitoes approximately ( mya), and, like other mosquitoes, the eggs, larvae, and pupae are aquatic. The ''Anopheles'' larva has no respiratory siphon through which to breathe, so it breathes and feeds with its body horizontal to the surface of the water. The adult mosquito hatches from the surface and feeds on the nectar of flowers; the female mosquito also feeds on blood, which animal diet a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horses
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, '' Eohippus'', into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began domesticating horses around 4000 BCE in Central Asia, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BCE. Horses in the subspecies ''caballus'' are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, which are horses that have never been domesticated. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior. Horses are adapted to run, allowing them to quickly escape predators, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leech Collector
A leech collector, leech gatherer, or leech finder was a person occupied with procuring medicinal leeches, which were in growing demand in 19th-century Europe. Leeches were used in bloodletting but were not easy for medical practitioners to obtain. The collector would sometimes gather the leeches by attracting them to the legs of animals, often old horses. More commonplace was for the collector to use their own legs, gathering the leech after it had finished sucking enough blood. Many in the profession suffered from the effects of the loss of blood and infections spread by the leeches.Leech collectors , . Accessed 2 September 2011. Leech collectors ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Over-exploitation
Overexploitation, also called overharvesting or ecological overshoot, refers to harvesting a renewable resource to the point of diminishing returns. Continued overexploitation can lead to the destruction of the resource, as it will be unable to replenish. The term applies to natural resources such as water aquifers, grazing pastures and forests, wild medicinal plants, fish stocks and other wildlife. In ecology, overexploitation describes one of the five main activities threatening global biodiversity. Ecologists use the term to describe populations that are harvested at an unsustainable rate, given their natural rates of mortality and capacities for reproduction. This can result in extinction at the population level and even extinction of whole species. In conservation biology, the term is usually used in the context of human economic activity that involves the taking of biological resources, or organisms, in larger numbers than their populations can withstand. The t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Habitat
In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ecological niche. Thus "habitat" is a species-specific term, fundamentally different from concepts such as Biophysical environment, environment or vegetation assemblages, for which the term "habitat-type" is more appropriate. The physical factors may include (for example): soil, moisture, range of temperature, and Luminous intensity, light intensity. Biotic index, Biotic factors include the availability of food and the presence or absence of Predation, predators. Every species has particular habitat requirements, habitat generalist species are able to thrive in a wide array of environmental conditions while habitat specialist species require a very limited set of factors to survive. The habitat of a species is not necessarily found in a ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uzbekistan
, image_flag = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg , image_coat = Emblem of Uzbekistan.svg , symbol_type = Emblem of Uzbekistan, Emblem , national_anthem = "State Anthem of Uzbekistan, State Anthem of the Republic of Uzbekistan" , image_map = File:Uzbekistan (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Uzbekistan (green) , capital = Tashkent , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , official_languages = Uzbek language, Uzbek , languages_type = Writing system, Official script , languages = Latin Script, Latin , recognized_languages = Karakalpak language, Karakalpak , ethnic_groups = , ethnic_groups_ref = , ethnic_groups_year = 2021 , religion_ref = , religion_year = 2020 , religion = , demonym = Uzbeks, Uzbek • Demographics of Uzbekistan, Uzbekistani , ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to the China–Kazakhstan border, east, Kyrgyzstan to the Kazakhstan–Kyrgyzstan border, southeast, Uzbekistan to the Kazakhstan–Uzbekistan border, south, and Turkmenistan to the Kazakhstan–Turkmenistan border, southwest, with a coastline along the Caspian Sea. Its capital is Astana, while the largest city and leading cultural and commercial hub is Almaty. Kazakhstan is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, ninth-largest country by land area and the largest landlocked country. Steppe, Hilly plateaus and plains account for nearly half its vast territory, with Upland and lowland, lowlands composing another third; its southern and eastern frontiers are composed of low mountainous regions. Kazakhstan has a population of 20 mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asia
Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the human population, was the site of many of the first civilisations. Its 4.7 billion people constitute roughly 60% of the world's population. Asia shares the landmass of Eurasia with Europe, and of Afro-Eurasia with both Europe and Africa. In general terms, it is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean, and on the north by the Arctic Ocean. The border of Asia with Europe is a social constructionism, historical and cultural construct, as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. A commonly accepted division places Asia to the east of the Suez Canal separating it from Africa; and to the east of the Turkish straits, the Ural Mountains an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east. Europe shares the landmass of Eurasia with Asia, and of Afro-Eurasia with both Africa and Asia. Europe is commonly considered to be Boundaries between the continents#Asia and Europe, separated from Asia by the Drainage divide, watershed of the Ural Mountains, the Ural (river), Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Greater Caucasus, the Black Sea, and the waterway of the Bosporus, Bosporus Strait. "Europe" (pp. 68–69); "Asia" (pp. 90–91): "A commonly accepted division between Asia and Europe ... is formed by the Ural Mountains, Ural River, Caspian Sea, Caucasus Mountains, and the Black Sea with its outlets, the Bosporus and Dardanelles." Europe covers approx. , or 2% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface (6.8% of Earth's land area), making it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
