9 Disgusting Medical Treatments That Might Just Save Your Life

2. Leech Therapy

You could say that leeches had their vogue a few hundred years ago, when the height of medical understanding involved draining the lifeblood from your patients, but in more modern times, the leech has found its use again in the surprising field of microsurgery.

Whilst we no longer think that bloodletting is good for anything but slow, horrible death, they can be used to keep tissues alive.

In microsurgery, a piece of tissue can be taken from one part of the body to another, and the individual blood vessels can be sewn together in its new home. However, in order for these to "take" then need an adequate supply of fresh, healthy blood, which doesn't always happen on its own but, stick a leach on it, and it'll suck the blood through the tissue just fine.

You get a successful surgery, the leech gets a delicious dinner, everybody wins.

NOTE: the next page contains a picture of an eye being injected with a needle. If you have a problem with eyes, needles or any combination thereof, you might just want to tap out. It's pretty gnarly.