Dark Banquet - Bill Schutt [56]
Summoned, some contend, up to thirteen hours after he was discovered in a puddle of his own urine, Stalin’s terrified doctors†78 bled the dying dictator with a total of eight leeches, attaching them behind his ears. With trembling hands, the physicians sponged down “the Boss” with aromatic vinegar, then tried injecting him with camphor and caffeine (and, quite possibly, anything else they could find laying around the dacha). But the heroic efforts of Stalin’s physicians were in vain. According to Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana, the stricken despot reared up at the last moment, in what she interpreted as a final tirade against those present in the room. Then, Joseph Stalin dropped dead, urine soaked and oozing blood from behind his parasite-pierced pinna.
In the years since his death, there have been accusations that Stalin’s medical treatment may have been deliberately delayed (although there was apparently a general consensus that thirteen hours wasn’t really that long of a delay). And, in any event, one could argue that given the state of Soviet medicine in 1953, the wait might not have been such a bad thing.
Finally, James Joyce, the author of Ulysses, underwent periodic treatment with leeches, and the results were only somewhat less grim than those experienced by Byron and Stalin. In addition to enduring eleven eye operations during the second half of his life, the Irish writer occasionally had leeches applied around “the outside of his eyes.” It’s not clear, however, if this refers to somewhere on his face (surrounding his eyes) or, less likely, one hopes, attached to the surface of the eyes themselves. Unfortunately, these treatments were unable to halt the progression of his glaucoma-induced blindness, although Joyce’s death in 1941 was unrelated and resulted from a perforated ulcer.
One problem physicians encountered during leech use was that the leeches had an annoying tendency to wander off from where they’d been placed. In cases where leeches were inserted into a body orifice, a lasso of thread was first thrown around the creature to prevent it from taking an unexpected detour. Similarly, when leeches were applied just outside a body opening (as in the treatment of a boxer’s cauliflower ear), a wad of cotton might be inserted into the nearby hole to keep the leech from venturing in. Presumably, this became a popular measure in the nineteenth century after a leech was reported to have ascended into one patient’s uterus, while in another case, the fast-moving creature disappeared up someone’s rectum.*79
Rudy Rosenberg explained that in addition to the ease of placing leeches in otherwise hard-to-bleed locations, the resulting bites are painless since one of the substances found in leech saliva is a sensation-numbing anesthetic.
“You might feel a slight pinch,” Rudy Rosenberg told me. “But after that, nothing.”
The ability to deliver bites without upsetting the potential meal is an important adaptation for a lifestyle in which the stealthiest individuals are the ones who survive to reproductive age. As with the bite of the vampire bat, if the leech’s prey felt anything more than a minor annoyance, the chances for a successful feeding session would be greatly diminished.
“The medicinal leech has three jaws,” Rudy continued. “They’re arranged in a Mercedes-Benz cross and each jaw has around a hundred teeth.*80 Muscles that control a hood of skin at the head end of the leech form an airtight seal around the bite site. Then other muscles drive the jaws back and forth through the skin like a saw.”
Leeches that specialize in larger hosts, such as water buffalo or even elephants, have larger jaws with even more denticles. This enables them to cut through the thick, tough hides that they encounter.
As mentioned earlier, the vast majority of leech species, including Hirudo medicinalis, have an additional