Medicinal leech therapy (MLT) or hirudotherapy is a kind of complementary treatment method applied with blood-sucking leeches. One or more leeches are attached to the skin of problematic area and the purpose is to gain potential utilities of leech saliva.
Medicinal leeches have three jaws, each with a single row of teeth. They use their teeth to penetrate a person’s skin and inject anticoagulants present in their saliva. After that, the leeches are permitted to drain blood from the patient(this translates to only a few milliliters of blood per leech).