omg i want the first bottle
A leech jar, used to contain leeches for medical use, found at the online Brought To Life exhibit. The tubes in the sides of the jar are intended to keep the liquid the leeches are in aerated. See also the glass leech tube from the same exhibit, which was used to transport and potentially apply leeches to the body.
Leeches were used to balance the four humors up until the nineteenth century. Bleeding was prescribed for various illnesses, and you can find references to bleeding in a great deal of nineteenth century novels. It’s often used in movies and modern novels to indicate the ‘primitive’ quality of Victorian medicine. Leeches have reentered modern surgical medicine, however. They are used in reattachment surgery, plastic surgery (to reduce swelling), and in skin grafts. For more about their modern medical use, you can look at this short piece at UConn or this archived article.
