A little wonder, every day

A ritual against leeches

AI-generated cover illustration / Титульна AI-реконструкція. Conceptual rendering of a church rite at a lakeshore in the Lausanne region; it does not document a specific 1451 event or prove an outcome.

Page of a 15th-century Leech-Book, Wellcome Collection, library reference WMS MS. 406, photo L0034194. CC BY 4.0. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Page_of_Gothic_text_from_a_15th_century_Leech-Book_Wellcome_L0034194.jpg. It illustrates medieval leech-related medical writing, not the Lausanne rite.

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AI-generated cover illustration / Титульна AI-реконструкція. Conceptual rendering of a church rite at a lakeshore in the Lausanne region; it does not document a specific 1451 event or prove an outcome.

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A fifteenth-century treatise attributes a church rite against leeches in Lake Geneva to the bishop of Lausanne; the leeches were considered a threat to fish, especially salmon. In the account, they were ordered to leave the water and cursed if they failed to obey. This was a religious expulsion of pests, not an ordinary criminal trial; the source does not prove that the leeches actually moved.