Béchade (Bordeaux leech breeders)
French · Regulatory
Gironde farming family who had solved the feeding problem of leech culture by 1835 and from 1845 ran a leech-breeding and trading business in Bordeaux — the lineage that later became Ricarimpex.
Profile
- Nationality
- French
- Era
- 19th century
- Primary field
- Regulatory
Institutional Affiliations
- Béchade leech farm and shop, Blanquefort marshes and Bordeaux (from 1845)
Key Contributions
- By 1835 the Béchade family of the Gironde had solved the central problem of hirudiniculture — feeding — after noticing that leeches gathered where sick horses were walked in the marshes, which led to the idea of feeding the animals on livestock.
- From 1845 M. Béchade ran a breeding operation in the natural marshes of Blanquefort and a leech shop at 137 rue Sainte-Catherine in Bordeaux, at a time when many leech-trading houses relied on wild collection.
- In 1864 his son-in-law M. Debest succeeded him (the house became Debest-Béchade); in 1901 the business passed to M. Ricard through his wife E. Béchade, and the breeding ponds were moved to Audenge.
- The enterprise, renamed Ricarimpex in 1960, is the French producer whose leeches were cleared by the FDA under 510(k) K040187 in 2004.
Importance to Hirudotherapy
The Béchade family were farmers in the Gironde who, according to the company history published by Ricarimpex, had solved by 1835 the problem that had defeated some forty competitors for a prize of the Société d'encouragement: how to feed cultured leeches so that they could be kept, bred and grown quickly. They had noticed that leeches appeared wherever sick horses were walked through the marshes, and drew from this the idea of feeding the annelids on livestock. From 1845 M. Béchade ran a breeding operation in the natural marshes of Blanquefort together with a leech shop at 137 rue Sainte-Catherine in Bordeaux, combining trade with breeding, which the numerous leech-trading houses founded half a century earlier had not practised. The business stayed in the family by marriage: in 1864 the son-in-law M. Debest took over (Debest-Béchade), and in 1901 M. Ricard succeeded through his wife E. Béchade (Ricard-Debest-Béchade), moving the ponds to Audenge. In 1960 the firm was acquired by the Desbarax family and renamed Ricarimpex; it is today based at Eysines near Bordeaux, and its medicinal leeches were cleared by the U.S. FDA as a medical device under 510(k) K040187 in June 2004. The founder's first name and dates are not documented in the sources available to ASH, and the entry therefore records the family rather than an individual.
Related Figures
John Berry Haycraft
1857-1922 · British (Scottish)
Edinburgh physiologist who discovered hirudin in 1884, founding the modern molecular pharmacology of leech saliva.
François-Joseph-Victor Broussais
1772-1838 · French
French military physician and professor whose physiological medicine doctrine drove the early-nineteenth-century explosion in therapeutic leech use across Paris hospitals and the wider French medical world.
Pierre-Joseph Pelletier
1788-1842 · French
French chemist whose isolation of plant alkaloids (quinine, strychnine, caffeine, brucine) pioneered the methodology of pure-compound extraction that would later be applied by Haycraft and Jacoby to obtain hirudin from medicinal leech salivary glands.
Rudolf Ludwig Karl Virchow
1821-1902 · German (Prussian)
Berlin pathologist who founded cellular pathology, articulated the triad of thrombosis (endothelial injury, stasis, hypercoagulability), and whose framework underpins every modern indication for hirudotherapy in microsurgery and venous congestion.