Liquorice Sharp Leechsetting

Liquorice Sharp Leechsetting (shorted to L.S.L. for notation) is a research proposal started by Ligeia Canterbury after she was made a fully fledged healer on the Potions and Plant Poisoning floor at St. Mungo's. It's an attempt to modernize an archaic method of bloodletting using Licorice Snap sweets as a leech substitute.

And yes, Ligeia is insistent on her terminology of 'Sharps' instead of 'Snaps' to distance from the original biting sweets.

Synopsis

There are two distinct goals for the project.

• To quickly screen poisons out of a patients' bloodstream, absorbed by the leech.
• To administer medical doses to unresponsive patients via leech for rapid response.

The main process is to condition the 'sharp' leech substitutes to various poisons and potions depending on purpose. They take on the coloration of the potion. Being made of magical liquorice, the use of these false 'leeches' is both humane and biodegradable. Once prepped, the leeches can be housed in vials. They activate the moment they make contact with the subject's skin.

Complications

As of spring 2018, there are still several issues to work out before widespread trials can begin. Ligeia has been self-testing and getting a few volunteers.

An additional parameter requires the leech be prepped for the patients' blood type. Ideally, L.S.L. would be usable even if the subject's blood type wasn't known when administering. As such, one avenue of research is to streamline the process to make the leeches adaptive to all blood types. A blood collecting model of Liquorice Sharp, twice as long as the normal sweet, was created to help synthesize new batches of leeches for that blood type.

Also, irritating scarring from contact can linger, sometimes being resistent to magical healing methods.

It would also be useful to make the poison screening (and blood collecting) leeches less fragile as they swell up. Results are very messy upon bursting. Further inquires are also needed to determine complications from allergic reactions or diabetes.

Developments & Threads

March 2018: Ligeia introduces Samuel Chávez to the project while giving him Sage Advice. Attempts to begin testing with Floor Two's assistance are sidetracked by the events of Plot:Over My Dead Body.

April 2018: Arcturus Hollingbury, Healer-in-Charge of Ligeia's ward, admonishes the pair for not getting his approval and the circumvention of Floor-limited protocols for research. (Hirudo Medicinalis Improprius & No, You're Not in Trouble). Arcturus suspends Ligeia's research.