The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-09-22
ABOUT LEECHES.
Something of Little Animal That Sticks
Closer than n Brother.

Detroit Post.
Something mysterious tied up in white
jar attracted the attention of customers at a
prominent drug store, and the druggist good
naturally united the cloth and took out
some black, wriggling worms They were
round or elongated Mt pleasure, and started
off when touched with pencil at a rapid
pedestrian gait until headed off ard dropped
back into their damp porcelain pit.
They are leeches," explained the drug
gist, land came all the way from Holland.
Twenty years ago. when bood-letting was
in vogue, they were in great demand Now
they are only occasionally called for"
I'm what class of diseases do they use
then?
Disorders of the head if there is a numb
ness or pressure of blood on the Drain, chron-
ic headache. etc. They put them on the
temples and let them suck the blood till
they are full, when they fail off, Salt is
thrown on them and they disgorge, and are
ready for use again."
How often can they be used?"
"a number of times. There is one lady in
Detroit who keeps a pet leech. When her
head aches she applies the reptile to her tenn
pie and sits down to read When it falls off
she drops it into glass of salt and water
and if her headache is not relieved applies it
again, until sometimes she has used it three
or four times and has lost some ounces of
blood"
A more convenient way of using the leech
is now in vogue. 1t is slipped into a glass
bulb with an orifice smaller than the rep
tiles body. Through this it projects its head
and fastens upon the human flesh, in which
its banQuetis waiting. Usually the patient
is too i'll to care for the responsiveness of
this remedial agent, whom Webster thus de-
scribes
"a cotyloid worm largely used for the
local abstraction of blood. 1t is OF fat
tened form when elongated, thickest at the
posterior end, has two suckers and ten eyes
arranged in a horseshoe form, and is oil an
olive-green color, variously marked. 1t has
a triangular mouth in the anterior sucker, at
cl end of which there is placed half
moon plate set about the free rim with trans
verse teeth. By the retraction OF these jaws
a stellate incision is made. through which
the leech sucks blood till it Is gorged and
then drops off"
There are plenty of leeches in the neigh
borhood of Ecorse and other river hamlets,
and boys often collect fifty or one hundred
and try to dispose of them to the drug stores,
where they are refused as a usual thing.
Then they offer them at the Chinese laun-
dries, where they cook them with rice and
macaron There are some specialists who
use them for a valuable oil they are said to
make. In New York there are artificial
ponds where the imported leeches are kept.
The wholesale druggists buy them in tubs of
black earth packed almost solid They only
require air and moisture to keen them
alive. When the cover is taken off their jar
they swarm out as lively as crickets, and use
their ten eyes to advantage in getting away
as rapidly as possible Boys call them blood
suckers, and have a dislike to their acqunnt-
ance when fishing, as they fasten on their
bare feet with tenacity that allows no
no chance of removing them till they have
filled themselves with refreshment.