The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1883-10-11
The Festive Ieech.


Something mysterious tied up in a
white jar attracted the attention Of Gus
toners at prominent drug store, and
the druggist good-naturedly united the
cloth and took out some black wrig-
Cling worms. They We're round or
elong ated at pleasure, and started of
when touched with q pencil at rapid
pedestrian gait, until headed off and
dropped back into their damp porcelain
pit.
They are leeehes,n explained the
druggist, land came all the way from
Holland. Twenty years ago when
blood-letting was in vogue they were in
great demand. Now they are only oc-
casionally called for
I'm what class of diseases do they
use thempn
Disorders of the head; if there is a
numbness or pressure of blood on the
brain, chronic headaches, etc. They
put them on the temples and let them
suck the blood till they are full, when
they fall off. Salt is then thrown on
them and they disgorge, and are ready
for use again.
''How often can they be usedp"
"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 temple and sits down to
read. When it falls off she drops it
into glass Of salt water, and if her
headache is not relieved applies it again,
until sometimes she has used it three or
four times and lost some ounces of
blood. -
A more convenient way of using the
leeeh is now in vogue. Ii is slipped into
glass bulb with an orifce smaller
than the reptiles body. Through this
it projects its head and fastens upon
the human flesh, in which its banquet
is waiting Usually the patient is too
| i'll to care for the responsiveness of this
remedial agent, whom Webster thus
describes:
, "a cotyloid worm largely used for
the local abstraction of blood. 1t is of
fattened form when elongated,
thickest at the posterior end, has two
suckers and ten eyes arranged in a
horseshoe form, and is of an olive
green color, variously marked. 1t has
a triangular mouth in the anterior
! sucker, at each end of which is placed
half-moon plate set about the free rim
with transverse teeth. By the retrae-
ton 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
neighborhood of Ecorse and other river
hamlets. and the boys often collect fifty
or one hundred and try to dispose Of
them; first they take them to the drug
stores, where they are refused as a
usual thing; then they offer them at the
Chinese laundries, where they cook
them with rice and macaroni. 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 leeehes are kept.
The wholesale druggists buy them in
tubs of black earth packed almost solid.
They only require air and moisture TO
keep them alive. When the cover is
taken off their jar they swarm out as
lively as crickets, and use their ten
eyes TO good advantage in getting away
as rapidly as possible Boys call them
blood-suckers and have dislike to
their. acquaintance when fishing, as
they fasten on their bare feet with q
tenacity that allows no chance of re.
moving them till they have filled them
selves with refreshment.- Detroit Posi-
| and Tribune.