The Opelousas courier., 1884-01-19
ABOUT LEECHES.
Something of a Little Amman AhaS
Sticks Closer than q Brother.

Sticks Closer than a BrotheF'
Something mysterious tied UP IN a
white jar attracted the attention OF
customers at a prominent drug store,
and the druggist good-naturedly un1ieo
the cloth and took out some plack'
wriggling worms. They were round
or elongated at pleasure, and started
off when touched with a pencil at a
rapid pedestrian gait until headed OH
and dropped back into their damp
porcelain pit.
"They are leeches," explained the
druggist, "and came all the way from
Holland. Twenty years ago, when
blood-letting was in vogue, they were
in great demand. Now they are only
occasionally called for.
"In what class of diseases do they
use them?'
Disorders of the head; if there is a
numbness or pressure of blood on the
brain, chronic headache, etc. They
put them on the temples and let them
suck the blood till they are full, when
they fall off. Salt is thrown on them
and they disgorge, and are ready for
use again."
"How often can they be usedy"
ga number of times. There is n
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 a 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 aglass bulb with an orifice small
er 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 repul-
~siveness of this remedial agent, whom
Webster thus describes:
"a cotyloid worm largely used FOR
tie local abstraction of blood. It is OF
a 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. It has
a triangular mouth in the anterior
sucker, at each end of which there is
placed a half moon plate set about the
free rim with transverse teeth. By
the r~etraction of these jaws a stelIatt
incision is made, through which the
leech sucks blood till it is gorged and
then drops off"
There are plenty of leeches in th.e
neighborhood of Ecorse and othel
river hamlets, and boys often collect
fifty or hundred and try to dispose
of them to the drug stores, where they
are refused as a usual thing. Their
they offer them at the Chinese lann-
dries, where they cock them with rie'
and macaroni. There are SOM
specialists who use them for a valua
BILE oil they are said to make. In New
York there are artificial ponds wher
Che imported leeches are kept. TIL
wholesale druggists buy them in tub
of black earth packed almost solid
They only require air and moisture t
keep them alive. When the v ]
taken off their jar they swarm out a
/. lively as crickets, and use their te1
: eyes to advantage in getting away a
5 rapidly as possible. Boys call Their
b~lood-suckers, and have a dislike
. their acquaintance when fishing, a
= they fasten IN Their bare feet with
7 tenacity that allows M chance of re
moving them till they have filed them
g selves with refreshment. Detroit Pos