The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1885-07-03
THE TRADE TN LEECHES.
A PECULIAR INDUSTRY WHICH
STILL TLouRISHES.
Gathering Lrcches for tho London
Market How they arc Caught
and Kcpt-Apptying Lee ines.


Of the two firms in London and there
arc only two-to whom the foreign
leechcs are consigned from Hamburg,
one practices as dental surgeon and the
other sells pipes, tobacco, and other trl-
flies. Both are of sufficient standing to
recall the great times OF indlscrlmlnate
blood-letting, when, whether the patient
suffered from a black eye, a headache,
liver or a heart, he lost couple OF
ounces OF blood and was declared to be
better. Now scarcely one is used where
q century ago a hundred tiourlshed, and
the sixpenny lcech of even so recent a
date as 1860 has fallen to something less
than half-penny at wholesale price. No
completer proof of the popularity of the
lcech with the early practitioner can be
afforded than by the fact that the verb
"to leech" means to treat with medicine
and to bleed, while the doctor himself,
even so late as the DAYS Of Shakespeare,
borrowed the name of his favorite in
strument of healing. The slender, meagre,
hungry leech comes fIoin Turkey, within
a radius of fifty miles of Constantine
pie, and from Buda-Pesth, where the
country people bring them in, like water
cress, by thousands from the bitches,
and sell them to the dealers. They are
found there in all bitches and ponds,
and wherever there is pure running water,
we2ds for shelter and muddy banks and
bottoms. They are, as a rule netted in
nets prepared with bait, though we are
also informed that it is not rare for the
hardy peasant to walk bare-legged
through the water and strip them off as
fast as they can adhere to the calf.
! However they are caught-by plain,
| honest fishing or by human artitice-from
! Buda-P esth, without distinction of age
or size, they travel to Hamburg, where
they lie in vast pools or reservoirs until
the time for their selection arrives. In
these reservoirs they lie generally for a
year, and during all that time, if they
are properly cared for, they should re-
ceive no food or rather no more than
they can find for themselves in the water.
But this is rule that is not always OBJ
served as it should be, for there are many
merchants who give them blood, and
some liver, and some, so that all tastes
may be satisfied the entire body of a
horse thrown among them, with the re-
suit that on arrival in this country their
appetitcs arc fatigued, and they are
Torrance. From Hamburg, when their
time of probation is over, they are i'm
ported here direct in bags and
boxes, and at tie back of the surgery in
Pentonvile, or among the pipes and to-
bacco Of Houndsdtch they lie in shallow
earthen vessels tightly covered with
gauze or linen, the hating stage on the
way to the wholesale druggist and the
I Al ha, nlx
tarry for more than four or five days,
but are sent out almost as fast as they
come in in small wooden boxes similar
to those used by fruiterers for honey
comb. From the wholesale druggist
they pass again 20 the chemist and apothe
cary, and when the perils of travel anc
the variations of climate they go through
are considered, the intending purchase
must not be surprised if he finds himsel
asked sixpence for an animal that cos
the first dealer shilling for couple O.
hundred. Many die on the voyage, anC
many in the short time they remain with
the importer, and though in theory thu
selected leech will stand an extreme o
heat or cold, many of the five and TWEEN
ties and fifties ordered by the chemist
carefully treated as they are, do not liv
to fulfill what seems to be the sole reason
of their eXistancc-that of drawing b God
The leech should never properly be ap
piled more than once, and can be applied
anywhere. 1t fills in about n quarter o
an hour and will absorb altogether iron
forty to cighty-fvc grains of blood, o
in all about half an ounce. There is al
ingenious instrument known as tn
artificial lecch, one OCCASIONAL
used, but now scarcely ever INC
with 1t consists of a small, sharp steC
cylinder worked by a spring, with whlc
a circular incison is made, and with Il
interior glass cylinder capable of bein
exhausted by a piston worked by
screw. 1t is not a good instrument, anC
is, us we say, not used now. There is
specimen to be seen in the museum c
the college of surgeons among the 'suI
y gical instrument series" In Eng Ian
a there is q less powerful species common
# ly found, though now never used. 1t
known as the horse leech, from its hal
Y its of attacking the membranes linin
the mouth and nOstrils of animals drjnl
ing at the pools it haunts. 1t is in i
!. way vcnomous, and, when applied
the human subject Inflammation, leadin
to erysipelas, has been known to folio
its bite. There must be something
n our waters unfavorablc to the grOwt
a and culture OF the parasite, for not on
Y is the indigenous lcech useless and il
! deed harmful, but the foreign specimen
A which efforts have been made to accl
y Matte have never come to any 600,
y Thirty years ago II prominent Engli'
III firm projected and founded Il farm
li Noryoo6 for the brpp1inO and emit vi
II ton OF the Turkish and Hungarian leec
u but, either from ignorance of treatme
x or changefulness of climate, they
nj sickened and died, and the scheme C
Hi lapsed. 49, Co1uhW.
IL A Remarkable Class OF Thieves.