The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1885-07-10

The History and Present Condition Of Pecu-
liar Trade

there are only two-to whom the for
eign leeches are consigned from Ham
burg, one practices as a dental sur
geon and the other sells pipes,
tobacco, and other triiles. Both are
of sufficient standing to recall les
6eaxr jours passes of the trade, the
great times of indiscrimlnate blood
letting, when, whether the patient
suffered from n black eye, headache,
a liver, or heart, he lost couple of
ounces of blood and was declared to
be better. Now scarcely one is used
where century ago hundred flour
ished, and the sixpenny leech OF even
so recent date as 1860 has fallen to
something less than a halfpenny at
wholesale price. No completer proof
of the proof of popularity of the
leech with the early practitioner can
be afforded than by the fact the verb
''to leech" means to treat with medi-
cine and to bleed, while the doctor
himself, even so late as the days of
Shakespeare, borrowed the name of his,
favorite instrument of healing. The
slender, meager, hungry leech comes
from Turkey, within a radius OF fifty
miles of Constantinople, and from
Buda-Pesth, where the country peo-'
pie bring them in, like watercress, 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,
weeds for shelter, and muddy banks
and bottoms. They are, as rule,
netted in nets prepared with bait,
though we are also informed that it is
not rare for the hardy peasant to walk
barelegged through che water and
strip them of as fast as they can ad-
here to the calf. However they are
caught, t,-by plain, honest fishing or
by human artiflce, from Buda- Resth,I
without distinction of age or size, they
travel to Hamburg, where they lie in!
vast ponds or reservoirs until theI
time for their selection arrives I'M
these reservoirs they lie generally fo7
year, and during all that time, id
they are properly cared for, they
should receive no food, or rather no
more than they can find for them3
selves in the water. But this is a rule1
that is not always observed rs il
should be, for there are many mer-,
chants who give them blood, and
some liver, and some, so that II tastes
may be satisfied, the entire body OF a.
horse thrown among them: With the
result that on arrival in this country
their appetites are fatigued, and they
are found to need certain stimulants
to performance. From Hamburg,l
when their time of probation is ever,l
they are imported here direct in bagsl
and boxes, and at the back 0f thel
surgery in Pentonville or among thel
pipes and tobacco of HoundsditchI
the- lie IN shallow earthen vssselS
tightly covered with gauze or men,
the halting stage on the way TO the
wholesale druggist and the hos|
pital. With the importer they rare
ly 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 honeycomb. From the
wholesale druggist they pass again to
the chemist and apothecary, and when
the perils of travel and the variations
of climate they go through are con-
the intending purchaser uustl
not be surprised If he finds him self
asked sixpcnce for an animal thatcos1
the first dealer shilling for a coupled
of hundred. Many die on the voyageI
and many in the short time they re-
main with the importer, and thought
in theory the select leech will stand!
an extreme heat or cold, many of thei
five-and-twentjes and fifties ordered
by the chemist, carefully treated aS
they are, do not live to fulfill what
seems to be the sole reason of their
existence-that of drawing blood.
The leech should never properly be-
applied more than once, and car be
applied anywhere. 1t fills in about
quarter of an hour, and will absorb
from forty to eighty-tive
grains of blood, or in all about half at
ounce. There is an ingenious instru-
nent known as the artificial lsech.
once occasionally used, but now
scarcely ever met with. 1t consists OF
/ small, sharp steel cylinder worked
oy spring, with which circular in
,ision is made, and with an interior
glass cylinder capable of being ex-
iausted by piston worked by screw.
t is not good instrument, and is, as
We say, not used now. There is
pecimen to be seen in the museum of
he College of Surgeons among the
Surgical Instrument Series. In
england there is a less powerful spe-
lies commonly found, though now
lever used. 1t is known as the horse
eech, from its habits of attacking the
Membranes lining the mouth and nos
rils of animals drinking at the pools
haunts. 1t is in its way venomous,
nd, when applied 10 the human SUBJ
ect, Inflammation, leading to erysip-
las, has been known to follow its bite
here must be something in our wat
rs unfavorable to the growth and
ultlre of the parasite, for not only is
le Indigenous leech useless, and in
eed harmful. but the foreign speci-
lens which efforts have been made to
,climatize have never come to any
ood. Thirty years ago a prominent
nglish firm projected and founded
rm at Norwood for the breeding and
lltivation of the Turkish and Hun
srian leech, but, either from ignor-
ice of treatment or changefulness of
innate, they all sickened and died.
Id the scheme collapsed. Cornhil