New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1885-06-17
LEECHEs.
The History and Present Condition Of PecE.
liar Trade,

z
there are only two-to whom the for
eign leeches are consigned from Ham
burg, one practices as dental sur
geon and the other sells pipes.
tobacco, and other trifes. Both arr
of sufficient standing to recall les
beaatr joalrs passes of the trade, the
great times of indiscrimlnate blood
letting, when, whether the patient
! suffered from a black eye, headache,
a liver, or heart, he lost couple OF
ounces of blood and was declared tC
be better. Now scarcely one is used
where century ago hundred -four
ished, and the sixpenny leech of even
so recent a date as 1860 has fallen to
something less than halfpenny at
wholesale price. No compleler proof
OF the proof of popularity of the
leech with the early practitioner can
be afforded than by the fact the vern
''to leech" means to treat with medl-
cine and to bleed, while the doctor
himself, even so late as the DAYS of
Shakespeare, borrowed the name of his
tavorite instrument of healing. The
slender, meager, hungry leech comes
from Turkey, within 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 the water and
strip them Oft as fast as they can ad-
here to the calf. However they are
caught, plain, honest fishing or
by human artiflce,-from Buda- Pesth,
without distinction of age or size, they
travel to Hamburg, where they lie in
vast ponds 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 receive no food, or rather nc
more than they can find for them
selves in the water. But this is rule
that is not always observed as it
should be, for there are many mer-
chants who give them blood, and
some liver, and some, so that ali 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,
when their time of probation is over,
they are imported here direct in bags
and boxes, and at the back Of the
surgery in Pentonville or among the
pipes and tobacco of Houndsditch
they lie IN shallow earthen vessels
tightly covered with gauze or linen.
the hating 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-
sidered, the intending purchaser must
not be surprised If he finds himself
asked slNpcnce for an animal that cost
the first dealer a shilling for couple
OF hundred. Many die on the voyage
and many in the short time they re-
main with the importer, and though
in theory the select leech will stand
an extreme heat or cold, many of the
tive-and-twentjes and tifties ordered
by the chemist, carefully treated as
they are, do not live to fulfill what
seems to be the sole reason Of theil
existence-that of drawing blood
The leech should never properly be
applied more than once, and can be
applied anywhere. 1t fills in about a
quarter of an hour, and will absorb
altogether from forty to eighty-five
grains of blood, or in all a Bout half an
ounce. There is an ingenious instru-
ment known as the artificial leech.
once occasionally used, but now
scarcely ever met with 1t consists of
a small, sharp steel cylinder worked
by spring, with which a circular in
cision is made, and with an interior
glass cylinder capable of being ex-
hausted by piston worked by screw.
IL is not 9OOd instrument, and is, as
we say, not used now. There is a
specimen to be seen il the museum of
the College of Surgeons among the
Surgical Instrument Series.'' In
England there is less powerful spe-
cies commonly found, though now
never used. 1t is known as the horse
leech, from its habits of attacking the
membranes lining the mouth and nos.
trils of animals drinking at the pools
it haunts. 1t is in its way venomous,
and, when applied 10 the human sub
ject, Inflammation, leading to erysip-
elias, has been known to follow its bite.
There must be something in our wat.
ers unfavorable to the growth and
culture of the parasite, for not only is
the Indigenous leech useless, and in
deed harmful, but the foreign speci-
mems which efforts have been made to
acclimatize have never come to any
good. Thirty years ago prominent
English firm projected and founded a
farm at Norwood for the breeding and
cultivation of the Turkish and Hun
garian leech, but, either from ignor-