The Thirsty Leech – Old-Time Aid to Blood-Letting

1890

THE THIRSTY LEECH.

AN OLD-TIME AID TO BLOOD LETTING.

An Industry that is Now but the Shadow of What it Once Was.

According to the psalmist "The daughters of the horse-leech cry continually, "Give, give." According to the natural history neither the horse-leech nor his daughters do anything of the sort, the appetite of this variety of the once popular worm being quite easily satisfied. Neither has it the blood-sucking tastes of the ordinary leech, for it is well established that it will not attack man, while it is equally well known that the leech of the medical world will. It is doubtful whether it ever attaches itself to horse or other animals and it is content to make a meal off another worm, which it does by swallowing it whole after the fashion of that other worm, the snake. The horse-leech, it is true, is big and looks fierce, but, as in the case of the big black ant and the little red one, it is the little one that is to be avoided. Lastly, although this objection may be considered hypercritical, the horse-leech never had any daughters, all of its children being bi-sexed, true hermaphrodites.

Possibly what the erudite translators of the Old Testament set down in Saxon as the horse-leech was not the horse-leech at all in the original, or perhaps what was meant was the leech which is gathered by horses. In the great leech ponds and streams of Europe and Asia, a big haul of the worm used to be made by driving horses in the infected localities. The little bloodsuckers would then fasten themselves to the poor animal's legs and body, from which, when the worms were saturated, the gatherers would pick them off. Leeches have to be gathered with a little more care, the sources of supply having become much more limited than they were fifty years ago. They formerly inhabited in great numbers the marshes and streams of most countries of Europe, but now they are successfully cultivated only in France and Hungary, although they come from Turkey, Wallachia, Russia, Egypt and Algeria. The best leeches were long supposed to come from Sweden, but the supplies have run short. Paris is now the center of the European export trade, many of the leeches that come from there being labeled as Swedish.

Prior to 1839 there was no regular import trade of leeches into this country, the supply being kept up by sea captains who occasionally brought them over in small numbers on private speculation. Leechers were, therefore, obliged to depend largely on the native leech for drawing blood, the native species being in considerable demand during the early part of the present century. It was found that there were many American species, its habitat being quite widely distributed, but the best came from Eastern Pennsylvania, especially Berks and Bucks counties. The European species is generally conceded to be superior to the American, but during the earlier period of importation the prices charged for the European blood-sucker was so high that the American leech held its ground for a time. Gradually, however, prices fell, until now, although the European leech is still a trifle more expensive than the native. Its cost is so slight that it is almost universally employed, excepting in special cases, and in a few localities where the American leech is preferred. No American leeches, it is believed, are now used in any American city except Philadelphia, where they are still in slight demand. In fact, the latter city appears to have held to the old custom of leeching more than any other American city of which there is any information. Now, perhaps, scarcely more than 1,000 American leeches are used in a year, although more than that number are sold to the druggist, the supply coming from one person who collects them in the Pennsylvania counties mentioned and in the ponds about Trenton, N. J.

Up to 1878 New York was the only port that was in the leech-import business, but in that year New Orleans also began their importation, while San Francisco has long been the third importer. In San Francisco the business is in the hands of a French woman Madame Patural. They are imported during most of the year, but only to a slight extent in summer, as they are easily killed by an excess of heat. In June, July and August the mortality in the East sometimes reaches as high as 25 per cent. They are brought here packed in swamp earth in air and water-tight wooden cases, holding 1,500 leeches each. These cases are made rather light, and are about twenty-one inches long, fifteen inches wide, and thirteen inches high. In shipping leeches from place to place in this country the same cases are used for sending large quantities, and tight wooden pails for smaller numbers, the packing of swamp earth being also employed. American leeches, on the contrary, are kept best in water, in earthen or glass jars in a cool place. In the case of very large quantities storage ponds are employed, the principal being on Long Island, between Winfield and Newtown.

Though but slightly used now, there are few people who do not know that the leech is used as a blood-letting machine, its use dating back to Galen, and the process by which it fills itself with blood being graphically described by naturalists who lived contemporaneously with Pliny and Herodotus. Cupping and leeching were the curative methods employed in all febrile disorders, and indeed for almost any ill. They were applied to any part of the skin, as well as to the mouth and other available inlets. When the distinct locality was to be attacked the leech was applied in a thimble or leech glass, the latter being a small tube with a slightly contracted opening, and sometimes provided with a glass piston for pushing master leech on. In the case of brain fever or concussion of the brain the leeches were simply laid on by the doctor, sometimes as many as two dozen hanging on at the same time. So prominent a part of the doctor's practice, indeed, was this application of leeches that the doctor himself was often called "a leech" or a "learned leech" as by any other title. — San Francisco Chronicle.