clay and water, or in stone vases full of water. Sometimes they
travelled in sacks of strong linen, or even of leather, and these had
to be watered from time to time. Another mode of conveying them was to
place them in baskets full of moss or grass soaked in water, but care
had to be taken lest they should escape. These baskets, again, could
not be packed one upon another, or the leeches were crushed. In the old
days each sack often weighed 20 to 25 kilograms; and travelling thus,
suspended in a kind of hammock, _dans une voiture ou fourgon_, from
Palota near Pesth, they reached Paris in from twelve to fifteen days.
They generally travelled via Vienna to Strassburg, where twelve great
reservoirs, appropriately placed near the hospital, received them, and
here they rested for awhile. Others collected in Syria and Egypt came
by ship to Trieste, whence they are sent to Bologna, to Milan, and to
Turin, or by water to Marseilles. Marseilles also received directly
by sea the leeches from the Levant and Africa, and expedited them to
Montpellier, Toulouse, and many another town in the south.
The best time of year for their journey was found to be the spring and
autumn. They were more difficult to manage in the summer, and they were
all the better for having a rest every now and then, as they used to
do at Strassburg. There were times when consignments of from 60,000 to
80,000 a day used to leave Strassburg for Paris. In 1806 a thousand
leeches in France fetched 12 to 15 francs; but in 1821 the price had
risen to 150 to 200 and even 283 francs. In the latter year they were
retailed at 20 to 50 for 4 to 10 sous.
As in England, however, for the most part the artificial cultivation of
leeches is diminishing in France, though half a century ago leech-farms
were common in Finistère and in the marshes in the neighbourhood of
Nantes. There were some years when, if the season was favourable,
the peasants carried to market 60,000 a day. Spain and Portugal also
furnished leeches for a long time; but by the middle of last century
the Peninsula had become almost depleted. But some leeches were still
at that period being received from Tuscany and Piedmont. Perhaps the
richest fields which still exist are the marshy regions in Hungary.
It will be observed that, probably without their knowing anything at
all about it, General Joffre, General von Kluck, Field-Marshal French,
the Grand Duke Nicholas, General von Hindenburg are fighting on some of
the best leech-areas in Europe—a point to which we shall return when
dealing with the leeches of the Orient.
One wonders what the leeches think of it all!
CHAPTER XI
LEECHES
PART II
THE MEDICINAL LEECH (_Hirudo medicinalis_)—_continued_
Non missura cutem, nisi plena cruoris, hirudo.
(HORACE.)
THERE is no doubt that the medicinal leech is one of the most
beautiful of animals. Many of its cousins are uniform and dull in
colour—‘self-coloured,’ as the drapers would call them; but the
coloration of the medicinal leech could not be improved upon. It is a
delicious harmony of reddish-browns and greens and blacks and yellows,
a beautiful soft symphony of velvety orange and green and black, the
markings being repeated on each segment, but not to the extent of a
tedious repetition. So beautiful are they that the fastidious ladies
who adorned the _salons_ at the height of the leech mania, during the
beginning of the eighteenth century, used to deck their dresses with
embroidered leeches, and by repeating the design one after the other
constructed a chain of leeches which, as a ribbon, was inserted around
the confines of their vesture.
Harding tells us that the dorsal surface of _H. medicinalis_ is
‘usually of a green, richly variegated colour, with orange and black
spots, exhibiting an extremely variable pattern, based generally upon
three pairs of reddish-brown or yellowish, more of less, longitudinal
stripes, often interrupted by black or sessile spots occurring on the
rim of each somite. The ventral surface is more or less green, more or
less spotted with black, with a pair of black marginal stripes.’
The shape of the medicinal leech, and indeed of other leeches, is
difficult to put into figures, as their bodies are as extensile as
the conscience of a politician and as flexible as that of a candidate
for parliamentary honours. The length of _H. medicinalis_ in extreme
extension is said to range from some 100 mm. to 125 mm.; in extreme
constriction from 30 mm. to 35 mm. The width in the former state would
be 8 mm. to 10 mm., and in the latter 15 mm. to 18 mm.
The movements of the medicinal leech are as graceful as its colour
is tasteful. When in the water they move like looper-caterpillars
(Geometrids), stretching out their anterior sucker, attaching it to
some object, and then releasing the posterior sucker they draw the body
up towards the mouth. Or, casting loose from all attachment, the leech
elongates and at the same time flattens its body until it assumes the
shape of a band or short piece of red tape, and by a series of the most
seductive undulations swims through the water. Kept in an aquarium
they are rather apt at times to leave the water and take up a position
on the sides of their home an inch or two above the aqueous surface.
When outside the water they keep their bodies moist by the excretion
of their nephridia or kidneys. This fluid plays the same part on the
skin of a leech as the coelomic fluid of an earthworm, which escapes
by the earthworm’s dorsal pores. There is very little doubt that both
these fluids contain some bactericidal toxin which prevents epizootic
protozoa and bacteria from settling on their skins. Such external
parasites settle on many fresh-water crustacea—such as _Cyclops_, which
is a floating aquarium of Ciliata. In fact, leeches, like earthworms,
have a self-respecting, well-groomed external appearance. Like our dear
soldiers, they are, so to speak, always clean shaven.
There has been a very widely spread tradition that in their comings
and goings in and out of the water, leeches act as weather prophets.
The poet Cowper, who throughout his chequered career ever showed but
an imperfect sympathy with science, tells us that ‘leeches in point of
the earliest intelligences are worth all the barometers in the world’;
and Dr. J. Foster mentions that leeches, ‘confined in a glass of water,
by their motions foretell rain and wind, before which they seem much
agitated, particularly before thunder and lightning.’ Modern opinion,
however, prefers the barometer.
The great Chancellor, Lord Erskine, kept a couple of tame leeches and
Sir Samuel Romilly records the fact in one of his decorous letters:—
He told us how that he had got two favourite leeches. He had been
blooded by them last autumn when he had been taken dangerously ill
at Portsmouth; they had saved his life, and he had brought them with
him to town, had ever since kept them in a glass, had himself every
day given them fresh water, and had formed a friendship with them.
He said he was sure they both knew him, and were grateful to him.
He had given them different names, Home and Cline (the names of two
celebrated surgeons), their dispositions being quite different. After
a good deal of conversation about them, he went himself, brought them
out of his library, and placed them in their glass upon the table.
It is impossible, however, without the vivacity, the tones, the
details, and the gestures of Lord Erskine, to give an adequate idea
of this singular scene. He would produce his leeches at consultation
under the name of ‘bottle conjurers,’ and argue the result of the
cause according to the manner in which they swam or crawled.[15]
The medicinal leech lives on the blood of vertebrates and
invertebrates. Mr. H. O. Latter records that ‘cattle, birds, frogs and
tadpoles, snails, insects, small soft-bodied crustacea, and worms are
all attacked by various species’ of leech; but the true food of _Hirudo
medicinalis_ is the blood of vertebrates. The three teeth, which cause
the well-known triradiate mark on the skin, are serrated and sharp. The
strong sucking-pharynx has its wall attached by numerous muscles to the
underside of the skin of the leech. By the contraction of these muscles
its lumen is enlarged, and by thus creating a vacuum the blood of the
host flows in.
In the walls of the pharynx and the neighbouring parts are numerous
large unicellular glands which secrete an anti-coaguline fluid which
prevents the blood of the host clotting, so that even when the leech
moves its mouth to another point the triradiate puncture continues to
ooze. The same anti-coaguline secretion no doubt prevents the blood
coagulating in the enormous crop of the leech in which this meal of
blood is stored. Opportunities for a meal presumably occur but seldom
in nature, and the leech is the ‘boa-constrictor’ of the invertebrate
world. Its interior economy is laid out on the basis of a large and
capacious storage and of a very restricted and very slow digestion.
The blood sucked into the sucking-pharynx passes on to the thin-walled
crop, which occupies almost all of the space in the animal. This crop
is sacculated, having eleven large lateral diverticula on each side.
In a fed leech the whole of this crop is swollen with blood, which,
as we have said above, does not coagulate. The actual area where the
digestion takes place is ludicrously small, as shown at 5, Fig. 49,
p. 126. The rectum, which runs from the real seat of assimilation to
the opening of the posterior sucker, transmits the undigested food—but
there is not much of it.
An active medicinal leech will draw from one to two drams of blood, and
as much more will flow from the wound when the leech moves, because the
coagulation of the blood has been put out of action. No scab or clot
is formed. If necessary, the flow of blood can be stimulated by hot
fomentations. Sometimes the bleeding is so great that artificial means
have to be taken to check it. When leeches are applied to the human
integument they are generally first dried in a cloth, and if they will
not bite the part required, the part should be moistened with sweetened
milk or a drop of blood. To remove leeches when replete, salt, sugar,
or snuff sprinkled over the back is used. They may then be made to
disgorge by placing them in a salt solution of 16 parts salt and 100 of
water at 100° F. A full meal is said to last leeches nine months.
[Illustration: FIG. 52.—Cocoon of the medicinal leech, and longitudinal
and transverse views of the same cut open.]
Leeches are hermaphrodite; and in some genera the acting male inserts
spermatophores, or little cases containing spermatozoa, anywhere in
the skin of the leech that is being fertilised, and the spermatozoa
then make their way through the tissues of the body of the potential
female till they arrive at the ovary and there fuse with the ova. In
the medicinal leech the mating is said to be encouraged by adding fresh
water to the vessels in which the leeches are living.
The eggs are laid in capsules or cocoons attached to some water-plant
or buried in the mud, about twenty-four hours after the leeches have
mated. The cocoon is formed, as it is in an earthworm, by certain
glands in the skin which form a secretion that hardens and takes the
form of a broad ring, as it were, round the body of the leech.
[Illustration: FIG. 53.—A _Nephelis_ forming its cocoon and withdrawing
from it.]
Through this broad ring the body of the leech is withdrawn and the
fertilised eggs are deposited in it. The two ends close up, but not
entirely, for the young leeches eventually make their way into the
outer water through one of the remaining pores. Within the cocoon are
six to twenty ova, and these gradually mature and the young hatch
out. When they leave the cocoon they are minute, and of the thickness
of pack-thread. More than one cocoon is deposited by each leech, but
unless the cocoons are anchored to some submerged object they often
rise to the surface of the water and float half submerged, and are then
apt to be destroyed by water-rats, voles, and other enemies of leeches.
At times the leeches themselves destroy their cocoons.
[Illustration: FIG. 54.—Cocoons of _Nephelis_, showing the growth of
the eggs and the issuing larvae, which in the lower figure are leaving
the cocoons.]
The exact time of the emergence from the cocoon does not seem to be
very definitely known, but leeches are long-lived annelids. It is not
till their third year that they are of any use for medicinal purposes,
and they are said not to pair until they are six or seven years
old. They certainly live twelve or fifteen years. But, if we adopt
an optimistic view—and in this little book we do—the fact that they
grow up so slowly and live so long shows that it will be difficult to
replace the shortage of leeches in Great Britain and Ireland during the
present war. This could hardly be done by home culture, for even if the
war lasts three or four years we have lost the cocoons of the summer of
1914, even if we ever had them.
Leeches have many enemies:—water-rats, voles, the larvae of
the _Dytiscus_ beetle, the larvae of _Hydrophylus_, the _Nepa_
or water-scorpion, the larvae of the dragonfly, and the adult
_Dytiscus_—all feed upon them. Many birds also eat leeches; and it is
recorded that at one artificial leech-farm, where there were 20,000
leeches, they were all eaten up in twenty-four hours by an invasion of
ducks. Frogs and newts also devour them, and they are not above eating
their own brothers. _Aulostoma_ will devour its own species as readily
as it will an earthworm.
Those artificially reared, as is usually the case with animals reared
in captivity—probably against their will—are peculiarly liable to
disease of various sorts. They not only become diseased themselves, but
they act as carriers of disease and play the same part to fish which
biting insects play to man and other terrestrial animals. They convey
to fishes protozoal diseases similar to those that insects convey to
man and other warm-blooded vertebrates.
[Illustration: FIG. 55.—A leech-farm in the south of France.]
Leech-farming used to be a profitable undertaking, but now it has
fallen into desuetude in these islands. Leeches are, however, still
cultivated in some parts of the world; and in America, Latter describes
a farm, situated at Newton in Long Island, where there is, or was, a
leech-farm some thirteen acres in extent. The farm consists of oblong
ponds of about one and a half acres, each three feet deep. The bottom
of each pond is covered with clay, and the banks are made of peat. The
French writers recommend, as a rule, the use of clay for the banks. The
‘eggs’ (cocoons) are deposited in the peat from June onwards, till the
weather gets chilly. The adult leeches are fed every six months with
fresh blood placed in stout linen bags suspended in the water. A more
cruel method of feeding these domesticated leeches is that of driving
horses, asses, or cattle into the ponds—and this was the custom in
France.
[Illustration: FIG. 56.—_Glossosiphonia heteroclita_, with eggs
and emerging embryos. Ventral view. × 4. (From Harding.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 57.—_Helobdella stagnalis_, with adhering young.
Ventral view, magnified. (From Harding.)]
Some leeches show a considerable amount of maternal affection.
_Glossosiphonia heteroclita_, for instance, carries its eggs about with
it, and _Helobdella stagnalis_ has its little young larvae attached by
their tiny suckers to the mother’s body, which they are loath to leave.
_Aulostoma gulo_, the horse-leech, is notoriously a very ferocious
feeder. Exactly why this species is called a _horse_-leech is a
matter of speculation; but ‘horse’ used as an adjective seems to
imply something large and something rather coarse—for instance,
horse-chestnuts, horse-play, horse-sense, and horse-laugh.
The rapacity of the daughters of the ‘horse-leach’ is dwelt on in the
Bible.[16] I am not an authority on exegesis, but I have never felt
quite sure whether these two ladies were not the offspring of the
local veterinary surgeon. But _Aulostoma_ does occur in Palestine, and
its voracity may very well have been known to the Hebrews. I entirely
reject the idea that the word indicates some ghost or phantom: that
explanation is due to the craven policy of taking refuge in the unknown.
I conclude this chapter with a couple of sentences taken from Dr.
Phillips’s ‘Materia Medica’ on the present use of leeches:—
The special value of leeching is shown in the early stage of local
congestion and inflammations: such as arise from injuries, and in
orchitis, laryngitis, haemorrhoids, and inflammations of the ear and
eye, cerebral congestions, and congestive fixed headache.
Leeches are also of service, in a manner less easy to understand,
in inflammations of deep-seated parts without direct vascular
connexion with the surface—for example, in hepatitis, pleuritis, and
pericarditis, as well as in pneumonia, peritonitis, and, according to
some observers, in meningitis. In all these disorders, however, they
are very much less used than formerly—in the larger hospitals, for
instance, when at one time they cost many hundred pounds annually, a
few dozens in the year would represent the total employed.[17]
CHAPTER XII
LEECHES
PART III
EXOTIC LEECHES
(_Limnatis nilotica_ and _Haemadipsa zeylanica_).
Rulers that neither see nor feel nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.
(SHELLEY, _England in 1819_.)
THE extension of war into the Near and Far East has brought into
action two genera of leeches which were and still are the cause of
extreme inconvenience and even of real danger to troops operating in
these areas. The enemies of our Allies will still insist on fighting
on richly stocked leech-grounds. For in the new war area, in southern
Europe, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and parts of India and the
real East, two genera of leeches—which are indeed not the friend but
the enemy of man, especially of the soldier—abound.
The first of these two is _Limnatis nilotica_ (Sav.), and it is from
Savigny that I have stolen the picture of this species.
[Illustration: FIG. 58.—I. _Limnatis nilotica_, side view. II. Oral
sucker, showing the characteristic median dorsal slit and the three
teeth; III. ventral view. (From Savigny.)]
It is a leech of considerable size, attaining a length of 8 cm. to
10 cm., and its outline rather slopes inward at the anterior end.
The dorsal surface is brownish-green with six longitudinal stripes,
and the ventral surface is dark. It is a fresh-water leech, and it
occurs from the Atlantic Islands, the Azores, and the Canaries—its
western limit—all along the northern edge of Africa until it reaches
Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Armenia, and Turkestan, where it achieves
its uttermost eastern boundary. This leech lives in stagnant water;
especially does it congregate in drinking-wells—the wells so often
mentioned in the New Testament. In the Talmud (Abōdāh Zārāh, 17_b_)
an especial warning is given against drinking water from the rivers
or wells or pools for fear of swallowing leeches. Doubtless the New
Testament Jew knew in his day almost as much as we know now about these
leeches. They were the cause of endless trouble to Napoleon’s soldiers
in his Egyptian campaign, and are still a real pest in the Near East.
I cannot recall that Napoleon talked much about spreading ‘Kultur,’[18]
but he certainly did it. He took with his army into Egypt a score
of the ablest men of science he could gather together in France. He
established in Cairo an ‘Institut’ modelled on that of Paris; and
his scientific ‘corps’ produced a series of monographs on Egyptian
antiquities and on the natural history of Egypt that has not yet been
equalled by any other invading force. Napoleon freed the serfs in
Germany, he codified the laws of France, and these laws were adopted
by large parts of Europe; he extended the use of the decimal system.
Napoleon had a constructive policy, and was never a consistent apostle
of wanton destruction. If he destroyed it was to build up again, and in
many instances he ‘builded better than he knew.’ He seldom so mistook
his enemies as to destroy, to terrify; the ‘frightfulness,’ though
bad enough in his times, had limits. Napoleon had at least in him the
elements of a sane and common-sense psychology. He knew that what
was ‘frightful’ to the French was not necessarily ‘frightful’ to the
Russian.
[Illustration: FIG. 59.—Anterior sucker of _Hirudo medicinalis_. This
is to compare with the anterior sucker of _Limnatis nilotica_, which
has a characteristic dorsal median slit. See preceding figure. (From
Savigny.)]
Amongst the wonderful series of books and monographs on Egypt which
described the varying activities of the savants he took in his train,
and who, at the confines of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
invaded the country of the Pharaohs, none is more remarkable than
Savigny’s monograph on the ‘Natural History’ of that country. And in
this folio the leech (_Limnatis nilotica_) was for the first time fully
described and depicted.
This particular leech is swallowed by man, by domestic cattle, and
doubtlessly by wild animals, with their drinking-water. Amongst the
medical writers of the Eastern world in classical times who mention
leeches there was always, as there was amongst the authors of the
Talmud, a great and haunting fear of leeches being swallowed, and these
writers mostly wrote from the area where _Limnatis nilotica_ still
abounds.
According to Masterman, who has had, as a medical officer in Palestine,
a first-hand opportunity of studying this leech, the pest attaches
itself to the mouth or throat or larynx during the process of
swallowing, and he is convinced that if it be once really swallowed and
reaches the stomach it is killed and digested.
_Limnatis nilotica_, unlike _Hirudo medicinalis_ the medicinal leech,
is unable to bite through the outer integument of man and is only able
to feed when it has access to the softer mucous membrane of the mouth
or of the pharynx or of the larynx, and of the other thinner and more
vascular internal mucous linings.
In Palestine these pests are particularly common in the region of
Galilee and in the district of Lebanon. They are, in these and other
districts, so plentiful in the autumn that almost every mule and
almost every horse the tourist comes across is bleeding from its mouth
or from its nose, for this species of leech is by no means only a
human parasite. The natives, who know quite a lot about these pests,
generally strain them out of their drinking-water by running the water
through a piece of muslin or some such sieve when they fill their
pitchers at the common well. In certain districts these leeches in the
local pools or reservoirs are kept in check by a fish—a species of carp
(_Capöeta fratercula_).
In the cases which recently came under Mr. Masterman’s observation,
the leeches were attached to the epiglottis, the nasal cavities,
and perhaps most commonly of all to the larynx of their host. When
they have been attached to the anterior part of the mouth, or any
other easily accessible position, their host or their host’s friends
naturally remove them, and such cases do not come to the hospital for
treatment.
The effect of the presence of this leech (_L. nilotica_) on the human
being is to produce constant small haemorrhages from the mouth or nose.
This haemorrhage, when the leech is ensconced far within the buccal,
the nasal, or the pharyngeal passages of the host, may be prolonged,
serious, and even fatal. Masterman records two cases under his own
observation which ended in death: one of a man and the other of a young
girl, both of whom died of anaemia produced by these leeches.
The average patients certainly suffer. They show marked distress,
usually accompanied by a complete or partial loss of voice; but all the
symptoms disappear, and at once, on the removal of the semi-parasite.
Sometimes the leeches are attached so closely to the vocal cords that
their bodies flop in and out of the vocal aperture with each act of
expiration and inspiration. The hosts of leeches so situated usually
suffer from dyspnoea, and at times were hardly able to breathe.
The native treatment is to remove the leech, when accessible, by
transfixing it with a sharp thorn; or they dislodge it by touching it
with the so-called ‘nicotine’ which accumulates in tobacco-pipes. But
nicotine is destroyed at the temperature of a lighted pipe, so whatever
the really efficient juice is, it is not nicotine. Still, as long as
the fluid proves efficient, the native is hardly likely to worry about
its chemical composition.
Masterman says that the two means he has found most effective were:
(1) Seizing the leech, when accessible, with suitable forceps; or (2)
paralysing the leech with cocaine. In the former case the surgeon
is materially assisted by spraying the leech with cocaine, which
partially paralyses it and puts it out of action. In the latter case,
if the spraying of cocaine is not sufficient, Masterman recommends the
application of a small piece of cotton-wool dipped in 30 per cent.
cocaine solution, which must be brought into actual contact with the
leech’s body. The effect of the cocaine in contact with the skin of the
leech is to paralyse it and to cause it at once to relax its hold. In
such a case the leech is occasionally swallowed, but it is more often
coughed up and out. Headaches and a tendency to vomit are symptoms
associated with the presence of this creature in the human body; the
removal of the leech or leeches coincides with the cessation of these
symptoms.
[Illustration: FIG. 60.—The Japanese variety of _Haemadipsa zeylanica_.
× 1. (From Whitman.)]
In the East, where many of our Territorial regiments are now stationed,
we come across another species of leech even more injurious to mankind
than _Limnatis nilotica_. This Asiatic leech is known as _Haemadipsa
zeylanica_, and is one of a considerable number of leeches which have
left the water, their natural habitat, and have taken to live on land.
From India and Ceylon, throughout Burma, Cochin China, Formosa to
Japan, the Philippines, and the Sunda Island, this terrible, and at
certain elevations ubiquitous, pest is spread. It lives upon damp and
moist earth. The family to which it belongs is essentially a family
which dwells in the uplands and shuns the hot, low-lying plains.
Its members do not occur on the hot, dry, sandy flats. Tennant has
described the intolerable nuisance they are in Ceylon. In fact of the
many visible plagues of tropical Asia and its eastern islands they are
perhaps the worst. Yet few have recorded their dread doings, and those
few have escaped credence.
[Illustration: FIG. 61.—_Haemadipsa zeylanica_, seen from above. × 2.
(From Blanchard.)]
Each specimen of _Haemadipsa zeylanica_ is of a clear brown colour
with a yellow stripe on each side and with a greenish dorsal stripe.
There are five pairs of eyes, of which the first four occupy contiguous
rings; but between the fifth and seventh ring there are two eyeless
rings interposed. As in the medicinal leech there are three teeth, each
serrated like a saw.
In dry weather they miraculously disappear, and nobody seems to know
quite what becomes of them; but with returning showers they are found
again on the soil and on the lower vegetation in enormous profusion.
Each leech is about one inch in length and is about as thick as a
knitting-needle. But they contract until they attain the diameter of a
quill pen, or extend their bodies until they have doubled their normal
length. They are the most insinuating of creatures, and can force their
way through the interstices of the tightest laced boot, or between
the folds of the most closely wound puttee. Making their tortuous way
towards the human skin, they wriggle about under the under-clothing
until they attain almost any position on the body they wish to take
up. Their bite is absolutely painless, and it is usual for the human
sufferer to become aware that he has been bitten by these silent and
tireless leeches when he notices sundry streams of blood running down
his body when he at last has the opportunity of undressing.
[Illustration: FIG. 62.—_Haemadipsa zeylanica._ Head, showing the eyes
and the serrations of the jaw. Highly magnified. (From Tennant.)]
Sometimes, as Tennant’s figure shows, these land-leeches (_H.
zeylanica_) rest upon the ground. At other times they ascend the
leaves of herbs and grasses, and especially the twigs of the forest
undergrowth. Perched upon the ends of growing shoots, leaves, and
twigs, stretching their quivering bodies into the void, they eagerly
watch and wait the approach of some travelling mammal. They easily
‘scent’ their prey, and on its approach advance upon it with surprising
rapidity in semicircular loops. A whole and vast colony of land-leeches
is set in motion without a moment’s delay, and thus it comes about
that the last of a travelling or prospecting party in a land-leech
area invariably fares the worst, as these land-leeches mobilise and
congregate with extraordinary rapidity when once they are warned of
the approach of a possible host, but not always in time to engage in
numbers the advanced guard.
[Illustration: FIG. 63.—_Haemadipsa zeylanica_ (land-leeches), on the
earth. (From Tennant.)]
Horses are driven wild by them, and have poor means of reprisal. They
stamp their hooves violently on the ground in the hope of ridding their
fetlocks of these tangled masses of bloody tassels. The bare legs of
the natives, who carry palanquins, are particularly subject to the
bites of these bloodthirsty brutes, as the palanquin-bearer has no free
hand to pick them off. Tennant writes that he has actually seen the
blood welling over the boots of a European from the innumerable bites
of these land-leeches; and it is on record that during the march of
the troops in Ceylon, when the Kandyans were in rebellion, many of the
Madras sepoys, and their coolies, perished from their innumerable and
united attacks. It is also certain that men falling asleep over-night
in a Cingalese forest have, so to speak, ‘woke up dead’ next morning.
These sleepers have succumbed during the night to the repeated attacks
of these intolerable and insatiable pests.
Dr. Charles Hose, for many years Resident at Sarawak, has told me that
on approaching the edges of woods in Borneo you can hear every leaf
rustling, and this is due to the fact that the eager leech, perched on
its posterior sucker on the edge of each leaf in the undergrowth, is
swaying its body up and down, yearning with an ‘unutterable yearning,’
to get at the integument of man or some other mammal.
Landor, who wrote, I think, the best book about our adventure into
Thibet some ten years ago, entitled ‘Lhassa’ (London, 1905), says of
Sikkim:—
The game here is very scanty: the reason is not uninteresting. For
dormant or active, visible or invisible, the curse of Sikkim waits
for its warm-blooded visitor. The leeches of these lovely valleys
have been described again and again by travellers. Unfortunately
the description, however true in every particular, has, as a rule,
but wrecked the reputation of the chronicler. Englishmen cannot
understand these pests of the mountain-side, which appear in March,
and exist, like black threads fringing every leaf, till September
kills them in myriad millions.
To remove them a bowl of warm milk at the cow’s nose, a little
slip-knot, and a quick hand are all that is required. Fourteen or
fifteen successively have been thus taken from the nostrils of one
unfortunate heifer.
When fully fed, a process which takes some time with _Haemadipsa
zeylanica_, the individual leeches drop off; and they can be made
to loosen their hold by the application of a solution of salt or of
weak acid. Attempts to pull them off should be avoided, as parts of
the biting apparatus are then often left in the wound, and these may
cause inflammation and suppuration. Dr. R. J. Drummond, who has had
experience of these land-leeches in Ceylon, has told me that the bite
is often septic and that it often leads to a serious abscess which is
long in healing. He recommends pushing a match, which has been dipped
into carbolic acid, well home into the sinus made by the leech’s head.
When winter approaches the leeches die down with extraordinary
rapidity, and the species ‘carry on’ over the cold-weather period in
the form of eggs laid in cocoons on the ground, under leaves, or other
débris. Hence no land-leech ever sees its offspring, and no land-leech
has ever known a mother’s care.
FOOTNOTES
[1] p. 18.
[2] _B.M.J._ No. 2824, Feb. 13, 1915.
[3] Only the larger print, such as the leading articles and letters
from Admirals.
[4] September 1914.
[5] Pope’s _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_.
[6] _Journ. Roy. Army Med. Corps_, vol. xx. No. 6, 1913. The
figures in this chapter are taken from this article.
[7] _With Napoleon at Waterloo._ By Edward Bruce Low; edited by
Mackenzie MacBride; p. 21. London: Francis Griffiths, 32 Maiden Lane,
Strand, W.C. 1911.
[8] New Series, No. 102.
[9] _Reports on Public Health and Medical Subjects_ (New Series),
No. 85, pp. 15 and 16.
[10] One of the first to fall a victim in defending the South African
Federation against De Wet’s rebellion.
[11] _T. holosericeum_.
[12] A µ = 1000th of a millimetre.
[13] _Sarcoptes scabiei._
[14] November 1914.
[15] Campbell’s _Lives of the Chancellors_, vol. vi.
[16] Proverbs xxx. 15.
[17] _Materia Medica and Therapeutics._ By Charles D. F. Phillips,
p. 1015.
[18] I wonder if it is _any_ use pointing out that the German
word _Kultur_ is not the equivalent—as our daily Press takes it
to be—of the English word ‘Culture,’ brought into fashion forty years
ago by Matthew Arnold and sadly overworked. Put shortly _Kultur_
= ‘civilisation.’ The German word which we associate with ‘Culture’ is
_Bildung_.
INDEX
_Acanthia_, 23
_Acarina_, 89
Acarus (_Sarcoptes scabiei_), 99
Acne, 99
African tick-fever, 116, 121
Agronom, M., 16, 17
Allcock, Colonel, 109
Analgesinae, 111
Annandale, Dr., 129
_Anoplura_, 1, 11
Antelopes, 36
Antennae, of lice, 3;
of bed-bug, 25
Anthomyidae, 74
Anthrax, 72
Ants, 27
Arachnids, 88
_Argas persicus_, characteristics of, 114;
breeding habits, 115
Argasidae, 113
_Arhynchobdellae_, 125. See _Rhynchobdellae_
_Arthropoda_, 88
_Auchmeromyia luteola_, 82, 83
_Aulostoma_, 144;
_A. gulo_, 147
Austen, Mr. E. E., 65
_Babesia bovis_, 120
_Bacillus pestis_, 45
Bed-bug (_Cimex lectularius_), 23;
antennae of, 25;
characteristics, 25–26
Benzine, 13, 33
Beveridge, Lieut.-Colonel, 48, 50
Biscuits, infestation of Army, 50
Biscuit-moth, 48
Black Death, 38, 45
Blake, 45
Blow-flies, 83
Blue-bottle (_Calliphora erythrocephala_), 74, 76
Boars, 36
Body-louse, 3, 10, 20
Boer prison-ship, 20
Brightwell, 131
British Expeditionary Force, 46
_British Medical Journal_, 21
British Museum, 50
Bubonic plague, 35, 38
Bug. _See_ Bed-bug
Burns, 4
Butler, Mr., 40
_Calliphora erythrocephala_ (blue-bottle), 76;
_C. vomitoria_, 76
Carp, 153
Centipedes, 88
_Ceratophyllus fasciatus_, 45
Chigo (burrowing-flea), 37
_Chrysomyia macellaria_, 83
Ciliata, 138
_Cimex_, 23, 25, 26, 27;
_C. lectularius_ (bed-bug), 23;
_C. rotundatus_, 23
Cockroach, 21, 24, 26, 27, 39
Cocoons, 161
Congo-floor-maggot, 82
Copeman, Dr. S. Monckton, 21, 65
_Corcyra_, 49;
_C. cephalonica_, 49
Cow-dung, 42
Cresol-soap solution, 21, 22
Crustacea, 88
_Ctenocephalus canis_, 37;
_Ct. felis_, 37
_Cyclops_, 138
_Cytoleichus sarcoptioides_, 111
Deer, 36
De Geer, 30
_Demodex_, 97 ff
_Demodex folliculorum_, 97
_Dermacentor vernustus_, 120
Diarrhoea, 70
Dizziness, 85
Dog-flea, 40
Dog-tick, 120
Drummond, Dr. R. J., 15, 42
Durrant, Mr., 48, 50
_Dytiscus_, 144
Ébrard, 131
_Empusa_, 65
Enteric, 69
Entomologist, 18
_Ephestia kühniella_, 48
Erskine, Lord, 139
Erythema, 94
_Erythema autumnale_, 94
_Esox lucius_, 15
Faichne, 69
_Fannia_, 76, 84;
_F. canicularis_, 74, 75;
_F. scalaris_, 74, 76
Flea (_Pulex irritans_), 35;
extermination of, 42
Flies (_Musca domestica_), 57;
breeding habits, 59;
powers of travel, 67
Flour-moth, the (_Ephestia kühniella_), in soldiers’
biscuits, 46
Flowers of sulphur, 16
Folklore, 15
French, Field-Marshal, 135
Frogs, 144
Fumigation, method of, 33
Gascoigne, 40
Goats, 36
Graham-Smith, Dr., 68, 81
Grimbert, 97
Guiart, 97
_Haemadipsa zeylanica_, 156, 157
Harding, Mr. W. A., 123, 129, 137
Hair-follicles, 94
Hair-louse, 3
Harman, Dr. N. Bishop, 19
Harvest-mite (_Trombidium_), 87, 91, 92, 97
Head-louse, 4, 9
Hemipterous insects, 27
Henna, 16
Herod Agrippa, 84
Hewitt, Dr. C. Gordon, 58
_Hirudinea_, 124
_Hirudo medicinalis_, 123, 127, 129, 136, 140, 153
_Horse_-leech, 147
Hose, Dr. Charles, 160
Huxley, 87
Hydrocyanic-acid gas, 33
_Hydrophylus_, 144
Itch-mite, 99
_Ixodes_, 119;
_I. ricinus_, 120
_Ixodiphagus caucurtei_, 120
Jeyes’ fluid, 22
Jigger (chigo), 95
Joffre, General, 135
Khiva, 17
Kerosene, 33
_Laminosioptes gallinarum_, 111
_Lancet_, 21
Landor, 160
Larva, 8;
of flea, 41
Latter, Mr. H. O., 140
Leech, 123;
the medicinal (_Hirudo medicinalis_), 123;
breeding habits, 142, 143;
coloration of, 137;
enemies of, 144;
exotic (_Limnatis nilotica_ and _Haemadipsa zeylanica_), 149;
farming of, 145;
fear of swallowing, 152;
modes of conveying, 133;
movements of, 137;
suffering caused by, 154;
Asiatic, 156;
characteristics of, 157, 161;
disappearance of, 157;
method of attack, 158;
size of, 157
to remove, 142;
traffic in, 131;
uses of, 130
Leech-ponds, 128
Lefroy, Professor, 22
Leishman, Sir William, 70
_Leptus autumnalis_, 91
Lice (_Pediculus_), 1;
rules for avoidance of, 12
_Limnatis granulosa_, 129;
_L. nilotica_, 149, 152, 153, 154, 156
Linnaeus, 87
Lounsbury, Mr. C. P., 18
_Lucius_, 15
Maggot, 82
Mallophaga, 18
Martin, Professor C. J., 31
Masterman, Dr., 154, 155
Mercury, 17
Mites, 87;
bites of, symptoms and treatment, 107–9;
breeding habits of, 103;
characteristics, 103, 104;
_Demodex, Sarcoptes_, 97;
epidemics caused by, 105;
endo-parasitic, 109;
nourishment of, 91
Montagu, Lord, 59
Murinae, 45
Murray, Andrew, 3
_Musca_, 84;
_M. domestica_ (house-fly), 57, 70, 74, 75
Myiasis, 81
Napoleon, 151
Necrosis, 83
_Nepa_, 144
_Nephrophages sanguinarius_, 109, 111
Newsholme, Dr., 65
Nicholas, Grand Duke, 135
Nicol, Sergeant Daniel, 55
Nicol, W., 85
Nicotine, 155
Nightingale, Dr. P. A., 43
Nits, 12
Nymph, 117
_Oligochaeta_, 124
Ophthalmia, 72
Ormerod, Miss, 48
_Ornithodorus megnini_, 117;
_O. moubata_ (‘tampan’), 116, 121;
_O. turicata_, 117
Panama Canal, 86
Paraffin, 13, 14
_Pediculoides ventricosus_, 95
_Pediculus_ (lice), 2;
_P. capitis_, 2, 4, 10, 12, 13;
_P. vestimenti_, 2, 4, 8, 10, 12, 14
Pernet, Dr. G., 107
Petrol, 13, 14
Petroleum, 17
Pharynx, 140;
sucking, 141
Phillips, Dr., 147
_Phthirius_, 2
Pike, 15
Plague, 31;
Pepys’s, 45
Proboscis, 25
Protoplasm, 87
Protozoal diseases transmitted by ticks, 117
_Pulex irritans_ (flea), 37, 40, 45
Purkinje, 87
Quick Laboratory, 9;
Quick Professor of Biology, 11
Radcliffe, Dr. H., 107
Rat-fleas, 38
Redi, 80
Relapsing fever, 14
_Rhynchobdellae_, 125. See _Arhynchobdellae_
Rice, 49
Riley, Professor, 48
Rocky Mountain Fever, 120
Romilly, Sir Samuel, 139
Rothschild, Hon. Charles, 38
Rubies, 94
Ruskin, 57
Russell, Mr., 39
_Sarcophaga carnaria_, 80
_Sarcoptes_, 104
_Sarcoptes scabiei_, 106
Sarts, 16, 17
Savigny, 149, 152
Scabies, 107
Sharp, Dr. David, 88
South African War, 11, 19
Spirochaete, 31;
_S. obermeieri_, 31
Spirochaetosis, conveyed by _A. persicus_, 114
Stable-yards, 59
Stag-beetle, 39
Sulphur, 33;
bags, 18;
flowers of, 18
Sweat-glands, 94
Talmud, 150
‘Tampan,’ 114, 116
Tennant, Mr., 159
Ticks, characteristics of, 112, 113, 117;
breeding habits, 119;
habits, 114, 115
Tomkins, Dr. H. H., 18
_Trichinella_, 53
_Trombidium_ (harvest-mite), 95;
_T. holosericeum_, 91
Tuberculosis, 31
Tunnels, burrowed by mite, 106
Turpentine, 13;
oil of, 34
Typhoid, 69;
bacilli, 68
Typhus, 10, 14, 31
‘Vermijelli,’ 22
Von Hindenburg, General, 135
Von Kluck, General, 135
Voles, 143
Warburton, Mr. C., 4, 5, 8, 9
Water-rats, 143
Wordsworth, 127
_Xenopsylla cheopis_, 45
_Xylol_, 13
Yeomanry, D.C.O., 19
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Transcriber’s Note (continued)
Minor typographical errors have been corrected in this transcription.
Other errors and unusual or variable spelling and hyphenation have been
left unchanged except as noted below.
Page xvi — “Sargophaga” changed to “Sarcophaga” (Sarcophaga carnaria)
Page 27 — “features” changed to “feature” (Perhaps the most
disagreeable feature)
Page 38 — “bubonic-plague” changed to “bubonic plague” (bubonic plague
was associated first with rats)
Page 38 — “subtropical” changed to “sub-tropical” (in all tropical and
sub-tropical countries)
Page 49 — “inself” changed to “itself” (The moth itself is a rather
insignificant)
Page 65 — “Austin” changed to “Austen” (Dr. Monckton Copeman and
Mr. E. E. Austen)
Page 75 — “housefly” changed to “house-fly” (F. canicularis, the
‘lesser house-fly,’)
Page 93 — “proboscis” changed to “hypo-pharynx” (presence of their
hypo-pharynx in the skin)
Page 123 — “gentlemen” changed to “gentleman” (when an old gentleman
had upset)
Page 126 — “has removed been” changed to “has been removed” (the right
half of this organ has been removed to show)
Page 135 — “von Hinderberg” changed to “von Hindenburg” (General von
Hindenburg)
Page 150 — “freshwater” changed to “fresh-water” (It is a fresh-water
leech)
Page 152 — “preceeding” changed to “preceding” (See preceding figure.)
Page 158 — “underclothing” changed to “under-clothing” (they wriggle
about under the under-clothing)
Page 163 — “Austin” changed to “Austen” (Austen, Mr. E. E.)
Page 163 — “lectularis” changed to “lectularius” (Bed-bug
(Cimex lectularius))
Page 164 — “Ctenophalus” changed to “Ctenocephalus” (Ctenocephalus
canis)
Page 164 — “Ebrard” changed to “Ébrard” (Ébrard, 131)
Page 164 — “Hirudi” changed to “Hirudo” (Hirudo medicinalis)
Page 164 — “Lemna” changed to “Henna” (Henna, 16)
Page 164 — “Limnalis” changed to “Limnatis” (Limnatis nilotica)
Page 164 — “vernustus” changed to “venustus” (Dermacentor venustus)
Page 166 — “Trombidum” changed to “Trombidium” (Trombidium
(harvest-mite))
Page 166 — “Von Hinderberg” changed to “Von Hindenburg” (Von
Hindenburg, General)
Footnotes have been re-indexed using numbers and placed before the Index.