HIRUDICULTUKE-LEECH-CULTUKE; 



COLOSSAL fortunes have been made by rearing leeches. 

 The demand for them is constantly increasing both in 

 this country and in France ; and as this can be met 

 only by those possessing suitable rural localities, we 

 are conferring on them a benefit when directing atten- 

 tion to this singular and very remunerating branch of 

 rural economy. Such is the demand for these creatures, 

 that four only of the principal London dealers import 

 about eight millions of leeches annually. The retail 

 price used to be about threepence, but now it is six- 

 pence. In France the demand is also so much in 

 excess of the supply, that the common price is from 

 twenty-five to sixty-five centimes ; so that hospitals 

 and charitable institutions are constrained, from econo- 

 mical considerations, to advise medical men to be spar- 

 ing in the use of such a costly remedy. 



This extending use of the leech is intimately con- 

 nected with a blessed revolution in the practice of 

 medicine. Within the memory of many of us, bleeding 

 was freely resorted to with a most foolhardy forgetful- 

 ness of the Mosaic sanitary declaration, " the life of all 

 flesh is the blood thereof." Doctor Sangrado, immor- 



* ' La Pisciculture et la Production des Sangsues.' Par Auguste 

 Jourdier, avec une Introduction par M. Coste, de 1'Institut. Paris : 

 Hachette et Cie. 



