216 HIRUDICULTURE. 



talised in ' Gil Bias/ is not a myth, but " a general 

 practitioner," down to very recent times, and whose 

 doings with his lancet were inconceivably mischievous. 

 So widespread was the carelessness about the loss of 

 precious blood, that we are old enough to remember the 

 time when female servants in towns were wont to have 

 themselves bled every spring, although in the highest 

 health a senseless and debilitatiDg custom, against 

 which we have to remonstrate in the country to this 

 day ! But our doctors, like our legislators, being now 

 much less sanguinary in their curative processes, the lan- 

 cet is superseded by the leech, whose power of blood- 

 letting fortunately does not extend ad deliqium animi 

 the fainting of the patient from loss of blood the point 

 barbarously aimed at by doctors of the Sangrado school. 



Cupping, too, has of late got into disuse ; hence the 

 growing demand for leeches. Hence having, in the 

 extension of pisciculture, found grateful food for the 

 healthy, the benevolent M. Jourdier feels called upon, 

 in the name of the general wellbeing, and in the name 

 of the sick poor, to demand that leeches shall be reared 

 arid multiplied. The propriety of the demand is evi- 

 dent enough ; and that it can be complied with, most 

 beneficially to those who rear them at all events, is 

 demonstrated by a variety of curious details. We shall 

 abstract and translate, so as to give our readers the 

 benefits of his singular information. 



Leeches belong to the class Apodes of Blainville, 

 and annelides of Lamarck, and constitute a small family 

 termed hirudenees, or sanguisugaires (bloodsuckers). 

 They are all characterised by long flat bodies, and by 

 numerous rings or close articulations, by means of 

 which they move ; by a muscular disc, a sort of cup- 

 ping-glass or sucker situated at the last ring of their 

 bodies ; while the anterior part presents another sucker, 

 at the bottom of which is the mouth, which is armed 

 with three triangularly-disposed teeth. By means of 

 this apparatus the animal fixes firmly on the body which 



