LEECHES. 395 



tained in it ; and the muscular coat of the stomach churns up the food and 

 gradually pushes it into the small intestine, where it meets the bile and pan- 

 creatic juice, which more or less complete the work of digestion. The worm- 

 like action of the muscular coat of the intestines forces the food backwards, 

 during which course, its digested portion becomes more or less completely 

 absorbed, until the residue enters the rectum in the form of dung, and is 

 finally expelled. 



Leeches (Hcemopis). 



The leeches which suck the blood of horses, may be divided into 

 land leeches and water leeches. The former attach themselves 

 to the skin of the legs and adjacent parts of horses which travel 

 through their haunts ; and are consequently external parasites. 

 The latter (the horse-leech or hcemopis sanguisuga, and other 

 kinds) not being able to penetrate the skin, attach themselves to 

 the mucous membrane, and, in this endeavour, enter the mouth or 

 nostrils of the horse when he is drinking or grazing in wet and 

 leech-infested pasture. They sometimes cling to the mucous mem- 

 brane of the eye. According to Neumann, the horse-leech, which 

 lives in water, generally gains access to the mouth and nostrils, 

 when young and when not more than about a tenth of an inch in 

 length. They usually restrict their w^anderings to the air and 

 food passages which are in front of the respective openings of the 

 windpipe (larynx) and gullet. Their more or less numerous pre- 

 sence (over a hundred may be found in one horse) causes loss of 

 appetite, debility, wasting, and even death by loss of blood or by 

 obstruction to the breathing. Besides these symptoms, their e:^ist- 

 ence inside the horse may be guessed at or ascertained by the 

 animal bleeding at the nose, by the foam of the mouth being mixed 

 with blood, and by the parasites being seen on an examination of 

 the nostrils and mouth being miade. 



Water leeches are found in various countries, and in great abund- 

 ance in Algiers. 



TREATMENT consists in removing the parasites, in sustain- 

 ing the strength by suitable food and tonics, and by performing 

 tracheotomy in the event of the leeches seriously interfering witli 

 the breathing. Probably, the best way to dislodge them is to wet 

 them with a strong solution of salt and water, on being touched 

 with which they will loose their hold of the mucous membrane and 

 drop off. We may apply the salt and water to those which are 

 out of reach of the hand by means of a piece of sponge firmly fixed 

 to the end of a sufficiently stiff rubber tube-or other flexible stem ; 

 by drenching; or by pouring the fluid down each of the, nostrils. 

 The horse might be "coughed" (p. 291) now and then, so that he 

 may expel the parasites by the act of coughing. In the use of a 



