ON LEECHES. 
117 
terwards this part of the leech quickly detaches itself. I have, on 
the contrary, seen that the orbicular circle which is garnished with 
teeth, and constitutes the mouth of the leech, is not detached for a 
long time after its rupture, and, even then, with a great deal of 
trouble ; and, moreover, while it continues attached to the mem- 
brane of the mouth, the presence of a strange body would be pain- 
ful to the horse. Whenever a horse was brought to me in which 
the heads of leeches were remaining fixed on the mucous mem- 
brane of the mouth, I tried to pull them out ; and it was easy to 
perceive that by so doing I greatly relieved the horses, who 
afterwards took and chewed their food much better than they 
could before this operation, which is usually simple and easily 
executed. 
When the leeches have not been long in the mouth, and have 
not produced any wounds, their extraction is sufficient to deliver 
the horse not only from the pain and perhaps the disgust which 
they cause, but also from the consequences which their longer 
stay might have produced. When the wounds are already there, 
it is not sufficient to cleanse the parts by gargling the horse’s 
mouth. This would never get out the barbs of the barley, which 
are frequently imbedded in the wounds to the depth of nearly an 
inch. 
The edges of these wounds are then more or less swelled, and 
in these cases present as great obstacles to their being easily 
pulled out as to their being washed out by injections ; for the beards 
of this barley, garnished at the edge with little spikes like the 
teeth of a saw, and inclined from the point to the base of each beard, 
enter very easily into the tissue, but are very difficult to be got 
out when once there; and when they are in, the pulling of them 
out likewise, which cannot be performed without some force, is 
always followed by a slight haemorrhage. We always use either 
our fingers or forceps to withdraw the beards thus forced into the 
wound, but great care must be taken not to break them while so 
doing. This operation must be renewed after every feed, for 
fresh beards get into the wounds each time that the animal eats, 
when we are obliged to feed him on barley for want of any other 
fodder. Lotions or gargles of water and vinegar, or water saturated 
with muriate of soda, garlic, salt, peppermint, brandy diluted with 
water, &c., such are the methods of treatment to which we have 
recourse, and by means of which, sooner or later, we obtain a com- 
plete cicatrization. 
Lastly, leeches, like all other causes that are capable of pro- 
ducing wounds on the internal part of the cheeks, are frequently 
the primary source of a morbid affection that is usually very 
serious, and results from the implantation, gathering, long stay, and 
decomposition, of the beards of barley, straw, grain, and every 
other sort of thing which is taken as food, and which can get into 
VOL. XVIII. R 
