A treatise on the utility of sangui-suction, or, : Leech bleeding, in the treatment of a great variety of diseases : including the opinions of eminent practitioners, ancient and modern : with instructions for the process of leeching, and an appendix, delineating the characteristic distinction of true leeches : with directions for their management and preservation / by Rees Price.

  • Price, Rees.
Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the utility of sangui-suction, or, : Leech bleeding, in the treatment of a great variety of diseases : including the opinions of eminent practitioners, ancient and modern : with instructions for the process of leeching, and an appendix, delineating the characteristic distinction of true leeches : with directions for their management and preservation / by Rees Price. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    It is a question in dispute amongst naturalists, whether the leech is viparious, or oviparious ; the advocates for the first assert that its young (which, according to their notions, it brings forth alive) are small, numerous, and transpa- rent, like bits of thread, and are some months before they take on their natural colour. Those who believe the leech to be oviparious, are of opinion that it deposits its ovum on the sides or banks of ponds, or conglugate them to the larvse of aquatic plants, and the heat of the sun is necessary to hatch them ; whilst there are not wanting those who believe the leech to be both viparious and oviparious. Be these as they may, it has been fully ascer- tained, that leeches are seldom or ever productive of young when in a state of confinement. It re- sults, therefore, that artificial ponds would be the best means to assist them in the procreation of their species, as well as to preserve them in a more healthy condition than can be accomplished by con- finement in small vessels. These ponds should be made in a sandy or gravelly soil, broader at the top than at the bottom, so as to afford a bank for the leeches to creep about.—It is a plan which, I am informed, has been successfully adopted in some parts of Devonshire. Leeches produce their young about the latter