Читать книгу The Times Great War Letters: Correspondence during the First World War - James Owen - Страница 34

LEECHES

28 January 1915

SIR,—OUR COUNTRY HAS been for many months suffering from a serious shortage of leeches. As long ago as last November there were only a few dozen left in London, and they were secondhand.

Whilst General Joffre, General von Kluck, General von Hindenburg, and the Grand Duke Nicholas persist in fighting over some of the best leech-areas in Europe, possibly unwittingly, this shortage will continue, for even in Wordsworth’s time the native supply was diminishing, and since then we have for many years largely depended on importations from France and Central Europe. In November I made some efforts to alleviate the situation by applying to America and Canada, but without success. I then applied to India, and last week, owing to the kindness of Dr. Annandale, Director of the Indian Museum at Calcutta, and to the officers of the P. and O. Company and to Colonel Alcock, M.D., of the London School of Tropical Medicine, I have succeeded in landing a fine consignment of a leech which is used for blood-letting in India. It is true that the leech is not the Hirudo medicinalis of our pharmacopœias, but a different genus and species, Limnatis granulosa. Judging by its size, always a varying quantity in a leech, we may have to readjust our ideas as to a leech’s cubic capacity, yet I believe, from seeing them a day or two ago, they are willing and even anxious to do their duty. They have stood the voyage from Bombay and the changed climatic conditions very satisfactorily, and are in a state of great activity and apparent hunger at 50, Wigmore-street, London, W.

It is true that leeches are not used to anything like the extent they were 80 years ago—Paris alone, about 1830, made use of some 52 millions a year—but still they are used, though in much smaller numbers.

It may be of some consolation to my fellow-countrymen to know that our deficiency in leeches is more than compensated by the appalling shortage of sausage-skins in Middle Europe. With true German thoroughness they are trying to make artificial ones!

I am yours faithfully,

A. E. SHIPLEY