[174] W. H. Schieffelin & Co., General Prices Current (New York, 1887), page 39.
[175] Diehl, op. cit. [note [173]]; John C. Hartnett, “The Care and Use of Medicinal Leeches in 19th Century Pharmacy and Therapeutics,” Pharmacy in History, volume 14 (1972), page 133.
[176] Broussais offered the following explanation for the effectiveness of leeching. Congestion of blood vessels in a healthy person gives rise to a sympathetic irritation in the mucous surfaces of bodily orifices. Equilibrium may be restored naturally by hemorrhage through the nose. Without this release of blood, congestion builds up into an inflammation. Local bloodletting relieves the congestion when applied on a portion of the skin corresponding to the inflamed organ. Broussais’s favorite remedy was the application of leeches to the stomach and head. For this purpose he ordered hundreds of leeches daily. See F.J.V. Broussais, A Treatise on Physiology Applied & Pathology, translated by John Bell and R. La Roche, 2nd American edition (Philadelphia, 1828), page 414, and Castiglioni, op. cit. [note [40]], page 609.
[177] Thorndike, op. cit. [note [3]], page 477. See also Karl-Otto Kuppe, Die Blutegel in der Aerztlichen Praxis (reprint, Stuttgart: Hippocrates-Verlag, 1955), pages 9-11.
[178] Hartnett, op. cit. [note [175]], page 132.
[179] Jonathan Osborne, “Observations on Local Bloodletting, and on Some New Methods of Practicing It,” Dublin Journal of Medical and Chemical Science, volume 3 (1833), pages 334-342.
[180] See, for example, Maison Charrière, Robert et Collin, op. cit. [note [149]], page 42 and plate 9.
[181] John Berry Haycraft, “On the Coagulation of the Blood,” 9 pages, extracted from Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, volume 231 (1884).
[182] Thorndike, op. cit. [note [3]], page 477. Merat, op. cit. [note [172]], page 528, cited an extreme case in which a woman suffering from peritonitis was given a total of 250 leeches in 24 hours. She died soon after.
[183] Stille and Maisch, op. cit. [note [173]], page 715; Thacher, op. cit. [note [173]], page 231.