4. Les mères Sangsues ou les grosses, qui sont tout à fait adultes;
5. Les Sangsues vaches, dont la taille est énorme.
They also recognised many colour-varieties, of which we need only mention the speckled, or German leech—‘Sangsues grise medicinalis,’ with a greenish-yellow ventral surface spotted with black, and the green Hungarian leech with olive-green spotted ventral surface. Both are merely colour-varieties of Hirudo medicinalis—a species which shows great variation in colour, and often forms colour-races when bred artificially.
The varying sizes of the five categories mentioned above may be seen by the fact that one thousand of ‘les filets’ weigh from 325 to 500 grammes, one thousand of ‘les petites moyennes’ weigh 500 to 700 grammes, one thousand of the ‘grosses moyennes’ weigh 700 to 1300 grammes, and one thousand of the ‘grosses’ 1300 to 2500 or even to 3000 grammes. Whereas one thousand of ‘les vaches’ weigh up to 10 kilograms, and sometimes even more. To increase their weight the dishonest dealer sometimes gives them a heavy meal just before selling them.
Fig. 51.—Hirudo medicinalis. o, Anterior sucker covering triradiate mouth; e points to an annulus midway between the male and female openings, s to a nephridium, u to the bladder of the latter; a, anus. Four testes and four lateral diverticula of the crop are also shown.
They were transported from place to place in casks half filled with clay and water, or in stone vases full of water. Sometimes they travelled in sacks of strong linen, or even of leather, and these had to be watered from time to time. Another mode of conveying them was to place them in baskets full of moss or grass soaked in water, but care had to be taken lest they should escape. These baskets, again, could not be packed one upon another, or the leeches were crushed. In the old days each sack often weighed 20 to 25 kilograms; and travelling thus, suspended in a kind of hammock, dans une voiture ou fourgon, from Palota near Pesth, they reached Paris in from twelve to fifteen days.
They generally travelled via Vienna to Strassburg, where twelve great reservoirs, appropriately placed near the hospital, received them, and here they rested for awhile. Others collected in Syria and Egypt came by ship to Trieste, whence they are sent to Bologna, to Milan, and to Turin, or by water to Marseilles. Marseilles also received directly by sea the leeches from the Levant and Africa, and expedited them to Montpellier, Toulouse, and many another town in the south.
The best time of year for their journey was found to be the spring and autumn. They were more difficult to manage in the summer, and they were all the better for having a rest every now and then, as they used to do at Strassburg. There were times when consignments of from 60,000 to 80,000 a day used to leave Strassburg for Paris. In 1806 a thousand leeches in France fetched 12 to 15 francs; but in 1821 the price had risen to 150 to 200 and even 283 francs. In the latter year they were retailed at 20 to 50 for 4 to 10 sous.
As in England, however, for the most part the artificial cultivation of leeches is diminishing in France, though half a century ago leech-farms were common in Finistère and in the marshes in the neighbourhood of Nantes. There were some years when, if the season was favourable, the peasants carried to market 60,000 a day. Spain and Portugal also furnished leeches for a long time; but by the middle of last century the Peninsula had become almost depleted. But some leeches were still at that period being received from Tuscany and Piedmont. Perhaps the richest fields which still exist are the marshy regions in Hungary.