HIRUDO, the leech, one of the class Annelid many of which occur in the south and east Asia ; they were early employed therapeutically the Hindus, and the Arabs adopted their practi (Royle, Hindu Med. p. 38; and Wise, Him Medicine, p. 177). Herodotus alludes to o kind, Bdella Nilotic.% Dr. Pereira infers th Sanguisuga Egyptiaea, the species from which t French soldiers in Egypt suffered, is that referr to in the Bible (Proverbs xxx. 15) by the nal of Olukch or Aluka. The latter,. or Aluk, is al the Arabic name for leech. Six kinds of usel and six venomous leeches are mentioned Susruta, and by Avicenna. But Aristotle malt no mention of them, and they do not appear have been used in Greek medicine in the time Hippocrates. Pliny, however, describes tlu very clearly, under the name of Hirudines a Sanguisugte, and distinguishes two species. Eig species of medicinal leeches have been enumerate the most common is the Sanguisuga medicinal Hirudo medicinalis, Linn., which is a nati
of all the stagnant fresh waters. H. officina is distinguished by its unspotted olive - gre belly and by the dark-green back. H. medicina is the kind usually employed in Britain. belly is of a yellowish-green colour, but cover with black spots, which vary in number and si forming almost. the prevailing tint of the bel the intervening spaces appearing like yellow spo On the back are six longitudinal reddish yellowish-red bands, spotted with black, a' placed on an olive-green or greenish -brer ground. Other species, figured by Brandt, H. provineialis, H. verbana, H. obscura, and interrupta. In the United States they use decors. In India, leeches are extremely abe dan•, procurable in the tanks. Hirudo tagal also called H. Ceylonica, a land leech, lives the thickets and woods of Ceylon, the Philippi Islands, and at elevations of 11,000 in the Bin Cyc. p. 212.