DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5831#0111
CEYLOX LEECH.
85
engaging manners, familiar without being free, and
appeared much delighted at seeing her features trans-
ferred to paper. Her dress was becoming, her figure
graceful, and her gait elegant.
Before we quitted this neighbourhood, which at
particular times of the year is very unhealthy, we had
the sad opportunity of seeing several unfortunate
wretches who were afflicted with elephantiasis, which
is truly a most horrible disease. The whole body is
sometimes incrusted with large cutaneous tubercles,
which give it the revolting appearance of being co-
vered with a squalid elephant's hide. In some in-
stances the joints of the fingers and toes drop off,
while the leg occasionally grows to such a prodigious
size that the afflicted sufferer can scarcely drag it
after him, looking more like the trunk of a dark
rough-coated tree than a leg. It is impossible to
conceive any thing more frightful than this visitation,
to which the natives of Ceylon are particularly liable.
It happened, on our return through some of the
swamps which occasionally surround the bases of
the hills, that several of our retinue were attacked by
that dreadful plague of all travellers on this island,
the Ceylon leech. It is a positive pest. Though very
different from that used for medicinal purposes in
Europe, it draws the blood much in a similar way
but far more profusely, producing great pain. It is
exceedingly small, averaging, in its ordinary state,
from a quarter to the third of an inch in length, and
almost transparent, so that the internal structure is
plainly to be traced through a powerful magnifying
glass. It is an uncommonly active little animal, and
85
engaging manners, familiar without being free, and
appeared much delighted at seeing her features trans-
ferred to paper. Her dress was becoming, her figure
graceful, and her gait elegant.
Before we quitted this neighbourhood, which at
particular times of the year is very unhealthy, we had
the sad opportunity of seeing several unfortunate
wretches who were afflicted with elephantiasis, which
is truly a most horrible disease. The whole body is
sometimes incrusted with large cutaneous tubercles,
which give it the revolting appearance of being co-
vered with a squalid elephant's hide. In some in-
stances the joints of the fingers and toes drop off,
while the leg occasionally grows to such a prodigious
size that the afflicted sufferer can scarcely drag it
after him, looking more like the trunk of a dark
rough-coated tree than a leg. It is impossible to
conceive any thing more frightful than this visitation,
to which the natives of Ceylon are particularly liable.
It happened, on our return through some of the
swamps which occasionally surround the bases of
the hills, that several of our retinue were attacked by
that dreadful plague of all travellers on this island,
the Ceylon leech. It is a positive pest. Though very
different from that used for medicinal purposes in
Europe, it draws the blood much in a similar way
but far more profusely, producing great pain. It is
exceedingly small, averaging, in its ordinary state,
from a quarter to the third of an inch in length, and
almost transparent, so that the internal structure is
plainly to be traced through a powerful magnifying
glass. It is an uncommonly active little animal, and