sumption that fresh blood was being sucked, and the leeches should be forthwith removed.*[1]
Leeches refusing to fall off even after the production of the desired effect, or sticking to the affected part out of their fondness for the smell of blood, should be sprinkled with the dust of powdered Saindhava (rock salt.)
After falling off, the leeches should be dusted over with rice powder and their mouths should be lubricated with a composition of oil and common salt. Then they should be caught by the tail-end with the thumb and the forefinger of the left hand and their backs should be gently rubbed with the same fingers of the right hand from tail upward to the mouth with a view to make them vomit or eject the full quantity of blood they had sucked from the seat of the disease. The process should be continued until they manifest the fullest symptoms of disgorging. Leeches that, had vomited the entire quantity of blood sucked as above, would briskly move about in quest of food if placed in water, while the contrary should be inferred from their lying dull and inert. These should be made to disgorge again. Leeches not made to emit the entire quantity of the sucked
- ↑ *The leeches, though a blissful dispensation of Nature in themselves, instinctively draw off the vitiated blood from a diseased part, attacking the healthy vital fluid (red blood) when the former has been completely tapped or sucked.
