Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1896 — You May Swallow Leeches. [ARTICLE]

You May Swallow Leeches.

What imagination will do I can show frbm my own experience. When a boy, Inthe Pyrenees, I oned drank from n spring, and saw, to my horror, when I had already swallowed a mouthful, that the water was alive with small leeches. I had a bad time of it for two or three days. I firmly believed I had leeches alive and sucking my blood Inside me; I felt them, I became languid. I believed they would drain my blood away. Happily,* njy father heard what was the matter with me and explained to me the corrosive nature of the gastric fluid and assured me that nothing living and of the nature of a leech could resist it. “My dear boy,” said he, “from personal observation of your proceedings at meal time I am convinced you could digest a pair of boots, and no leeches could stand a moment against the force of your gastric fluid.” H. believed him and forgot all alwut my ! maglnary malady.