Wales’s trade in leeches and maggots
It produces fly larvae and bloodsucking worms for use in hospitals
The bite of a worm with several hundred teeth leaves a distinctive mark, as Victorian leech collectors knew well. Wading bare-legged through Britain’s bogs they enticed leeches to sell to doctors for a penny each. Around 42m a year are thought to have been used in the early 19th century to treat conditions from colds to dysentery. The marshes of Cumbria, Kent and Somerset were prime territories for the annelid. But the mudflats of south Wales became home to the biggest operations. Welsh leeches contributed a quarter of Britain’s leech profits, around £250,000 per year during the Victorian era (£24m in today’s money).
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Out for blood”
Britain November 26th 2022
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- Britain’s economic outlook is very gloomy
- What do street names tell you about Britain?
- Scotland’s independence movement suffers a setback at the Supreme Court
- Wales’s trade in leeches and maggots
- British Bangladeshis are doing astonishingly well at school
- It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of Tory rule
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