Pediculidæ—Lice.
At Hurdenburg, in Sweden, Mr. Hurst tells us the mode of choosing a burgomaster is this: The persons eligible sit around, with their beards upon a table; a Louse is then put in the middle of the table, and the one, in whose beard this insect first takes cover, is the magistrate for the ensuing year.[1062]
Respecting the revenue of Montecusuma, which consisted of the natural products of the country, and what was produced by the industry of his subjects, we find the following story in Torquemada: “During the abode of Montecusuma among the Spaniards, in the palace of his father, Alonzo de Ojeda one day espied in a certain apartment of the building a number of small bags tied up. He imagined at first that they were filled with gold dust, but on opening one of them, what was his astonishment to find it quite full of Lice? Ojeda, greatly surprised at the discovery he had made, immediately communicated what he had seen to Cortes, who then asked Marina and Anguilar for some explanation. They informed him that the Mexicans had such a sense of their duty to pay tribute to their monarch, that the poorest and meanest of the inhabitants, if they possessed nothing better to present to their king, daily cleaned their persons, and saved all the Lice they caught, and that when they had a good store of these, they laid them in bags at the feet of their monarch.” Torquemada further remarks, that his reader might think these bags were filled with small worms (gasanillos), and not with Lice; but appeals to Alonzo de
Ojeda, and another of Cortes’ soldiers, named Alonzo de Mata, who were eye-witnesses of the fact.[1063]
Oviedo pretends to have observed that Lice, at the elevation of the tropics, abandon the Spanish sailors that are going to the Indies, and attack them again at the same point on their return. The same is reported in Purchas’s Pilgrims.[1064] One of the supplementary writers to Cuvier’s History of Insects says: “This is an observation that has need of being corroborated by more certain testimonies than we are yet in possession of. But, if true, there would be nothing in the fact very surprising. A degree of considerable heat, and a more abundant perspiration, might prove unfavorable to the propagation of the Pediculi corporis. As their skin is more tender, the influence of the air might prove detrimental to them in those burning climates.”[1065]
We read in Purchas’s Pilgrims, that “if Lice doe much annoy the natives of Cambaia and Malabar, they call to them certain Religious and holy men, after their account: and these Observants y will take upon them all those Lice which the other can find, and put them on their head, there to nourish them. But yet for all this lousie scruple, they stick not to coozenage by falese weights, measures, and coyne, nor at usury and lies.”[1066]
In a side-note to this curious passage, we find: “The like lousie trick is reported in the Legend of S. Francis, and in the life of Ignatius, of one of the Jesuitical pillars, by Moffæus.”
Steedman says of the Caffres, that “except an occasional plunge in a river, they never wash themselves, and consequently their bodies are covered with vermin. On a fine day their karosses are spread out in the sun, and as their tormentors creep forth they are doomed to destruction. It often happens that one Caffir performs for another the kind office of collecting these insects, in which case he preserves the entomological specimens, carefully delivering them to the person
to whom they originally appertained, supposing, according to their theory, that as they derived their support from the blood of the man from whom they were taken, should they be killed by another, the blood of his neighbor would be in his possession, thus placing in his hands the power of some superhuman influence.”[1067]
Kolben says the Hottentots eat the largest of the Lice with which they swarm; and that if asked how they can devour such detestable vermin, they plead the law of retaliation, and urge that it is no shame to eat those who would eat them—“They suck our blood, and we devour ’em in revenge.”[1068]
We are assured in Purchas’s Pilgrims, that Lice and “long wormes” were sold for food in Mexico.[1069] From this ancient collection of Travels, we learn that when the Indians of the Province of Cuena are infected with Lice, “they dresse and cleanse one another; and they that exercise this, are for the most part women, who eate all that they take, and have herein (eating?) such dexterity by reason of their exercise, that our own men cannot lightly attaine thereunto.”[1070]
The Budini, a people of Scythia, commonly feed upon Lice and other vermin bred upon their bodies.[1071]
Mr. Wafer, in his description of the Isthmus of America, says: “The natives have Lice in their Heads, which they feel out with their Fingers, and eat as they catch them.”[1072] Dobrizhoffer also mentions that Lice are eaten by the Indian women of South America.[1073]
The disgusting practice of eating these vermin is not confined to the Hottentots, the Negroes of Western Africa, the Simiæ, and the American Indians, for it has been observed to prevail among the beggars of Spain and Portugal.[1074]
Schroder, in his History of Animals that are useful in Physic, says: “Lice are swallowed by country people
against the jaundice.”[1075] As a specific against this disease, Beaumont and Fletcher thus allude to them:
Die of the jaundice, yet have the cure about you: lice, large lice, begot of your own dust and the heat of the brick kilns.[1076]
Lice were also made use of in cases of Atrophy, and Dioscorides says they were employed in suppressions of urine, being introduced into the canal of the urethra.[1077]
In the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1746, there is a curious letter on “a certain creature, of rare and extraordinary qualities”—a Louse, containing many humorous observations on this “lover of the human race,” and concluding with some queries as to its origin and pedigree. “Was it,” the writer asks, “created within the six days assigned by Moses for the formation of all things? If so, where was its habitation? We can hardly suppose that it was quartered on Adam or his lady, the neatest, nicest pair (if we believe John Milton) that ever joyned hands. And yet, as it disdained to graze the fields, or lick the dust for sustenance, where else could it have had its subsistence?”[1078]
In a modern account of Scotland, written by an English gentleman, and printed in the year 1670, we find the following: “In that interval between Adam and Moses, when the Scottish Chronicle commences, the country was then baptized (and most think with the sign of the cross) by the venerable name of Scotland, from Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh, King of Egypt. Hence came the rise and name of these present inhabitants, as their Chronicle informs us, and is not to be doubted of, from divers considerable circumstances; the plagues of Egypt being entailed upon them, that of Lice (being a judgment unrepealed) is an ample testimony, these loving animals accompanied them from Egypt, and remain with them to this day, never forsaking them (but as rats leave a house) till they tumble into their graves.”[1079]
Linnæus, seemingly very anxious to become an apologist for the Lice, gravely observes that they probably preserve
children who are troubled with them, from a variety of complaints to which they would be liable![1080]
As an attempt toward discovering the intention of Providence in permitting the frequency of these tormenting animals, the following lines of Serenus may be given:
See nature, kindly provident ordain
Her gentle stimulants to harmless pain;
Lest Man, the slave of rest, should waste away
In torpid slumber life’s important day!
Of the horrible disease, Phthiriasis, occasioned by myriads of Lice, Pediculi, and sometimes by Mites, Acari, and Larvæ in general, I shall but mention that the inhuman Pheretrina, Antiochus Epiphanes, the Dictator Sylla, the two Herods, the Emperor Maximin, and Philip the Second were among the number carried off by it.
Quintus Serenus speaks thus of the death of Sylla:
Great Sylla too the fatal scourge hath known;
Slain by a host far mightier than his own.
According to Pliny, Nits are destroyed by using dog’s fat, eating serpents cooked like eels, or else taking their sloughs in drink.[1081]
In Leyden’s Notes to Complaynt of Scotland are recorded the following few rhymes of the Gyre-carlin—the bug-bear of King James V.
The Mouse, the Louse, and Little Rede,
Were a’ to mak’ a gruel in a lead.
The two first associates desire Little Rede to go to the door, to “see what he could see.” He declares that he saw the gyre-carlin coming,
With spade, and shool, and trowel,
To lick up a’ the gruel.
Upon which the party disperse:
The Louse to the claith,
And the Mouse to the wa’,
Little Rede behind the door,
And licket up a’.[1082]