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]