During the invasion of Normandy in 1944 Army jeep drivers prohibited from using headlights of any sort, were able to follow winding country roads on the blackest nights by rows of millions of flashing green lights which outlined the roadsides.
Wingless, wormlike female beetles, (Lampyris hoctiluca, the European glow worm) were trying to attract their winged, lightless mates. Their nocturnal lovemaking as they clung to roadside weeds and bushes was a far from insignificant factor in the Normandy operations. The worms indicated not only the direction but the width of the roads, thus forestalling fatal accidents and preventing drivers from going astray into hostile territory. However, they doubtless proved of equal value to the enemy. These accommodating creatures, unknown to soldiers from across the Atlantic, should not be confused with our familiar fireflies.
Worms in Medical History
Earthworms have an important place in folk medicine, especially in the Near East. Muzhatu-L-qylut of Hamd Allah, an ancient Persian natural history, states: “Earthworms are red worms living in the damp earth. Baked and eaten with bread they reduce the size of stones in the bladder. When dried and eaten they cure the yellowness of jaundice. In difficult labor they bring on delivery immediately. Their ashes applied to the head with oil of roses make the hair to grow.”
Says a seventeenth century English medical treatise: “Earthworms are hot of nature and of them are a pressious oyntment made to close woundes; and if they be sodden in goose greece and styned it is a good oyntment for to drop into a dull hearing ear. Earthworms stamped are good for payned teeth. The oyle of earthworms be greatly commended for comforting of sinews, jointes, vaines and goute. They must be washed in white wine and the oyles of verbascum or cowslopes, of roses, of lilies, of dil, of chamomill, all sodden together. When it is cold put in your erthwormes, stoppe your glass, let it stand xl days in the sunne, then straine it. It will make an excellent oyle against ache, sciatica, goute, etc.”
Toads That Make Poison Gas
Among the weirdest of American amphibians are certain of the giant toads of southwestern United States and northern Mexico which, when frightened or in pain, diffuse a deadly gas which will kill objects some distance away.
A very large toad found almost everywhere throughout the Panama Canal Zone can squirt a poison which may permanently blind a man if it hits the eyes. Nobody would bother it except that from its skin is made of the softest and most expensive of all leather.
Most toads have skin covered with warts which are more closely grouped on the sides of the neck than elsewhere. These, together with the paratoid glands situated behind the eyes, secrete a milky, poisonous fluid whenever the animal is molested. The secretion is an acid irritant, causing pain in cuts and producing a bitter, astringent sensation in the mouth.