Lice Aren't Nice

We have the most interesting books here at MLC. No, really! Today I found something called Insects, Hygiene, and History by J.R. Busvine. Seriously, check out the cover art:

A Tit-bit for the Bugs
from the book Rowlandson the Caricaturist by Joseph Grego (1880)

The author delves into the lives of all sorts of gross bugs and icky insects. Lice, ticks, mites, bed bugs -- you name it. After briefly discussing entymology, he delves into people's views of vermin over the years. He has a rare touch of grotesque humor; perhaps such a thing is needed when studying the creepy-crawlies of the world. This quote from The Noble Lyfe and Nature of Man is included and it tickles me no end:

A louse is a worm with many fete and it cometh out of the filthi and onclene skynne... To Withdryue them, the best is to washe oftentymes and to change oftentymes clene lynen.

A plus to no longer living in the Middle Ages? Now we know that lice don't just pop out of our skin if we skip a bath. This wonderful line about fleas caught my eye:

On hearing the first cuckoo in spring, one should take earth from the ground where one's right foot is standing; this will have the property of driving all fleas from a house.

(If that doesn't work on your flea infestation, talk to Pliny.)

 As did this fascinating entry on lice:

The nature of the louse is that, on red hair they are red, on black hair, black, on white, white; and if one changes the hair, they will change colour.

 Chameleon lice!

I'll leave you with this charming depiction of a wife cleaning the lice from her husband's head...

from the Hortus Sanitatis (1491)

...apparently with a feather duster.

Busvine, J.R. Insects, Hygiene, and History The Athlone Press of the University of London, 1976.

More Fleas Than You Can Shake A Stick At

Almost every weekend I drive to Crystal Springs. On the way down, I pass a sign for a flea market. Being the complete nerd that I am, I decided that I needed to know why these sales are known as flea markets. According to Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable, the term is a direct translation from the French marché aux puces, market of fleas. Brewer's says that the term was coined in the 1920's because the piles of used goods available at such sales are evidently a breeding ground for fleas. I was hoping for something a bit more picturesque!

There's a related term that I ran across while investigating flea markets. I bet you haven't heard of a flea pit! It is an idiom used to describe movie theatres. The expression came into use in the 1930's. People started saying it because, you guessed it, cinemas were hotbeds of flea activities. Just think of the carpets, cloth covered seats, etc... I'm so glad I didn't know that before I spent 3 1/2 hours watching the Oscars the other night! The Australians took it a step further and came up with the phrase fleas and itche(r)s during the 1950's. Picture this: boy asks girl, "Want to go see The Seven Year Itch at the fleas and itches?" Would you have agreed?

Here's one last flea-y tidbit for your entomological edification.

Aristophanes, in the Clouds (423 BC), says that Socrates and Chaerephon tried to measure how many times its own length a flea jumped. They took the size of a flea's foot in wax, then calculated the length of its body. They then measured the distance of a flea's jump from the hand of Socrates to Chaerephon and the problem was resolved by simple multiplication (Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 404.)

I have so many new questions after reading that blurb! According to Britannica Concise Encyclopedia online, the "adult flea is .04-.4 inches long." How in the world did they take a wax imprint of a miniscule little flea foot? They can also jump up to 200 times their own body lengths. That means that a flea could jump 80 feet. Eighty feet! I wonder how long Socrates and Chaerephon spent doing this.


Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 15th edition. Harper Collins Publishers, 1995.
Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase and Fable. London: Cassell. Retrieved February 24, 2009, from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/2132411/.
Brewer's Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Phrase and Fable. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991.
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Chicago, IL: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved February 24, 2009, from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/6723280