Curious Facts in the History of Insects; Including Spiders and Scorpions Part 36

Thevenot, in his Travels into the Levant, relates the following: "But I cannot tell what to say of a Moorish Woman who lives in a corner close by the quarter of France, and pulls worms out of Children's Ears. When a Child does nothing but cry, and that they know it is ill, they carry it to that Woman, who, laying the Child on its side upon her knee, scratches the ear of it, and then Worms, like those which breed in musty weevily Flower, seem to fall out of the Child's Ear; then, turning it on the other side, she scratches the other Ear, out of which the like Worms drop also; and in all there may come out ten or twelve, which she raps up in a Linen-Rag, and gives them to those that brought the Child to her, who keep them in that Rag at home in their House; and when she has done so she gives them back the Child, which in reality cries no more.

She once told me that she performed this by means of some words that she spake. There was a French Physician and a Naturalist there, who attentively beheld this, and told me that he could not conceive how it could be done; but that he knew very well that if a child had any of these Worms in its head it would quickly die. In so much that the Moors and other inhabitants of _Caire_ look upon this as a great Vertue, and give her every time a great many _maidins_ (pieces of money). They say that it is a secret which hath been long in the Family. There are children every day carried to her, roaring and crying, and as many would see the thing done, need only to follow them, provided they be not Musulman Women who carry them, for then it would cost an _Avanie_; but when they are Christian or Jewish Women, one may easily enter and give a few _maidins_ to that Worm-drawer."[1264]

This is most probably but a sleight-of-hand performance, since "worms, like those which breed in musty weevily flower," could easily be obtained and concealed in her hand or sleeve; imagination would then effect the cure, as probably it had done the disease.

Dr. Livingstone and his party, in traveling in South Africa, sometimes suffered considerably from scarcity of meat, though not from absolute want of food. And the natives, says this traveler, to show their sympathy, gave the children, who suffered most, a large kind of caterpillar, which they seemed to relish. He concluded these insects could not be unwholesome, for the natives devoured them in large quant.i.ties themselves.[1265]