50 Conception, Birth and Infancy in 



onions are now a milder recourse when an Italian has to rid his 

 child of worms. The former when it has been pounded up with 

 mint and moistened with vinegar serves as an anthelmintic plaster. 

 The mere odor is said to drive the parasites from their feeding- 

 grounds, although these, according to rustic teaching, extend all 

 the way from mouth to anus. 283 A double protection for the Italian 

 child is to wear as amulets the vertebrae of a snake which ants have 

 bared of its flesh, and a necklace of the odoriferous vegetable. 284 



One prescription which Pliny offers may be said to take pity on 

 little children: according to him, lupines will work as a vermifuge 

 if merely applied externally to the abdomen. 285 Rue was recog- 

 nized as a good one two millennia ago, as it still is. 286 In this case, 

 too, even the mere odor is said to dislodge the parasites. 287 Some 

 Italians trust to it, even when it is simply put on the belly or on 

 the soles of the baby's feet. 288 In the province of Basilicata, the 

 worms receive a quite absent treatment from the herb : it is merely 

 put under the pillow. 289 Such methods ought to win favor for any 

 pediatrician with his young patients, if they will only work. Al- 

 most as inoffensive is the application to the victim's nose, temples, 

 and throat of certain unguents which aged experts in the use of 

 folkmedicine recommend. 290 We seem to be wholly in the province 

 of the occult when we read of a rustic remedy of Perugia which 

 requires anointing the navel of the suffering baby with hot oil in 

 which the dung of a pig has been dissolved. 291 



Amuletic charms for use against the parasites are in favor with 

 some mothers. Here, as in dealing with the troubles of teething, 

 cowrie shells may be a Sicilian choice, along with a tiny imperforate 

 key of silver, in other words a male key. 292 Then there are the 

 witch-stones to use not only against a baby's worms but against the 

 threats of sorcery of any sort. These pietre stregonie may be fossil 

 corals which display in their structure the appearance of tiny stars 

 and so bear the specific name of pietre stellarie. 293 Calabrians, 

 women as well as children, will sometimes be found to be wearing 

 fossil shark's teeth concealed in tiny bags beneath the shirt. Such 

 "tongues of stone", lingue di pietra, or "tongues of S. Paul", lingue 

 di S. Paolo, 29i are, no doubt, the glossopetrae to which Pliny re- 

 fers. 295 Baby has one to bite on when he is teething. As an amu- 

 let it is expected to protect him against intestinal worms and also 

 against all injuries that can come from the Evil Eye. 296 



