578 
Combating Lousiness 
VI. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES. 
The following notes relate to various references that I have come 
across in my reading concerning lice. This appears the most convenient 
way of placing them so as not to disarrange the text whilst going through 
the press and to supplement what has already been published. 
Pkthirophagi (note to p. 184). Herodotus and Strabo in Pontus speak 
of men that feed on lice (Moffett, ed. 1658, p. 1093). 
Hearne (1795, p. 325), writing of the Northern Indians (Arctic 
America), records: “Their clothing, which chiefly consists of deer skins 
in the hair, makes them very subject to be lousy, but that is so far from 
being thought a disgrace, that the best among them amuse themselves 
with catching and eating these vermin; of which they are so fond, that 
the produce of a lousy head or garment affords them not only pleasing 
amusement, but a delicious repast. My old guide, Matonabbee, was so 
remarkably fond of these little vermin, that he frequently set five or six 
of his strapping wives to work to louse their hairy deer skin shifts, the 
produce of which being always very considerable, he eagerly received 
with both hands, and licked them in as fast, and with as good a grace, 
as any European epicure.”...“ The Southern Indians and Esquimaux are 
equally fond of these vermin.” 
* 
Uncleanliness and lousiness in Ireland, Prisons and Armies. “All 
Ireland is noted for this, that it swarms almost with Lice. But that this 
proceeds from the beastliness of the people, and want of cleanly women 
to wash them is manifest, because the English that are more careful to 
dress themselves, changing and washing their shirts often, having 
inhabited so long in Ireland, have escaped that plague. Hence it is that 
Armies and Prisons are so full of Lice” (Moffett, ed. 1658, p. 1092). 
This bears on the prevalence of typhus in Ireland (vide p. 44). 
* 
The wandering of lice from the dying (note to pp. 96-97). In those in 
whom the sweat “grows bitter (as we find in those that are dying, or 
troubled with the jaundice) they forsake their stations and creep from the 
body into the pillows that are under them.” Their wandering is a sign 
of approaching death. Referring to jaundice, it is worth noting that bile 
is one of the remedies for lice given by older authors (Moffett, ed. 1658, 
p. 1091). 
* 
