One of the fond memories of my early teenage years (around the time of the first Kennedy assassination) was overhearing a couple of girls in the bathroom of Schwab Junior High School telling everyone who cared to listen that SOME PEOPLE had WORMS living in their faces. I realized even at the time that they were idiots, of course. Now I learn from Nurse Myra's rich and wonderful website that the authors of a 1920 health book also contended -- far more authoritatively than the kids at school -- that some people have worms living in their faces. Coincidentally, the authors of this book were also idiots, as their work clearly demonstrates:
[The flesh worm is] a minute little creature, scientifically called Demodex folliculorum, hardly visible to the naked eye, with comparatively large fore body, a more slender hind body and eight little stumpy processes that do duty as legs. No specialized head is visible, although of course there is a mouth orifice. These creatures live on the sweat glands or pores of the human face, and owing to the appearance that they give to the infested pores, they are usually known as “black-heads.” It is not at all uncommon to see an otherwise pretty face disfigured by these ugly creatures, although the insects themselves are nearly transparent white.
Demodex folliculorum, pictured above in all his glory, is a mite, not a flesh worm, and he lives in your eyebrows. In case you were wondering.
Rarely have I read a text which so effectively renders one dumber while simultaneously sounding so scientific.
Posted by: locust eater | October 01, 2007 at 05:05 AM
that's a much better image than the one I used :-)
Posted by: nurse myra | October 02, 2007 at 03:20 AM