Papillons d'amour et leurs cousins

In fifth grade, every time the volleyball flew over the net the kids watched to see if M. would touch it - and if she did, they'd yell "cooties!" and the ball would drop to the floor. M. was a poor girl from the hills in that region of northern Appalachia; her father was a garbage collector. She was slow, but not slow enough to be put into the "retarded" classroom, so she was shunted along with us from grade to grade, enduring the insults and cruelty of the other children, the most common of which was the cry of "cooties." I don't remember participating, but I don't remember coming loudly to her defense, either, afraid I'd be lumped even further into the outcast-group than my brain, lurking beneath my hair, had already placed me.

Head lice weren't as common or widespread in our classrooms then as they seemed to be several decades years later when my friends' kids were in school, and they were always the shame of the poorest kids who lived in shacks and tiny subsistence farms up in the hills. Once or twice a year, the school nurse came to each of our grade-school classrooms, set up a workstation in a corner, and one by one, we'd have to go there, sit down, and bend our head forward while she picked through our scalp with two long thin wooden sticks, parting the hair and peering into that forest to look for fauna and their calling-cards, the tiny eggs clinging to hairs. I was horrified by this, but even in those days before confidentiality I only remember certain kids being hauled unceremoniously from the room for treatment in the antiseptic-smelling nurse's office. One boy had a notorious case, and spent most of his time in grade school with his head shaved.

Later on, in the hippie days, it wasn't head lice we giggled and gossiped about but pubic lice, better known as crabs. I knew plenty of kids from fancy homes who got those!

Pthirus pubis, commonly referred to as the pubic louse or crab louse, and delicately designated papillon d'amour by the French, is an insect whose biology has been rather neglected in comparison with the attention lavished on the head louse and clothing louse. Even its name is frequently misspelled. The generic name was intended to be Phthirus, but as a result of a misprint, Pthirus was confirmed as the official name by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.¹ It has no close relatives other than a similar species found on gorillas. (intro to a scientific article by Burns and  Sims in the British Journal of Dermatology)

This article in today's NY Times informed me that humans are the only species to harbor not only one variety of louse, but three: the head louse, the pubic louse, and the body louse, which lives in clothing. Why that genetic evolution probably happened, and when, is a fascinating biological story that also helps date when humans lost their body hair and began sewing skins into clothing. The DNA studies also reveal the connections between the lice of other primates and our own parasitic species - and you can draw your own conclusions from that! (The multimedia timeline helps summarize the conclusions.)

And I found myself thinking of my mother, who would have called me up today to tell me to read this article and then had a long animated discussion with me about it. When i was young, she also made it clear to me, when I came home from school telling these stories, that I should 1) never share winter hats with other kids and 2) try to be kind to M. I'm not sure I obeyed, but I remember.

Comments

[Dave]

Somehow, i don't think anyone really thought about a real-world basis for cooties when I was in 1st grade. They were invisible, like germs, and possessed pretty much by all girls, as I understood it. Special girl-germs. Obviously a tool of the patriarchy.

[Zuleme]

I wonder what happened to M?

[Mouse]

don't you find that it's the unexpected things that remind you of your mother, that make you think 'I'll call and tell her that' and then you catch your breath as you remember that she is no longer there... if I had a euro for every time I have thought 'I wish...' since my mother died I would be rich

[beth]

Dave - very funny!! We'll have to export some to those Nigerian archbishops.

Zuleme: me too. I've got my Dad working on it.

Mouse - Absolutely. I wonder if I will ever get used to it. The remembering is not as sharp or sudden as it was at first, but it still happens very often. Sigh! At least we both had mothers with whom we were able to talk, and I'm grateful for that.

[your cousin]

it was the"opportunity class"

[Mouse]

Beth, I'm afraid I never got used to my father not being around, and he died 18 years ago this May, I suspect that mothers are even harder to let go. It does help to remember what you had rather than what you lost but even so, huge sigh, indeed

[Anna]

Beth - what are cooties?