The Budini, a people of Scythia, commonly feed upon Lice and other vermin bred upon their bodies.[1071] Mr. Wafer, in his description of the Isthmus of America, says: “The natives have Lice in their Heads, which they feel out with their Fingers, and eat as they catch them.”[1072] Dobrizhoffer also mentions that Lice are eaten by the Indian women of South America.[1073] The disgusting practice of eating these vermin is not confined to the Hottentots, the Negroes of Western Africa, the Simiæ, and the American Indians, for it has been observed to prevail among the beggars of Spain and Portugal.[1074] Schroder, in his History of Animals that are useful in Physic, says: “Lice are swallowed by country people against the jaundice.”[1075] As a specific against this disease, Beaumont and Fletcher thus allude to them: Die of the jaundice, yet have the cure about you: lice, large lice, begot of your own dust and the heat of the brick kilns.[1076] Lice were also made use of in cases of Atrophy, and Dioscorides says they were employed in suppressions of urine, being introduced into the canal of the urethra.[1077] In the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1746, there is a curious letter on “a certain _creature_, of rare and extraordinary qualities”--a Louse, containing many humorous observations on this “_lover_ of the human race,” and concluding with some queries as to its origin and pedigree. “Was it,” the writer asks, “created within the six days assigned by _Moses_ for the formation of all things? If so, where was its habitation? We can hardly suppose that it was quartered on _Adam_ or his lady, the neatest, nicest pair (if we believe _John Milton_) that ever joyned hands. And yet, as it disdained to graze the fields, or lick the dust for sustenance, where else could it have had its subsistence?”[1078] In a modern account of Scotland, written by an English gentleman, and printed in the year 1670, we find the following: “In that interval between Adam and Moses, when the Scottish Chronicle commences, the country was then baptized (and most think with the sign of the cross) by the venerable name of Scotland, from Scota, the daughter of Pharaoh, King of Egypt. Hence came the rise and name of these present inhabitants, as their Chronicle informs us, and is not to be doubted of, from divers considerable circumstances; the plagues of Egypt being entailed upon them, that of Lice (being a judgment unrepealed) is an ample testimony, these loving animals accompanied them from Egypt, and remain with them to this day, never forsaking them (but as rats leave a house) till they tumble into their graves.”[1079] Linnæus, seemingly very anxious to become an apologist for the Lice, gravely observes that they probably preserve children who are troubled with them, from a variety of complaints to which they would be liable![1080]