Editing Louse (section)

===In social history===

[[File:Louse diagram, Micrographia, Robert Hooke, 1667.jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|left|Drawing of a louse clinging to a human hair. [[Robert Hooke]], ''[[Micrographia]]'', 1667]]

Lice have been intimately associated with human society throughout history. In the [[Middle Ages]], they were essentially ubiquitous. At the death of [[Thomas Becket]], [[Archbishop of Canterbury]] in 1170, it was recorded that "The vermin boiled over like water in a simmering cauldron, and the onlookers burst into alternate weeping and laughing".<ref name=Kowalski>{{cite journal | vauthors = Kowalski TJ, Agger WA | title = Art supports new plague science | journal = Clinical Infectious Diseases | volume = 48 | issue = 1 | pages = 137–8 | date = January 2009 | pmid = 19067623 | doi = 10.1086/595557 | doi-access = free }}</ref> The clergy often saw lice and other parasites as a constant reminder of human frailty and weakness. Monks and nuns would purposely ignore grooming themselves and suffer from infestations to express their religious devotion.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Harvey |first=Katherine |date=2019-04-09 |title=Medieval people were surprisingly clean (apart from the clergy) |url=https://aeon.co/essays/medieval-people-were-surprisingly-clean-apart-from-the-clergy |access-date=2022-10-13 |website=[[Aeon magazine|Aeon]] |language=en}}</ref> A mediaeval treatment for lice was an [[ointment]] made from pork grease, [[incense]], [[lead]], and [[aloe]].<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Elliott L |title=Clothing in the Middle Ages |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qtq_WSpdo0gC&pg=PT29 |year=2004 |publisher=Crabtree |isbn=978-0-7787-1351-7 |page=29}}</ref>

[[Robert Hooke]]'s 1667 book, ''[[Micrographia|Micrographia: or some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses with observations and Inquiries thereupon]]'', illustrated a human louse, drawn as seen down an early [[microscope]].<ref>{{cite web | vauthors = Hooke R |title=Microscopic view of a louse |url=http://prints.royalsociety.org/art/580831/microscopic-view-of-a-louse |publisher=The Royal Society |access-date=17 October 2015}}</ref>

[[Margaret Cavendish]]'s satirical ''[[The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing-World]]'' (1668) has "Lice-men" as "mathematicians", investigating nature by trying to weigh the air like the real scientist [[Robert Boyle]].<ref name="Sarasohn2010">{{cite book | vauthors = Sarasohn LT |title=The Natural Philosophy of Margaret Cavendish: Reason and Fancy During the Scientific Revolution |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sE0XnNgF9ZoC&pg=PA167 |year=2010 |publisher=JHU Press |isbn=978-0-8018-9443-5|pages=165–167 |quote=The Bear-men were to be her Experimental Philosophers, the Bird-men her Astronomers, the Fly- Worm- and Fish-men her Natural Philosophers, the Ape-men her Chymists, the Satyrs her Galenick Physicians, the Fox-men her Politicians, the Spider- and Lice-men her Mathematicians, the Jackdaw- Magpie- and Parrot-men her Orators and Logicians, the Gyants her Architects, &c.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| vauthors = Cavendish M |title=The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World|date=1668|publisher=A. Maxwell|url=http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/newcastle/blazing/blazing.html}}</ref>

In 1935 the Harvard medical researcher [[Hans Zinsser]] wrote the book ''[[Rats, Lice and History]]'', alleging that both body and head lice transmit typhus between humans.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Zinsser H |title=Rats, Lice and History |date=2007 |orig-year=1935 |publisher=Transaction Publishers |isbn=978-1-4128-0672-5}}</ref> Despite this, the modern view is that only the body louse can transmit the disease.<ref>{{cite web | vauthors = Altschuler DZ |title=Zinsser, Lice and History |url=http://www.headlice.org/faq/disease/zinsser.htm |publisher=HeadLice.org |access-date=19 October 2015 |date=1990}}</ref>

[[File:Jan Siberechts "Cour de ferme" détail Scène d'épouillage.jpg|thumb|upright|Detail showing delousing from [[Jan Siberechts]]' painting ''Cour de ferme'' ("Farmyard"), 1662]]

Soldiers in the trenches of the [[First World War]] suffered severely from lice, and the [[typhus]] they carried. The Germans boasted that they had lice under effective control, but themselves suffered badly from lice in the [[Second World War]] on the Eastern Front, especially in the [[Battle of Stalingrad]]. "[[Delousing]]" became a [[euphemism]] for the extermination of Jews in [[concentration camp]]s such as [[Auschwitz]] under the Nazi regime.<ref>{{cite web | vauthors = Evans RJ |author-link1=Richard J. Evans |title=The Great Unwashed |url=http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-great-unwashed |publisher=Gresham College |access-date=17 October 2015}}</ref>

In the psychiatric disorder [[delusional parasitosis]], patients express a persistent irrational fear of animals such as lice and mites, imagining that they are continually infested and complaining of itching, with "an unshakable false belief that live organisms are present in the skin".<ref>{{cite web | vauthors = Weinstein P | date = 26 February 2013 | title = 'The Great Unwashed': Entomophobia/Delusionary Parasitosis; Illusionary Parasitosis | url = http://medent.usyd.edu.au/fact/delpara.htm | publisher = University of Sydney Department of Medical Entomology | access-date = 17 October 2015 | series = The Great Plagues: Epidemics in History from the Middle Ages to the Present Day | archive-date = 17 May 2016 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160517005233/http://medent.usyd.edu.au/fact/delpara.htm | url-status = dead }}</ref>