According to the research of R. Hoeppli, ancient Chinese medicine used lice to cure “high fever and severe headaches as if the skull is cracking.” A paste made from 300 – 500 black lice, spread on the head, was said to do the trick. I must admit, I’d rather have 500 pureed lice on my head than 500 live ones, but the question this raised for me was where one would find black lice. Is there such a thing?
Head lice that I’ve seen have ranged from pale ivory through a golden – sometimes reddish – brown; magnified, they are transparent. Lice that have fed have a black mass inside – presumably blood in the process of being digested – but are not, themselves, black. There is a colour range, to be sure. But black? A literature search turned up some interesting things:
Head lice may have a natural way of blending in without actually changing color. Ibarra and Hall wrote: “Eggs and lice are well camouflaged, reflecting the colour of their surroundings.”
Newly hatched lice that have not fed are transparent (Meinking) and do not have color until after they’ve fed.
Color that matches the background has been shown to have evolved in other species of lice. This, however, refers to colour change over generations, not within the life span of a single organism.
The ‘wisdom’ that human head lice change color depending on the hair color of the host is oft repeated on websites and in non-academic publications. Published scientific information to back it up, however, appears nonexistent. Similarly, parasitology texts and laboratory identification references do not mention it
I remain highly skeptical that our head lice can change color within one generation, or that black head lice actually exist. I conclude that the Chinese remedy called for human head lice that had fed and had blood in their guts..
