The closest living relative of the human louse
Lice have been parasitizing humans for millions of years and likely dispersed throughout the World with the human migrations out of Africa, so they can be good markers for studying human evolution.
It evolved a new variety, the body louse, with claws adapted for clinging to fabric, not hairs. In 2003, Mark Stoneking, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, estimated from DNA differences that the body louse evolved from the head louse about 107,000 years ago.
Genetic studies suggest that lice developed about 1.68 million years before homo sapiens emerged, and that they started their relationships with humans about the same time human evolution separated from chimpanzee evolution.
As it turned out, the body louse branched off from the head louse about 70,000 years ago, give or take 42,000 years. Clothing must have evolved at that time, too, the researchers figured.
Ancient Head Lice Treatments
If you became infested with head lice, the Egyptians treated themselves with an aromatic head lice formula made of water, vinegar, oil of cinnamon, oil of rosemary, oil of terebinth. They would treat ancient head lice with the formula and use a fine tooth comb.
Throughout ancient Egypt, people were tormented with lice. Remedies for the common person included eating a special meal mixture with warm water, and then vomiting it up. Others believed a recipe of spices mixed with vinegar rubbed on the scalp over a few days would suffocate them out.
“We've discovered the 'smoking louse' that reveals direct contact between two early species of humans,” probably in Asia about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago, says study leader Dale Clayton, a professor of biology at the University of Utah. “Kids today have head lice that evolved on two species of cavemen.
In the middle ages, humans couldn't get away from lice. They were an unavoidable part of their life and lice didn't discriminate; they infected all parts of society from serfs to royals. People in the Middle Ages took lice to their grave as well. They lived a life of itch, itch, itch!
As Aaron struck the dust with his staff, a stream of bugs, believed to be either lice or gnats, swarmed across Egypt. The people of Egypt were tormented with these bugs, completely unable to escape them, no matter where they went. Still, the Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go.
We've got three different kinds of lice because, unlike our closest relatives, we aren't covered head-to-toe in a furry coat. Each louse species is adapted to its particular niche in our body; by working out their evolutionary history, we can learn something about when those niches appeared.
New research suggests that the main mode of transmission during Europe's Second Pandemic of plague may have been human fleas and lice.
Kill head lice by washing infested articles in hot water (at least 140°F) and drying in a hot dryer. Items that cannot be laundered such as headgear, earphones, and bike helmets, can be placed in a plastic bag and put in a freezer. If the freezer is 5°F or lower, all lice and eggs should be dead within 10 hours.
Head lice seem to be more common in Caucasian, Hispanic, and Asian American people than in African American people. For example, fewer than 0.5% of African American schoolchildren experience head lice compared with about 10% of schoolchildren of other races.
Head lice and eggs have been found on the hair of Egyptian mummies. Nine-thousand-year-old louse eggs were found in hair samples from an individual who lived in a cave near the Dead Sea in Israel, while large numbers of lice were recovered from a 3,800-year-old female mummy from the Loulan period.
The First Humans
One of the earliest known humans is Homo habilis, or “handy man,” who lived about 2.4 million to 1.4 million years ago in Eastern and Southern Africa.
Genetic work on living lice had suggested they arose during the time of feathered dinosaurs, but fossil lice are few and far between. The tiny creatures are unlikely to fossilize, and even if they do they're hard to spot.
Adult lice can live up to 30 days on a person's head. To live, adult lice need to feed on blood several times daily. Without blood meals, the louse will die within 1 to 2 days off the host.
When Victorians were infested with head lice they would visit the local bathhouse to receive an arsenic and quicklime treatment. During this treatment the different chemicals would burn off the hair weather it is on their head or the entire body.
2. Blond hair was the colour of choice in Viking culture, so they would use strong soap to bleach their hair and beards blond. This also had the added benefit of eliminating head lice!
It also appears that Romans regularly used delousing combs to rid themselves of lice and fleas, Mitchell said.
As there was no knowledge of germs or how diseases spread in the Middle Ages, the Church explained away illness as 'divine retribution' for leading a sinful life. Common diseases in the Middle Ages included dysentery ('the flux'), tuberculosis, arthritis and 'sweating sickness' (probably influenza).