The Itch

Overview

The itch is the peoples' word for the small torments of the skin that come with crowding: lice in the hair and the seams of clothes, the burrowing mite that sets the hands and wrists on fire at night, and the round, scaling patches of ringworm and scald-head on children. None of them is much feared alone. Together they mark a camp, a ship, or a poor house, and lice bring a fever behind them that is feared a great deal.

Cause

Each form is a living thing on or in the skin. Lice are tiny insects that cling to hair or to the seams of clothing and feed on blood; their eggs, nits, are glued to the hair. The burrowing mite is too small to see, and digs into the skin to lay its eggs. Ringworm and scald-head are skin moulds that grow outward in rings on the body and scalp, and some come from cats, dogs, and cattle.

Who It Strikes

It strikes whoever lives close and washes little: soldiers, sailors, prisoners, pilgrims, the poor, and children who share beds. It cares nothing for rank once a household is crowded. Goblins, who bear discomfort well and live in the cramped backs of towns, are thought to carry it without complaint, which their neighbours hold against them unjustly. The Wrought are spared.

Signs and Course

Lice itch, worst at the nape, behind the ears, and wherever clothing presses. Nits show as pale specks near the roots of the hair. Long-lousy bodies grow thick, dark, and scarred where they are scratched.

The burrowing itch comes a few weeks after the mite is caught: a fierce itching worst at night, with fine winding lines and small blisters between the fingers, at the wrists and elbows, about the waist, and in children over the whole body. Scratched raw, it weeps and crusts.

Ringworm rises as round, red, scaling rings that spread at the edge and clear in the middle. Scald-head scales the scalp and breaks the hair into bald, grey patches; in its worst form crusts and a mousy smell come with it.

Contagion

All pass by close touch, shared beds and blankets, worn clothes, combs, and caps. Lice leave a body that is cooling, which is how a fevered camp passes its lice from the dying to the living.

Treatment and Its Limits

Lice are combed out with a fine comb, the hair cut close or shaved, and clothes and bedding boiled or baked. The burrowing itch is treated with sulphur in fat, rubbed over the whole body and left, and the whole household treated at once, or it comes back. Ringworm is painted with sharp herb washes and kept dry; scald-head may need the hair pulled from the patch. Herb ointments from the healer's shelf (see Herbs) ease the itch.

A healer's Parasite Expel makes a body hostile to what lives on it, but egg-laying infestations need the work repeated, and a body cleared and sent back to a lousy bunk is lousy again within days. Few pay a healer for the itch.

Mortality

The itch does not kill. Scratched sores can fester (see Wound Rot), and a child with scald-head may keep bald patches for life. Lice are another matter: they carry Camp Fever, which kills many.

Lore and Belief

Lice are taken as the mark of poverty, of idleness, or of a wanderer, and a lousy stranger is turned from the door. Many believe lice are born of sweat and dirt. Soldiers say that lice leave a man who is about to die, and watch their comrades' collars. Ringworm is laid to cats, which is sometimes true, and to an ill wish, which is not.

Sellsword companies are said to scratch their way through a campaign, and a town that sees a lousy company at its gate shuts it, which has started more than one siege.

In the Medieval Era

The itch is everywhere that people crowd: army camps and sieges, prisons, ships' crews, the hostels of pilgrimage roads, and the poor quarters of every town. Barracks and ships that boil their linen and shave their recruits have less of it, and less camp fever, though few connect the two. Households keep a fine comb and a pot of sulphur ointment, and a mother's search of a child's scalp is a weekly chore.

Where It Appears

This ailment grows out of the following pages:

• Vital Magic: Parasite Expel (infestations driven out)
• Goblins (bodies suited to discomfort and partial shelter)