biting my nails

When I was 6, I caught a mild dose of scarlet fever. So, as was usual in those days (1930), I spent the next three weeks in the local isolation hospital, a range of tin sheds on the outskirts of Winchester.

Once a week the Nurse put the small group of children there into an enormous bath, where we were scrubbed and had our hair washed. Then, wrapped in towels, we had our finger and toe nails trimmed. As she did so, she warned us not to bite our nails - as one poor girl had done - or the chewed-off bits could turn into worms in our tums. Of course, we only knew about earth worms...

Much later, I realised the truth of her warning. Tapeworm eggs can lurk under dirty fingernails, but the frightful thought that bits of nails could turn into worms stayed with me for years...

Howard