I’ve Got An Itch

Harvard students are notoriously clean, well groomed, and virtuous. First-years at the College are known particularly for their chaste habits and healthy lifestyles. Failing to do laundry every week? Unheard of. Irregular bathing schedules? Absurd. Engaging in sexual contact with another resident of your dormitory, especially in Pennypacker? Surely you jest!

But alas, while we all slept innocently in our narrow beds, thinking of nothing but course packs and profound questions to ask during section, scabies crept into our lives (for some quite literally—the mite Sarcoptes scabiei tunnels into the skin of humans). Two Saturdays ago, three Pennypacker residents reached the end of their ropes after discovering rashes.

And so they took their queries to the one place we all know and trust on campus: University Health Services (UHS). These rash-ed freshmen emerged from UHS armed with a bottle of Permethrin and a deep sense of shame. Of course, those naughty students guilty of rubbing too closely up against one of the infected (or of just living in their dorm) were recommended to do the same. Much like God punished the Egyptians with locusts, the promiscuous students among us shall be met with the blight of scabies.

Soon enough, every Harvardian with an irregular patch of skin lined up at UHS, waiting to be examined by the University’s most reputable physicians. Unfortunately, a diagnosis of scabies is traumatic enough without the social stigma. The inevitable questions from roommates (“You hooked up with a freshman?”) or significant others (“Skin-to-skin contact with whom?”) might just have been worse than the neck-to-toe treatment.

Yet some silver lining emerged. “I got caught in the line leaving Lamont” was booted out as number one excuse for being late to tutorial in favor of, “I just found out my roommate has scabies.” (Unlike the library line, there are no questions asked.)

And next time a survey comes out declaring Harvard College a sexual wasteland, we have a rebuttal. In effect, scabies has lent Harvard students a small bit of sexual legitimacy, even if it doesn’t require genital contact for transmission.