The Cure for Worms

b. Shabbat 109b

Aramaic

But one may eat yo‘ezer.

What is yo‘ezer? [It is] putnak. What is it eaten for? For arketa [worms]. With what is it eaten? With seven white dates. What does it come from? From a raw piece of meat and water on an empty stomach, or from fatty meat on an empty stomach, or from ox meat on an empty stomach, or from nuts on an empty stomach, or from shoots of the ruvya’ plant [a type of legume] on an empty stomach, or from drinking water after these [foods].

If [the cure does] not [work]—one should swallow white cress.

If [the cure does] not [work]—one should sit fasting, and one should bring fatty meat, and put it on glowing [?]‌ coals, and suck the bone, and swallow vinegar. But there are those who say: not vinegar, because it is harmful to the liver.

If [the cure does] not [work]—one should bring scrapings of an asinta’ bush [or, Dilmun dates] peeled [or, scraped] from top to bottom, but not [peeled] from bottom to top, lest they [i.e., the worms] come out from one’s mouth, and one should boil it in brewer’s beer. And the next day when his orifices are closed, he should drink. When one relieves oneself, he should relieve himself on the trunk of a palm tree.

And one may drink ’abuv ro‘eh [lit., shepherd’s flute].

What is ’abuv ro‘eh?—[It is] ḥumtarya’. What is ḥumtarya’?—ḥutra’ yaḥid’ah [lit., lonely staff].¹ What is it applied for?—for [poisoning through] exposed [liquids].

If [the cure does] not [work] one should bring five kelilei plants [or, wreaths] and five cup-measures of beer, boil them down together until an anpaka-cup [a liquid measure roughly equal to a quarter log] remains, and drink [it].

The mother of R. Aḥadvoi bar Ami prepared this [remedy] for a certain man. She boiled down one kelila’ plant and one cup-measure of beer and made him drink it. She heated an oven and cleaned it out. She placed a brick inside. And [something] similar to a yellow-green discharge emerged.