For one who has a worm in him (KYP T875)

For one who has a worm in him. Recite it over some spearmint and make it into a crown for his head.

A whole cure, one line long, from a small papyrus spell-book. More than a thousand years ago the guest inside the body already had a name, and the answer was to crown the host. The deck agrees with the scribe on one point: you treat the worm by honoring the person it lives in.

Historical text; not medical advice.

Translation by Korshi Dosoo, Markéta Preininger and Roxanne Bélanger Sarrazin; transcript by Edward Love. KYP T875, P. Mich. Inv. 593, 5th–7th c. Link: KYP T875.

Contains information from the Kyprianos Database, which is made available here under the Open Database License (ODbL). Line numbers omitted.