Magical Saliva

This morning I had, as always, back-to-back Level 1 classes. They were particularly heavy classes, going over when and how to use the 3rd person singular as a final prep for exams tomorrow. As I was painstakingly erasing the whiteboard between these 2 classes (cursing the green marker, which inexplicably takes 4 times as much energy to erase as the other colors!), a student came running in. "Teacher, necesito que me ponga saliva aquí!!!" That is, "Teacher, I need you to put saliva here!!!" This she said as if it was a matter of life and death, while pointing at her right ear lobe. Because of how urgent it seemed, I didn't think twice, and quickly found a finger with the least amount of marker on it, licked it, and held my finger to her ear.

It then occurred to me how strange this was, and she explained that she just got stung by a bee, and that a pregnant woman's saliva helps alleviates the pain and helps it heal faster. I was disbelieving, but figured if she thought it would help, then fine. I chalked it up to a Mexican old wives' tale...

But as I was typing this, our resident accountant-turned-herbalist-turned-English professor (our newest addition, Prescott) walked by, and I shared her belief with him. I was sure he'd get a good laugh about it, but surprised me by saying it made a lot of sense. He said that pregnant women have much higher levels of "estrogenic precursors" (and hormones of all types), which DO work against things like bee stings (something to do with neurotoxins...)

So I guess it's not an old wives' tale, after all, or at least it has a scientific basis. But I hope that there isn't a rash of bee stings on campus, regardless of the science it was still rather gross...