False friends among the disease-demons?

On the Egyptian
nsy/nsyt and Latin/Slavic nessia/nežit

Lloyd D. Graham

In ancient Egyptian medicine, the most common disease-causing demon is called nsy or
nsyt. These names are phonetically close to those of a leading disease-causing demonic
agent in medieval and early modern Europe, called nessia in Latin and nežit in Slavic
languages. The demons of both regions were believed to invade the patient’s body to
cause headaches, eye disorders, fever, bone pains and skin diseases. Moreover, the
Egyptian nsyt was identified with the restless dead and was thought to be able to
inseminate sleeping victims with poison, while the Slavic nežit was identified with the
folkloric vampire of eastern Europe, a revenant which could likewise be characterised as
a nocturnal sexual predator. This paper investigates whether the European entity might
in fact be derived from the Egyptian one, and raises the possibility that – in terms of
modern medicine – both might reflect a single pathogen.

1. Introduction
The disease-causing demon with the most attestations in ancient Egyptian medical texts
was named nsy or nsyt.1 Remarkably, these Egyptian names are phonetically close to
the names of a disease-causing demonic agent that was widely feared in medieval and
early modern Europe – the Latin nessia and Slavic nežit. The Egyptian and European
entities were believed to invade the patient’s body from outside and were blamed for a
wide range of ill-defined maladies, which in both cases included headaches, vision
disturbances, dermatological conditions, fever, and aching bones. In a further overlap,
both the Egyptian nsyt and Slavic nežit were likened to revenants from beyond the
grave. In addition, the Egyptian nsyt was credited with the ability to inseminate sleeping
victims with poison, while the Balkan nežit was believed to have vampire-like powers
that likewise enabled it to force itself on individuals during their sleep.

In a context divorced from any consideration of ancient Egypt, Svetlana Tsonkova has
observed that: “The nezhit is of highly syncretic nature – an alloy between the Slavic
motives and the Byzantine influence, where the latter in its turn carry even older
motives and elements from other traditions.”2 Later she added: “In its own turn, the
Christian Byzantine tradition came as a carrier of older Mesopotamian elements.”3

In view of the similarities adduced in the opening paragraph, it is only natural to pose
the question of whether an additional element of Tsonkova’s pre-Byzantine “other
traditions” might have been the culture of ancient Egypt, and – more specifically –
whether the European demon might be derived from the Egyptian one. This paper
attempts to answer that question.

1
Urzì (2022: 93); nsy, TLA lemma 861522; nsy.t, TLA lemmas 87970 and 861523.
2
Tsonkova (2015: 90); for “motives” read “motifs.”
3
Tsonkova (2015: 101).

1
2. Egypt
Elena Urzì writes that, for New Kingdom Egypt, “The nsy (with his female counterpart
nsy.t) is the most quoted demon in medical texts.”4 Of the term nsy(t), she says:5
The etymology of its name is difficult to identify and scholars have proposed three
different hypotheses: 1) an origin from the term ins “être rouge”; 2) a derivation from
the verb ns, “einsinken, einsenken;” and 3) a derivation from the word ns, “tongue,” with
the implied meaning of “chatterer.”
By way of explanation for ins, “to be red,” we can add that Maurice Alliot concluded
nsy.t to be a feminine nisbe of the active verb ns, “to colour red,” which he interpreted
as meaning a “rush of blood.”6 Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann disfavour this option on the
basis that ns in the disease name is specified by the biliteral glyph F20 (the tongue),
whereas the same is not true for the orthography of ins.7 They prefer the second
interpretation – proposed originally by Westendorf8 – which derives from a different
verb ns, “to sink.”9

The nsy(t) was envisaged to be a malevolent spirit. Urzì quotes a spell against it from P.
Chester Beatty VI v. 2, 5-9 and notes that the “passage illustrates how this entity was
treated as an enemy coming from the Underworld; in magical spells, the enumeration of
enemies to be driven away is very common: in this passage, the nsy is linked with the
DAy- and DAy.t-demons and the unjustified dead, both begged not to kill the patient.” In
the Ramesside-era London Medical Papyrus,10 Incantation 5 – an “Invocation of the
nsy.t disease” – opens with “(O you) Weary (i.e. the dead) who come south, (O you)
Weary (i.e. the dead) who come north,”11 again identifying the agent with the ghostly
dead.12 Similarly, a spell in the 20th-Dynasty Athens Magical Papyrus (x+5.12–6.7)13
titled “Book for eliminating ns demon, nsy demon and revenants” groups the nsy(t) with
the malevolent dead whose spirits – travelling on behalf of Osiris – inflicted an
epidemic of plagues upon Egypt which killed people, birds and fish (cf. Exod. 7-11).14
In P. Deir el-Medina 1, v. 3,3–4,4, a “Spell to chase ns [male and nsy female]” states
explicitly that the disease-causing agent is an enemy who has escaped from his grave
and who is now hiding inside the patient.15 Remarkably, this is one of two papyri to
have vignettes which actually depict a nsy; in this papyrus, it is represented as an enemy
of the gods, beaten and bound by the deity Onuris; in P. Chester Beatty VI, it is being
ripped apart by crocodiles under the supervision of Re and Osiris.16
Relating such supernatural agents to human disease, Robert Ritner writes:17

4
Urzì (2022: 93).
5
Urzì (2022: 93).
6
Alliot (1955: 5), my translation from the French; Leitz (1999: 54).
7
Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann (2020: 122, fn. 467).
8
Westendorf (1970: 122, fn. 147).
9
Leitz (1999: 54); Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann (2020: 467).
10
British Museum EA 10059.
11
Köhler & Dils (2024).
12
Leitz (1999: 55, fn. 24)
13
P. 1826, National Library of Greece.
14
Lines x+6.3–4; Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann (2020: 126-128 & 130); my translation from the German.
15
Urzì (2022: 107); my translation from the French.
16
Urzì (2022: 108, incl. Figs. 1 & 2).
17
Ritner (2011: 7).

2
 The medical papyri note several related conditions that may be considered forms of
‘demonic possession’: hy.t, tmy.t, and nsy.t, all written with the deceased enemy
determinative that is indicative of their evil nature. The last is expressly stated to be
‘something that enters (the body) from outside,’ and Ebbell and others have identified it
as ‘epilepsy,’ the disease linked in early Greek thought with wrathful divine possession.

The belief that nsy(t) meant “epilepsy” was advanced in the 1920s by Bendix
Ebbell,18 and was for a long time accepted; however, this hypothesis has now been
refuted by Thierry Bardinet, Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert and Christian Leitz.19
Convulsions are not listed among the Egyptian symptoms of nsy(t), and modern
re-evaluation of Ebbell’s proposal has revealed that the only credible evidence in
favour of it consists of an overlap in some of the drugs used to treat the nsy(t) and
those advocated by Greek and Latin authors to treat epilepsy.20

The remedies against nsy(t) listed in ancient Egyptian medical texts fall into three
groups: (1) ingredients to be ingested in order to expel the demon from the
patient’s body; (2) salves and unguents for topical application; and (3) magico-
religious incantations to be recited.21 The “ritual ingredients” in the recipes of
groups 1 and 2 are examined in detail by Urzì.22 In group 3, the incantation on the
sarcophagus of a Saite-era God’s Wife of Amun reinforces the identification of the
nsy(t) as a harmful spirit, a danger to the deceased as much as to the living, and an
entity comparable to the Netherworld demons and the restless dead:23
Osiris, Wife of the God, Ankh-nefer-ib-ra glorified: may you rescue her from any
male revenant (mwt), any female revenant (mwt.t), any male enemy (xft), any
female enemy (xft.t), any glorified male spirit (Ax), any glorified female spirit
(Ax.t), any male opponent (DAy), any female opponent (DAy.t), any nsy-demon, any
nsy.t-demon, any flame, any embers, any fire (and) any evil thing of this day, this
night, of this month…

3. Europe
In medieval and early modern Europe, toothache and related afflictions of the head
were almost universally ascribed to infestation by a disease-demon, whose favoured
embodiment was as a small worm.24 The mythical worm was believed to gnaw holes in
teeth and to make its abode in dental cavities and within the jawbone;25 by extension, it
was thought able to infest bones in general and the head in particular. The entity is
mentioned in texts from both western and central/eastern Europe. Interestingly, the
names given to this apocryphal agent are phonetically close to the Egyptian terms nsy
and nsyt. The medieval Latin name for it (nessia) underpins the main Germanic term
(nesso), while the Old Church Slavonic term (nežit) underpins the entity’s name in

18
Ebbell (1927); Urzì (2022: 93, incl. fn. 25).
19
Bardinet (1988: 17-18); Fischer-Elfert (2000: 118); Leitz (2001); Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann (2020:
121, incl. fn. 461) Urzì (2022: 93, incl. fn. 26).
20
Leitz (2001); Urzì (2022: 93-94, incl. fn. 27).
21
Urzì (2022: 94).
22
Urzì (2022: 94-100).
23
Urzì (2022: 104-105).
24
Gerabek (1999).
25
Gerabek (1999).

3
Southern Slavic languages (nežit/nežid). The Slavonic term also underpins the almost
identical Romanian one (năjit), despite Romanian being a Romance language.

3.1 Latin nessia

A Tegernsee manuscript contains a 10th-century Latin worm invocation known as the

“Three Angels Charm,”26 in which three angels wander on Mount Sinai and there meet
a harmful demon called nessia. The angels ask it where it is going; nessia announces its
intention of breaking a person’s bones and sucking out their bone marrow, whereupon
the three angels adjure and constrain it. The term nesia is also found in a 12th-century
version of the same charm in a manuscript from St. Urban’s Abbey, Lucerne.27 The spell
is again in Latin, but the single demon has now multiplied into seven. As before, their
intention is “to enter the servant of God N. in order to trouble his bones, to empty the
marrow.”28 The names of the demons are Nesia, Nagedo, Stechedo, Tropho, [G]iht,
Paralisis (paralysis), Caducus morbus (epilepsy).29 Nesia is clearly just a minor variant
of nessia. Very similar sets of names are present in versions of the spell found in other
manuscripts from Germanic lands; another 12th-century example names Nessia,
Nagedo, Stechedo, Troppho, Crampho, Gigihte and Paralisis,30 and two 13th-century
manuscripts do likewise.31 The name of each demon has been linked with a particular
ailment, in some cases because it is the name of a disease in Old High German.32 Edina
Bozóky correlates them as Nessia: sciatica or arthritis; Nagedo: corrosion; Stechedo:
distressing pain; Troppho: gout (German Tropf); Crampho: cramp; Gigihte: gout;
Paralisis: paralysis.33

Hildegard of Bingen, an 11-12th century German Benedictine abbess, made multiple

references in her medical writings to nessedo (Latin; represented in various
grammatical cases). By this, she apparently meant hip pain or sciatica.34

Reverting to the 9th/10th-century, one finds vernacular spells in Germanic languages

which protect against the nessia-worm without invoking angels. These are known in
Southern German manuscripts as pro nessia (for nessia) and in Low German ones as
contra vermes (against worms). For example, a manuscript in Munich35 contains a
charm labelled pro nessia whose incantation is written in Old High German:36
gang uz, nesso, mit niun nessinchilinon,
uz fonna marge in deo adra, vonna den adrun
in daz fleisk, fonna demu fleiske in daz fel,
fonna demo velle in diz tulli
(Go out, worm, with nine little worms,
from the marrow to the veins, from the veins

26
Munich, Clm. 27152, 53r.
27
Luzern, Zentral und Hochschulbibliothek, P 34 4o, fol. v. 112.
28
Bretscher-Gisiger et al. (2013: Contents, v. 112).
29
Bretscher-Gisiger et al. (2013: Contents, v. 112).
30
Engelberg, Stiftsbibl., cod. 33 [olim 3/2] endpaper.
31
Basel, UB, cod. B V 21, 120v; Zurich, Zentralbibl., Ms. Rh. 67, p.46 bottom margin; Schulz (2012:
Section 1).
32
Kerkhof (2018).
33
Bozóky (2013: 102, fn. 2).
34
Reiner (2014: 253).
35
Munich, BSB, Clm 18524 b, 203v; Foidl (2017b).
36
Braune & Helm (1958: 89); Watkins (1995: 522-523); Kerkhof (2018).

4
 to the flesh, from the flesh to the skin,
from the skin to this arrow)
The first line of the same spell in Old Saxon, taken from a 9-10th-century manuscript in
Vienna,37 reads:38
gang ut, nesso, mil nigon nessiklinon, ut fana
Thus, in both Germanic texts, the worm is addressed as nesso,39 with a diminutive form
that commences with nessi-.

Much later, the Latin term nessia seems to have been reprised in the German plural
noun Nöschen, the name for malicious spirits whose activities parallel those of the
harmful demon in the 10th-century “Three Angels Charm.” According to a formula in a
pharmacopoeia from 1617, the seventy-seven Nöschen said: “We go into the man’s
house and suck his blood, and gnaw his leg and eat his flesh.”40

3.2 Slavic nežit

In the Balkans, many incantations and exorcistic prayers in Old Church Slavonic are
directed against a malefic entity called the nežid or nežit.41 Prayers of this kind were
unofficial and were often condemned by the church.42 Old Church Slavonic prayer-
charms of this type, which were often modelled on Greek precursors that originally
targeted headache or migraine,43 survive on Bulgarian lead plates from the 10-13th
centuries.44 The Old Church Slavonic prayers were later translated into local
vernaculars; manuscript witnesses in Bulgarian, Russian, Serbian and Romanian span
the 13-19th centuries.45

The nežit of the Slavic prayer-charms and năjit of the Romanian ones are especially
associated with diseases of the head – maladies of the teeth and gums, headaches, and
so on. Accordingly, Ljubinko Radenković writes of “the evil being known as Nežid,
who, according to medieval apotropaisms, enters, in the shape of a worm, the human
head and bones, especially the teeth, which he bites and destroys, and is capable of
causing death.”46 Similarly, Mirko Grmek writes of “the nezhit, which enters man’s
head in order to suck his brain, crush his jaws, twist his neck, and crumble his teeth.”47
In the same vein, Yavor Miltenov characterises it as “an infection which affects brain,
ears, eyes and bones.”48

37
ÖNB, Cod. 751, 188v; Foidl (2017b).
38
Braune & Helm (1958: 89); Watkins (1995: 522-523).
39
Lühr (2017: 908-909); Kerkhof (2018).
40
Mansikka (1909: 53); my translation from the German.
41
Radenković (1997: 159-162). Apart from the type under consideration here, Timotin (2013: 241)
mentions the existence of three other types of charm against the năjit.
42
Timotin (2013: 241 & 249-251); Radenković (1997: 159).
43
Radenković (1997: 152); Miltenov (2022: 20-22). The name nežit (or any analogue thereof) is not
found in the Greek precursors; names that are actually used are discussed in Section 4.3.
44
Miltenov (2022: 31-32).
45
Miltenov (2022: 31-32).
46
Radenković (1997: 159).
47
Grmek (1959: 28).
48
Miltenov (2022: 19).

5
Here, for example, is the text of a 17th-century Serbian “Prayer Against the Infernal
Nežit:”49
Descending the seventh heaven from his abode,
Jesus meets Nežit and tells him:
“Where are you off to, Nežit?”
And Nežit says:
“I’m going into a man’s head,
to drain his brain, to smash his teeth,
break his jaws, deafen his ears, blind his eyes,
distort his mouth, crush his nose,
so that his head aches day and night.”
And Jesus tells him: “Tum around, Nežit, (and go) to the mountain
and enter the head of a stag or ram, [for]
it can take and endure anything;
be there and live until heaven and earth abide.
Fear God who is seated on the throne of the cherubs,
until He comes to judge the whole universe
and you, infernal Nežit,
harbinger of all kinds of disease!”
I exorcise you, Nežit,
leave God’s man N.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
An extended version lists the nežit’s intentions as follows:50
I am going (add. here) into a man’s head, to suck his brain, to crush his brows (var.
jaws/bones), shed his blood, scatter his teeth, deafen his ears, blind his eyes (add. warp
his neck/mouth, bulge his nose, [give] his head aches day and night, and easily paralyse
their tendons, mortify their bodies, debilitate their graces to entice the demons to torment
them).

4. Pathogenesis and symptoms

4.1 Egyptian nsy(t)

The nsyt is an entity that invades the body from the outside and causes pain.51 In Late
Egyptian, nsy carries Gardiner sign A14 as determinative,52 a “man with blood
streaming from his head […] but blood interpreted as an axe;” this glyph is used as the
classifier for words such as “die.”53 Sometimes A13, the determinative for “enemy,”54
or Z6, the hieratic substitute for A13/14,55 are used. As well as potentially causing
death, we have seen (in Section 2) that the nsy(t) was itself thought to originate in the
Netherworld, the domain of the deceased. As Urzì has commented in respect of the
nsy(t) in the sarcophagus inscription given earlier (at the end of Section 2), “this entity

49
Radenković (1997: 160-161). Some line-breaks in the original have been omitted to save space.
50
Miltenov (2022: 20).
51
P. Berlin 3038, 112 & P. Tebtunis H; Ritner (2011: 7); Urzì (2022: 93, incl. fns. 23 & 24); Leitz (2002
IV: 321). P. Berlin 3038 is also known as the Brugsch Papyrus, Greater Berlin Papyrus or simply the
Berlin Papyrus. As is the case here, locations in medical papyri (P. Berlin 3038, P. Ebers, etc.) are
often indicated by remedy/incantation number rather than page-and-line numbers. For
remedy/incantation numbering in P. Berlin 3038, see Wreszinski (1909).
52
Lesko (2002 I: 247).
53
Gardiner (1957: 443).
54
Gardiner (1957: 443); Urzì (2022: 95 & 99-100).
55
Gardiner (1957: 537); Urzì (2022: 102-103 & 106).

6
is quoted also in a funerary context, in which its function is connected with enemies to
be chased back into the Underworld.”56

As mentioned in Section 2, if nsy/nsyt is in fact the nisbe ns.y/nsy.t, this could indicate
an affliction relating to the tongue, ns.57 The demon can also invade the eyes,58 and in
Incantation 5 of the London Medical Papyrus is associated with weak eyesight.59 Both
the tongue and the eyes connect the entity with maladies of the head, which we know is
also the primary target of the nessia/nežit. However, the Egyptian demon can also enter
via the right side of the abdomen and take up residence in the belly.60 Another symptom
is bone pain; Incantation 5 in the London Medical Papyrus refers to the nsyt as
“breaking my bones” or to “have broken his bones.”61 Christian Leitz notes that the
nsyt-and tmyt-diseases are closely related – Incantation 60 in the London Medical
Papyrus jointly targets both62 – and points out that one feature of the latter is the
shattering of bones (sD qsw).63 His comment that “The tmyt-disease is a skin disease,
perhaps involving maggots which destroy tissue and bone,”64 suggests that – like the
European nessia and nežit – one embodiment of the nsyt may have been as a small
worm-like creature.

Kasia Szpakowska observes that fevers were frequently attributed to the nsy.65
Sometimes nsy(t) and specific disease symptoms are mentioned together without a
causal relationship being made explicit. For example, a “Spell against fever and
catarrh,” has Osiris say to Geb:66
Take the male nsy, the female nsy, the male opponent (DAy), the female opponent, the
male dead (mt), the female dead who faces Anynakhte born of Wabkhe as well as the
Fever (srf) and the Catarrh ((i)r(y)-xnt) [and anything] bad or evil along, after they have
come for him for a period of (? Hr-tp) 3 days. God’s words, to be said over two divine
barks and two udjat-eyes, two scarabs, drawn on a new piece of papyrus. To be applied
at his throat, that it may drive him out quickly.

The tmyt and nsyt demons are associated with a series of dermatological complaints in
the London Medical Papyrus.67 For example, Incantation 5 (mentioned above in Section
2) against the nsyt seems to make early mention of the skin,68 and Incantation 6 [III, 2-
3] against the tmyt “shed[s] clear light on the external character of this ailment, clearly a
skin disease.”69 The range of skin afflictions may have included leprosy.70

56
Urzì (2022: 94, incl. fn. 29).
57
Faulkner (1962: 139); Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann (2020: 122, fn. 467).
58
P. Ebers 751, online at Popko & Sinclair (2024); Urzì (2022: 93).
59
Leitz (1999: 55, [II.8] incl. fn. 28); Köhler & Dils (2024: Saying 5).
60
Ebers 201 & 209, P. Hearst 211.
61
Leitz (1999: 55); Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann (2020: 122, list item b), my translation from the German;
Köhler & Dils (2024: [2.5]).
62
Leitz (1999: 81, rubric [XIV, 8]).
63
Leitz (1999: 55, fn. 25).
64
Leitz (1999: 57, fn. 49).
65
Szpakowska (2009: 801).
66
Borghouts (1978: 36-37, No 55).
67
Bardinet (1988: 17-18); Leitz (1999: 55-57 & 80-81); Lucarelli (2017: 56, incl. fn. 8).
68
Leitz (1999: Pl. 27, n. 4a); reconstruction of inm.w by Köhler & Dils (2024: Saying 5 [end 2.4], incl.
fn. 3).
69
Leitz (1999: 55).
70
Bardinet (1988: 17-19); Urzì (2022: 93, incl. fn. 26).

7
Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann have pointed out that heart and breathing problems were
also symptoms of nsyt disease, and that the illness could be fatal.71 Based on the array
of symptoms, in which they understand ns.yt (as a nisbe of ns, “to sink”)72 to refer to
depressions in the skin,73 they have speculated that disease may have been
tuberculosis.74 In their thinking:75
The “breaking” of the bones can be interpreted as bone tuberculosis. Bone substance is
melted down. Cavities and prolapse abscesses form. […] Bone tuberculosis eventually
breaks through the skin and forms fistulas. In addition to this and other skin
disfigurements, the “skin-wolf” (Lupus vulgaris; especially in the area of the face or
limbs; nodules disintegrate, resulting in disfiguring mutilations) and Tuberculosis
papulo-necrotica (central decay and crusts), which may have motivated the Egyptian
name nsy.t “deepening.”
While their preferred diagnosis is tuberculosis, Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann concede that
the symptoms of nsyt are also consistent with other very different pathologies, such as
malignant basal cell carcinomas that attack bones.76

4.2 Latin nessia

In western Europe, nessia or nesso was thought to be able to break a person’s bones and
suck out their bone marrow, as well as suck their blood and gnaw at their flesh. As such,
it was associated with bone pain, joint pain, arthritis and sciatica (Section 3.1). In
western Europe it seems that nessia invariably manifested as a worm. Although worms
were believed to cause dental pain, Latinate spells against toothache do not specifically
name nessia as the agent.77 Nescia/nessia has a likely cognate in the Middle Latin
sciasis, which carried meanings as varied as “lumbar insufficiency / loin pain” and
“tumour on the thigh.”78

4.3 Slavic nežit

More detail is available for central and eastern Europe, as the nežit concept has
persisted there into modern times. The primary embodiment of the demon – namely, a
worm – and its preferred target tissues – the victim’s head, teeth, jaws, brain, ears, eyes,
nose, neck and bones – have already been adduced in Section 3.2. Nikolay Ovcharov is
at pains to stress the seriousness of the illness:79
It causes a severe disease, which is clearly not just a disease of the gums. On the basis
of the discovered lead amulets, it is hypothesized that it is a severe inflammation in the
head – perhaps meningitus purulenta.80 The symptoms can be interpreted in different
directions, including the thesis that nežit was understood as a generalized concept of
mental illnesses.

71
Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann (2020: 123, list items f, g)
72
Westendorf (1970: 147).
73
Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann (2020: 122, list item c).
74
Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann (2020: 119-124); Urzì (2022: 93-94, incl. fn. 26).
75
Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann (2020: 123-124); my translation from the German.
76
Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann (2020: 124).
77
Schulz (2012: Group 3); Foidl (2017a: Group 3).
78
“Lendensucht, Geschwulst am di(e)ch (Oberschenkel);” Reiner (2014: 253).
79
Ovcharov (1997: 107); my translation from the Bulgarian.
80
A bacterial infection of the subarachnoid space, a part of the meningeal linings that separate the brain
from the skull; in the modern world, it constitutes a medical emergency (Fantin & Lefort 2001).

8
Summarising and extending this, Svetlana Tsonkova tells us that, in Balkan Slavic
countries:81
The nezhit is a supernatural illness-perpetrator, believed to cause health problems, mainly
connected with the head. In one word, the nezhit can be defined as “personified
headache”. The actual medical diagnosis varies significantly: migraine, fever, brain
tumors, teeth and gum afflictions (for instance, gingivitis), eyes and nose inflammations,
contagious infections of the bones and the joints, meningitis purulenta, or different
mental disorders. In comparison, the Romanian tradition (where the nezhit appears too)
associates it also with afflictions like stomatitis ulcerosa, catarrh, various skin diseases
or purulent wounds. […]
According to the Bulgarian tradition, the nezhit appears mainly as a perpetrator of
illnesses of the head and of the senses. Interestingly enough, the Bulgarian nezhit does
not have so much of a connection with fever.
Emanuela Timotin confirms and elaborates as follows:82
The long description of the possible demonic attacks reveals that both in the Romanian and in
the Slavonic charms the năjit is mainly inclined to afflict the patient’s head or each part of the
patient’s head, which are all carefully enumerated: teeth, ears, mouth, nostrils, jaws, eyes, and
so on. Although the last part of the depiction of the malefic acts indicates the patient’s veins or
blood as possible targets, the năjit seems highly connected to the patient’s head, which
associates the magical disease with a sort of headache or migraine. This interpretation
reconciles the multiple meanings of the word: the năjit, viewed as a magical disease, covers a
large semantic area, where it can acquire either a general meaning (headache, migraine) or more
particular meanings corresponding to the disorder of each organ of the head (rhinitis, stomatitis,
otitis, and so on).
In Romania, the term remains in use to the present day:83
In contemporary Romanian, the polysemous word năjit is used mainly in popular language. Its
principal meaning is that of disease, which can be a specific one; that is, earache, gingivitis or
toothache, or a general one, since the term is also described as the “name generically given to
neuralgias, to toothaches, to inflammations of the ears, etc.” (see Dicţionarul 1971, s.v. năjit).
The word is also employed in veterinary medicine as a disease manifested by the eruption of
some boils on the skin of sheep, by the inflammation of the udder or of the leg of sheep or of
cows, and it also belongs to magical terminology, designating the demon that inflicts the
diseases described above.

4.3 Similarities and differences

From the foregoing sub-sections, we can see that both the Egyptian and European
demons invaded the patient’s body from outside and were blamed for a wide range of
ill-defined maladies, which in both cases included headaches, eye disorders, fever, skin
diseases and bone pains. With regard to this last category, the nsyt, nežit and nessia are
all described emically as breaking their victims’ bones. Both the Egyptian and European
diseases could prove fatal.

In respect of vision disturbances, the Slavic nežit is strongly associated with headache,
and the incantations to dispel it were modelled on Greek precursors that targeted

81
Tsonkova (2015: 85-86).
82
Timotin (2013: 249).
83
Timotin (2013: 239-240).

9
migraine,84 whose demonic cause was in many texts named Abra, Aura or Antaura.85 It
is therefore of interest to see Elena Urzì write, in dismissing the identification of the
Egyptian nsy(t) as epilepsy,86 that: “while the presence of this demon in the eyes could
be associated with the aura (the first step of a seizure), it is also true that the latter is
also a symptom of migraine headaches.”87

Despite much overlap, the attributes imputed to nsy(t) and nežit were not identical. The
Egyptian agent could also cause constipation and abdominal blockages,88 maladies not
commonly attributed to the European one. The latter agent usually took the form of a
tiny parasitic worm that invaded and took up residence in the head – especially the teeth
– and in the bones. Embodiments of the Egyptian nsy(t) may have included maggots
(Section 4.1), which would have been classed as worms, but nsy(t) was never explicitly
called a worm or given a determinative consistent with that classification (e.g. Gardiner
signs I14 or I15).89

The substantial correspondences in mechanism and symptoms identified above are

augmented by one additional – and striking – overlap in the powers attributed to the
malicious agent. Specifically, the Egyptian nsyt was believed to be able to assault
sleeping victims in the manner of a sexual predator, while the Slavic nežit has been
identified with the folkloric vampire of eastern Europe, which could likewise behave as
an incubus. The topic is sufficiently complex that it has been awarded its own sub-
section, the final one in this section.

4.4 Rapacious revenants

We have already noted (Section 4.1) that the Egyptian nsy(t) was regarded as a
revenant-like Netherworld spirit. It seems that both the masculine and feminine forms –
and perhaps especially the latter – could be characterised as a malevolent ghost that was
able to inseminate sleeping victims with poison and thereby cause disease. Taken
together, the feminine gender and sense of sexual promiscuity afforded by the word nsyt
suggests to me that this term may have an (as yet unrecognised) connection to the
Demotic word nsy, which is thought to mean “whore.”90

Wolfhart Westendorf opens his analysis of Egyptian incubus-demons by noting that:91

demons had a variety of options for conveying illness to their victims: messengers were
sent out as helpers, a breath of destruction struck the person; still other phenomena are
referred to as the blow of evil forces. In addition, there was apparently also the idea that
demons would approach sleeping, and therefore particularly defenseless, people at night,
lie with them and impregnate them with their poisonous semen. The word for semen,
mtw.t (WB II 169), also means “poison” (especially of snakes); so there seems to be the
idea of a magical active ingredient, the positive or negative effect of which manifests

84
In literal terms, the Greek calls migraine the “half-head-ache” (Barb 1966: 2) and has the demon target
“the half-skull” (Kotansky 1994: 70-71).
85
Barb (1966: 2-3); Kotansky (1994: 58-71).
86
Ebbell (1927: 14).
87
Urzì (2022: 94).
88
Popko & Sinclair (2024: Eb. 201a & 209); Westendorf (1970: 147); Urzì (2022: 93 & 95).
89
Gardiner (1957: 476).
90
Johnson (2001 N: 121); Blumell & Dosoo (2018: 228, fn. 76); Dosoo & Preininger (2023: 85, note to
lines 3, 7, 8, 13). Unfortunately, I have been unable to access the discussion of the Demotic term nsy
in the P. Krall (= P. Vienna 6521-6609) given by Hoffmann (1996: 315-16, n. 1797-1798).
91
Westendorf (1970: 145); my translation from the German.

10
 itself in individual cases. The fear that a haunting dead person could have intercourse
with a woman is expressed in a magic spell to protect the newborn child (Ram. IV C 21
ff.). Guardian gods are invoked so that the ghost should not “perform sexual intercourse,
pour out semen and embrace at night, and not kiss during the day.” “Your semen is
ineffective,” it says at the end of the incantation, i.e. the harmful effect of the demon is
seen in the semen-poison that is lowered into people; and it is the night in which the
harmful activity of the demon is feared. These two factors (semen-poison and night) will
be referred to several more times.
The normal requirements for human copulation are not required for this type of
demonic insemination, for “the idea of demonic intercourse is here separated from the
natural pairing (male demon – earthly woman) and transferred to the level of a demonic
influence on humans that can be seen as punishment, without taking into account the
gender and age of the victims.”92

Of the nsy(t) – which in Westendorf’s convention is rendered nsj(.t) – he writes:93

Urine from a virgin is also used against the unidentifiable demonic illness nsj.t (Bln. [=
P. Berlin 3038,] 109). In a magic spell (Pap. Beatty VI Rs. 2, 2-9)94 the nsj-demons are
asked not to “fall on the patient (hAj)” and “not to carry out their usual activities on
him;”95 furthermore, the four guardian spirits of Osiris are called upon to “guard” the
patient, just like Osiris. It is therefore possible to see ghosts appearing at night in the nsj
demons that “affect” people. If hA or hj “husband” is actually derived from hAj “fall,
descend” […then], in a parallel for nsj, one could think of a derivation from ns “sink in”
or nsw.t “a sinking”96 (Med. WB pp.479-480). The step up to the Latin incubare “to lie
down” would not be very far in either case. In the stomach diagnosis Eb[ers] 201,
constipation is addressed as a case of demonic illness (hj.t) and described via the
following comparison: “it is like a nsj.t phenomenon that has settled in the abdomen.”
Another spell against the nsy and tmy.t commands that they “Do not fall upon NN born
of NN in the night, by day, at any hour!”97
After citing evidence that Seth lies behind the “donkey-shaped fiend” hj.w,98 which in
female form (hj.t) assumes the role of a disease-demon (PT 324; §523),99 and after
characterising aAa as a disease-causing “demon-semen” imparted nocturnally by
ghosts,100 Westendorf elaborates:101
We encounter the donkey again in an obviously magical drug against the nsj.t disease:
in Eb[ers] 756, the two testicles of a red(?) donkey, finely ground and mixed in wine, are
drunk by the patient. The whole procedure will be based on the idea that by destroying
and “cannibalically” consuming the donkey’s testicles, the demon’s activity based
specifically on this organ will be destroyed or that the demon’s powers will be
appropriated. The same consequence can be found in a magic spell against the aAa-poison
(Pap. Med. London 38). Here, too, the evil is tackled at the root: in analogy to the

92
Westendorf (1970: 146); my translation from the German.
93
Westendorf (1970: 147); my translation from the German.
94
British Museum EA 10686, v. 2, 2-9; Gardiner (1935: 54).
95
Borghouts (1978: 36, No 54).
96
Leitz (1999: 54) renders nsw.t as “hollowing.” Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann (2020: 122, fn. 467) dislike
Westendorf’s understanding of “sinking in” as a description of incubus-like activity on the basis that
he “must assume a previously unproven transitive meaning of the underlying verb.”
97
Borghouts (1978: 35, No 53).
98
TLA lemma 97800; Westendorf (1970: 148).
99
Westendorf (1970: 147).
100
Westendorf (1970: 146).
101
Westendorf (1970: 148); my translation from the German.

11
 separation of Seth’s testicles mentioned in the magic text, in which the Mafdet cat was
apparently involved, the phallus of a donkey is recreated using cake dough (?), the name
of the “enemy” (i.e. the suspected ghost) was written on it, and the whole thing was
stuffed into fatty meat and thrown to the cat to eat. According to the basic rules of magic,
the incubus’s member [= phallus] is destroyed and his plan is thwarted.

We must now turn our attention to the western European tradition, where the -a ending
of nessia suggests that the malevolent worm was considered to be feminine.102 The
same is not true of the central/eastern European tradition,103 where nežit is
grammatically masculine,104 and thus envisaged as male.

While a tiny worm would not be able to present itself as to humans as a sexual predator,
it seems that embodiment as a diminutive nematode was just one of several options
available to the nežit. Nikolay Ovcharov writes:105
It is noteworthy that the evil nežit is present in the beliefs of all Slavic peoples. Among
Russians, Poles, Czechs, he appears as a demon similar to the devil. For Montenegrins,
nezhitŭt is the devil himself. Croats and Slovenians also know him, but call him by other
names due to the influence of the Latin tradition in their cultures. For Serbs, he is an evil
spirit that makes a person neither alive nor dead. […] Hristo Gandev suggests that he is
a vampire, the soul of a dead relative who attacks the sleeping, sucks out their brains,
and makes them sick.106 […] The newly discovered prayer once again poses the question
of the essence of the mysterious and terrible nežit. […] Obviously, the vampire: “undead”
is widespread as a concept among all Slavic nations.107 However, in our opinion, it is
still early and the direct data are too few to draw such firm conclusions.
Citing Ovcharov, Svetlana Tsonkova reiterates that “the Balkan traditions (Slavic and
otherwise) regard the nezhit to be an evil spirit, sometimes even the Devil himself. […
Accordingly,] the nezhit can also be a creature, similar to vampires, ‘the soul of a dead
relative, which attacks sleeping people, sucks out their brain and makes them ill.’”108
Noting that “Deeds ranging in severity from mischief to personal attacks upon people –
usually while they are asleep – may be attributed to а vampire,” Bruce McClelland
includes among the latter sexual “transgressions of personal space, such as pregnancy in
а widow.”109 Expanding upon this, he adds: “Among the activities that a vampire
engages in is sexual consort with his former wife, and this leads, almost always, to
pregnancy.”110 In a related vein, an 1896 report on Romanian vampires states that “The
nosferat would rob victims of their life force through sexual intercourse. Particularly
endangered in this respect were newly married couples. The nosferat was held
responsible both for unwanted pregnancies and for unexplained infertility, and would
only drink the blood of older people.”111 Reports insinuate that vampiric pregnancy in a
widow may have occurred in Greece as late as the 1920s.112 There is a sexual

102
Jeselsohn (2018); “Nick” (n.d.).
103
Tsonkova (2015: 96).
104
Miklosich (1862-65: 426).
105
Ovcharov (1997: 104-105 & 107); my translation from the Bulgarian.
106
Here, Ovcharov cites Gandev (1937), who himself seems to be following Conev (1910: 310).
107
Translation of nežit as “undead” is addressed in the discussion of etymology in Section 5.
108
Tsonkova (2015: 101).
109
McClelland (2000: 136).
110
McClelland (1999: 331).
111
Bohn (2019: 199)
112
Bohn (2019: 165).

12
undercurrent to almost all forms of vampirism,113 and this dimension became especially
pronounced in the Western development of the literary and cinematic vampire.114 In this
genre, the canonical vampire is well known to be a male seducer and sexual corrupter of
naïve and impressionable girls;115 in the event that he sinks his fangs into a man, “the
feminisation that penetration and bleeding imputes to the victim is obvious.”116

Before concluding this section, it would be remiss not to acknowledge that, in contrast
to Tsonkova, McClelland views the nežit–vampire relationship as one of
complementarity rather than identity. Specifically, he considers the two supernatural
beings to be independent folkloric constructs but believes that the Slavic nežit’s
propensity for blood-sucking was ultimately inherited by the eastern European vampire.
Accordingly, McClelland argues that:117
The increase in the aggressiveness of the vampire seems to occur over roughly the same
time period as the decrease in aggressiveness of the nezhit. […] Conev’s definition of
the nezhit as a vampire is of course an attempt to explain a lesser known demon by a
more well known one.118 […] Meanwhile, we would speculate, the disease complex
represented by nezhit over time became less prevalent, less virulent, or both. The
attribution of blood drinking, once а characteristic solely of nezhit, was gradually
transferred to the vampire, who was becoming more visible as а generalized scapegoat.
Of course, one could argue that the characterisation of the Egyptian nsy(t) as a nocturnal
rapist is also merely an attempt to explain an intangible supernatural phenomenon in
terms of a concrete and very human one.

Given the claim that nsyt may mean “a rush of blood” (Section 2), one might
reasonably wonder if the Egyptian nsyt was not also – like the Slavic nežit – viewed as
a blood-drinker. Ingestion of blood is hardly ever demanded by Egyptian remedies,119
but a treatment for nsyt (P. Berlin 3038, 110) does require the patient to drink goat’s
blood.120 Egyptian medical preparations often contain components considered highly
attractive to the relevant disease-demon, the strategy being that “they are used as a sort
of ‘bait’ in order to get the demon to attach itself to the remedy, and then evacuated.”121

5. From epidemiology to etymology

Having examined the nature and effects of the disease-causing entities, we should return
to the names and examine their relationships in more detail. The etymology of the
Egyptian names was provided in Section 2, as it afforded insight into the likely nature
of the demon and the illnesses with which it was associated. It is now time to examine
the linguistic circumstances of the European nessia/nežit.

113
Graham (2023).
114
Frayling (1991: 387-388).
115
Evans (1973: 361-363).
116
Graham (2023: 42, fn. 77). On the male homoerotic themes in Dracula, see Hindle (2003, xxxiv-
xxxv); Craft (1984).
117
McClelland (2000: 135-137).
118
A position articulated earlier by McClelland (1999: 288). We encountered Conev (1910)’s
identification of the nežit with the vampire in the previous block-quote (an extract from Ovcharov),
where the opinion was attributed to Gandev (1937).
119
Ebbell (1927: 15).
120
Urzì (2022: 98).
121
Urzì (2022: 97).

13
The etymologies of the demonic worm’s names in the various European languages are
obscure and contested, and the Latino-Germanic and Slavic terms have only
occasionally been compared or considered collectively. Some scholars presume the
terms are linguistic cognates, related either through derivation from a common root or
through lateral exchange as loanwords;122 other scholars disagree, and consider the
words to have independent origins.123

Although it is possible – and perhaps even likely – that the European terms nessia and
nežit are cognates,124 it is highly improbable that they are derived from the Egyptian
words nsy and nsyt. Although the term nsyt appears in a word-list from the Greco-
Roman period,125 there is simply no evidence for uptake of the Egyptian term nsy(t) into
later Graeco-Egyptian medico-magical texts, such as the Papyri Graecae Magicae,126 or
for their incorporation into Byzantine medico-magical handbooks or amulets.127 Nor,
with the possible exception of ⲛⲟⲩⲥⲉ in PCM I:6 (a “Horus-Isis narrative charm for
sleep or love”),128 does any memory of them seem to be preserved even in the Coptic
spells of Christian Egypt.129 In the absence of an intermediate stage that could have
allowed transmission of the names from ancient or Late Antique Egypt to medieval
Europe, we must conclude that the alluring homeophony of nessia and nežit with nsy
and nsyt is most likely spurious. An additional point in favour of this conclusion is that
there are satisfactory derivations for the Latin term (and its derivatives) from Greek
terminology relating to pain and disease, and – while several divergent etymologies
have been offered for the Slavic term – there is still no need to posit an origin for it in
an Egyptian loanword. Plausible roots for the European words are discussed in the
remainder of this section.

As a malady, nessia is almost certainly identical to the disease that the 5th-century CE
physician Marcellus called nescia, an illness with indeterminate symptoms which
seemingly was known to Pliny the Elder (1st century CE).130 If so, the true origins of the
Latin word nessia may lie in the Greek ischias-, a term for sciatica, rheumatism, and
bone pain,131 or perhaps in the Greek nósos, the word for disease.132 On the other hand,
some scholars have proposed that the Latin and German names (nessia/nesso) are
derived from the Latin nescius, “unknown,”133 just as their Slavic counterparts
(nežit/nežid) have been translated as meaning “what it is, is unknown.”134

122
Mansikka (1909: 52-53); Grafenauer (1937: 292); and especially Tsonkova (2015: 93-94), where the
equivalence of Byzantine, Slavic and Western European forms is accepted.
123
Ohrt (1930/1987: col. 437); Timotin (2013: 252, fn. 40); Topčić (2016: 148-149);
124
E.g. Tsonkova (2015: 93-94) treats the charms for nessia and nežit as variants of a common tradition.
125
P. Tebtunis H; Leitz (2002 IV: 321).
126
Betz (1986); Faraone & Torallas Tovar (2022).
127
Schlumberger (1892); Spier (1993).
128
The Demotic word nsy, which could be connected with the Egyptian nsy(t) (Section 4.4), is thought to
underpin the Coptic word ⲛⲟⲩⲥⲉ, a hapax legomenon which appears in this spell (Blumell & Dosoo
2018: 228, fn. 76); Dosoo & Preininger (2023: 85, note to lines 3, 7, 8, 13).
129
Meyer & Smith (1994); Sawy (2021); Dosoo & Preininger (2023).
130
Mansikka (1909: 52-53).
131
Reiner (2014: 253); Topčić (2016: 148).
132
Wiktionary (n.d.).
133
Kerkhof (2018).
134
Translated as quid sit, ignoratur (what it is, is unknown); Miklosich (1862-65: 426).

14
Others contend that the word nežit is a compound of the Slavic words for “not” and
“living,”135 which – when translated as “undead,” as is frequently the case136 – accords
well with the nežit’s earlier identification with the vampire (Section 4.4). Accepting the
first but (as already noted) not the second interpretation, Bruce McClelland writes:
In а seventeenth century [Bulgarian] prayerbook, for example, we find а very curious
prayer against the accursed nezhit. Here, nezhit is thought to “suck out brains, destroy
the teeth, break jaws, cause deafness and blindness, lock the mouth, block the nose and
cause continual headaches.” (MS No. 622, 133, NВKМ) Considering such а painful array
of symptoms, it is no wonder the disease would be called nezhit: for anyone stricken with
such а disease would certainly not feel like living, and it is hard to imagine how anyone
could really recover. Ivanicka Georgieva is of the opinion that nezhit personified Death
itself. “In all probability, nezhit was an evil spirit of unclear origin and countenance, а
personification of а seriously diseased condition, the cause of all diseases.” (Georgieva,
170)
Of course, if the origins of the word nežit actually lie in the Latin nessia or its
antecedents, the “not living” explanation would be reduced to a convenient folk
etymology. Happy coincidences of this kind are in fact quite common.137

In sum, the terms nsy/nsyt and nessia/nežit must be deemed linguistic “false
cognates”138 – words that appear to be cognates because they sound similar and possess
similar meanings, but which actually have different etymologies. If one chooses to
emphasise the differences in semantic range between the Egyptian and European terms
– e.g. deeming inadequate the slender evidence (Section 4.1) that the nsy(t) could adopt
a worm-like form, and accepting McClelland’s argument (Section 4.4) that the nežit was
not really a revenant – then one must instead opt for the term “false friends,”139 an
expression coined to designate words in foreign languages that look or sound similar to
a word in one’s own language, but which carry significantly different meanings. False
friends may even be linguistic cognates, but that is clearly not the case here.

6. Concluding remarks
The phonetic proximity of nessia and nežit to nsy and nsyt is provocative, and the
overlap in functionality between the demons is striking, but the evidence suggests that
the Egyptian and European words are etymologically unrelated. Unless one is willing to
espouse the kind of linguistic naturalism advocated by Plato’s Cratylus140 – in which
case nessia/nežit and nsy/nsyt could all reflect the demon’s “True Name” – the
similarities must be dismissed as coincidence. One might point to the similar situation
that obtains with the name of the Egyptian god of magic, Heka (HkA), and the name of
the Greek goddess of magic and witchcraft, Hekátē (Ἑκάτη); despite their seemingly
compelling functional and phonetic overlap, they too are linguistically unrelated.

135
Grmek (1959: 28); McClelland (2000: 132); Timotin (2013: 241, fn. 8); Tsonkova (2015: 100).
136
E.g. Besprozvany (2022: 181); the interpretation of nežit as “undead” was anticipated in the block-
quote by Ovcharov in Section 4.4. Google Translate, too, routinely translates нежит (nežit) from
Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian and Romanian as “undead” (see online at https://translate.google.com/).
The interpretation is discussed by McClelland (1999: 287).
137
E.g. Graham (2022: 11).
138
Moss (1992).
139
Chamizo-Domínguez (2008); Härmävaara & Frick (2016: 116).
140
Sedley (2006).

15
6.1 Mesopotamian heritage

Rather than originating in Egypt of the 2nd millennium BCE, the true genesis of the
demonic tooth- or bone-worm concept appears to lie in the Ancient Near East of same
period;141 a cuneiform tablet from Nippur dated to ca. 1800 BCE provides a herbal oil
to treat “a tooth that has a worm.”142 The idea that the worm bores into the jawbone and
can afflict the entire head was carried forward in Neo-Assyrian medical texts: “The
door is flesh, the bar is bone; through the flesh it [= the worm] entered, it raised the
bone, it bit the flesh, it broke the bone, it threw illness on the teeth, it threw fever on the
head.”143 In southern Iraq, the tooth-worm remained a popular folk-belief even into
modern times, persisting until the mid-20th century.144

The Akkadian word for worm/maggot – tūltu – is grammatically feminine, as indicated

by the t suffix on the stem (tūl),145 so some translators into English choose to render the
worm as a female entity – a demoness.146 As we have seen (Section 4.4), the gender of
the noun used to name the malevolent worm remained feminine in the western
European tradition, but switched to masculine in the central and eastern European one.
Indeed, in the Balkans, it seems that an anthropomorphic alter ego of the parasite was
considered to act like a nocturnal sexual predator. Surprisingly, a related power had long
ago been attributed to the Egyptian nsy and nsyt, despite the latter being grammatically
feminine. The Egyptian–European correspondence suggests that it may have been
common for pre-industrial cultures to articulate the modus operandi of their disease
demons in terms of sexual assault of sleeping victims; the analogy is a natural one,
since both circumstances involve the unwanted penetration of an external agent into the
body of a defenceless individual. Other examples of the correlation may exist in
modern-day tribal societies.

Monika Schultz has observed that “breaking bones, sucking out the bone marrow and
drinking the blood already appears as a fixed pattern of damage in the description of the
ancient oriental disease demon ‘Lamaštu,’” and notes that the same activities are
ascribed to the nessia-worm.147 This points to an ancient Near Eastern – and
presumably Semitic – origin for the powers attributed to nessia and nežit. However, the
specific tissue sequence that occurs in exorcistic cures – an expulsion command that
starts in the bone marrow and proceeds, stepwise, outwards to the skin and thence to an
external object – seems to reflect a deep Indo-European motif.148 We encountered a
clear example of this sequence in the Germanic pro nessia / contra vermes incantation
(Section 3.1).

To bring the discussion full circle, we should point out that a genuine Egyptian
counterpart to the Mesopotamian tūltu-worm did exist, and note that it was not the
nsy(t). Papyrus Anastasi IV, a 19th-Dynasty document (ca. 1292-1185 BCE), refers to a

141
British Museum (n.d.); Boiy (2004: 26 & 38); Reiner (2006: 466, s.v. tūltu, sense 1b); ETANA
(2007); Speiser (2011: 72); Lambert (2013: 400); Tsonkova (2015: 101-102); Foidl (2017a); Stol
(2018: 754-755); Graham (2020).
142
Paulissian (1993: 105-106).
143
Townend (1944: 38); Collins (1999: 266-267); Kinnier Wilson (1996: 138).
144
Al Hamdani & Wenzel (1966: 60-61); Gerabek (1999: 2).
145
Caplice (2002: 11).
146
E.g., Kinnier Wilson (1996: 138); Stol (2018: 755).
147
Schulz (2012); similarly Tsonkova (2015: 99).
148
Watkins (1995: 527-528 & 534).

16
worm – the Egyptian fnT – that grows inside a tooth and causes it to ache;149 other New
Kingdom papyri refer to the worm in the same capacity, and also as a disease.150 This
name too was not transmitted beyond the domain of ancient Egyptian influence, and
there is no indication of its subsequent diffusion to medieval Europe.

6.2 Etiological unity amidst etymological diversity?

The overlaps in symptoms and perceived mechanism of the Egyptian nsy/nsyt and
Latin/Slavic nessia/nežit raise the possibility that – despite the names not being
linguistic cognates – the underlying disease may nevertheless, in many cases, have been
the same. If the ideation of a “parasitic worm” that dominated the European etiology
was merely an illusion that arose from (1) misidentification of exposed dental nerves or
diseased dentin tubules as worms in cases of toothache,151 (2) reification of the patient’s
sense of being consumed from within, and/or (3) misattribution of neuralgia-derived
flashes of nervous pain to the movements or bites of a macro-parasite,152 then it is much
more likely that the true disease-causing agent was a microscopic pathogen – a virus or
bacterium. For me, the most convincing modern identification of the Egyptian nsy(t) is
that of Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann (2022),153 who consider it to have been the bacterial
disease that we now call tuberculosis (Section 4.1). One reason why this identification
is so compelling is that paleopathological studies suggest an infection rate of at least
50% in the ancient Egyptian population;154 naturally, the disease was also endemic in
medieval Europe.155

Unless progression of the disease is checked by powerful antibiotics, tuberculosis

infections can spread from the lungs to many other organs, and the resulting secondary
infections can cause a wide range of painful disabilities and disfigurements.
Accordingly, Mycobacterium tuberculosis infections – which in the primary infection
cause coughing, fever, night-sweats and weight-loss156 – can progress to “breaking
bones” and producing unsightly skin lesions (Section 4.1). Skeletal involvement may
include spinal tuberculosis (typically kyphosis, i.e. spinal curvature, which results in
postural deformities) and tuberculous arthritis (usually affecting the hip and knee),157
while (as mentioned earlier by Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann) cutaneous infection
typically results in Lupus vulgaris, in which disfiguring dermatological plaques or
patches develop on the head or neck, especially the nose.158

Moreover, headache – the principal discomfort attributed to the nežit – is a leading

symptom of cerebral tuberculosis and tuberculous meningitis.159 While much of the
dental pain attributed to the “tooth-worm” would no doubt have arisen from ordinary
tooth decay and spontaneous abscesses, another chronic cause could have been oral

149
P. Anastasi, British Museum EA 10249, 12.5-13.8; Leek (1967); Forshaw (2009).
150
Listed in Caminos (1954: 197).
151
Reiner (2006: 466, s.v. tūltu, sense 1b); Colgate (2023).
152
Misidentification of the thread-like dental nerve as a worm
153
Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann (2022: 123-124).
154
Fischer-Elfert & Hoffmann (2022: 123).
155
Daniel (2006: 1863).
156
Heemskerk et al. (2015: §3.2).
157
Heemskerk et al. (2015: §3.3.6-7).
158
ScienceDirect (2024).
159
Heemskerk et al. (2015: §3.3.4); Meyer et al. (2016); Kumar et al. (2016); Meningitis Now (n.d.).

17
tuberculosis, which results in painful mouth ulcers and other soft tissue lesions, loss of
teeth and lesions in the jaw-bone.160 Equally, the reputation of nessia/nežit as a blood-
sucker has real-world correlates not only in the coughing-up of blood associated with
pulmonary tuberculosis,161 but also in the rectal bleeding that frequently accompanies
gastrointestinal tuberculosis.162 Other types of secondary infection include cervical
lymphadenitis (scrofula, i.e. swelling of the lymph nodes of the neck) and cardiac
tuberculosis (which usually manifests as tuberculous pericarditis accompanied by
fever).163 Systemic symptoms of secondary infections generally include fever, malaise,
and weight loss.164 While coughing is not prominent among the symptoms listed in the
ancient or medieval sources, post-primary (i.e. extra-pulmonary) tuberculosis infections
do not cause coughing in their own right.165 Currently, some 20 % of active tuberculosis
cases in the U.S. are exclusively extra-pulmonary;166 much higher proportions would
have been possible in past societies where primary infections could not be cured and
hematogenous dissemination to secondary sites would have been the norm.

In short, it is worth considering that tuberculosis infections may have underpinned a

large proportion of cases attributed to both the Egyptian nsy(t) and European
nessia/nežit. In this regard, it is intriguing that the causative agent was in both cases
likened to a malicious revenant, because 18-19th century Euro-American folk-belief
held that the progress of what we now know to have been tuberculosis infections within
households – the death of one family member, followed by the slow wasting of other
individuals infected by the first patient – was due to vampirism on the part of the
deceased victim.167

© Lloyd D. Graham (2024), excluding third-party quotations. v.01_21.05.2024

Cite as: Lloyd D. Graham (2024) “False friends among the disease-demons? On the Egyptian nsy/nsyt
and Latin/Slavic nessia/nežit,” online at https://independent.academia.edu/LloydGraham.

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