Muscle
from L. musculus "a muscle," lit. "little mouse," dim. of mus "mouse" So called because the shape and movement of some muscles (notably biceps) were thought to resemble mice. The analogy was made in Gk., too, where mys is both "mouse" and "muscle," and its comb. form gives the medical prefix my-/myo-. Cf. also O.C.S. mysi "mouse," mysica "arm;" Ger. Maus "mouse, muscle," Arabic 'adalah "muscle," 'adal "field mouse."
source: http://www.etymonline.com
In1st century CE, Pliny the Elder, in his book Natural History wrote:
Mice are the most prolific of animals; they conceive by licking rather than by coupling, or by tasting salt. The mice in Egypt walk on two feet, as do the Alpine mice.
Some kinds of mice gnaw at iron by instinct; in the country of the Chalybes they also gnaw at gold in mines, and when their bellies are cut open stolen gold is always found. The appearance of white mice is a good omen. Shrew-mice do not associate with mice from another forest, but fight with them to the death. When their parents are old, they feed them with remarkable affection. Mice hibernate in winter; this is the time when the old ones die.
In 7th century CE, Isidore of Seville in his book Etymologies, wrote:
The mouse (mus) is a small animal; some say it is born from earth (humus).
A mouse's liver gets larger at the time of the full moon.
Around the same time, a German scholar by the name of Link, in his book Urwelt described: a creature called springmaus in German, found in Egypt in the area of Thebes. He wrote that when he first saw the springmaus, the front quarters of its body – the head, the chest and the forelegs – seemed well formed, while the rear quarters appeared to be unformed earth. A few days later, the entire mouse became flesh.
"The rat Benda running across your path from left to right is good; from right to left fairly good; should it appear from the left and run ahead in the direction you are going, 'Oh! that is very good!' but should it run towards you, well, then the best thing for you to do is to go back; for you are sure to meet with bad luck!"
from: Fetichism in West Africa
by Rev. Robert Hamill Nassau
[1904]
Jokes:
The National Institutes of Health have announced that they will no longer be using rats for medical experimentation. In their place, they will use attorneys. They have given three reasons for this decision:
1. There are now more attorneys than there are rats.
2. The medical researchers don’t become as emotionally attached to the attorneys as they did to the rats.
3. No matter how hard you try, there are some things that rats won’t do.
Three rabbis are standing around schmoosing when one of them says, "We've got a terrible problem with mice in the basement of the shul. Traps, cheese. Nothing works."
The second rabbi says, "Same thing with us. We tried it all. Still we have mice."
The third rabbi says, "We had the very same problem - but not anymore!" Now the other two rabbis are interested. "How did you do it?"
"It was easy. I went down to the basement, gathered all the mice together and performed a mass bar mitzvah. We haven't seen any of them since!"