A strange trend among Japanese school-aged children and teens -- licking a friend or lover's eyeballs -- may be perplexing, but experts are more worried about the germs they are potentially spreading.
"This is a dangerous practice which has the potential to spread a number of bacteria that reside in the mouth to the eye resulting in bacterial infections such as conjunctivitis to styes as well as abscesses involving the lids and eye socket," Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, told CBSNews.com.
Eyeball licking, which is also known as "worming" or oculolinctus, has existed for quite some time, and there are numerous clips of people engaging in the act on YouTube. Japanese blog Naver Matome interviewed one concerned teacher who said that he ran into two sixth grade students licking each others' eyeballs in an equipment room. After he confronted them, they admitted it was popular in their class. His independent survey of students confirmed his fears: One-third of the children admitted to eyeball licking.
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