- caterpillar. Any caterpillar that looks like a short piece of wool qualifies as an oobit (woolbit). Hairy oobits are usually the caterpillar of the tiger moth. Medical History (1825) refers to a remarkable cure:
When a boy, ill of Hooping-Cough, his mother, for the cure of that disease, tied round his neck a number of 'hairy oubets', sewed up in a piece of cloth - and with evident success.