Thank you for all of the responses. Everyone was pretty much right on. The fabric sheathing was covering a black (plastic or rubber) sheathing which was covering the wiring. The black part was basically crumbling off. The fabric was unbraiding as well. There was no ground wire.
Not for this particular wire but yes there is metal tube housing for some of the wiring in that area.
I took the switch off and taped near the loop where the wire was exposed. I also noticed that I could see bare wiring on one of the wires further back in the box because of split sheathing. I tried my best to tape that as well. Unfortunately all tape jobs were not very good as it was hard to get to the back portion and that portion was at a deep bend in the wire and the tape did not want to hold well (also tricking trying to wrap tape tightly enough without stripping the existing sheathing around it). It was also hard to get a good and stable wrap near the loops because relooping the wire onto the switch started messing up the tape job. Hopefully it was all good enough.
The entire task was tricky because the wire was so stiff. The loops were near impossible to (uncurl) loosen and (curl) tighten to match the screw. Also I was trying to do this without moving the entire wires much as I didn't want to mess up the old sheathings anymore more than they already were. Plus at one point (as Ron noted) I got this sinking feeling that if I messed with one of the wires anymore that it would simply snap in half at a bend.
I'm going to go back in there one more time simply to place a strip of tape on the screws as was suggested. After that I'm leaving it alone! For now, the switch seems to work. I kept the light on for awhile just to make sure nothing weird was going to happen (I don't know if that is actually a relevant test for the future though).
A couple of questions just out of curiosity. Is there such a tool that will wrap or uncoil wiring around the screws? Something that will not interfere with the screw itself. Also, the old switch had the screws at the top and on the front of the switch. Why do all current switches have them at the sides? I've never wired the old version but doing the side version was a bit of a pain...but maybe that was more because of the restrictions of wire movement. Thank you.
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