Dr. Morris Fishbein, the editor of the “Journal of American
Medical Association,” and of “Hygeia,” the popular health magazine, says, “I
have seen Eugene Debs dying in a naturopathic sanatorium which practiced the
kind of medicine that was popular in the fourteenth century; I have listened
for an hour to Upton Sinclair as he expounded his conceptions of electronic
medicine, life and health; I have read how the faithful resort to Lourdes, St.
Anne de Beupre, and the tabernacle of Aimee McPherson; I have seen thousands
struggling for the ministrations of Emile Coue; I have seen Jewish rabbis
repeat rituals which were essentially the exorcism of spirits; I have poured
over the pages of “Physical Culture,” published by Barnarr Macfadden; I have
watched colored Holy Rollers and heard the lectures of Dowie and Voliva; I have
read thousands of letters from thousands of Americans concerning their
ailments; I have seen the collection of cards cross indexing more than a
hundred thousand nostrums, quacks and frauds in the headquarters of the
American Medical Association; I listen on the radio to the services of the
First Church of Christ, Scientist; I have read the textbooks of chiropractic,
the autobiography of Andrew Still, founder of Osteopathy, Gilbert Seldes’ “The
Stammering Century,” and Dakin’s “Life of Mary Baker Eddy.” As a result of all
this I am not at all convinced that the reasoning powers and knowledge of the
average man have improved tremendously as a result of the great discoveries
made by modern medical science. His life has been made safer; his life
expectancy has been raised from some thirty years at birth to some sixty years;
and this has been done for him, not through his own volition, but because here
and there leaders of men have arisen to work for man in spite of the invariable
distrust that the average man has for expert knowledge.
Some people think that fish is a brain food and that a lot
of mackerel in the diet will convert a moron into an Einstein.
Some people think it is dangerous to sleep in the moonlight;
hence the word “luny.” In the mythology of the Egyptians, the moon was mistress
of the brain, the sun, lord of the forehead; and to various constellations were
assigned the tissues which they were supposed to govern. All this is without
scientific substantiation. The causes of various forms of insanity vary from
infection by germs of one type or another, to hereditary influences and
malformation of the brain structure.
Some people believe that rubbing one eye will help to get a
cinder out of the other eye. After all, that is better than rubbing the eye
with the cinder.
The fact that there is rust on a nail with which one is
scratched, will not particularly influence the wound, since this rust is
usually merely oxidized iron, a remedy that is not infrequently taken
internally to considerable advantage. Germs adhere both to rusty and to clean
nails and the germ most usually found there is that of tetanus or lockjaw. There
is no harm particularly attaching to the rusty
nail.
Lots of people think whiskey will cure snake bite—but where
can you find a good snake? The belief that drinking two quarts of whiskey will
cure snake bite is probably symbolic magic, based on the idea that the whiskey
will produce the vision of snakes and that the vision will remove the effects
of the bite.
Some people believe that warts can be removed by tying knots
in a string and burying the string at a cross-roads in the moonlight. In
Cheshire, warts are rubbed with a piece of bacon and the bacon is then put
under the bark of an ash tree. The villagers believe that the warts will appear
as knobs on the tree.
There is an old story about an orator who was gesturing
unnecessarily. Someone asked Senator Reed for an explanation of this phenomenon,
and he replied that the orator’s mother had been scared by a windmill.
And remember, never eat an oyster in a month without an "r" in
it.
If you drink from a garden hose you may get a snake in your
interior. Every so often the newspapers tell about the girl who had one. Here
is the simplest form of symbolic magic. A garden hose looks like a snake.
Snake oil is reputed to have all sorts of virtues for the
cure of rheumatism.
If you break out with pimples and boils, it is just the
meanness coming out.
Many people still believe that cutting the baby’s hair will
weaken it—that is the baby.
Some people believe that if one’s left ear burns it is the
sign that someone is saying mean things about one, and that if the right ear
burns, something good is being said.
There is a common notion that bear’s grease rubbed on the
scalp will prevent baldness. Experts say that, in most instances, baldness is
idiopathic—which means that nobody knows the reason for it. There are all sorts
of superstitions about the hair, and about every other matter in which
scientific explanation is lacking. Some people believe that the hair is full of
sap and that the ends must be sealed by singing or the sap will run out. The
hairs has no more sap than a walking stick. In most instances baldness is
hereditary and because of the constitutional condition the hair is bound to
fall out.
In ancient Egypt, the medicine man cured baldness by a
grease that was made from the fat of six different animals; the lion,
hippopotamus, crocodile, cat, snake, and ibex. The idea was to get the strength
and sagacity of the animals at the same time that the grease was supplied. In
early American days, bear’s grease was used for the same purpose.
The folks in many states assert that a cat left alone with a
baby will kill the infant by sucking its breath. In 1791, a jury at the
coroner’s inquest in England rendered a verdict tot the effect that a child near
Plymouth had met death in this manner. The myth is almost universal.
The Egyptians had a cat-headed goddess. The Phoenicians and
Romans also had the moon goddesses who were associated with the cat. The cat is
always associated with the moon because it is more active after sunset and because
the pupils . . .
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