In winter, when millions of city dwellers breathe the air
of ill-ventilated dwelling-houses, lung infections are more
frequent than in midsummer, when ventilation is enforced by the
horrors of stagnant heat. But the coincidence of frosts and
catarrhs has decided the bias of the popular hypothesis, and in
sixteen different European languages the word cold has become a
synonym of an infection which the absolutely conclusive evidence
of physiological facts proves to be a result of vitiated warm
indoor air, and to be curable by cold outdoor air. In other
words, the best remedy has been mistaken for the cause, and as a
consequence catarrhs are considerably more frequent than all the
other disorders of the human organism taken together.--FELIX
OSWALD, _North American Review_.
(2072)
* * * * *
In October, when the first night-frosts expurgate the atmosphere
of our Southern swamps, ague and yellow fever subside with a
suddenness which would certainly have suggested the idea of
curing climatic diseases by artificial refrigeration, if cold
had not somehow become the hygienic bugbear of the Caucasian
race. Gout, rheumatism, indigestion, toothaches and all
sorts of pulmonary disorders are ascribed to the influence
of a low temperature, with persistent disregard of the fact
that the outdoor laborers of the highest latitudes are the
halest representatives of our species. “Catching cold” is the
stereotyped explanation for the consequences of our manifold
sins against the health laws of nature; but the secret of the
delusion can be traced to the curious mistakes which logicians
used to sum up under the head of “_post hoc ergo propter
hoc_” fallacy--the tendency of the human mind to mistake an
incidental concomitance for a causal connection. Woodpeckers
pick insects from the trunks of dead trees, and the logic of
concomitance infers that the decay of the tree has been caused
by the visits of the birds, which in our Southern States
are known as “sap-suckers.” Young frogs emerge from their
hiding-places when a long drought is broken by a brisk rain, and
the coincidence of the two phenomena has not failed to evolve
the theory of a frog-shower.--FELIX OSWALD, _North
American Review_.
(2073)
=Mistakes of Missionaries=--See MISSIONARIES’ MISTAKES.