The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1890-05-15
CHAPTER LXVII.
POPULAR FAII.ACTEa


The Russian Gen. KamarofF, after serving
his country against Is different nations, re-
cords his experience that " the viest marauders
are the hardest to suppress. Decent enemies
like the Hungarians and Turkish regulars"
lie says, will make n stout resistance but stick
TO their contract after losing a reasonable num-
Der of battles and negotiating q truce Such
rab5e as the Bashi Baz0ukS and Tartar BUSH
whackers, on the other hand, will run like dogs
at the first charge, but come back by round
about trails and worry you day after day till
your very Chaplans would refuse to try SOL
der on a charge of blasphemy"
1t is much tho same with popular fallacies.
The silliest and most mischievous of them are
the hardest to abolish. PardOnable errors will
consent to disappear on the first conclusive
demonstration Of the truth. This first nayiga-
tors of tho Southern Pacific foil into tho natural
mistake of describing Tasmania as a peninsula
OF the Australian continent, but at once aban-
doned that theory when q more thorough ex-
plorer demonstrated its erroneousness by sail
ing through Bass Strait Tho "West Indian
hypothesis of Columbus was dism Used when
his countrymen reached the west shore of the
new continent; but for at least IL centuries
the witchCraft delusion defied all arguments
and still continues its wil-of- tn wisp flickers
IN the more benighted regions of Christendom
The tenacity of sanitary errors, too, seems pro-
portioned to the degree of their absurdity
many ingenious tHcOTlsS OI mOueTn DdtDOiO-
gists have yielded to new revelations in the
progress OF science, while various banefuI and
extravagantly absurd popular decisions seem
absolutely argument proof.
THE ORIGIN OF "CoLDs."
No logic, no lessons of experience for IN
stance, have as yet availed to shake the fOun-
dations of the popular catarTh superstition
large number, even, of intelligent physicians
avoid discussion OF the topic, apparently rccOg-
nizing the bopelessncss of combating tho
strength of deep-rooted prejudice and yet
il might DO questioned if any other supersti-
ton whatcver-the sorcery- deusiOn not ex-
cepted-has afflicted mankind with greater or
more widespread evils. In the middle of the 18th
century-the very midnight period of medieva
ignorance, the number of persons burned on a
charge of witchcraft never exceeded an aggre-
gate Of 10000 per year, while in the United
States alone consumption has frequently
claimed an annual number of moro than sc, 900
victims. According to tho evidence of very
careful statistics, the total aggregate Of death
from disease i'll 1870, for instance, did not much
exceed 100000. OF that number 60 900 died of
consumption go, $50 by the revised Ieports),
5000 from wbooping cough, 81, 600 from pneu-
monia tagain emitting the terminal fgures),
and nearly 10000 from Group; in other words,
an aggregate of 10000 in q single year, all
from disorders of the respiratory organs. Tho
statistics of Western Europe would swell that
aggregate Ia half million, and tho experience
of future generations will prove that nine
tenths Of that enormous number of victims
owed their fate TO some form Of the cold
superstition.