Miscellaneous Entries

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NOTE: Here is transcribed, as closely as possible (warts and all), the text as it appears in the source entries but sometimes only incomplete segments. For internet readability some discrepancies involving formatting and accents are likely. Do not always expect accuracy in the entries themselves (which is not to deny their “truth” or value or even, shall we say, occasional accuracy), but innaccuracy is often the least of their offense: what we call sexism, racism, homophobia and just a general colonial Western superiority complex pervades much of the popular knowledge of the late 19th and early to mid 20th century. I suggest, however, you resist the urge to judge too much from a position of 21st century self-righteousness, for how much has really changed? How much of our contemporary knowledge is inaccurate, dogmatic, prejudiced and offensive in ways we can and cannot even recognize?

This is a work in progress…

Professor’s Daring Experiment. [Segment from entry, Man And His Environment.]
The body can only build up a good resistance to invading germs, and thus demolish them, when it is in a good state of nutrition. Professor Pettenkofer of Munich drank a broth containing a plentiful supply of cholera bacteria. But he did not contract the disease. This, he contends, is evidence that bacteria can lodge in the body only if it has been weakoned beforehand. A good environment, then, is the best protection against micro-organisms. It is not any particular germ that man need fear but rather a lowered vitality which enables any and every germ to carry out its destructive work.
–From The Miracle of Life. General Editor, Harold Wheeler. London: Odhams Press Limited, 1938. pg. 376

Why is the nose placed over and near the mouth?
Because, as one of the chief duties of that organ is to exercise a watchfulness over the purity of the substances we eat and drink, it is placed in that position which enables it to discharge that duty with the greatest readiness.
–From The Reason Why: A Careful Collection of Many Hundreds of Reasons for Things Which, Though Generally Believed, are Imperfectly Understood. New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, Publishers, 1860. pg 241.

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