When the Earth was flat PDF
Preview When the Earth was flat
For Rhona, as ever, and with very special thanks to Kath ‘Kay-Dee’ Davies, who selflessly moved heaven and earth to give me the time to bring the manuscript in on time. First published in Great Britain in 2012 by Michael O’Mara Books Limited 9 Lion Yard Tremadoc Road London SW4 7NQ Copyright © Michael O’Mara Books Limited 2012 All rights reserved. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978-1-84317-868-2 in hardback print format ISBN: 978-1-84317-925-2 in EPub format ISBN: 978-1-84317-926-9 in Mobipocket format Cover design by Ana Bjezancevic Designed and typeset by K DESIGN, Somerset Picture research by Judith Palmer www.mombooks.com Contents Introduction Having Your Bumps Felt: The physical measurements of the skull correlate to a person’s personality Bad Vibrations: A battalion of marching soldiers can cause a suspension bridge to collapse Going For Gold: All base metals can be turned into gold Good Vibrations: Hysteria is the sole preserve of women and it can only be alleviated by genital stimulation All Smoke and Quivvers: Tobacco can cure a variety of health problems Hey, Hey, We’re the Monkeys!: Injecting monkeys’ glands into humans encourages sexual rejuvenation From Mendle to Mengele: The selective breeding of humans can weed out the weak from society Plane Stupidity: The earth is flat From Popcorn to Mozart: Humans can be influenced by subliminal messaging Victoria’s Secret: Cocaine and heroin can cure a range of man’s ills Heaven Scent: Disease is caused by foul smell and lack of personal hygiene The Origin of the Specious: There is a missing link in the evolutionary chain Serving One’s Fellow Man: African and Polynesian societies indulged in cannibalism Rats Get a Bad Press: The plagues of the Middle Ages were bubonic and carried by rats’ fleas Who’s Your Daddy?: Offspring can inherit characteristics of previous mates of the female parent Subterranean Homesick Blues: The earth is a hollow vessel Are Bears Polar?: The bodies of animals contain a life energy that can be influenced by external magnetic forces Liquid Assets: The body is made up of four humours – blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile Bibliography Index Introduction FROM ANCIENT TIMES to the modern day, science has strayed many times from the truth. Often these discoveries have been dictated by the constraints of contemporary thought. Limited by their lack of knowledge of the human anatomy, the Ancient Greeks developed the theory that the body is made up of four humours, an idea that held sway until the march of scientific medicine in the nineteenth century. Other times these ideas were the result of pure folly, such as the seemingly innocuous development of phrenology – a concept used to justify genocide in Rwanda in the late twentieth century. Sometimes scientific ‘facts’ have been explored in an effort to lend false support to a hidden agendum, including the appropriation of the entirely spurious notion of subliminal messaging by politicians and the Christian Right. Despite the questionable nature of these ideas, When the Earth Was Flat will highlight how man has been – and perhaps always will be – at the mercy of science. Thankfully not all the bits of science we got wrong have had such a devastating impact; some of the examples in this book will raise a smile. Whether it’s the alchemists’ search for the philosopher’s stone – the vehicle through which all base metals could be turned into gold – the somewhat surprising history of the vibrator, or the many proponents of the hollow earth theory, the annals of science are littered with strange people and their even stranger ideas. What is perhaps most surprising is that some of science’s most spurious ideas have only recently been relinquished. No matter how advanced today’s medical and scientific thinking might be, who is to say that in one hundred years’ time a book similar to this one will be ridiculing today’s received wisdom. Having Your Bumps Felt The physical measurements of the skull correlate to a person’s personality THE MAJORITY OF the scientific frivolities of previous centuries inflicted little or no real harm during their reign, and evaporated without much trace in the light of new discoveries. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the pseudoscience of phrenology, which caused wide-ranging injustices and misery in its time and, most damaging of all, reached out from its own grave to promote genocide at the close of the twentieth century. THE GALL OF IT The father of phrenology was the German physician Franz Josef Gall (1758– 1828), a product of the University of Vienna, an institution that served as a breeding ground for several other spurious notions about the human race (see here). Gall developed the theory that the human brain is comprised of twenty- seven distinct zones, each of which is a wholly separate and autonomous organ with individual responsibility for certain functions, characteristics and pre- dispositions. The phrenological bust LESSONS IN IDIOCY By 1925 the University of Vienna had become an intellectual hotbed of racist ideology. The most notorious and far-reaching of such notions was Rassenpflege – the quest for racial hygiene. Professor Otto Reche, director of the university’s Department of Anthropology, was the most vocal proponent of such ideas, proclaiming, ‘Rassenpflege must be the basis for all domestic policy and at least a part of foreign policy as well.’ The more an individual used one of the zones, or allowed themselves to be driven by the emotional or physical urges dictated by it, the larger that zone would become – similar to an overused muscle. In Gall’s defence, his findings were not completely off the mark: it is now known that certain areas of the brain are linked to specific functions or temperament, and that some of these areas can become enlarged with mental exercise. Had Franz Gall finalized his research at this point, no harm would have resulted. His error was in expanding the basic premise into the foundation stone of a sizeable edifice of speculation and assumption. By 1805 Gall had decided that the twenty-seven zones must be responsible for the lumps and bumps on the anterior of the skull, which they pressed against as they swelled with exertion.
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