THE PREVALENCE OF NONSENSE.

ByAshley Montagu and Edward Darling '29.New York: Harper & Row, 1967. 300 pp.$6.50.

Credulity is dead. Proof: during the past three centuries 6,000,000 scientific articles have been printed and now 500,000 scientific reports yearly. In 1968 60,000 scientific and technological journals will enlighten us. Openmindedly we may worship Fact as Benevolent Dictator. And so superstition is no more? Not according to Montagu and Darling. They assert that men are more ready to die for the preservation of the myths they believe in than for the support of truths that demonstrate those myths to be chimerical.

Ten chapters illustrate misconceptions and absurdities about the human body and mind, human customs, food, race, heroes, law, literary legends, animals, and the mythical world of nature.

Samples: Human life is sacred. More than 12,000,000 children live in grinding and degrading poverty. Salt is dangerous. No evidence. Stuff a cold and starve a fever. Nonsense. Red meat is needed for courage andstamina. A Harvard man, a Yale man, and a Dartmouth man were giving orders to. a waiter. In as deep a bass voice as the Harvard man could muster he said, "Waiter, I want two pounds of red meat. Make it extremely rare." The Yale man said, "I want three pounds of bloody, red, raw meat." The Dartmouth man said, "Hell, waiter, drive in your cow and I'll cut off my own slice." Living to 94, Shaw was a vegetarian. Fantastically ferocious, the American red squirrel subsists on pine cone cores, nuts, seeds, and grasses. Pasteurized milk is free of bacteria. False. White eggs are superior to brown. False. Honey is a cure for bronchial infections. Folk lore. Green apples cause bellyaches. No more than ripe ones. Raw eggs,especially consumed in beer, are an aphrodisiac. Alas, no. Fish food is brain food. False. A little oil or milk prevents drunkenness. False. Whiskey is a cure for snakebite. False. Freezing will sterilize. False. Thevitamin pill is a modern placebo. True.

Hair on the chest means strength. False. Handling toads produces warts. False. Sexual incontinence is harmful. Catherine the Great lived to 67, Casanova to 73. Sexualpromiscuity leads to sterility. False. Thesquare jawed are he-men; weak-chinned,sissy. Some are. Men have mechanical aptitudes not given to women. Source: women. Who wants to marry a female grease monkey? A pinprick is more dangerous than aneedle prick. Forged by fairies in Avalon, Excalibur is lovely romance but poor medicine. Lemon juice will remove freckles. Nothing will. Swallowed seeds cause appendicitis. None has ever been found in an appendix. A clean tooth never decays. An advertising slogan. A sound body is a must fora sound mind. A wistful ideal. To mix theblood of races is dangerous. Fact: Negro blood is precisely the same as that of a white, red, or yellow man. Quicksand sucksyou under. Paging John Ridd and Lorna Doone. Thunder sours milk. It does not, but warm and humid weather may.

Pigs are filthy gluttons. Question: how about your dog Fido?

Mr. Hurd is Literary Editor of the DARTMOUTH ALUMNI MAGAZINE.