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Pseudodoxia Endemica

WILLIAM B. BEAN, M.D.

AMA Arch Intern Med. 1960;105(2):184-193.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Who has not wondered at man's marvelous talent for making mistakes and then perpetuating them? The capacity of the human mind to deceive itself knows hardly any limit. The luminous wisdom of Wilfred Trotter threw no light on his "mysterous viability of the false." Arthus D. Little said that "error and misconception have a feline tenacity upon life." Once, before this society, I read a paper dealing with one aspect of what I called "the melancholy longevity of error."

My title suggests that error has a natural history: birth, life, and death in the biological sense. Not only is this an oversimplification, but if it were true it would be too somber a topic for your edification and pleasure. Therefore, I shall touch on a few general principles in the genesis, evolution, and survival of error. These I shall illustrate with a series of non sequiturs in perfect sequence—examples ranging . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
Iowa City

From the Department of Internal Medicine of the College of Medicine of the State University of Iowa, Iowa City.

Footnotes
Submitted for publication June 8, 1959.

Presented at the annual dinner of the Association of American Physicians, Atlantic City, May 5, 1959.

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