that would set aside with a sneer as myth and fancy the
testimonies and reports of philosophers and physicians, only
because they lived hundreds of years ago. We are keenly
appreciative of the power exercised by the myth-making faculty in
the past, but as applied to early physicians, we suggest that the
suspicion may easily be too active. When Pare, for example,
pictures a monster, we may distrust his art, his artist, or his
engraver, and make all due allowance for his primitive knowledge
of teratology, coupled with the exaggerations and inventions of
the wonder-lover; but when he describes in his own writing what
he or his confreres have seen on the battle-field or in the
dissecting room, we think, within moderate limits, we owe him
credence. For the rest, we doubt not that the modern reporter is,
to be mild, quite as much of a myth-maker as his elder brother,
especially if we find modern instances that are essentially like
the older cases reported in reputable journals or books, and by
men presumably honest. In our collection we have endeavored, so
far as possible, to cite similar cases from the older and from
the more recent literature.

This connection suggests the question of credibility in general.
It need hardly be said that the lay-journalist and newspaper
reporter have usually been ignored by us, simply because
experience and investigation have many times proved that a
scientific fact, by presentation in most lay-journals, becomes in
some mysterious manner, ipso facto, a scientific caricature (or
worse !), and if it is so with facts, what must be the effect
upon reports based upon no fact whatsoever? It is manifestly
impossible for us to guarantee the credibility of chronicles
given. If we have been reasonably certain of unreliability, we