Myths that have been accepted as reality by experts for centuries
Myths that have been accepted as reality by experts for centuries
As our understanding of the world expands exponentially, we are beginning to take scientific facts for granted with myths. However, these facts were actually the result of centuries of interpretations and experiments. In centuries past, scientists and physicians relied on their theories, which were in fact based on purely religious convictions rather than scientific evidence. In this section, we will examine the most common myths that scientists once held.
Myths about The illness spreads through contaminated air
The “miasma” theory was one of the most widely accepted explanations when it came to explaining the origins of certain diseases like chlamydia, cholera, and the black death. The unclean air, or miasma, that results from the erosion of decaying organic matter in still swamps and cemeteries is the source of diseases, according to this idea. The wind blows it along.
Since ancient times, the miasma theory has been accepted in Europe, China, and Southeast Asia. However, in the 1850s, this theory was contested by doctors like John Snow, and it was finally disproved by Robert Koch in 1876, who established that the bacterium Bacillus anthracis is the cause of carbuncles. Malignant, after which the germ idea gained traction.
Before visiting the sick, wash your hands.
Before the year 860, due to the lack of knowledge about germ theory, the belief that hand Gentlemen are always clean, and the fact that doctors were nobles, they did not wash their hands before examining patients or dissecting corpses. They also did not wash lab coats or bed linens, and only cleaned surgical instruments before storing them.
When Hungarian doctor Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis advised that doctors should wash their hands, he was ridiculed until he had a nervous breakdown and was locked up, but after the germ theory was developed, hand washing and surgical instrument disinfection became commonplace.
huge spans spanning continents
Before the theory of tectonic plates emerged, geologists believed that the continents were connected by land bridges and that they are now submerged under the surface of the ocean. However, geologists now agree that the earth’s surface is actually made up of numerous plates that live on and move over the earth’s crust.
After discovering that some fossils and geological features of one continent match those of another, despite having enormous oceans separating them, scientists began to develop the bridge ideas.
As a disinfectant, mercury was employed.
Today, we are fully aware that mercury is a highly toxic substance and an environmental pollutant, but in the past, scientists, doctors, and even common people used this liquid silver because they thought it was a miraculous substance that could cure the majority of illnesses. It is also well-known that in 210 BC, the Chinese Emperor Qin wanted Shi Huangdi to become immortal, so his doctor gave him mercury-containing pills, which ultimately caused his death.
Suffocation results from fast travel.
Can you imagine travelling without railroads? It’s one of the cheapest and most popular forms of land transportation, but before railroads were developed, people had a very unfavourable perception of anything that moves quickly. They thought that moving at speeds above 30 mph would cause them to suffocate, and when railroads first appeared, they believed that using them would harm their brains because of the jerky movement.
The media frequently covered stories about “railway lunatics” throughout the 1860s and 1870s, and it became usual to hear about people who behave strangely when riding trains. As a result, psychologists wrote about this phenomenon, but in the end it went away because it appeared unpredictably.
No space in the cosmos, according to scientists, is empty.
Ancient and mediaeval academics thought that ether, a material that occupies the space above the atmosphere and serves as a medium for the transmission of light, existed before the idea of space. When Einstein’s theory of relativity came along and resolved the ether problem, which was a dilemma since it was thought to be non-existent, many physicists undertook numerous experiments to find physical evidence of the presence of ether without Feasibility.
As an aftershave moisturiser, use petrolatum.
Because it smelled good and was used in the nineteenth and early twentieth century when scientists were unaware that benzene was a carcinogen, it was used in a variety of ways, including as a conditioner after shaving, and it became widespread in most industries in 1903 before being banned. It was once employed as an industrial solvent to remove the caffeine from coffee; chemists even used it to wash their hands; but, as soon as the dangers of its use became apparent, it was gradually phased out.
Myths about The tongue’s mode of operation
In order to differentiate the various regions of the tongue in different colours, scientists have created what is known as a flavour map. Up until recently, scientists thought that each part of the tongue only responded to a certain taste.
Cereals can produce mice as babies.
Farmers thought that soiled garments on a bucket of wheat would cause the grain to mate and produce mice until the middle of the ninth century. Farmers came to believe that mice were produced from grain after they observed that the barns grew crowded with mice when mice were placed inside of them. Similar findings regarding the birth of worms and flies, and the birth of frogs and beetles in the muddy soil, as well as observations about rotten meat, also surfaced.
Up until the eighteenth century, the hypothesis of spontaneous generation was widely accepted. Nevertheless, tests carried out in the following centuries by several scientists proved that even microscopic creatures like bacteria may reproduce.
Phlogiston existed prior to the discovery of oxygen.
Before the discovery of oxygen more than a century ago, scientists thought that fire was an element, and that all flammable elements contained an element called phlogisten, which resembles fire and is released into the atmosphere when the elements ignite. Johann Joachim Becher first proposed this theory in 1667. When oxygen was found in 1774, this hypothesis, which was used to explain processes like rust and combustion, was widely accepted. The phlogiston hypothesis was abandoned.