| Abstrakt: |
“If certain congenital malformations can be attributed in certain animals to dietary deficiency, anoxia, cortisone, or genetic constellations, one must not conclude without further proof that comparable malformations in man are due to similar adverse conditions. Such premature conclusions, usually not drawn by the experimentor but by a reader whose imagination and beliefs exceed his knowledge, can create superstitions in modern garb. If such a reader is also a writer with access to medical or popular journals, his unfounded beliefs are carried to millions, whereby new superstitions are established. … A single observation of an abnormal child born to a mother who had been in an automobile accident, becomes, if reported in a popular magazine, psychologically, a hundred thousand observations which seem to establish a causal relationship between two events. The whispered word is powerful, but the written word endures.” Joseph Warkany, National Foundation Conference on Congenital Malformations, 1959 (1). |
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