Old wives' tales: win a few, lose a few

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, science, myths, anthologies

Want to know if you really should "Feed a cold and starve a fever"? Anahad O'Connor can tell you; just e-mail him at scitimes@nytimes.com . You may also find an answer you need in his collected articles at NY Times.

Or, you can read his new book Always Follow the Elephants: More Surprising Facts and Misleading Myths About Our Health and the World We Live In. There, in the first segment of Chapter 7, he writes that food helps both colds and fevers, particularly when the "fever" in question is influenza: Eating revs up the immune system, particularly against viruses. He doesn't mention the case when "fever" refers to malaria, and it may be malaria that the proverb refers to. I learned long ago that those who are overweight suffer more from malarial attacks than their more slender peers, which is the probable source of the saying.

Also, according to the title, if your friendly neighborhood elephant suddenly wants to head for the hills, it is a good idea to follow. Elephants can hear or feel low-frequency sounds we cannot detect, and strong "infrasound" typically precedes large storms, tsunamis and earthquakes. The many reports of animals of all kinds "going crazy" just before earthquakes indicates that most of our furry friends have low-frequency senses we don't have or don't use.

O'Connor writes the "Really?" column for the New York Times, in which he either confirms or debunks all kinds of "old wives' tales" and other myths. In the book there were a few that tickled me:

• For a burn, use honey instead of aloe. The sap of Aloe vera will help smooth your skin, but it doesn't soothe.
• Less stress = less acne, so tell your teenagers to chill out.
• Also offer them a cup of tea: it is found to reduce stress, whether black, green or Oolong.
• We know that daily aspirin in small doses (one baby size, or 80mg) is good for the heart; it turns out that a larger dose (perhaps one adult size, or 250mg) is good for the brain, making it more resistant to Alzheimer's dementia.

On the other hand, there are a few old myths that are spectacularly wrong, such as "urine on a jellyfish sting". Aside from the grossness, it just doesn't work. It make things worse. Vinegar works much better.

This book and its precursor, Never Shower in a Thunderstorm are good reference books to put alongside all those Book Club and Readers' Digest "hint" books, which contain some of the very myths O'Connor debunks.