THE INNOCENT ANTHROPOLOGIST (NIGEL BARLEY) AND CURATIVE PROPERTIES OF THE GUAVA

 Some kind soul at the mission at N’gaoundere had passed on to me the secret of curing hepatitis – a decoction of guava leaves in hot water. It certainly seemed to help more than anything else. Later I learned that a German pharmaceutical company was testing a drug based upon just this compound.

Poor Nigel! He had a really rough time in his hamlet of Cameroon. In the end, he had to have faith in traditional or alternatives methods, like everyone desperate does. The guava must have many virtues because if you write down in Google ´guava for…´ the predictive keyboard ends the sentence with ´diahorrea, anaemia, diabetes, flu, hair loss,…´ and many other illnesses that poor Nigel was bound to suffer from. So, if I had to go to some city in Cameroon by any chance, I´d look for a hut next to a guava.

HOMO ZAPIENS (VIKTOR PELEVIN) AND THE MYTH OF THE RESONANCE IN BRIDGES

-         - Do you know what resonance is?

-         - More  or less

-         - Well then: if a battalion of soldiers marches across a bridge in step, then the bridge can easily collapse- there have been cases- and so when a colum crosses a bridge, the soldiers are ordered to march out of step

It´s a very ugly thing to point out mistakes, something that we don´t want to do in this blog. Ever worse it´s to show exagerations like this, beautiful but fake. Bridges like Tacoma´s felt down because os several causes, not only resonance.

Lont time ago before Tacoma, they said a bridge in Brougthon collapsed because soldieres were marching on it, and Napoleon was known for asking his soliers to march out when they cross a bridge.