by Steve Book

Some time ago I was asked to review a pre-publication copy the the premier issue of Acta Obscurata, a journal that was to be dedicated to the presentation of little known scientific information. Having spent some time in obscurity myself, I thought this new monthly would be of considerable value.

This first issue consisted of several papers distributed among four different sections. I've summarized their high points as follows.

Great Inventions

Two interesting papers were in this section. The first was a rather brief review of the invention of standing up straight, something I must confess I had never though much about, obviously failing to understand the gravity of the situation. The man responsible for our erect stance, or course, was the famous Louis Posture.

The second paper concerned the development of the knee by a Dr. Patella, and down-and-out surgeon and part-time cabinet maker, who was tired of being unable to climb stairs or put on his pants by himself. I was fascinated to read that he had actually put on one of his earlier models incorrectly. Given his kindly nature, however, he didn't mind, and he would actually bend over backwards to help out some of his friends. When he finally got the knee to work right, he called what it did "benz," in honor of his wife, Mercedes.

Regional Linguisitics

The paper in this section presented a profile of Pavlov, who loved to listen to the voices of women from the southern part of the United States. He was captivated by their accents. He swooned over their melodic speech. After hours of listening to them, he would be in ecstacy, almost to the point of drooling. Late in his life, in fact, Pavlov would salivate at the sound of a belle.

Detectives in Biology and Medicine

This was a special section, and within it was the well-known tale of Sherlock Holmes' contribution to anatomy:

As Watson was naming the various parts of a cadaver, he pointed out the gastrointestinal tract, which reminded him somewhat of a strange, weird, even eerie canal.

"Holmes," he said, "this organ needs a name. Can you suggest one?"

Holmes looked at the good doctor and replied, "Alimentary, my dear Watson. Alimentary."

Anatomical Surprises

The final paper reported the discovery of he preserved head of Chico Cacciatore, chef-turned-outlaw of the late 1800s. His head, it was claimed, was found in a Northern California tomato field.

Now, for those of you who don't follow local legends, Chico was though to have been decapitated, and his head, stashed in a pickle jar. Perhaps it was stored there for future use, because those were hard times, and it was difficult to get ahead.

"Bunk," I said to myself when I read the paper, and not because I was getting tired. I doubted the authenticity of the find.

I felt my doubts were justified, since I personally knew a woman who claimed to have the actual head of Chico Cacciatore. She told me that the head in Acta Obscurata was that of Juan Dos-Tres, frontier mathematician. She also had in her collection the head of Chico Cacciatore as a small boy, lending credence to her claims, if only because her two heads were better than Juan's.

I complained to the editor about the fraudulent paper. Because of my objections, the journal never did appear in print. I was sorry that Acta Obscurata never succeeded, even though I was responsible for its demise. It would have filled a need. Nevertheless, its extinction underscores for each of the the importance of publishing truthful material above all else.

A version of this piece first appeared in the Davis Enterprise.
 
 

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