ALMOST three hundred years ago, Sir Thomas Browne wrote a treatise comprising seven books entitled Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Enquiries into very many received Tenents and commonly Presumed Truths. In this work he analyzed numerous fallacies generally accepted as truths in his day and demonstrated their absurdity.The superstitions and magic rites that prevailed in the seventeenth century have been largely forgotten. But in the present scientific era, as well, theories and practices persist in medicine even though their falsity is patent or has been demonstrated. It is my purpose in this paper to inquire into some of the current pediatric . . .