The network attributed to the American writer a quote with a warning about the danger of reading medical books. We decided to check if Mark Twain said something like that.
This phrase is possible Meet On numerous sites with collections Quote. Publisher ""Eksmo»Twented it in the list of bright Aphorisms. Users are divided by it social networks (For example, "VKontakte","Classmates" And Facebook*), publish it in blogs on different platforms ("Zen" Livejournal, "Picabu").
“Verified” failed to find this phrase in any of the works of Mark Twain. There is no one in digitized archives Mark Twain Projects Onlinecollected with the support of the University of California in Berkeley (USA), not in the base Twain quotes, which includes texts belonging to Peru Mark Twain or dedicated to the writer, and which Recommends To the study of the house-museum of Mark Twain in Connecticut. In a large electronic Archive Mark Twain, collected by the library of the University of Virginia (USA), was also nothing of the kind.
But a similar phrase Found In the German periodicals, Der GesellSchafter Oder Blätter für Geist und Herz with attribution with a completely different author: “The late doctor Hertz said to the patient, accustomed to treating himself with the help of medical reference books:“ Be careful, you will die from the typo! ”. The article with this quote was published in 1817.
A year later, in the German magazine Die Lechte: Ein Zeitblatt Für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Leben note With a similar quote: "He will die because of a typo!" - said Marcus Hertz about who treated himself from books. " In both texts we are talking about Marcus Hertz, a German doctor and philosopher, who lived in the XVIII century. Mark Twain It was born only in 1835, that is, 18 years later than the first appearance of such a warning against self -medication in the press.
Hertz was called the author of this phrase and later, for example in book Gustav Pollock “Hygiene of the soul: memoirs of a doctor and a philosopher” (1910): “There is nothing more touching-mocking than to see these unfortunate people who rummage in medical books to rewrite recipes and health tips. One of them, Dr. Herz, once said: "My dear, you will someday die of a typo." It is noteworthy that Herz himself died in 1803, and during his lifetime such statements, judging by his sources studied, was not attributed to him, so his authorship also in question.
By data The Quote Investigator project, which specializes in checking the correctness of the attribution of quotes, was first connected with the tweet phrase about death and a typo only in 1972. Then a journalist Stan Delaplein In one of his “postcards” (the so -called its column with notes from travel) in The Lincoln Star wrote: “Be careful when reading medical books. You can die from a typo. Who said that? I think Mark Twain. " In 1978, in the article, for the same publication, Delaplain claimed that the author is Twain, more confidently: ““ Never read medical books, ”said Mark Twain.“ You can die due to a typo ”.” In 1987, compiler Books “The wit and wisdom of Mark Twain” Alex Aires included this quote in the collection - probably, after that Twain began to attribute the authorship of this statement.
Thus, there is no reason to believe that Mark Twain has any relation to this quote. She met in print a few decades before the birth of the writer. It is not even known whether he had ever pronounced this phrase, since it was not possible to find it in any of the written sources that remained after him. The first case of mentioning the name Twain in connection with this statement occurred 60 years after his death. Most likely, the writer was attributed to the writer by mistake, since he was really very witty and could well utter anything like that.
*Russian authorities They think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social network Instagram, an extremist organization, its activities in Russia are prohibited.
Photo on the cover: Mark Twain, Public Domain, Via Wikimedia Commons
Incorrect attribution of quote
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