4) Does Anything Eat Wasps? And 101 Other Questions edited by Mick O’Hare
A selection of answers to questions asked by the readers of New Scientist. The most memorable ones have to do with gooey substances – honey, earwax and poo. All, however, delivered completely seriously. For example:
The surfaces of the incancescent light bulbs where I work become progressively greyer over time. Why?
This can be explained by the fact that light bulbs work not by emitting light but by sucking dark. ‘Dark sucker’ theory is too complex to be described here in detail, but it proves the existence of dark, that dark is heavier than light, that dark is coloured, and that it travels faster than light.
To answer your question, a bulb becomes darker over time because of all the dark it has sucked in. Similarly, a candle, which is a primitive type of dark sucker, has a white wick when new and this becomes black when used, due to all the dark which has been sucked into it.
[Editor’s note] Readers should be aware that the revolutionary ‘dark sucker’ theory has yet to win widespread support from the scientific community.
Maybe, but I seem to remember something pretty similar in The Third Policeman.
Oh I’m not saying Doyle was out of step — at least not with the medical establishment. As I say, he may have become gradually more aware of the negative aspects later.
But having seen how he depicts general public attitudes to opium dens and opium use, I think it’s also possible that he was reflecting a real dichotomy or debate. As with everything, I’m sure there were those who were whole-heartedly in favour and those who were totally opposed. And as you say, there may well have been a social distinction between opiates and cocaine. The impression I have is that opium and perhaps other drugs was/were disapproved of by society, but that at that time there was a much stronger feeling against government interference in people’s private lives than there is today.
Perhaps, given all this, Doyle felt that as a doctor, it was unwise to show Holmes as having a positive attitude without giving a counterbalancing opinion.