Seduction by Citation

The pages of any book, tract or article dealing with medicine are apt to be profusely sprinkled with numerical superscripts (or their equivalents) guiding the reader to a reference list. Not only does the liberal presence of such reference numbers impart an aura of scholarship, but their judicious placement after this or that assertion subtly suggests documented validity. But watch out — those little numbers may be no more than the trappings of credibility. The primary sources cited may be misquoted, inapplicable, unreliable and occasionally even imaginary.The havoc raised by misquotation is self-evident, but even a literally accurate attribution . . .