Antioxidant Vitamins, Cancer, and Cardiovascular Disease

In 1850, an article on the origin of epidemic yellow fever and malaria appeared in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. 1 The anonymous author referred to earlier reports that “those who slept under musquito [sic] netting escaped the disease” and that “a gauze screen in a window adds much to the security of . . . the occupant of a chamber, in even the most unsound places.” These observations, which now seem prescient, were used to support the theory that epidemics result from infective spores carried by the wind from decaying organic matter; the netting and screens were believed to . . .