Who was the first person on record to write about the British Isles?

 
The British Isles, tucked away in the northwest of Europe, has been inhabited by humans since Paleolithic times, but the people who lived there didn't develop a writing system until much later, and the first local account of the isles did not appear until Anglo-Saxon times, around the seventh century A.D.

So who was the first person to write about the British Isles and describe its inhabitants? To find out, we need to look to the south — to the Mediterranean world of the ancient Greeks.

A Greek mariner named Pytheas made the first recorded voyage to the British Isles in the fourth century B.C. He circumnavigated the island of Britain, explored the northern lands of Europe and was the first to describe the Celtic tribes of Britain, the midnight sun, dramatic tidal shifts and polar ice. When he returned home, he wrote an account called "On the Ocean" ("Peri tou Okeanou" in Greek) that circulated widely throughout the ancient world and was read, discussed and debated by scholars for centuries.

Little is known about Pytheas. He was a citizen of Massalia, a Greek colony in what is now Marseilles in southern France, and it is uncertain whether he was a merchant or simply a gentleman scientist. The Greco-Roman historian Polybius referred to him as a "private citizen" and a "poor man." But, whatever his economic or social status, Pytheas was a skilled navigator and keen observer.

"We can judge from his writings that Pytheas had a scientific education," Barry Cunliffe told Live Science. Cunliffe is an emeritus professor of European archaeology at the University of Oxford and author of "The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek" (Walker & Company, 2002).

Pytheas made a series of astronomical calculations of latitude during this journey with a device called a gnomon, which was an instrument similar to a modern-day sundial. He accurately estimated the circumference of the British Isles — that is, the distance around the islands of what is now Great Britain and Ireland — placing it at approximately 4,000 miles (6,400 km), according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. It is not known whether he produced a map from his endeavors, though the first century A.D. Greek geographer Ptolemy, who later made a map of the British Isles, may have used Pytheas' measurements and descriptions.  

An illustration depicting Pytheas, a Greek explorer who is the first known person to write about the British Isles.

Most historians believe that Pytheas sailed from Massalia through the Straits of Gibraltar (then known as the Pillars of Hercules) aboard a trading ship and cruised north along the western coasts of what is now Portugal, Spain and France, according to Cunliffe. (Cunliffe, however, believes Pytheas went overland across France and used local Celtic boats for all water crossings.) Next, Pytheas crossed the English Channel and made landfall in what is modern-day Cornwall, where he described the flourishing trade of tin, an important commodity that was alloyed with copper to make bronze.

Pytheas continued north along the west coasts of what are now England, Wales and Scotland, where he described the area's inhabitants, a Celtic-speaking people he called the "Pretanni," or the "painted ones" in the ancient Celtic language, from which the word Britain is derived, according to Cunliffe.

From Scotland, some scholars have argued that Pytheas left Britain and ventured into the North Sea, eventually encountering a landmass he called Thule, which some have identified as Iceland, though others believe it refers to Norway.

"There is no hard archaeological evidence that Pytheas reached Iceland," Cunliffe said, "but it's not impossible."

Pytheas wrote "On the Ocean" once he returned to Massalia. Until the writings of Tacitus and Julius Caesar some 300 years later, "On the Ocean" was likely the only source of information about Britain and the northern latitudes for most of the world, Cunliffe told Live Science. There were likely copies of Pytheas's work in the great libraries of Pergamum in what is now Turkey; Rhodes, Greece; and Alexandria, Egypt.

Unfortunately, "On the Ocean" has not survived. Only fragments of it remain, paraphrased or excerpted in the writings of other classical writers such as Strabo, Polybius, Timaeus, Eratosthenes, Diodorus Siculus and Pliny the Elder. But the fragments we have are significant, Cunliffe said, as they contain a multitude of astronomical, geographic, biological, oceanographic and ethnological observations that have considerable scientific and anthropological significance.

"If we're right about the kind of person Pytheas was — with his razor-sharp, inquiring mind — he would want to communicate all this new knowledge," Cunliffe said. "He opened up people's minds to the size of the world."

https://www.livescience.com/first-western-description-british-isles

Most lies are told by a few 'superliars' and the rest of people are fairly honest, finds study analysing 116,000 fibs told by 632 students over 91 days

From little white lies to whoppers, it’s long been claimed that people on average tell two fibs a day. But according to a new study, most untruths are told by a few ‘super-liars’ and the rest of us are in fact fairly honest.

Social scientists trying to uncover the truth about lying analysed 116,336 fibs told by 632 undergraduates at a US university over a period of 91 days.

The academics discovered that most of the fibs were told by ‘a few prolific liars’ – while also concluding that only one person in a hundred never told a lie.

The authors, who were led by communication expert Kim Serota at Oakland University, added: ‘Most participants lied infrequently and most lies were told by a few prolific liars.’

They added: ‘Most people report telling few or no lies on a given day.

‘Over the past decade, the skewed distribution of lie prevalence has emerged as an exceptionally robust phenomenon.

‘The current understanding is that prolific liars are distinct and potentially identifiable people with particular characteristics that manifest through consistently telling an unusually large number of lies relative to the majority of people.’

Their analysis discovered that 75 per cent of those in the study were classed as ‘low-frequency’ liars. They also found that 90 per cent of all untruths were little white lies.

Dr Serota, whose study was published in the journal Communication Monographs, said: ‘Above all, findings from the current study document that for most people lying is less prevalent than often believed.’

He added that his work could have implications for research seeking to link lie behaviour with specific personality traits or demographic characteristics.

Dr Serota accepted that the study produced ‘inconsistent findings and has had limited success predicting who will lie’.

Analysing the difficulty of identifying liars, he said: ‘On any given day, a person’s behaviour may reflect either their dispositions or their situational good or bad lie days or both… future research needs to further unpack the interplay of individual differences, situational features, and specific deception motives.

‘Presumably, individual differences such as demographics, occupation, and personality lead people to experience different situations where the truth will be more or less consistent with communication goals.’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10099793/Most-lies-told-superliars-rest-people-fairly-honest-finds-study.html

Snake oil was used as traditional medicine throughout history. How did it get such a bad name?


Since the pandemic began, there's been talk of numerous dubious cure-alls for COVID-19.

President Trump spruiked the malaria treatment hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus, even though the World Health Organization says that clinical trials show it doesn't prevent illness or death.

And earlier this year, US TV pastor Jim Bakker was ordered to pay restitution for selling a health supplement that he falsely claimed could cure COVID-19.

Historically, dodgy remedies have been dubbed 'snake oil' and those that push them 'snake oil salesmen'.

But what are the origins of snake oil and how did selling it get such a bad name?

Healing benefits

According to Dr Caitjan Gainty, who lectures on the history of science, technology and medicine at London's King's College, snake oil was sold throughout America in the 18th and 19th century.

"Snake oil was regarded as something that was a very effective cure for a lot of different kinds of things, especially for things like rheumatism and arthritis," Dr Gainty tells ABC RN's Sunday Extra.

Some advertisements went a step further and claimed it could cure a sore throat, catarrh, hay fever, cramps and even deafness.

"Whether or not it helped in every case isn't totally clear," she says.

"But certainly, in the cases of arthritis, it seems like it did make a difference."

Snake oil has always had exotic origins, Dr Gainty says.

"Some people would say: 'This is from an African Voodoo doctor that I met or this is from a Native American or this is secured from China and brought here by the Chinese migrants who are working on the railroad'," she says.

It was used medicinally in many different cultures because of the benefits from the omega-3 fatty acids found in the flesh of certain snakes, particularly the water snake in China. This could have been why it seemed to help with ailments such as arthritis.

"But whatever the origins, the idea was that snake oil in this form was actually helpful and curative."

In the 19th century, the American pioneers, who'd likely heard about the reputed healing benefits of snake oil, would capture many of the native rattlesnakes and sent them off to be turned into oil in the hope of making some extra money, Dr Gainty explains.

Snake oil was also cheaper than other available medicines at the time. So when unorthodox medical practitioners started selling it on the travelling medicine show circuits, the public was open to trying it.

"These traveling entertaining events would move from town to town," Dr Gainty says.

"You would get great entertainers like Harry Houdini and lots of bluegrass and country music people playing. And you'd also get these people who were selling their snake oil."

What's in it?
Initially the product was what it claimed to be — namely actual snake oil. But over the years, it became unclear exactly what was in these remedies.

That was until the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act came into force and investigators began taking a closer look.

It turned out that snake oil wasn't as authentic as it was purported to be.

Dr Gainty said there was a classic example at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.

"This snake oil salesman Clark Stanley boiled up some snakes on the spot and then sort of skimmed [the oil] off and put it in bottles and said 'Here is your snake oil'," she says.

"They said, 'This is red pepper and camphor — that's not snake oil. This is a problem'," she adds.

The legislation went even further. Manufacturers were required to label their products if ingredients such as alcohol, opium, morphine, heroin, cannabis indica, chloral hydrate were present.