Hound of the Baskervilles effect

doi:10.1136/bmj.324.7345.1098

BMJ 2002;324:1098 ( 4 May )

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Hound of the Baskervilles effect

What about the good days?

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What about the good days?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR $---$ Phillips et al have uncovered a fascinating relation between the day of the month and the mortality rate for ChineseAmericans and Japanese Americans.¹ There clearly is an increasein chronic heart disease deaths of Chinese and Japanese on thefourth day of the month. Phillips et al attribute this to thesimilarity in the Chinese and Japanese languages of the spokenwords "death" and "four."

Have Phillips et al considered whether days with a pleasurable association might have a beneficial impact? Their analysisshows a decrease in mortality for Chinese and Japanese on days20, 26, and possibly 12. Is there any resemblance, either spokenor pictorially, between the words for those days and words evokingfeelings of relaxation, wellness, orhappiness?

John H Glaser, data analysis consultant.
4 Woodpark Circle, Lexington, MA 02421, USA glaserj@alum.mit.edu

1.	Phillips DP, Liu GC, Kwok K, Jarvinen JR, Zhang W, Abramson IS. The Hound of the Baskervilles effect: natural experiment on the influence of psychological stress on timing of death. BMJ 2001; 323: 1443-1446[Abstract/Free Full Text]. (22-29 December 2001.)

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EDITOR $---$ In a large observational study Phillips et al noted an increase in cardiac mortality on the fourth of the month amongChinese and Japanese Americans that . . . [Full text of this article]

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The Hound of the Baskervilles effect: natural experiment on the influence of psychological stress on timing of death: David P Phillips, George C Liu, Kennon Kwok, Jason R Jarvinen, Wei Zhang, and Ian S Abramson
BMJ 2001 323: 1443-1446. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]