Ah, humanity（人性）. It's a train wreck（失事）, but I can't look away. It's 1843 and a debate（争论） is raging（ 狂怒） among physicians（医生） about one of the most common killers of women. Child bed fever（发热）. Child bed fever strikes（打） within days of giving birth, killing more than 70% of those infected（传染）, and nobody knows what causes it. Obstetrician Charles Meigs has a theory.

  Having observed（遵守） abdominal inflammation（[病理] 炎症） in patients who go on to develop the fever（发热）, he claims this inflammation is the cause of child bed fever. Much of the medical establishment（确立） supports his theory. Oh, come on. They really leave me no choice but to teach them some skepticism（怀疑论）. That's better. Now, Meigs, your argument is based on a fallacy（谬误）, the false（不真实的） cause fallacy（谬误）.

  Correlation（相关） does not imply（暗示） causation. When two phenomena（现象） regularly occur together, one does not necessarily cause the other. So you say women who have inflammation also come down with child bed fever. Therefore, the inflammation caused the fever, but that's not necessarily true. Yes, yes, the inflammation comes first and the fever, so it seems like the inflammation causes the fever. But by that logic（逻辑）, since babies usually grow hair before teeth, hair growth must cause tooth growth, and we all know that's not true, right?