# Fan Death **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 11, 2006, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fan-death/376115 "2006-10-11T22:43:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fan-death/376115/21 "2006-10-12T20:58:53Z")
Oh… another way to tackle the “lowers denfenses” argument. If the body temperature does not change, then defenses ought not be lowered. Slight breezes (like the one I encountered yesterday and today) aren’t going to budge your body temperature one stinking bit. Also, as my doctor told me, significant heat will do just a good a job of lowering defenses as significant cold. However, I have not encountered the belief or have experienced myself heat leading to symptoms. In fact, the folk remedy for a cold is to get as warm as possible. I think the body merely senses cold and turns on symptoms. (Maybe the reason it doesn’t react to heat is that there’s a lot a person can do to shield from cold, but very little to shield from heat. And besides, when one has a fever he will normally try not to do anything to make himself even hotter anyway. Unless he’s Russian.) ---
**Author:** ![MelCthefirst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@MelCthefirst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MelCthefirst)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fan-death/376115/22 "2006-10-12T21:29:23Z")
On a related note, I discovered that the Japanese believe many things that Westerners would think wacky - one of the wackiest (although I never heard anyone talk about Fan Death - probably because I lived in the North and it doesn’t get very hot for very long) is that men will lose the ability to have sex if they watch their wife give birth! ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fan-death/376115/23 "2006-10-12T21:33:05Z")
**Re: "hermesis"** Neither Wikipedia nor 3 pages of Google turned up anything on this word. Cite? ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2006, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fan-death/376115/24 "2006-10-12T23:14:59Z")
[Quote=bouv] I realize sometimes doctors do drill holes in heads, but not to let out demons. [/quote] [QUOTE=Mangetout] So you’re saying they just _leave the demons in there_? That’s unbelievable. [/QUOTE] No, of course not. We flush them out with enemas. _Holes in the skull_ are used to treat fever (and sometimes in cases of intractable Onanism). ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fan-death/376115/25 "2006-10-13T06:26:32Z")
[QUOTE=Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor] Re: “hermesis” Neither Wikipedia nor 3 pages of Google turned up anything on this word. Cite? [/QUOTE] Sorry for the mispelling, but it’s good this gives me the opportunity to present links. (Hey, I accept ya’ll for the lazy one-handed mouse clickers that you are… mostly cuz i’m really lazy too and am just going to paste the first few decent links from google. Also, the quotes aren’t necessarily the most informative, convincing, or interesting parts of the linked pages. Just the first. But it’s enough for the purpose.) From [Wikipedia:Hormesis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis): In toxicology, hormesis is a dose response phenomenon characterized by a low dose stimulation, high dose inhibition, resulting in either a J-shaped or an inverted U-shaped dose response. A pollutant or toxin showing hormesis thus has the opposite effect in small doses than in large doses. As an example, challenging mice with small doses of gamma ray radiation shortly before irradiating them with very high levels of gamma rays actually decreases the likelihood of cancer. There is a similar effect when dioxin is given to rats. Exerpt from fancy-shmancy [sounding] [journal article](http://www.ehponline.org/members/1998/Suppl-1/357-362calabrese/full.html): The concept of chemical hormesis has a long history, originating over a century ago from the research of Schulz (1), who noted that many chemicals were able to stimulate growth and respiration of yeast at low doses but were inhibitory at higher levels. This concept of a generalized low-dose stimulation-high-dose inhibition was gradually supported by similar observations with other chemicals and eventually became known as the Arndt-Schulz law. Although Schulz (1) ushered in the so-called modern concept of hormesis, Paracelsus (2), writing in the 16th century, likewise noted that various toxic substances may be beneficial in small quantities. Despite the widespread recognition of apparent hormetic effects, which continued into the early decades of the 20th century, Stebbing (2) argues that the Arndt-Schulz law gradually fell into disuse because it did not provide an adequate explanatory (i.e., mechanism-based) capacity. Nonetheless, over the years a continuing stream of observations has been reported (2) in toxicological publications and the broader biological literature that document low-dose stimulations. From [Answers.com](http://www.answers.com/topic/hormesis) _(biology)_ Providing stimulus by nontoxic amounts of a toxic agent. your response is another example of how no one’s even heard about this stuff… conspiracy! conspiracy! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Alex\_Dubinsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dbc845/32.png) [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fan-death/376115/26 "2006-10-13T06:30:58Z")
And about hole drilling… Pst, I’ll bet getting a hole dug in your skull once in a while will make you strong as bull (as we russians say) against meningitis. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fan-death/376115/27 "2006-10-13T06:55:39Z")
Fan death? Husbands rendered unable to perform \* for life\* after seeing their wife give birth? This stuff is classic! As a minor hijack, could someone possibly provide any sites that list more of these wacky, generally eastern/asian beliefs? One couldn’t make this stuff up… If anyone needs to run an experiment, I may have an unusually high tolerance to fans during sleep because I’ve had one in my room for about seven years. What can I say, my room is stuffy. Perhaps we can develope a vaccine. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fan-death/376115/28 "2006-10-13T07:00:33Z")
[QUOTE=dropzone] Don’t leave us hanging, Monty. Did he survive? [/quote] She & yes, she did. It was during the summer and you can bet your bippy I had my fan going all night in my apartment also. I’m guessing she was honest and had hers going in hers. > [@](#): > > Me, I’d skip the class the next day just to jerk you around but I don’t see stereotypically earnest Korean students doing that. Just the unstereotypically wise-ass ones. That would be a good joke. Anyway, these were Korean teachers who teach English in the public and private schools (not the _hagweons_). ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2006, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fan-death/376115/29 "2006-10-13T07:31:17Z")
> [@](#): > > [QUOTE=bouv] > What really grinds my gears is this: > > These are men of science, and they are perfectly happy believing that a fan will kill someone just by being in the same room as them. That would be like an American doctor drilling a hole in a patient’s head to release the demons. (Note: I realize sometimes doctors _do_ drill holes in heads, but not to let out demons.) [QUOTE=Mangetout] So you’re saying they just _leave the demons in there_? That’s unbelievable. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Alex\_Dubinsky] And about hole drilling… Pst, I’ll bet getting a hole dug in your skull once in a while will make you strong as bull (as we russians say) against meningitis. [/QUOTE] [/QUOTE] _ **Peter** : Egon, this reminds me of the time you tried to drill a hole in your head, remember that? **Egon** : That would have worked if you didn’t stop me._ - Ghostbusters (1984) Regarding the fans, I think this is similar to the idea some people have that aquarium snails kill fish. The prosaic explanation is that fish just die for other causes and then the snails get blamed for doing the cleanup duty they were made for. [http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200609/kt2006091017514911980.htm](http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200609/kt2006091017514911980.htm) > [@](#): > > Do Electric Fans Cause Death? > > … > > Korean news sources regularly report on cases of “fan death” every summer and this year several incidents have reportedly occurred. The prosaic explanation: heat was there already, fans are useless when heat and humidity reach dangerous levels. > [@](#): > > While many people in Korea have believed these theories for a long time, some are beginning to refute them. > > Regarding the hypothermia theory, they explain that this only occurs when the body’s core temperature drops below normal, and will not be caused simply by decreasing the body’s surface temperature. > > With the suffocation matter, they ask those who believe in fan death why skydivers or people who stick their head out of moving car’s windows don’t die from the “vacuum effect.” > > For the last theory they note that regular fans don’t create or cause chemical reactions. Experts blame the media for spreading lies and misleading the public. > > “Korean reporters are constantly writing inaccurate articles about ‘death by fan,’ describing these deaths as being caused by the fan. That’s why it seems that fan deaths only happen in Korea, when in reality these types of deaths are quite rare. They should have reported the victim’s original problems such as heart or lung disease, which are the main cause of death in these cases,” said Lee Yoon-song, a professor at Seoul National University’s medical school. “If a Western doctor investigated these deaths, he would say what really caused the death, and say that the fan was merely beside the victim,” he added. That Korea times article also has this comment: > [@](#): > > I almost died of fan death just now…laughing at the seriousness with which this article was written! Been here for 3 years and had not heard this…now I am choking on my morning cereal because of these damn fans! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fan-death/376115.md?page=1)