Comet Cures

Odd behavior and dangerous stakes. All that and more is included in today's tour through the Cabinet.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.

(00:36):
For all of recorded history, humans have looked to the
sky for answers to our most important questions. What time
is it, what's the weather like? What is humanity's place
in the universe? That last one is a bit tougher
to answer, but the point is, as largely earthbound creatures,
people have always been fascinated by the mysteries of space,
and that certainly was the case in May of nineteen

(00:58):
ten when Halley's comment was hurtling towards Earth. Now, if
you're not familiar, Halley's comment is a regular visitor to
our solar system, passing by Earth once every seventy five
years or so. But we didn't always know that. Records
about a fiery ball shooting through the sky can be
found as far back as ancient Babylon. However, it wasn't
until seventeen oh five that British mathematician Edmund Helly realized

(01:21):
that we were looking at the same commet every three
quarters of a century, and now that comet's named after him.
But there's something else that you should know about Edmund Helly.
He didn't think the comet came just because he thought
its appearance coincided with significant world events, most famously the
Battle of Hastings in ten sixty six, when William the
Conqueror took control of England. Because of this, Halle's comment

(01:45):
became known as a harbinger of political and social upheaval.
So in nineteen ten people were primed and ready to
believe the comet would have some kind of effect on
life on Earth. Let me set the stage. This was
forty seven years before the launch of Sputnik, than fifty
nine years before Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the Moon.

(02:06):
Humans were still decades away from reaching space, but science
was rapidly advancing, and Hallie's comet was a point of
study that spring. As numerous scientists tracked the comet's approach,
a French astronomer named Camille Flammarion noticed something. According to
his calculations, Halle's comet was going to pass closer to
Earth than ever before, so close that our planet was

(02:28):
going to pass through the comet's tail, which might not
sound like a big deal, except Flammarian had also discovered
evidence of cyanogen gas in the comet's taiale. Cyanogen gas
is similar to cyanide. It's extremely toxic and often deadly.
And what did Flammarian do with this information? He published
it in The New York Times, along with the warning

(02:49):
that the dangerous gas could and I quote impregnate the
atmosphere and possibly snuff out all life on the planet.
But like no reason to panic, right, of course, people
freaked out. Some families used cock towels and newspapers to
try to insulate their homes so that that toxic air
couldn't get inside. Others removed lightning rods from their houses

(03:12):
for fear that they would attract the comet even closer
to Earth. Soon. Other scientists spoke out against Flammarian's claims,
assuring the public that there wasn't enough cyanogen gas in
the comet's tail to hurt anybody, But by then the
damage had already been done. And where there's sickness, reel
or imagined someone will inevitably show up peddling a miracle cure.

(03:35):
In the wake of this cosmological panic, gas masks flew
off the shelves so fast that store owners couldn't keep
them in stock. Advertisements for comet proof umbrellas showed up
in the newspapers. Entrepreneurs even offered anti commet pills, which
claimed to protect against the effects of cyanogen gas. People
bought these at a dollar a pop, which would be

(03:56):
roughly thirty bucks per pill today, a small price to
say you and your family from a ball of toxic
space gas. The only problem was this anti comic cure
was just sugar pills and fancy packaging. Luckily, nobody needed
protection from Halle's comment anyway. Flammarian's calculations had been wrong,
and the comet tail missed Earth by nearly two hundred

(04:18):
thousand miles. The comment did return to our solar system
in nineteen eighty six, after scientists had learned a lot
about the cosmos, and this time there wasn't a market
for gas masks and magic medicine. But nineteen eighty six
was full of historic landmarks, like the Iran Contra affair,
the space Shuttle Challenger disaster and the nuclear explosion at Chernobyl,

(04:41):
which begs the question if Halle's comment really does incite
political and social upheaval, who knows what will happen the
next time it comes around in twenty sixty one. Many

(05:06):
of us grew up hearing the following words from our
parents when we hit a certain age, get a job.
If we wanted to go out with our friends or
buy a new video game, we needed money, and once
we were old enough to get a job, that's how
we earned our keep. But at the turn of the
twentieth century, things looked a lot different For America's youth.
Children had been working in dangerous conditions and in jobs

(05:27):
that most adults were too scared to take on, either
to support themselves or their whole families. Despite what popular
movie musicals would have you believe, newspaper boys or newsies
weren't just trying to eke out a living by selling
papers on the streets. They also worked with organized crime
as informants and gophers. Many who tried to hitch free
rides on passenger trams would fall and have their arms

(05:50):
and legs crushed by the vehicle's wheels. Making their lives
that much harder. But perhaps one of the most life
threatening jobs held by children, dating all the way back
to the twelfth century, was that of the chimney sweep.
Because of their small size, the young workers would climb
into the flues to scrub them clean of soot and ash.
In England, they were often bought by adult sweeps from

(06:13):
orphanages or kidnapped from their parents. In the United States,
many were African American children. Unsurprisingly, a lot of these
kids died from various illnesses and cancers brought on by
their work. It wasn't until the National Child Labor Committee
was formed in nineteen oh four that the push to
end child labor in America really took off. But one

(06:33):
New Yorker didn't get the memo because he needed someone
to help clear his chimney, and the only person available
for the job was his nephew. In April of nineteen
forty four, Rose Colgan heard a noise coming from behind
her wall. She lived at nineteen seventy three Bryant Avenue
in an area of the Bronx known as West Farms.

(06:54):
Back in the eighteenth century, this part of New York
was a massive farm belonging to one Theophilis Hunt and
let that sink in for just a moment. It is
hard to imagine the Bronx today as nothing but rich
soil and grass. But for a very long time there
stood only a couple of houses on the land, not
a six story apartment building. Rose probably would have preferred

(07:15):
the sound of the wind blowing across the fields to
what she was actually hearing. Someone was crying day and
night for help from behind her wall, and Rose, who
lived on the first floor, reached out to her building
superintendent for help. His name was William Setzer. He looked
into the issue and discovered that someone had fallen down
the chimney on the roof of the building had gotten

(07:37):
themselves stuck in the walls of Rose's home. Unfortunately, Setzer
was too large of a guy to fit down the
chimney himself, but he knew someone who was just the
right size, his ten year old nephew, Charles. William tied
a rope around Charles's waist and lowered him down into
the chimney. All was going well until the boy had
descended about ten feet. Then his own whaling began because

(08:00):
now he, too was stuck. His uncle spent thirty minutes
tugging at the rope, eventually sliding his nephew back out
to freedom. With no other small children to dangle precariously
over his building's chimney, sets Her turned to a different
kind of professional for help. Another man name unknown arrived
on the scene with some tools and a little food.

(08:21):
Hoping that this would do the trick. He entered Rose
Cooligan's apartment and cut a small hole into her wall,
and then, using a little milk and meat, he waited
for the interloper to reveal themselves. Soon enough, they appeared,
But milk and meat were only part of the equation.
You see. This savior with the saw was from the
American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and

(08:44):
he also brought with him some catnip. The crying that
had been keeping Miss Cooligan up for the last few
nights had come from a cat who had tumbled down
the chimney and gotten himself trapped. He was safely captured
and transported to ASPCA headquarters. Yuks for William Setzer and
his nephew. It's probably safe to say that neither OSHA

(09:05):
nor Child Services made a visit to their homes, although
I wouldn't be surprised if young Charles had lifelong claustrophobia
from that point onward. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting

(09:26):
Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me
Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
book series, and television show, and you can learn all
about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until
next time, stay curious.