May 11, 2023 • 9 mins
We can learn a lot from the things that are written down. Two curious sides to that idea are on display today.
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Episode Transcript
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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):
Parents will do anything for their children, especially if they're
sick or in danger. A child in need triggers a
fight response in mothers and fathers that is not to
be trifled with. We see it all the time in nature.
When an animal feels its offspringer threatened, it will attack,
whether it's an alligator or an angry goose, and human
parents are no different. Just ask Liam Neeson what happens
(01:00):
when a parent can't fight the enemy hurting their child?
Where do they turn over? Fifteen thousand children each year
are diagnosed with cancer in the United States. Another eighteen
hundred die from unknown causes. It's up to doctors and
specialists to help them fight what's killing them. But sometimes
even doctors need a little help. And in nineteen seventy seven,
(01:21):
one little girl got the treatment she needed from a
very unexpected place someone's attempted murder. The girl was from Qatar,
only nineteen months old. Her parents had taken her to London.
They were desperate for answers. Their daughter was barely conscious
and suffering from a number of symptoms, including numbness, lethargy,
random blackouts, and loss of hair. In other words, she
(01:43):
seemed like she was dying, and yet her mother and
father were at a loss for a reason why, as
were her doctors back home. Her symptoms were indicative of
a number of other ailments, including epilepsy and encephalitis, but
tests revealed none of those to be the culprit. They
had to act fast, or else this poor girl would
perish before their very eyes. The London doctors eventually ran
(02:05):
out of options, and then, almost miraculously, a nurse stepped
forward with a suggestion perhaps the young patient was suffering
from thallium poisoning. Thallium is a metal that is naturally
a blue white hue until it's exposed to air, at
which point it turns gray. It was first discovered in
eighteen sixty one by British chemist Sir William Crooks, and
(02:27):
was once used as a household pest killer until its
ban in nineteen seventy two. Thallium also occurs naturally in
the Earth's crust, but when ingested via the stomach or
the lungs, it can cause all kinds of symptoms, including
numbness and hair loss. And as it turns out, the
nurse was right. The little girl had been suffering from
thallium poisoning. The nurse had remembered a case where an
(02:50):
english woman named Ginger Corrigan had exhibited many of the
same symptoms. She'd lost much of her hair and had
been hospitalized with flu like symptoms. Her doctor had died
ghosed her with bronchio pneumonia, despite the unusual symptoms she
presented that didn't quite correspond with his assessment. She wasn't
responding to antibiotics either. It wasn't until one of her acquaintances,
(03:11):
a historian named Mark Easterbrook, connected the dots that she
received the care that she needed. Ginger had been poisoned
with thallium. Mark realized it after remembering an article on
thallium poisoning that he had read while traveling abroad in America.
It had been a story about a factory where the
workers started dying of mysterious causes such as paratyphoid, bulber paralysis,
(03:32):
and epilepsy. There was also the presence of numbness in
the limbs as well as hair loss. Eventually, it was
discovered that the factory workers had been subjected to high
levels of the metallic substance, eventually succumbing to its effects,
and Ginger would have met a similar fate had it
not been for Mark's quick thinking. The nurse in London
had a similar Eureka moment as well. She'd read all
(03:53):
about Mark and Ginger, but not in a police file
or in the news. Mark and Ginger weren't real peace people.
They were characters in the detective novel The Pale Horse
by Agatha Christie, first published in nineteen sixty one. Christy
went into specific detail on the symptoms of thallium poisoning
in her novel, as well as the other diseases. It
(04:14):
can appear to be the nurse had been reading The
Pale Horse at the time the young Katari girl came
into the emergency room and she recognized the same symptoms
as in the book. Doctor Victor Dubowitz, the physician assigned
to the girl's case, consulted Scotland yard, who put him
in touch with a particular thallium expert, a convicted criminal
who had used it to poison his pets, coworkers and family.
(04:37):
He confirmed their suspicions, and after a few more tests,
the results were clear. The little girl had been poisoned,
but not on purpose. She'd gotten into a stash of
rat poison in the family's home. Although thallium had been
banned for use as a pesticide in several Western countries,
there were other places around the world where it was
still in use, including Qatar. The girl was quickly treated
(04:59):
and really at least without further incident. As for the nurse,
they should have added the letters MD to her name,
not because she was a doctor of medicine, but because
of her impromptu role as medical detective. Firefighters around the
(05:25):
world rely on fire hydrants to provide a source of
water to extinguish fires. It's hard to imagine a world
without them. But did you know that the patent for
the fire hydrants was actually lost. Our story begins in
the eighteen hundreds in the United States, where there was
a growing need for an efficient way to supply water
to firefighting crews. At the time, water mains were being
(05:46):
installed beneath the streets of major cities, but there was
no easy way for firefighters to tap into them. Firefighters
had to rely on water pumped from wells or cisterns,
and as you might imagine, the process was a slow
and inefficient one, which was bad news for the owners
of the burning buildings. Then came the invention of the
fire hydrant. But here's where it gets complicated. We're not
(06:08):
sure who invented it. It could be Birdsill Holly Junior,
an inventor and engineer, or it could be Frederick Graft Senior,
the chief engineer of the Philadelphia Waterworks, who created the
first pillar style fire hydrant in eighteen oh one. Experts
say Graft is the original inventor, but that Holly made improvements.
Both men filed patents decades apart. Graft created a type
(06:31):
of pillar fire hydrant that is referred to as a
wet barrel. It resembles a barrel with a faucet and
a valve on top. Holly was an inventor and engineer
who had already made a name for himself by developing
a revolutionary steam engine in eighteen sixty nine. He turned
his attention to the problem of supplying water to firefighters,
and it came up with a design for a new
type of fire hydrant. Holly's version of the hydrant was
(06:54):
unlike anything that had ever been seen before. It featured
a top mounted valve could be turned on and off
with a simple wrench, and it had a system of
underground pipes that allowed water to flow directly to the
fire hydrant from the water main. Holly knew that his
invention was going to be in high demand. He immediately
set up a company to produce the hydrants, and within
a few years his invention had become the industry standard.
(07:17):
Over time, Holly's hydrants were installed in cities and towns
across the United States, and they saved countless lives and
millions of dollars in property damage by providing firefighters with
a reliable source of water. So why is it that
we don't know who to credit? Because decades before Holly
filed for his patent, something odd happened with Graft's patent.
(07:38):
He lost it. If an inventor couldn't prove that they
were the inventor, it left them vulnerable to competitors who
might take the idea as their own. Without a patent,
Graft couldn't prove the fire hydrant was his idea and
had no legal protection, not that he would have taken
Holly to court Graft had died in eighteen forty seven.
Holly went on to manufacture his hydrant and sell them
(08:00):
throughout the country. But how to Graft lose his patent?
Oddly enough? By fire. The blaze broke out in the
early morning hours of December fifteenth of eighteen thirty six
in the old Blodget's Hotel building in Washington, DC. The
fire raged for hours, and when the smoke cleared, all
of the nine thousand, nine hundred and fifty seven documents
(08:22):
and seven thousand other items relating to those documents were
destroyed by the fire. Graft's patent for the fire hydrants
was among those documents. You see, the building was the
US Patent Office. Ever since, there have been many articles
written on the invention of the fire hydrant, causing some
to say that the question of which inventor to give
credit to just might be a hot topic. I hope
(08:49):
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 Curiosities podcast dot com. This 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
(09:11):
you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore
dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
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):
Parents will do anything for their children, especially if they're
sick or in danger. A child in need triggers a
fight response in mothers and fathers that is not to
be trifled with. We see it all the time in nature.
When an animal feels its offspringer threatened, it will attack,
whether it's an alligator or an angry goose, and human
parents are no different. Just ask Liam Neeson what happens
(01:00):
when a parent can't fight the enemy hurting their child?
Where do they turn over? Fifteen thousand children each year
are diagnosed with cancer in the United States. Another eighteen
hundred die from unknown causes. It's up to doctors and
specialists to help them fight what's killing them. But sometimes
even doctors need a little help. And in nineteen seventy seven,
(01:21):
one little girl got the treatment she needed from a
very unexpected place someone's attempted murder. The girl was from Qatar,
only nineteen months old. Her parents had taken her to London.
They were desperate for answers. Their daughter was barely conscious
and suffering from a number of symptoms, including numbness, lethargy,
random blackouts, and loss of hair. In other words, she
(01:43):
seemed like she was dying, and yet her mother and
father were at a loss for a reason why, as
were her doctors back home. Her symptoms were indicative of
a number of other ailments, including epilepsy and encephalitis, but
tests revealed none of those to be the culprit. They
had to act fast, or else this poor girl would
perish before their very eyes. The London doctors eventually ran
(02:05):
out of options, and then, almost miraculously, a nurse stepped
forward with a suggestion perhaps the young patient was suffering
from thallium poisoning. Thallium is a metal that is naturally
a blue white hue until it's exposed to air, at
which point it turns gray. It was first discovered in
eighteen sixty one by British chemist Sir William Crooks, and
(02:27):
was once used as a household pest killer until its
ban in nineteen seventy two. Thallium also occurs naturally in
the Earth's crust, but when ingested via the stomach or
the lungs, it can cause all kinds of symptoms, including
numbness and hair loss. And as it turns out, the
nurse was right. The little girl had been suffering from
thallium poisoning. The nurse had remembered a case where an
(02:50):
english woman named Ginger Corrigan had exhibited many of the
same symptoms. She'd lost much of her hair and had
been hospitalized with flu like symptoms. Her doctor had died
ghosed her with bronchio pneumonia, despite the unusual symptoms she
presented that didn't quite correspond with his assessment. She wasn't
responding to antibiotics either. It wasn't until one of her acquaintances,
(03:11):
a historian named Mark Easterbrook, connected the dots that she
received the care that she needed. Ginger had been poisoned
with thallium. Mark realized it after remembering an article on
thallium poisoning that he had read while traveling abroad in America.
It had been a story about a factory where the
workers started dying of mysterious causes such as paratyphoid, bulber paralysis,
(03:32):
and epilepsy. There was also the presence of numbness in
the limbs as well as hair loss. Eventually, it was
discovered that the factory workers had been subjected to high
levels of the metallic substance, eventually succumbing to its effects,
and Ginger would have met a similar fate had it
not been for Mark's quick thinking. The nurse in London
had a similar Eureka moment as well. She'd read all
(03:53):
about Mark and Ginger, but not in a police file
or in the news. Mark and Ginger weren't real peace people.
They were characters in the detective novel The Pale Horse
by Agatha Christie, first published in nineteen sixty one. Christy
went into specific detail on the symptoms of thallium poisoning
in her novel, as well as the other diseases. It
(04:14):
can appear to be the nurse had been reading The
Pale Horse at the time the young Katari girl came
into the emergency room and she recognized the same symptoms
as in the book. Doctor Victor Dubowitz, the physician assigned
to the girl's case, consulted Scotland yard, who put him
in touch with a particular thallium expert, a convicted criminal
who had used it to poison his pets, coworkers and family.
(04:37):
He confirmed their suspicions, and after a few more tests,
the results were clear. The little girl had been poisoned,
but not on purpose. She'd gotten into a stash of
rat poison in the family's home. Although thallium had been
banned for use as a pesticide in several Western countries,
there were other places around the world where it was
still in use, including Qatar. The girl was quickly treated
(04:59):
and really at least without further incident. As for the nurse,
they should have added the letters MD to her name,
not because she was a doctor of medicine, but because
of her impromptu role as medical detective. Firefighters around the
(05:25):
world rely on fire hydrants to provide a source of
water to extinguish fires. It's hard to imagine a world
without them. But did you know that the patent for
the fire hydrants was actually lost. Our story begins in
the eighteen hundreds in the United States, where there was
a growing need for an efficient way to supply water
to firefighting crews. At the time, water mains were being
(05:46):
installed beneath the streets of major cities, but there was
no easy way for firefighters to tap into them. Firefighters
had to rely on water pumped from wells or cisterns,
and as you might imagine, the process was a slow
and inefficient one, which was bad news for the owners
of the burning buildings. Then came the invention of the
fire hydrant. But here's where it gets complicated. We're not
(06:08):
sure who invented it. It could be Birdsill Holly Junior,
an inventor and engineer, or it could be Frederick Graft Senior,
the chief engineer of the Philadelphia Waterworks, who created the
first pillar style fire hydrant in eighteen oh one. Experts
say Graft is the original inventor, but that Holly made improvements.
Both men filed patents decades apart. Graft created a type
(06:31):
of pillar fire hydrant that is referred to as a
wet barrel. It resembles a barrel with a faucet and
a valve on top. Holly was an inventor and engineer
who had already made a name for himself by developing
a revolutionary steam engine in eighteen sixty nine. He turned
his attention to the problem of supplying water to firefighters,
and it came up with a design for a new
type of fire hydrant. Holly's version of the hydrant was
(06:54):
unlike anything that had ever been seen before. It featured
a top mounted valve could be turned on and off
with a simple wrench, and it had a system of
underground pipes that allowed water to flow directly to the
fire hydrant from the water main. Holly knew that his
invention was going to be in high demand. He immediately
set up a company to produce the hydrants, and within
a few years his invention had become the industry standard.
(07:17):
Over time, Holly's hydrants were installed in cities and towns
across the United States, and they saved countless lives and
millions of dollars in property damage by providing firefighters with
a reliable source of water. So why is it that
we don't know who to credit? Because decades before Holly
filed for his patent, something odd happened with Graft's patent.
(07:38):
He lost it. If an inventor couldn't prove that they
were the inventor, it left them vulnerable to competitors who
might take the idea as their own. Without a patent,
Graft couldn't prove the fire hydrant was his idea and
had no legal protection, not that he would have taken
Holly to court Graft had died in eighteen forty seven.
Holly went on to manufacture his hydrant and sell them
(08:00):
throughout the country. But how to Graft lose his patent?
Oddly enough? By fire. The blaze broke out in the
early morning hours of December fifteenth of eighteen thirty six
in the old Blodget's Hotel building in Washington, DC. The
fire raged for hours, and when the smoke cleared, all
of the nine thousand, nine hundred and fifty seven documents
(08:22):
and seven thousand other items relating to those documents were
destroyed by the fire. Graft's patent for the fire hydrants
was among those documents. You see, the building was the
US Patent Office. Ever since, there have been many articles
written on the invention of the fire hydrant, causing some
to say that the question of which inventor to give
credit to just might be a hot topic. I hope
(08:49):
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 Curiosities podcast dot com. This 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
(09:11):
you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore
dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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