August 19, 2021 • 38 mins
Today, libraries across the US and the rest of the world are seen as centers of free learning, presenting enormous opportunities for children and adults alike. However, not too long ago, people in the US and the UK were absolutely terrified by the idea that libraries were dens of disease. In today's episode, the guys explore how fears of tuberculosis, scarlet fever and more led to public hysteria over sharing books -- and how this panic put the concept of libraries as we know them in serious danger.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Uh that's our super producer,
early one and only, Mr Max Williams. My name is
Ben And who who is that? Lovely man, I see
you on the other side of zoom call? Who is that? Who? Me?
(00:47):
Litto me? That's me Noel Brown. Um, that's the first
time I think I've said my last name on on
the show. Maybe it's not. My last name is in
fact Brown. I have a very distinct memory of being
in school and I actually would walk after school. Um.
It was in a little town called Augusta, Georgia, and
located in the downtown area, and we would walk after
(01:08):
school to the library and hang out there until our
parents were able to pick us up from the library.
And it was a big, beautiful marble building. And that
was when I first got into things like, uh, Michael
Crichton and Stephen King and Dean Coots, you know, all
the good trashy horror sci fi type stuff. And then
a little later things like Kurt Vonnegutt and all that. Man.
(01:30):
I'm sure you have lovely library memories too, don't you.
I do, yes, I do know. I was a kid
who would do his best to live at libraries. Growing
up as an only child, I didn't have nor desire
any friends, so I would I would hang out and
(01:52):
the very very kind librarians that I hung out with
would just sort of make up chores and then give me,
give mean free books that they were going to get
rid of. Yeah, it was. It was really cool. Apprenticeship librarians.
If you are hearing this, first thank you for giving
you kids such wonderful summers. And secondly, I'm sorry that
(02:12):
I did not, in fact to grow up to be
a librarian. It's tough. You gotta get up masters in
library science. Like, if you see a librarian, be nice
to them because they're doing it's it's a passion project. Max.
What what about you, man? What's your what's your library vibe? Like?
Growing up? So, library vibe was a thing I I
I guess I had in my life. Um, you know,
(02:34):
we would go to the local library, especially back when
we live in Michigan more so, but you know, as
a kid, you know, as it was a free resource
for us to use. So you don't go there, get
down those really antiquated computers even for the time they
are antiquated, and you know, type into that really awful
search system to try to find something that never worked
and then go find it myself. Yeah. Yeah, with the
(02:55):
card catalog, that micro fish. We'll see you know, the
three of us and hopefully you fellow ridiculous historian. We
were really lucky to have those those childhood experiences in libraries.
But there was a time not too long ago when
our parents would have been seen as very irresponsible for
(03:16):
letting us get anywhere near a library. Because today's episode
is about something called the Great Book Scare, which seriously
kept people out of libraries for almost fifty years. Yeah,
and it's not too far off from some of the
fears that we're dealing with right now in our post
(03:36):
COVID world. Because this was not a you know, banned
book situation. This was not a Farenheit forty one dystopian
future where like books were considered to be seditious or
in some ways, you know, infecting the minds of the youth. No,
this is about a different kind of infection, an actual
infection that you really could get several in fact, by
(03:58):
touching stuff small box scarlet fever and tuberculosis, the old triumvira.
So the idea of passing around community property or things
that were you know, borrowed and handled and passed around
the different folks was terrified. So it actually was an
attitude that persevered for around forty years. The idea that
(04:22):
even after these these diseases have been dealt with again,
like we're dealing with now, I think there are going
to be things that have happened as a result of
COVID that are going to continue to be with us
for some time. Oh absolutely. And we want to give
a shout out to Andrew McClary uh and his work
in the Journal of Library History called but Where the
(04:42):
Deadly Books I've Forgotten? Episode in Library History. This has
also been written about in Bustle, in Smithsonian mag and
in Mental Floss. You nailed it well, You absolutely nailed it.
For people who remember the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic,
one thing you probably heard pretty often was speculation about
(05:04):
how long the virus could remain on a given surface,
how long it could remain not metal versus paper, versus
wood versus plastic, things like that, And people thought during
a number of diseases and public health epidemics. People were
certain that books could be a vector for disease. Our
(05:28):
story really starts well the guy named W. F. Pool.
He was a librarian in Chicago, and he was at
a library director's meeting in eighteen seventy nine when he said,
I've heard people asking whether books can transmit disease as
effectively as any other inanimate object. No one really knew
(05:49):
the answer, and no one had really heard of the
question before at this meeting. So old WF. Mr Pool
writes to the foremost medical authorities in the United States,
and then he also writes to librarians at the largest
libraries in the country, and he asked them the same question.
(06:12):
He gets nineteen replies, and only one person was ever
able to say that at least heard of a disease
being transmitted by a book. It was Surgeon General Dr
John S. Billings, who didn't confirm this had happened. He said,
you know, I heard about something kind of like this,
(06:32):
maybe in London. And then the other eighteen people who
right back, they say, well, I guess it could happen,
but it doesn't seem likely. You know a lot of
these people are librarians. They're like, I deal with books
all the time, and I don't have smallpox, I don't
have scarlet fever, so maybe. And then some doctors come
(06:53):
in and they're trying to sort of so in the
middle ground right there, saying, Okay, well how about this.
If you're a lie brarian, don't loan books out to
people who you know have smallpox or tuberculosis, where as
you said, well scarlet fever, just don't give books to
houses that have those people living in them, exactly. And
(07:14):
then we have Dr Henry Lyman, who is coming out
against this and saying he's with Chicago's Rush Medical College, uh,
and he's coming out and saying that this is absolutely
much ado about nothing. People are overreacting. He kind of
snidely suggests hiring somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen thousand
(07:36):
quote sanitary policemen um to uh literally guard people from
entering these infected homes and to deliver children to uh
school in these glass cages, and to personally sterilize any
of that's passing through the US postal system. But that
(07:57):
was it. He didn't he didn't really do very good
job of quieting people's concerns because newspapers were all over
this and they were doing some serious fear mongering, uh
and specifically targeting these these disease spreading books. This is
from Smithsonian Magazine, by the way, a fabulous article about
the Great book Scare by Joseph Hayes. Were highly recommend
(08:21):
checking it out in its entirety. We also have a
really telling quote from the Chicago Tribune that was published
on June eighteen, seventy nine talking about contracting all sorts
of diseases from these books. Um, you know, admittedly saying
that the chances were small, and also it all depended
on the publication. You know, it's as far as the
level of like fear mongering that was happening, um, but
(08:44):
that it couldn't be ruled out certainly was possible, which
you could argue was was was relatively um, thoughtful journalism,
was relatively responsible way of reporting this. But then on
November twelve, eighty six, you have the Perrysburg Journal saying
that books quote, books are one of the items to
be removed from the rooms of the sick. Uh. So
(09:07):
he's starting to pass around these little details. And then
the Ohio Democrats, says in the most extreme version of
really trying to rop people up about this. The disease
referring to scarlet fever has been spread by circulating libraries.
Picture books have been taken therefrom to amuse the patients
and returned without being disinfected. Wowsers might sound a little
(09:35):
silly now, but we have to we have to remember
that here at the beginning of the twentieth century, for
a lot of people, life was terrified. The leaguing cause
of death in the United States was tuberculosis, which they
called either like consumption, white death or white plague. This
disease was killing around about this time, This disease was
(09:58):
killing four hundred and fifty people in the country a day,
and they were across the gamut of ages fifteen to
forty four, and they were already really concerned about an incurable,
potentially fatal disease. And the idea of library books, which
was a very affordable, wonderful means of self education. Uh,
(10:20):
the idea that these could become a vector for disease
seemed very plausible and very real. And this is strange
because there's a lot of stuff that a lot of
people were touching on a daily basis, handles, right, robs,
things like that, and so library books got singled out
(10:42):
for a specific reason. The idea was that because library
books have multiple pages and every page is to surfaces,
that it could trap germs. They were aware of germ
theory that it could trap germs in pages, and that
when you open the book to like when you open
a book and you get that nice old book or
(11:03):
new book smell, that you could be inhaling germs just
as easily. Or someone could be reading and they could
put uh cough, I guess sort of like a frog
in that example, onto the paper and then that would
hold the germs. Also, let's not forget public libraries kind
of a new thing, because the public could be anybody.
(11:27):
That's very true. Um, it's very true. It's very very
helpful resource for the community. But it's truely that you
can't really exclude people, which probably really riled up members
of the upper crust that maybe thought that sort of
the unwashed masses could potentially have handled a book that
would then be passed on to, like, you know, their
child or spouse or whatever, although many of them probably
(11:48):
couldn't be bothered to go to a public librries because
they would have their own libraries, you know, in their
in their palatial estates. But then wouldn't a lot of
this have to do with a very um distinct misunderstanding
of how disease vectors work and how long they're able
to survive on surfaces and things like that. Yeah, yeah,
(12:10):
and not all diseases are created the same way. It
was interesting because public libraries, like we said, they're kind
of new, so there are a lot of questions that
people have about them. You don't really know who checked
out the book before you. You might see a name
written on the inside jacket in some cases, you know,
(12:32):
with a little card, but you don't know that person
from Adam. You don't know them from a can of paint.
And there was this cool article Smithsonian mag Quotes from
Night that was titled books as Disease Carriers from eighteen
eighty to nineteen twenty, and people were worried that not
only might they get these this trifective terrible diseases by
(12:55):
inhaling book dust, but people were also worried they could
get can sir, like someone had cancer. They read a book,
You read the same book and boom, you have you
have cancer. Now you have cancer, and you're being punished
because you wanted to learn more about Shakespeare. That's what
you get. That's your Midsummer's night dream. But this was
(13:16):
this was alarmist, right, Um, this was alarmist. But again
because people really were dying, and because libraries and the
idea of commonly shared books across a large population was
a relatively new idea, this took hold. Concerns started in
the US. But let's go back to our Surgeon General
(13:36):
who said, I may have heard of a case like
this at some point in London. People in England started
having the same concerns around at the same time, at
least according to Anaka Man, who's a professor Arizona State
University and an author about this very event, reading contagion,
(13:58):
the hazards of reading in the age of it. And
then we really start to see this very reactionary UH
legislation start to sweep the United Kingdom that was really
trying to address what they saw as a very very
serious public health problem. UH. And so they passed this
collection of laws called the Public Health Act of eighteen
(14:18):
seventy five, And while it didn't specifically list library books
or target the public library. It very specifically had this
language in it. Quote it prohibited lending or borrowing, quote
betting clothing, rags or other things that had been exposed
to infection. So I think you see where this is going.
(14:39):
Other things, it's about as broad as as you can imagine.
Uh language too to get right. Other things is it's
easy to interpret it. The other things are anything that
is not explicitly betting clothing or rags. Seven, they update
(14:59):
this beautile, full little law by saying, if you are suspected,
not proven, but suspected of having an infectious disease, you
cannot borrow, lend, or return library books. You'll get fined
up to forty shillings for each offense. That's around two
oder bucks. So this is this is not small pocket
(15:20):
money for a lot of people. And we know that
this we we have this specific language of the law.
We know that in the US there they were also
trying to prevent the spread of epidemics through book lending.
But being the US at this time, there wasn't a
federal level law at this point, it was a state
(15:44):
level thing, and most of according to mand most of
the anxiety was centered around the concept of the book,
the concept of the shared book, the concept of the library,
which means, you know, who becomes kind of public enemy
number one librarians. That's right, the librarian. All along this
(16:05):
this did a worse public image number for librarians than Ghostbusters. Right,
it's I'm I'm laughing because every single librarian that I've
had the privilege meeting has has been a wonderful, knowledgeable
and and passionate person. So of course, and you know,
not to be put to find a point on the pun,
(16:25):
but a bit bookish, So a little interview. Are they're
out there doing God's work? There's no question, um yeah.
And they also the time has got a bad rap
for being a little pedantic and shushy. But again I
blame Ghostbusters for that. Remember the shush It was like
the opening scenes, like the cold open of the movie.
And then that's one of the biggest jump scares that
to this day still kind of freaks me out when
(16:46):
she finally does the final shush and they don't shush,
and uh, she turns into a spooky muppet monster and
flies right at the screen and the Ghostbusters titles. I
also want to shout out what a favorite. Since we're
in that era film, I want to shout out one
of my favorite librarian scenes in Indiana Jones and the
(17:07):
Last Crusade when they're trying to get into the catacot
that's hidden in that library and there's that librarian who
temporarily thinks he has this amazing book stamp, because that's
when India is not going to lose. It was just
it was just a good It was it was a
good It was a good spot. But what do you
prefer Last Crusade or uh, Temple of Doom? Last Crusade?
(17:28):
What about Raiders? What do you write before really quickly
this is important stuff? Yeah, and uh, I want to
use my lifeline to phone of friends here to get
Max's opinion as well as your own. For me, Last Crusade,
I that that is far and away my favorite, and
then maybe Raiders. Actually, Temple of Doom is a little
(17:51):
bit lower for me because although I love the the
cult aspect and there's a little bit of supernatural in
there as well, I don't know, even as a kid,
the stuff they got wrong culturally kind of like, oh yeah,
did not age well? The monkey brains and baby snakes
and stuff and just that's that definitely didn't age well
for me. I would say it would be Raiders. I'm sorry,
(18:11):
it would be uh, Last Crusade Raiders mainly because of
Sean Connery playing Indie's father. I love his role. And
then Temple of Doom. Third, how about you, Max Um,
I have only seen Get Out WHOA do not ostracize?
We get pottery shards. No, Max says, we're gonna do
what we're gonna get. We're gonna get together, We're gonna
(18:33):
watch Last Crusade. It's awesome. But what about the crystal
skull That doesn't even that doesn't even rank that that
one does, that's not even in the conversation. Yeah, I
don't knew that. I knew that would set you guys off. Okay,
you know there's some stuff about the crystal skulls I liked.
I don't. I don't want to spoil it. But yeah,
a lot of people don't consider that cannon. Actually, but
(18:57):
we want to hear your rank. It's what I um,
we named the doll Indiana. Anyway, these books, you know,
like Standard Delivery where he says these kids, Uh, this
this idea of librarians being victimized of people in the
US and people in England being already kind of anxious
(19:22):
of the possibility that books might spread subversive or obscene ideas.
This this is a perfect storm. But just like the
weird advice you may have gotten about groceries, in the
beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, people started trying to figure
out ways to disinfect books. There is, um, there's a
(19:46):
library in Sheffield, England, then plays a disinfection technique in
using get this, carbolic acid crystals heated in an oven. Oh,
that sounds scary. That sounds a little overdone, doesn't It
sounds like could take the top layer of skin off
while it disinfected you. Um, that's wild carbolic acid. Okay,
(20:09):
I'm no uh chemist, but that definitely sounds like a
little bit extreme. And in eighteen eight Great Britain was
in the throes of a serious smallpox epidemic. And we
do know that smallpox was insanely communicable, I mean really
really virulent and transmit transmittable. Um, so you know some
(20:30):
of the stuff maybe wasn't overkilled like I mean, we
know that polio, for example, was something that could be
transmitted to children through dolls or you know, like clothes
and bedding and things like that. You see in uh
period dramas a lot of times through that period where
they had to like take everything out and burn it,
you know, not just uh disinfected. It was that much
(20:51):
of a panic. So I understand where all this is
coming from. But as it starts to kind of, you know,
outlive the pandemic itself, it starts to get a little interesting. Yeah. Yeah,
and again you know, we're not ridiculing these people. These
were genuine concerns and ASNAL said, smallpox very dangerous here.
So people started giving the authorities list of all infected
(21:16):
people that might have been interacting with the library. This
is what we know now is contact tracing, and then
they would find these folks and sees their books. If
they weren't borrowing any books, then they would say, you
can't borrow any other ones until your entire household is
disease free. Back to w F Pool, he's still on
(21:39):
the case. He is investigating the subject. He finds nine
more doctors who say they know of diseases transmitted by books.
One guy reports scarlet fever spread by book and letter
to people the president of the Tennessee Word of Health
(22:00):
and the Secretary of Massachusetts Board of Health site cases
of smallpox spread by books. Professor Josephie Winters in City
University of New York's Medical College says, you know what,
we shouldn't remove people's right to knowledge. But if we
have infected patients, let's just give them, you know, not
(22:21):
the best books. Let's give them the kind of books
we can just destroy after they're done with them, the
kind that won't make the library the worse for wear.
And he's another ascid guy. Well, he's like, you know
what we should do to disinfect books? He looks around,
He's like, you, guys, sulfuric acid gas. Right, we can
we can only picture there's some there's some other people
(22:43):
in the meeting where they're like, damn, Dr Winners, why
do you keep pushing sulfuric acid gas is your solution
for everything? I like to picture that. He was always
pitching that maybe he had like a sideline and gas.
What do you think? I don't know, man, It sounds
like a secret satist. And it's a weird one though, man,
because you know, even as they were doing this, they
(23:04):
were they were comparing registers of the infected to library
registers or you know, those with library cards and excluding
people from checking out books. It still didn't really quell
the like public you know, panic around it and the
library system with like it was, like you said, Ben
was still relatively new, was really starting to take a hit,
and it really kind of got what could have been
(23:25):
it's death blow UM in h eight in Nebraska when
a woman named Jesse Allen died of the consumption. And
this is something that happened all the time around you know,
in that period. It was you know, again like it's
something you see in in in period dramas all the time.
People that and then you pull away the nap napkin
(23:45):
or the hanky, and of course there's blood in it. Um.
But this woman that happened to be the librarian or
a library and at the Omaha Public Library, and with
no real proof, public opinion assumed that her death, uh,
they they ascribed it to the idea that she got
it from an infected book. And we have a report
(24:07):
from October of eight from the Library Journal UM that
was published by the American Library Association. The death of
miss Jesse Allen is doubly sad because of the excellent
reputation which her work one for her, and the pleasant
affection which all librarians who knew her had come to
feel for her, and because her death has given rise
(24:28):
to a fresh discussion as to the possibility of infection
from contagious diseases through library books. See, this is like
the kind of thing we've talked about recently on stuff
they Don't want you to know, our other podcasts. How
you know, you could argue that this is editorializing, right,
(24:51):
This is the person is putting forth this notion is
like planting the seed of infected library books, and that's
all it takes. There's no scientific evidence here that that's
what the cause was. It was just talking about. Now
the conversation has started again around infected library book. There
was already one that had been, you know, very much happening,
(25:11):
So it kind of pushed things over the cliff, didn't it. Yeah.
I think you're right, no, because it's almost as if
the zeitgeist was waiting for a librarian specifically to die
right now, and all of a sudden supports the logic
of this idea. And we know that the Library Journal
tried to quell or at least temper people's concerns, because
(25:36):
they went on to say the following in the same article.
Possibly there's some danger from this source. Since the bacillus
was discovered, danger is found to lurk in places hitherto unsuspected.
But the greater danger perhaps comes in overestimating this source
of danger and frightening people into a nervous condition. That is, again,
like I said, with that, it could happen, but it's unlikely.
(25:58):
Type of journalism, it's probably be a little more measured
and maybe a little less grabby and click baity, you know,
the historical equivalent of click bay. But I would say
this is the more measured and thoughtful approach. But people
don't usually glom onto the more measured and thoughtful approach
to their They don't, that's right. Uh. Despite good faith efforts,
(26:20):
public libraries were unable to get this concern founded or unfounded,
out of the public mind, and people kept going in
the media and in you know, dinner and table conversation.
The fear just escalated. And for all our fellow ridiculous
historians who are asking, well, when did they start burning
(26:44):
the books? Now is the time? In this story, it
wasn't like people were already sterilizing books with chemicals by
the nineteen hundreds, But eventually this escalated such that in
Britain and in the US, people were burning books to
prevent what they feared would be the spread of disease,
(27:08):
and numerous doctors recommended that people burn contaminated quote unquote
contaminated books. This was even featured in the Library Journal itself,
a trade publication for librarians. It was like, hey, sometimes
you know, I know you're a librarian, but sometimes you
got to burn the book. Yeah, And it just got
(27:30):
weirder ben um where they were literally beginning to do,
you know, they didn't have the technology or the medical
knowledge to truly trace these contagions sometimes, you know, especially
if it was just suspected, you know, or again because
of the how long do things actually stay viable, you know,
(27:52):
when they're in a dry situation, like pressed between the
pages of a book. It's not the same as like
having like anthrax in a book. It's not just gonna
like pop out at you like an envelope of anthrax,
and then the spores that are live are gonna like
go all over the room and like infect everybody. I
mean these things, if placed there by an infected person,
they cannot live. They kind of cannot remain viable in
(28:16):
you know, forever, right, so they kind of the awareness
was there that we need to do a little more
research than this, but it just got so bizarre. Nineteen
eleven and an article called the Disinfection of Books, this
hysteria was absolutely uh escalated and pushed to the next level.
This was by lb nice Uh and published in the
(28:37):
Bulletin of the Medical Library Association. He said, books seem
well adapted for carrying smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, trachoma, diphtheria,
arrest less dysentery, typhoid, and tuberculosis. Yet so far as
I have been able to find, no satisfactory method for
the disinfection of books is being used anywhere in this country.
(28:58):
Books are a particular diverse version of invalids and convalescence.
In other words, saying that people that are like in
the hospital have nothing to do past the time but
read books. Therefore they are in much danger of becoming
infective they being the books. So yeah, I mean, really
fanning the flames here. He goes on to say, besides
the danger of contamination in these ways, and in the
(29:18):
ordinary handling of a book, many people persist in the
uncleanly habits of moistening their fingers in their mouths when
turning the page leaves, which is gross. It's on board,
that's gross. But so uh yeah, this is this feels
(29:39):
like an escalation and worry, but again it's coming from
good intentions. One scientist, William R. Rennick, says, Okay, let's
figure out if that really works. So he cuts out
the dirtiest parts of pages from very well used library books,
mixes the paper with silin center, fugues the liquid, and
(30:00):
and injects it into forty guinea pigs. According to him,
all forty of his test subjects died of Strep, tuberculosis
and sepsis. And then other people were conducting experiments giving
monkeys a drink of milk on a platter of what
was thought to be contaminated literature. All these experiments, like
(30:24):
you said, Nolan, real weird, But they came to one conclusion.
The risk of infection from a book might be very small,
but it couldn't be completely ruled out. We already knew
that just from like speculation. You have to imagine you
have to mess with the poor guinea pigs. I hate
that me too, man mean too. And so, eventually, luckily
(30:47):
for readers around the world, your faithful host included, people
began to say, look, is this just kind of an
outbreak of public hysteria and fear because we feel powerless
in the face of some of these um infections and maladies. Librarians,
(31:08):
someone finally points out, aren't getting sick more often than
people with other jobs, and so librarians begin to address
the panic directly. In New York, people started objecting to
the idea of having books disinfected. The panic began to
subside in Britain because experiment after experiment found the same thing,
(31:33):
that you have very little chance of getting one of
these diseases from a book, and so the panic finally
came to an end, sort of mostly caveat asterix because
we know how people are. As late as nineteen thirteen,
the Highland Recorder, a newspaper in Virginia, said public library
(31:54):
books may scatter scarlet fever. In the nineteen forties, people
in the UK and even Japan, and we're still saying, well,
what if books could give you a disease? Luckily for
all of us, that seems you might as well win
the lottery, at least the way these folks were thinking
of it. And nol I think that brings us to
like our last question of the day. We can't be
(32:16):
the only ones they do this. I gotta ask you
how dirty your library books? Actually, it's a good question, Ben,
and we do have something of an answer from infectious
disease specialist Michael Z. David Um who was quoted by
the Wall Street Journal and a piece that we found
through a Mental Philoss article, how many degrees of Kevin
(32:37):
Bacon is that? Um? He said that virus isn't. Bacteria
can live in the pages of library books, but the
risk of infection is very very low. Libraries today do
still clean their books, and in the same way that
like you clean bowling shoes, right, I mean, it's just
kind of a thing you do with anything that's like
passed around. It's it's it's just it's just good practice,
(33:00):
good good, good standard operating procedure. At the Boston Library,
Mental Floss reported, Uh, the books go through what is
sort of amounts to kind of like a tiny car
wash conveyor belt. Obviously it's not wetting them. That would
totally ruin the books. But it's just to remove dust
from the pages and dust you know, as we know,
oftentimes it's like dead skin cells and all kinds of
(33:22):
things get mixed up in dusts. You know, there's certainly
if you have you have you ever taken a big
old whiff of dust and sucked it down your throat?
I mean, God knows what's in there, and you certainly, uh,
I'm not gonna feel very good after you've done that,
a because it like really hurts, It goes down your
throat and you kind of feel it in your lungs
and be because there could be some you know, contaminants
(33:43):
in there, There's no question about it. Um. But library
books can have some nasty things hiding in those pages.
And Belgians and TOWRRP Public Library did a test and
found traces of cocaine and herpes. That's fair. But what
we talked about, Ben, We've said this many times in
the past. A money, Money is the grossest thing ever
(34:05):
and the most community you know, uh item that we
pass around, and money oftentimes has high instances of having
cocaine traces, and traces is the the operating word here
because these were minuscule amounts and Antwerp is apparently quite
the drug trafficking epicenter. But it doesn't that doesn't really
(34:28):
account for the herpes. Yeah, well, it's definitely not enough
cocaine to get you uh high, or it's enough herpes
virus to give you herpes. Also, I love you point
that out. It's one of my favorite statistics. A ton
of paper currency is you do only to worry about cocaine.
(34:49):
You don't even worry about coronavirus. That stuff is riddled
with human feces. Like, uh, this is the gross out
fact for the day. Apologies to any of the many
awesome educators who are playing today's episode for your classroom,
but your kids are gonna love this. Uh. It is
(35:10):
virtually certain that you have encountered traces of human feces
if you have touched any paper US currency. If that
makes you want to wash your hands right now, please
get the into a washroom because it will be worth it.
But I'm just so glad you know that libraries are
still around right now. Mission I think it was Michigan
(35:32):
asked people not to microwave their books because the coronavirus. Right,
but it will it won't kill it. Well, not only
will it not kill it, they were asking for specific
reason because the new way of cataloging library books is
through these little like scannable r F I D chips
which contain ding ding ding metal. But then in the
microwave it will cause the book to burst into flames.
(35:55):
So yes, good note, don't microwave your books. That's one
of the other takeaway. Uh. And this, uh, this will
wrap our episode for today. We want to hear your stories,
you know, no, Max, do you think we have some
librarians in the audience, folks with their masters in library science?
Holly fry of stuff that you missed in history class.
(36:18):
If I'm not mistaken, in the past life was a librarian. Amazing, amazing. Uh.
So thank you to all the librarians, not just you,
but thank you to all the scientists. Thank you to
all the bibliophiles in the crowd today. And thanks to
our super producer Max Williams, who, to our knowledge has
never microwaved a book. Right, Max, don't put it. Don't
(36:40):
leave us hanging here? What wow? Okay, alright, moving on,
Thanks to Alex Williams, who can post our track. Our
soundtrack can't me to his book Microwaving Habits either, But
I know he's a avid, voracious reader, so I have
a hard time believing that he would ever do something
so offensive to to the written word. Huge thanks to
(37:01):
Christopher Osciotis here in Spirit. Eve's Jeff co who actually
you know what. She recently left the company UM to
pursue adventures on her own, and we love you and
we will miss you very much. Ease look for great
things from her in the future. She's a really awesome
person and we're very proud of her and has never
left our hearts. Speaking of that, we did mention in
(37:22):
a previous episode that I think all three of us
kind of miss our old nemesses who has infected our
hearts and minds. Jonathan Strickland a k. The Quister, look
forward to hearing from him very soon. And with that,
Noel next Paklin the Curtain. I think I'm gonna I
think I'm gonna go find an isolated part of this
uh of the situation and and go dig into a book.
(37:46):
I think it's a smart idea, gets you a nice
beach read on. We'll see you next time. Flix For
more podcast from my heart Radio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Uh that's our super producer,
early one and only, Mr Max Williams. My name is
Ben And who who is that? Lovely man, I see
you on the other side of zoom call? Who is that? Who? Me?
(00:47):
Litto me? That's me Noel Brown. Um, that's the first
time I think I've said my last name on on
the show. Maybe it's not. My last name is in
fact Brown. I have a very distinct memory of being
in school and I actually would walk after school. Um.
It was in a little town called Augusta, Georgia, and
located in the downtown area, and we would walk after
(01:08):
school to the library and hang out there until our
parents were able to pick us up from the library.
And it was a big, beautiful marble building. And that
was when I first got into things like, uh, Michael
Crichton and Stephen King and Dean Coots, you know, all
the good trashy horror sci fi type stuff. And then
a little later things like Kurt Vonnegutt and all that. Man.
(01:30):
I'm sure you have lovely library memories too, don't you.
I do, yes, I do know. I was a kid
who would do his best to live at libraries. Growing
up as an only child, I didn't have nor desire
any friends, so I would I would hang out and
(01:52):
the very very kind librarians that I hung out with
would just sort of make up chores and then give me,
give mean free books that they were going to get
rid of. Yeah, it was. It was really cool. Apprenticeship librarians.
If you are hearing this, first thank you for giving
you kids such wonderful summers. And secondly, I'm sorry that
(02:12):
I did not, in fact to grow up to be
a librarian. It's tough. You gotta get up masters in
library science. Like, if you see a librarian, be nice
to them because they're doing it's it's a passion project. Max.
What what about you, man? What's your what's your library vibe? Like?
Growing up? So, library vibe was a thing I I
I guess I had in my life. Um, you know,
(02:34):
we would go to the local library, especially back when
we live in Michigan more so, but you know, as
a kid, you know, as it was a free resource
for us to use. So you don't go there, get
down those really antiquated computers even for the time they
are antiquated, and you know, type into that really awful
search system to try to find something that never worked
and then go find it myself. Yeah. Yeah, with the
(02:55):
card catalog, that micro fish. We'll see you know, the
three of us and hopefully you fellow ridiculous historian. We
were really lucky to have those those childhood experiences in libraries.
But there was a time not too long ago when
our parents would have been seen as very irresponsible for
(03:16):
letting us get anywhere near a library. Because today's episode
is about something called the Great Book Scare, which seriously
kept people out of libraries for almost fifty years. Yeah,
and it's not too far off from some of the
fears that we're dealing with right now in our post
(03:36):
COVID world. Because this was not a you know, banned
book situation. This was not a Farenheit forty one dystopian
future where like books were considered to be seditious or
in some ways, you know, infecting the minds of the youth. No,
this is about a different kind of infection, an actual
infection that you really could get several in fact, by
(03:58):
touching stuff small box scarlet fever and tuberculosis, the old triumvira.
So the idea of passing around community property or things
that were you know, borrowed and handled and passed around
the different folks was terrified. So it actually was an
attitude that persevered for around forty years. The idea that
(04:22):
even after these these diseases have been dealt with again,
like we're dealing with now, I think there are going
to be things that have happened as a result of
COVID that are going to continue to be with us
for some time. Oh absolutely. And we want to give
a shout out to Andrew McClary uh and his work
in the Journal of Library History called but Where the
(04:42):
Deadly Books I've Forgotten? Episode in Library History. This has
also been written about in Bustle, in Smithsonian mag and
in Mental Floss. You nailed it well, You absolutely nailed it.
For people who remember the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic,
one thing you probably heard pretty often was speculation about
(05:04):
how long the virus could remain on a given surface,
how long it could remain not metal versus paper, versus
wood versus plastic, things like that, And people thought during
a number of diseases and public health epidemics. People were
certain that books could be a vector for disease. Our
(05:28):
story really starts well the guy named W. F. Pool.
He was a librarian in Chicago, and he was at
a library director's meeting in eighteen seventy nine when he said,
I've heard people asking whether books can transmit disease as
effectively as any other inanimate object. No one really knew
(05:49):
the answer, and no one had really heard of the
question before at this meeting. So old WF. Mr Pool
writes to the foremost medical authorities in the United States,
and then he also writes to librarians at the largest
libraries in the country, and he asked them the same question.
(06:12):
He gets nineteen replies, and only one person was ever
able to say that at least heard of a disease
being transmitted by a book. It was Surgeon General Dr
John S. Billings, who didn't confirm this had happened. He said,
you know, I heard about something kind of like this,
(06:32):
maybe in London. And then the other eighteen people who
right back, they say, well, I guess it could happen,
but it doesn't seem likely. You know a lot of
these people are librarians. They're like, I deal with books
all the time, and I don't have smallpox, I don't
have scarlet fever, so maybe. And then some doctors come
(06:53):
in and they're trying to sort of so in the
middle ground right there, saying, Okay, well how about this.
If you're a lie brarian, don't loan books out to
people who you know have smallpox or tuberculosis, where as
you said, well scarlet fever, just don't give books to
houses that have those people living in them, exactly. And
(07:14):
then we have Dr Henry Lyman, who is coming out
against this and saying he's with Chicago's Rush Medical College, uh,
and he's coming out and saying that this is absolutely
much ado about nothing. People are overreacting. He kind of
snidely suggests hiring somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen thousand
(07:36):
quote sanitary policemen um to uh literally guard people from
entering these infected homes and to deliver children to uh
school in these glass cages, and to personally sterilize any
of that's passing through the US postal system. But that
(07:57):
was it. He didn't he didn't really do very good
job of quieting people's concerns because newspapers were all over
this and they were doing some serious fear mongering, uh
and specifically targeting these these disease spreading books. This is
from Smithsonian Magazine, by the way, a fabulous article about
the Great book Scare by Joseph Hayes. Were highly recommend
(08:21):
checking it out in its entirety. We also have a
really telling quote from the Chicago Tribune that was published
on June eighteen, seventy nine talking about contracting all sorts
of diseases from these books. Um, you know, admittedly saying
that the chances were small, and also it all depended
on the publication. You know, it's as far as the
level of like fear mongering that was happening, um, but
(08:44):
that it couldn't be ruled out certainly was possible, which
you could argue was was was relatively um, thoughtful journalism,
was relatively responsible way of reporting this. But then on
November twelve, eighty six, you have the Perrysburg Journal saying
that books quote, books are one of the items to
be removed from the rooms of the sick. Uh. So
(09:07):
he's starting to pass around these little details. And then
the Ohio Democrats, says in the most extreme version of
really trying to rop people up about this. The disease
referring to scarlet fever has been spread by circulating libraries.
Picture books have been taken therefrom to amuse the patients
and returned without being disinfected. Wowsers might sound a little
(09:35):
silly now, but we have to we have to remember
that here at the beginning of the twentieth century, for
a lot of people, life was terrified. The leaguing cause
of death in the United States was tuberculosis, which they
called either like consumption, white death or white plague. This
disease was killing around about this time, This disease was
(09:58):
killing four hundred and fifty people in the country a day,
and they were across the gamut of ages fifteen to
forty four, and they were already really concerned about an incurable,
potentially fatal disease. And the idea of library books, which
was a very affordable, wonderful means of self education. Uh,
(10:20):
the idea that these could become a vector for disease
seemed very plausible and very real. And this is strange
because there's a lot of stuff that a lot of
people were touching on a daily basis, handles, right, robs,
things like that, and so library books got singled out
(10:42):
for a specific reason. The idea was that because library
books have multiple pages and every page is to surfaces,
that it could trap germs. They were aware of germ
theory that it could trap germs in pages, and that
when you open the book to like when you open
a book and you get that nice old book or
(11:03):
new book smell, that you could be inhaling germs just
as easily. Or someone could be reading and they could
put uh cough, I guess sort of like a frog
in that example, onto the paper and then that would
hold the germs. Also, let's not forget public libraries kind
of a new thing, because the public could be anybody.
(11:27):
That's very true. Um, it's very true. It's very very
helpful resource for the community. But it's truely that you
can't really exclude people, which probably really riled up members
of the upper crust that maybe thought that sort of
the unwashed masses could potentially have handled a book that
would then be passed on to, like, you know, their
child or spouse or whatever, although many of them probably
(11:48):
couldn't be bothered to go to a public librries because
they would have their own libraries, you know, in their
in their palatial estates. But then wouldn't a lot of
this have to do with a very um distinct misunderstanding
of how disease vectors work and how long they're able
to survive on surfaces and things like that. Yeah, yeah,
(12:10):
and not all diseases are created the same way. It
was interesting because public libraries, like we said, they're kind
of new, so there are a lot of questions that
people have about them. You don't really know who checked
out the book before you. You might see a name
written on the inside jacket in some cases, you know,
(12:32):
with a little card, but you don't know that person
from Adam. You don't know them from a can of paint.
And there was this cool article Smithsonian mag Quotes from
Night that was titled books as Disease Carriers from eighteen
eighty to nineteen twenty, and people were worried that not
only might they get these this trifective terrible diseases by
(12:55):
inhaling book dust, but people were also worried they could
get can sir, like someone had cancer. They read a book,
You read the same book and boom, you have you
have cancer. Now you have cancer, and you're being punished
because you wanted to learn more about Shakespeare. That's what
you get. That's your Midsummer's night dream. But this was
(13:16):
this was alarmist, right, Um, this was alarmist. But again
because people really were dying, and because libraries and the
idea of commonly shared books across a large population was
a relatively new idea, this took hold. Concerns started in
the US. But let's go back to our Surgeon General
(13:36):
who said, I may have heard of a case like
this at some point in London. People in England started
having the same concerns around at the same time, at
least according to Anaka Man, who's a professor Arizona State
University and an author about this very event, reading contagion,
(13:58):
the hazards of reading in the age of it. And
then we really start to see this very reactionary UH
legislation start to sweep the United Kingdom that was really
trying to address what they saw as a very very
serious public health problem. UH. And so they passed this
collection of laws called the Public Health Act of eighteen
(14:18):
seventy five, And while it didn't specifically list library books
or target the public library. It very specifically had this
language in it. Quote it prohibited lending or borrowing, quote
betting clothing, rags or other things that had been exposed
to infection. So I think you see where this is going.
(14:39):
Other things, it's about as broad as as you can imagine.
Uh language too to get right. Other things is it's
easy to interpret it. The other things are anything that
is not explicitly betting clothing or rags. Seven, they update
(14:59):
this beautile, full little law by saying, if you are suspected,
not proven, but suspected of having an infectious disease, you
cannot borrow, lend, or return library books. You'll get fined
up to forty shillings for each offense. That's around two
oder bucks. So this is this is not small pocket
(15:20):
money for a lot of people. And we know that
this we we have this specific language of the law.
We know that in the US there they were also
trying to prevent the spread of epidemics through book lending.
But being the US at this time, there wasn't a
federal level law at this point, it was a state
(15:44):
level thing, and most of according to mand most of
the anxiety was centered around the concept of the book,
the concept of the shared book, the concept of the library,
which means, you know, who becomes kind of public enemy
number one librarians. That's right, the librarian. All along this
(16:05):
this did a worse public image number for librarians than Ghostbusters. Right,
it's I'm I'm laughing because every single librarian that I've
had the privilege meeting has has been a wonderful, knowledgeable
and and passionate person. So of course, and you know,
not to be put to find a point on the pun,
(16:25):
but a bit bookish, So a little interview. Are they're
out there doing God's work? There's no question, um yeah.
And they also the time has got a bad rap
for being a little pedantic and shushy. But again I
blame Ghostbusters for that. Remember the shush It was like
the opening scenes, like the cold open of the movie.
And then that's one of the biggest jump scares that
to this day still kind of freaks me out when
(16:46):
she finally does the final shush and they don't shush,
and uh, she turns into a spooky muppet monster and
flies right at the screen and the Ghostbusters titles. I
also want to shout out what a favorite. Since we're
in that era film, I want to shout out one
of my favorite librarian scenes in Indiana Jones and the
(17:07):
Last Crusade when they're trying to get into the catacot
that's hidden in that library and there's that librarian who
temporarily thinks he has this amazing book stamp, because that's
when India is not going to lose. It was just
it was just a good It was it was a
good It was a good spot. But what do you
prefer Last Crusade or uh, Temple of Doom? Last Crusade?
(17:28):
What about Raiders? What do you write before really quickly
this is important stuff? Yeah, and uh, I want to
use my lifeline to phone of friends here to get
Max's opinion as well as your own. For me, Last Crusade,
I that that is far and away my favorite, and
then maybe Raiders. Actually, Temple of Doom is a little
(17:51):
bit lower for me because although I love the the
cult aspect and there's a little bit of supernatural in
there as well, I don't know, even as a kid,
the stuff they got wrong culturally kind of like, oh yeah,
did not age well? The monkey brains and baby snakes
and stuff and just that's that definitely didn't age well
for me. I would say it would be Raiders. I'm sorry,
(18:11):
it would be uh, Last Crusade Raiders mainly because of
Sean Connery playing Indie's father. I love his role. And
then Temple of Doom. Third, how about you, Max Um,
I have only seen Get Out WHOA do not ostracize?
We get pottery shards. No, Max says, we're gonna do
what we're gonna get. We're gonna get together, We're gonna
(18:33):
watch Last Crusade. It's awesome. But what about the crystal
skull That doesn't even that doesn't even rank that that
one does, that's not even in the conversation. Yeah, I
don't knew that. I knew that would set you guys off. Okay,
you know there's some stuff about the crystal skulls I liked.
I don't. I don't want to spoil it. But yeah,
a lot of people don't consider that cannon. Actually, but
(18:57):
we want to hear your rank. It's what I um,
we named the doll Indiana. Anyway, these books, you know,
like Standard Delivery where he says these kids, Uh, this
this idea of librarians being victimized of people in the
US and people in England being already kind of anxious
(19:22):
of the possibility that books might spread subversive or obscene ideas.
This this is a perfect storm. But just like the
weird advice you may have gotten about groceries, in the
beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, people started trying to figure
out ways to disinfect books. There is, um, there's a
(19:46):
library in Sheffield, England, then plays a disinfection technique in
using get this, carbolic acid crystals heated in an oven. Oh,
that sounds scary. That sounds a little overdone, doesn't It
sounds like could take the top layer of skin off
while it disinfected you. Um, that's wild carbolic acid. Okay,
(20:09):
I'm no uh chemist, but that definitely sounds like a
little bit extreme. And in eighteen eight Great Britain was
in the throes of a serious smallpox epidemic. And we
do know that smallpox was insanely communicable, I mean really
really virulent and transmit transmittable. Um, so you know some
(20:30):
of the stuff maybe wasn't overkilled like I mean, we
know that polio, for example, was something that could be
transmitted to children through dolls or you know, like clothes
and bedding and things like that. You see in uh
period dramas a lot of times through that period where
they had to like take everything out and burn it,
you know, not just uh disinfected. It was that much
(20:51):
of a panic. So I understand where all this is
coming from. But as it starts to kind of, you know,
outlive the pandemic itself, it starts to get a little interesting. Yeah. Yeah,
and again you know, we're not ridiculing these people. These
were genuine concerns and ASNAL said, smallpox very dangerous here.
So people started giving the authorities list of all infected
(21:16):
people that might have been interacting with the library. This
is what we know now is contact tracing, and then
they would find these folks and sees their books. If
they weren't borrowing any books, then they would say, you
can't borrow any other ones until your entire household is
disease free. Back to w F Pool, he's still on
(21:39):
the case. He is investigating the subject. He finds nine
more doctors who say they know of diseases transmitted by books.
One guy reports scarlet fever spread by book and letter
to people the president of the Tennessee Word of Health
(22:00):
and the Secretary of Massachusetts Board of Health site cases
of smallpox spread by books. Professor Josephie Winters in City
University of New York's Medical College says, you know what,
we shouldn't remove people's right to knowledge. But if we
have infected patients, let's just give them, you know, not
(22:21):
the best books. Let's give them the kind of books
we can just destroy after they're done with them, the
kind that won't make the library the worse for wear.
And he's another ascid guy. Well, he's like, you know
what we should do to disinfect books? He looks around,
He's like, you, guys, sulfuric acid gas. Right, we can
we can only picture there's some there's some other people
(22:43):
in the meeting where they're like, damn, Dr Winners, why
do you keep pushing sulfuric acid gas is your solution
for everything? I like to picture that. He was always
pitching that maybe he had like a sideline and gas.
What do you think? I don't know, man, It sounds
like a secret satist. And it's a weird one though, man,
because you know, even as they were doing this, they
(23:04):
were they were comparing registers of the infected to library
registers or you know, those with library cards and excluding
people from checking out books. It still didn't really quell
the like public you know, panic around it and the
library system with like it was, like you said, Ben
was still relatively new, was really starting to take a hit,
and it really kind of got what could have been
(23:25):
it's death blow UM in h eight in Nebraska when
a woman named Jesse Allen died of the consumption. And
this is something that happened all the time around you know,
in that period. It was you know, again like it's
something you see in in in period dramas all the time.
People that and then you pull away the nap napkin
(23:45):
or the hanky, and of course there's blood in it. Um.
But this woman that happened to be the librarian or
a library and at the Omaha Public Library, and with
no real proof, public opinion assumed that her death, uh,
they they ascribed it to the idea that she got
it from an infected book. And we have a report
(24:07):
from October of eight from the Library Journal UM that
was published by the American Library Association. The death of
miss Jesse Allen is doubly sad because of the excellent
reputation which her work one for her, and the pleasant
affection which all librarians who knew her had come to
feel for her, and because her death has given rise
(24:28):
to a fresh discussion as to the possibility of infection
from contagious diseases through library books. See, this is like
the kind of thing we've talked about recently on stuff
they Don't want you to know, our other podcasts. How
you know, you could argue that this is editorializing, right,
(24:51):
This is the person is putting forth this notion is
like planting the seed of infected library books, and that's
all it takes. There's no scientific evidence here that that's
what the cause was. It was just talking about. Now
the conversation has started again around infected library book. There
was already one that had been, you know, very much happening,
(25:11):
So it kind of pushed things over the cliff, didn't it. Yeah.
I think you're right, no, because it's almost as if
the zeitgeist was waiting for a librarian specifically to die
right now, and all of a sudden supports the logic
of this idea. And we know that the Library Journal
tried to quell or at least temper people's concerns, because
(25:36):
they went on to say the following in the same article.
Possibly there's some danger from this source. Since the bacillus
was discovered, danger is found to lurk in places hitherto unsuspected.
But the greater danger perhaps comes in overestimating this source
of danger and frightening people into a nervous condition. That is, again,
like I said, with that, it could happen, but it's unlikely.
(25:58):
Type of journalism, it's probably be a little more measured
and maybe a little less grabby and click baity, you know,
the historical equivalent of click bay. But I would say
this is the more measured and thoughtful approach. But people
don't usually glom onto the more measured and thoughtful approach
to their They don't, that's right. Uh. Despite good faith efforts,
(26:20):
public libraries were unable to get this concern founded or unfounded,
out of the public mind, and people kept going in
the media and in you know, dinner and table conversation.
The fear just escalated. And for all our fellow ridiculous
historians who are asking, well, when did they start burning
(26:44):
the books? Now is the time? In this story, it
wasn't like people were already sterilizing books with chemicals by
the nineteen hundreds, But eventually this escalated such that in
Britain and in the US, people were burning books to
prevent what they feared would be the spread of disease,
(27:08):
and numerous doctors recommended that people burn contaminated quote unquote
contaminated books. This was even featured in the Library Journal itself,
a trade publication for librarians. It was like, hey, sometimes
you know, I know you're a librarian, but sometimes you
got to burn the book. Yeah, And it just got
(27:30):
weirder ben um where they were literally beginning to do,
you know, they didn't have the technology or the medical
knowledge to truly trace these contagions sometimes, you know, especially
if it was just suspected, you know, or again because
of the how long do things actually stay viable, you know,
(27:52):
when they're in a dry situation, like pressed between the
pages of a book. It's not the same as like
having like anthrax in a book. It's not just gonna
like pop out at you like an envelope of anthrax,
and then the spores that are live are gonna like
go all over the room and like infect everybody. I
mean these things, if placed there by an infected person,
they cannot live. They kind of cannot remain viable in
(28:16):
you know, forever, right, so they kind of the awareness
was there that we need to do a little more
research than this, but it just got so bizarre. Nineteen
eleven and an article called the Disinfection of Books, this
hysteria was absolutely uh escalated and pushed to the next level.
This was by lb nice Uh and published in the
(28:37):
Bulletin of the Medical Library Association. He said, books seem
well adapted for carrying smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, trachoma, diphtheria,
arrest less dysentery, typhoid, and tuberculosis. Yet so far as
I have been able to find, no satisfactory method for
the disinfection of books is being used anywhere in this country.
(28:58):
Books are a particular diverse version of invalids and convalescence.
In other words, saying that people that are like in
the hospital have nothing to do past the time but
read books. Therefore they are in much danger of becoming
infective they being the books. So yeah, I mean, really
fanning the flames here. He goes on to say, besides
the danger of contamination in these ways, and in the
(29:18):
ordinary handling of a book, many people persist in the
uncleanly habits of moistening their fingers in their mouths when
turning the page leaves, which is gross. It's on board,
that's gross. But so uh yeah, this is this feels
(29:39):
like an escalation and worry, but again it's coming from
good intentions. One scientist, William R. Rennick, says, Okay, let's
figure out if that really works. So he cuts out
the dirtiest parts of pages from very well used library books,
mixes the paper with silin center, fugues the liquid, and
(30:00):
and injects it into forty guinea pigs. According to him,
all forty of his test subjects died of Strep, tuberculosis
and sepsis. And then other people were conducting experiments giving
monkeys a drink of milk on a platter of what
was thought to be contaminated literature. All these experiments, like
(30:24):
you said, Nolan, real weird, But they came to one conclusion.
The risk of infection from a book might be very small,
but it couldn't be completely ruled out. We already knew
that just from like speculation. You have to imagine you
have to mess with the poor guinea pigs. I hate
that me too, man mean too. And so, eventually, luckily
(30:47):
for readers around the world, your faithful host included, people
began to say, look, is this just kind of an
outbreak of public hysteria and fear because we feel powerless
in the face of some of these um infections and maladies. Librarians,
(31:08):
someone finally points out, aren't getting sick more often than
people with other jobs, and so librarians begin to address
the panic directly. In New York, people started objecting to
the idea of having books disinfected. The panic began to
subside in Britain because experiment after experiment found the same thing,
(31:33):
that you have very little chance of getting one of
these diseases from a book, and so the panic finally
came to an end, sort of mostly caveat asterix because
we know how people are. As late as nineteen thirteen,
the Highland Recorder, a newspaper in Virginia, said public library
(31:54):
books may scatter scarlet fever. In the nineteen forties, people
in the UK and even Japan, and we're still saying, well,
what if books could give you a disease? Luckily for
all of us, that seems you might as well win
the lottery, at least the way these folks were thinking
of it. And nol I think that brings us to
like our last question of the day. We can't be
(32:16):
the only ones they do this. I gotta ask you
how dirty your library books? Actually, it's a good question, Ben,
and we do have something of an answer from infectious
disease specialist Michael Z. David Um who was quoted by
the Wall Street Journal and a piece that we found
through a Mental Philoss article, how many degrees of Kevin
(32:37):
Bacon is that? Um? He said that virus isn't. Bacteria
can live in the pages of library books, but the
risk of infection is very very low. Libraries today do
still clean their books, and in the same way that
like you clean bowling shoes, right, I mean, it's just
kind of a thing you do with anything that's like
passed around. It's it's it's just it's just good practice,
(33:00):
good good, good standard operating procedure. At the Boston Library,
Mental Floss reported, Uh, the books go through what is
sort of amounts to kind of like a tiny car
wash conveyor belt. Obviously it's not wetting them. That would
totally ruin the books. But it's just to remove dust
from the pages and dust you know, as we know,
oftentimes it's like dead skin cells and all kinds of
(33:22):
things get mixed up in dusts. You know, there's certainly
if you have you have you ever taken a big
old whiff of dust and sucked it down your throat?
I mean, God knows what's in there, and you certainly, uh,
I'm not gonna feel very good after you've done that,
a because it like really hurts, It goes down your
throat and you kind of feel it in your lungs
and be because there could be some you know, contaminants
(33:43):
in there, There's no question about it. Um. But library
books can have some nasty things hiding in those pages.
And Belgians and TOWRRP Public Library did a test and
found traces of cocaine and herpes. That's fair. But what
we talked about, Ben, We've said this many times in
the past. A money, Money is the grossest thing ever
(34:05):
and the most community you know, uh item that we
pass around, and money oftentimes has high instances of having
cocaine traces, and traces is the the operating word here
because these were minuscule amounts and Antwerp is apparently quite
the drug trafficking epicenter. But it doesn't that doesn't really
(34:28):
account for the herpes. Yeah, well, it's definitely not enough
cocaine to get you uh high, or it's enough herpes
virus to give you herpes. Also, I love you point
that out. It's one of my favorite statistics. A ton
of paper currency is you do only to worry about cocaine.
(34:49):
You don't even worry about coronavirus. That stuff is riddled
with human feces. Like, uh, this is the gross out
fact for the day. Apologies to any of the many
awesome educators who are playing today's episode for your classroom,
but your kids are gonna love this. Uh. It is
(35:10):
virtually certain that you have encountered traces of human feces
if you have touched any paper US currency. If that
makes you want to wash your hands right now, please
get the into a washroom because it will be worth it.
But I'm just so glad you know that libraries are
still around right now. Mission I think it was Michigan
(35:32):
asked people not to microwave their books because the coronavirus. Right,
but it will it won't kill it. Well, not only
will it not kill it, they were asking for specific
reason because the new way of cataloging library books is
through these little like scannable r F I D chips
which contain ding ding ding metal. But then in the
microwave it will cause the book to burst into flames.
(35:55):
So yes, good note, don't microwave your books. That's one
of the other takeaway. Uh. And this, uh, this will
wrap our episode for today. We want to hear your stories,
you know, no, Max, do you think we have some
librarians in the audience, folks with their masters in library science?
Holly fry of stuff that you missed in history class.
(36:18):
If I'm not mistaken, in the past life was a librarian. Amazing, amazing. Uh.
So thank you to all the librarians, not just you,
but thank you to all the scientists. Thank you to
all the bibliophiles in the crowd today. And thanks to
our super producer Max Williams, who, to our knowledge has
never microwaved a book. Right, Max, don't put it. Don't
(36:40):
leave us hanging here? What wow? Okay, alright, moving on,
Thanks to Alex Williams, who can post our track. Our
soundtrack can't me to his book Microwaving Habits either, But
I know he's a avid, voracious reader, so I have
a hard time believing that he would ever do something
so offensive to to the written word. Huge thanks to
(37:01):
Christopher Osciotis here in Spirit. Eve's Jeff co who actually
you know what. She recently left the company UM to
pursue adventures on her own, and we love you and
we will miss you very much. Ease look for great
things from her in the future. She's a really awesome
person and we're very proud of her and has never
left our hearts. Speaking of that, we did mention in
(37:22):
a previous episode that I think all three of us
kind of miss our old nemesses who has infected our
hearts and minds. Jonathan Strickland a k. The Quister, look
forward to hearing from him very soon. And with that,
Noel next Paklin the Curtain. I think I'm gonna I
think I'm gonna go find an isolated part of this
uh of the situation and and go dig into a book.
(37:46):
I think it's a smart idea, gets you a nice
beach read on. We'll see you next time. Flix For
more podcast from my heart Radio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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