December 27, 2019 • 10 mins
On this casual Friday chat, Tracy and Holly share their thoughts on the history of aspirin, as well as the amazing churches carved from stone in Ethiopia.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson,
and this is our our what we're starting to refer
to as casual Friday. Yeah, our little our little chat.
(00:23):
Uh Yeah. So first we're gonna talk about the invention
of aspirin because I did not realize I had long
heard the stories of willow bark being chewed on by
people in ancient times as a treatment for various maladies,
but I didn't realize one. Admittedly, I am not a chemist,
(00:44):
and my high school chemistry experience was, shall we say,
less than stellar. The teacher was amazing, but I really
struggled with it, and so like, I think she kind
of just kept like passing me along just out of
kindness because she's like, Holly's never gonna forget this um
(01:05):
And she was amazing, and all of my best friends
were really smart at it. So I felt like just
the stupidest person on earth. But I did not really
understand that salison and salacilic acid are two different things,
because in a lot of casual literature that is not
like a pure reviewed scientific journal thing they get used
completely interchangeably. Yeah. Well, and the thing that our listeners
(01:28):
will not know because they will have all been removed
from what we recorded, I incorrectly call it salacillin. Every
time I needed to say the words and I had
to do it over. We always run into words like
that for both of us. I feel like, Yeah, I
think it's just probably a word that got in my
(01:48):
head wrong at some point and sort of stuck there. Yeah.
I also, I was watching several chemistry videos UM trying
to kind of wrap my brain around it, with mixed success,
and I kept marveling because sometimes the way that chemists
pronounced things are very different from the way I ever
learned them. And then I think, probably these words are
(02:09):
said so infrequently by the general public that nobody really
gets too watted up about pronunciation. UM. Since most of
that work is happening on paper and is being documented
rather than just orally um shared by like in the
scientific community, they probably don't get as as weird about it.
Yet somehow that reminds me. I was I was taking
(02:32):
some transit the other day, and I'm not going to
name any names because I don't want to throw any
brands under the bus. But there was just a billboard
with a picture of the product and the name of
the product underneath it, and then underneath that said it's
pronounced and then rendering of a pronunciation that did not
look like how you would say that. And I was like,
(02:52):
for real, why you gotta name your product something that
requires an explanation for how to pronounce it that is
not tuitive based on how you spelled it. I would
so love to be a fly on the wall in
that marketing discussion where you know, there's some executive way
up the food chain that like just decided this was
(03:16):
the name, and then they're all like, well, how do
we communicate this? We make it part of our brands,
And eventually we were like, we're going to have to
give a phonetic spelling. Yeah. Well, and and when um,
when we were talking about where the name aspirin came
from and how the letters correlated with things, and this
the ending of I n being popular at the time,
(03:40):
it made me just sort of dwell in my mind
for a moment about like pharmaceutical naming today and how
just bizarre and random some of it can seem like
it it does not like a lot of the things
when when you're watching TV and you're seeing the ads
for for drugs, sometimes it's like, did you just put
letters into a hopper pull them out one at a time.
(04:01):
Out In this work, I did. I didn't end up
using it as a source, but I did while working
on this episode Stumble Across essentially like an article that
was written by I think it was two experts on
drug naming, and a lot of it was about like
trying to separate yours from others and how sometimes that
(04:22):
means that you have to do some things that are
counter into Like is this how we get crazy medicine name?
It's like people are just trying to be different. I
feel like this reminds me, this is a big leap,
but come with me of wedding dresses in the nineteen eighties,
where everyone wanted to wear white but also wanted to
look very different, so some very crazy design started happening.
(04:45):
I feel like it's kind of the same thing. Everybody
wants to sound scientific, reliable, you know, like it comes
from a place of great knowledge, but also different enough,
and that's how you get some of the nutty brand
names that we have for drugs. It is. My guests,
some of them are pretty far afield. Yeah, I'm certainly
very grateful that we figured out this whole as spring game.
(05:08):
If I also didn't realize that, like to make it
more palatable, and there are still people we should be
clear that even in its its most easily digestible form,
still can have trouble uh with their their g I
tract from it and from anything. You know, different people
are going to be sensitive to different things. But I
didn't realize that your body is like doing such a
(05:30):
big lift in terms of converting it from the stable
thing that you can digest to the thing that actually
delivers pain relief. Yeah, I'm learned. I'm learning, which is
always the ideal. So our second episode this week, coming
out on Christmas Day, was on the rock hewn churches
in Ethiopia at the complex called La Labella, and I
(05:53):
said this at the end of the show, but I
want to say it again. Um. As I was working
on this, there were times that I thought I wish
us were a video podcast, which I don't really wish
because that is so much more um labor involved than
the podcast we currently have. But uh, man, it's hard
to convey how amazing those churches were without looking at them,
(06:15):
I say, we're they're still they still exist. Uh, yeah,
they're spectacularly beautiful and just um brain breaking in terms
of like how they were built. In some of the
pictures that you will see, you will see folks sort
of clustered around the edge of the rim of the
(06:35):
trench that circles the churches, just with their feet dangling over.
And I look at it and I'm like, man, I
am terrified at the at the idea, because when I
was a kid, I was really scared of heights, and
that was something that I was able to move through
in my young adult years. But still occasionally if I'm
up in a high place, I get a little anxious
(06:56):
about it. And just seeing sort of the people, some
of whom had come on pilgrimage to, just sitting around
the edge of this four story deep rock trench was
I guess, both inspiring and terrifying. I can understand that.
I think, Um, I'm more freaked out by the people
standing around it. If they're sitting I feel way I
(07:19):
think I would be able to sit there, but I
would not be able to stand there and lean over
and look down without panicking and probably causing my own fall. Yeah,
sitting seems great though. Somehow that reminds me of when
I was I was a youth. I don't remember exactly
how old I was, but it was when Hallie's comet
(07:41):
came through and my church that I was raised in
organized a little trip up to a local mountaintop um
to look at the comet. And this kid, who was
about a year older than me, was so anxious about
the other kids who were up there playing because they
were younger kids also. And there was a hang gliding
(08:04):
ramp and they were hanging around the edge of the
ramp and and he was just so uh terrified that
he was about to witness a tragedy. Um. So Yeah.
The other thing that really struck me when I was
doing research about this was how colorful and vibrant the
(08:25):
stories that were part of it, that are part of
the Ethiopian Orthodox religious tradition. I really loved the imagery
of of King Lalibella being surrounded by bees. And I
also really loved the whole story about mental act, the
first going to visit Solomon and coming away with the
ark of the Covenant. I kind of want to go
(08:47):
see if I can find more accounts of how that
might have gone down, because one of the things that
I was listening to about it kind of described it
as like that he was either given it or he
just sort of removed it, Uh, the intent of that
being a little less clear. And then as you said,
(09:08):
it also reminded me of Indiana Jones as I was
working on that. Yeah, don't don't open that arc That's
what I know. Yeah, well, and it's it's treated in
an incredibly sacred way. Um, all the arcs are. The
story is that when the Ark of the Covenant was returned,
it's been guarded by just one month um. And a
lot of the replica arcs that are in uh the
(09:33):
Lollibella complex are similarly like they're in a part of
the monastery that only one person or like a very
select few people are even allowed into the area where
it is kept. So you can look at the UNESCO website,
for example, they have lots and lots of pictures of
what these churches look like. Stuff you missed in History
(09:56):
Class is a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the Heart
Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. H
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson,
and this is our our what we're starting to refer
to as casual Friday. Yeah, our little our little chat.
(00:23):
Uh Yeah. So first we're gonna talk about the invention
of aspirin because I did not realize I had long
heard the stories of willow bark being chewed on by
people in ancient times as a treatment for various maladies,
but I didn't realize one. Admittedly, I am not a chemist,
(00:44):
and my high school chemistry experience was, shall we say,
less than stellar. The teacher was amazing, but I really
struggled with it, and so like, I think she kind
of just kept like passing me along just out of
kindness because she's like, Holly's never gonna forget this um
(01:05):
And she was amazing, and all of my best friends
were really smart at it. So I felt like just
the stupidest person on earth. But I did not really
understand that salison and salacilic acid are two different things,
because in a lot of casual literature that is not
like a pure reviewed scientific journal thing they get used
completely interchangeably. Yeah. Well, and the thing that our listeners
(01:28):
will not know because they will have all been removed
from what we recorded, I incorrectly call it salacillin. Every
time I needed to say the words and I had
to do it over. We always run into words like
that for both of us. I feel like, Yeah, I
think it's just probably a word that got in my
(01:48):
head wrong at some point and sort of stuck there. Yeah.
I also, I was watching several chemistry videos UM trying
to kind of wrap my brain around it, with mixed success,
and I kept marveling because sometimes the way that chemists
pronounced things are very different from the way I ever
learned them. And then I think, probably these words are
(02:09):
said so infrequently by the general public that nobody really
gets too watted up about pronunciation. UM. Since most of
that work is happening on paper and is being documented
rather than just orally um shared by like in the
scientific community, they probably don't get as as weird about it.
Yet somehow that reminds me. I was I was taking
(02:32):
some transit the other day, and I'm not going to
name any names because I don't want to throw any
brands under the bus. But there was just a billboard
with a picture of the product and the name of
the product underneath it, and then underneath that said it's
pronounced and then rendering of a pronunciation that did not
look like how you would say that. And I was like,
(02:52):
for real, why you gotta name your product something that
requires an explanation for how to pronounce it that is
not tuitive based on how you spelled it. I would
so love to be a fly on the wall in
that marketing discussion where you know, there's some executive way
up the food chain that like just decided this was
(03:16):
the name, and then they're all like, well, how do
we communicate this? We make it part of our brands,
And eventually we were like, we're going to have to
give a phonetic spelling. Yeah. Well, and and when um,
when we were talking about where the name aspirin came
from and how the letters correlated with things, and this
the ending of I n being popular at the time,
(03:40):
it made me just sort of dwell in my mind
for a moment about like pharmaceutical naming today and how
just bizarre and random some of it can seem like
it it does not like a lot of the things
when when you're watching TV and you're seeing the ads
for for drugs, sometimes it's like, did you just put
letters into a hopper pull them out one at a time.
(04:01):
Out In this work, I did. I didn't end up
using it as a source, but I did while working
on this episode Stumble Across essentially like an article that
was written by I think it was two experts on
drug naming, and a lot of it was about like
trying to separate yours from others and how sometimes that
(04:22):
means that you have to do some things that are
counter into Like is this how we get crazy medicine name?
It's like people are just trying to be different. I
feel like this reminds me, this is a big leap,
but come with me of wedding dresses in the nineteen eighties,
where everyone wanted to wear white but also wanted to
look very different, so some very crazy design started happening.
(04:45):
I feel like it's kind of the same thing. Everybody
wants to sound scientific, reliable, you know, like it comes
from a place of great knowledge, but also different enough,
and that's how you get some of the nutty brand
names that we have for drugs. It is. My guests,
some of them are pretty far afield. Yeah, I'm certainly
very grateful that we figured out this whole as spring game.
(05:08):
If I also didn't realize that, like to make it
more palatable, and there are still people we should be
clear that even in its its most easily digestible form,
still can have trouble uh with their their g I
tract from it and from anything. You know, different people
are going to be sensitive to different things. But I
didn't realize that your body is like doing such a
(05:30):
big lift in terms of converting it from the stable
thing that you can digest to the thing that actually
delivers pain relief. Yeah, I'm learned. I'm learning, which is
always the ideal. So our second episode this week, coming
out on Christmas Day, was on the rock hewn churches
in Ethiopia at the complex called La Labella, and I
(05:53):
said this at the end of the show, but I
want to say it again. Um. As I was working
on this, there were times that I thought I wish
us were a video podcast, which I don't really wish
because that is so much more um labor involved than
the podcast we currently have. But uh, man, it's hard
to convey how amazing those churches were without looking at them,
(06:15):
I say, we're they're still they still exist. Uh, yeah,
they're spectacularly beautiful and just um brain breaking in terms
of like how they were built. In some of the
pictures that you will see, you will see folks sort
of clustered around the edge of the rim of the
(06:35):
trench that circles the churches, just with their feet dangling over.
And I look at it and I'm like, man, I
am terrified at the at the idea, because when I
was a kid, I was really scared of heights, and
that was something that I was able to move through
in my young adult years. But still occasionally if I'm
up in a high place, I get a little anxious
(06:56):
about it. And just seeing sort of the people, some
of whom had come on pilgrimage to, just sitting around
the edge of this four story deep rock trench was
I guess, both inspiring and terrifying. I can understand that.
I think, Um, I'm more freaked out by the people
standing around it. If they're sitting I feel way I
(07:19):
think I would be able to sit there, but I
would not be able to stand there and lean over
and look down without panicking and probably causing my own fall. Yeah,
sitting seems great though. Somehow that reminds me of when
I was I was a youth. I don't remember exactly
how old I was, but it was when Hallie's comet
(07:41):
came through and my church that I was raised in
organized a little trip up to a local mountaintop um
to look at the comet. And this kid, who was
about a year older than me, was so anxious about
the other kids who were up there playing because they
were younger kids also. And there was a hang gliding
(08:04):
ramp and they were hanging around the edge of the
ramp and and he was just so uh terrified that
he was about to witness a tragedy. Um. So Yeah.
The other thing that really struck me when I was
doing research about this was how colorful and vibrant the
(08:25):
stories that were part of it, that are part of
the Ethiopian Orthodox religious tradition. I really loved the imagery
of of King Lalibella being surrounded by bees. And I
also really loved the whole story about mental act, the
first going to visit Solomon and coming away with the
ark of the Covenant. I kind of want to go
(08:47):
see if I can find more accounts of how that
might have gone down, because one of the things that
I was listening to about it kind of described it
as like that he was either given it or he
just sort of removed it, Uh, the intent of that
being a little less clear. And then as you said,
(09:08):
it also reminded me of Indiana Jones as I was
working on that. Yeah, don't don't open that arc That's
what I know. Yeah, well, and it's it's treated in
an incredibly sacred way. Um, all the arcs are. The
story is that when the Ark of the Covenant was returned,
it's been guarded by just one month um. And a
lot of the replica arcs that are in uh the
(09:33):
Lollibella complex are similarly like they're in a part of
the monastery that only one person or like a very
select few people are even allowed into the area where
it is kept. So you can look at the UNESCO website,
for example, they have lots and lots of pictures of
what these churches look like. Stuff you missed in History
(09:56):
Class is a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the Heart
Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. H
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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