Behind the Scenes Minis: Blood Banks and Lady C

Tracy and Holly talk about Charles Drew’s marriage and the impact of the early HIV/AIDS crisis on blood donation. They also discuss all the aspects of the Chatterley story that didn’t make it into the episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, A production
of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy P.
Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. We talked about Charles Drew
and Blood Banks this week, and it was the episode

(00:22):
that we had to take the most composing ourselves breaks
in a long time. I think, yes, it's for both
of us. Yeah, the whole last portion. I mean, I
feel like I haven't enough to take breaks because I
get emotional. But um, yeah, that one was a lot

(00:44):
of like read a paragraph, we both wait a minute. Yeah. Um.
One of the things I originally had in the outline
that I wound up taking out was that one of
the reasons there were so many doctors who had trained
at Howard who were living in Winston Salem was a

(01:05):
hospital called Kate B. Reynolds Memorial Hospital, which was nicknamed
the Katib at the time that this happened. This was
one of the biggest hospitals for black patients in the
United States, and it was also home to a nursing
school for black nurses. UM. Winston Salem was the closest

(01:26):
city to where I grew up. I did not know
that this ever existed. It closed a couple of years
before I was born, and as I was sort of
trying to track, I was like, why, like why were
there so many like specifically how to like where were
people practicing Winston Salem? And I found out about the
KATIB and I got a little choked up about it.

(01:47):
I was like, I think this is something I feel
like I should have learned as somebody whose entire K
through twelve education happened in the Winston Salem for scythe
County school system. Well, but you know, I didn't know
until just now. Another thing that came up as a
parallel um was there was that passage that Charles Drew

(02:11):
had written a letter to one of his his former
coaches where he was talking about how there wasn't like
a surgical tradition at Howard training Black surgeons, And it
reminded me of our episode on Vivian Thomas UM, who
if you do not recall, Vivian Thomas was an enormous
part of developing a surgical treatment for a condition called

(02:33):
te Trilogy of Fellow And UH did that um under
a white surgeon. He was a surgical technician, and so
we had a conversation in that about how uh Dr Blaylock,
who he had been working under, was like had had
some regrets that he had not sent Vivian Thomas to
medical school, but if he had, what his likely role

(02:57):
would have been as a doctor, which probably would have
been UM, practicing in a hospital or a private practice
or whatever with black patients. Um, which was like really
the same point that Charles Street was making. M. Vivian
Thomas's work was like just a few years after that,
not long after that at all. But it's still sort
of an example of how few opportunities there were for

(03:23):
black doctors and surgeons to like make groundbreaking discoveries in
the world of medicine because of the systems of racism
that were in place, and even if they made them,
they couldn't move forward in their careers, right right, Also,
obviously there are still huge healthcare disparities along racial lines today.

(03:48):
That is not something that has disappeared. Did not solve that. No,
I um have a thing in this episode for which
I'm deeply thankful, okay, which is to have another instance
of a couple who got married very quickly, it seemed

(04:10):
very happy. Yeah, well, there we didn't get into this,
but there were some things about their relationship that did
seem to be a little challenging. Like one of the
things he really seemed to like about her was that
he was really passionate and she was really grounded, and
so it felt like she sort of anchored him in
some ways. But that also seems to have sometimes led

(04:32):
him to feel like he didn't have the kind of
passionate connection like. So, like, there were some ways that
I think their relationship was sometimes difficult, and the fact
that he was at work so much and was separated
from them so often, UM and then tragically died at
just such an early age where their children were all

(04:53):
still really little. Just as a married my person very
quickly person. I'm happy for any instance where that doesn't
turn into and then the whole thing collapsed in a
crunchy pile of flames. Because people shouldn't do that. I Like,
sometimes they should write right, sometimes they should m h um,

(05:16):
Just just a personal note of appreciation on that one.
You talked at the end of the episode about um
the issues around HIV and blood donation. Yeah, I didn't

(05:39):
know if you wanted to expound on that any further. Yeah, Like,
so I don't. You and I both lived through the
AIDS crisis, and I think that that folks who were
not born yet might not have a sense of like
how scary it was, UM and how there was a
period of time when there wasn't there was no way

(06:01):
to test donated blood for HIV, and there were people
who went to get a surgery and got it necessary
blood transfusion and contracted HIV through that transfusion. UM. And
so in that environment where like there wasn't a way
to test, and people knew that it like disproportionately was

(06:22):
affecting men who had sex with men, Like I don't
know that there would have been another way in that
moment to have tried to protect the blood supply. But
then tests did become available, and it became clear like
that there is a brief window where a person could

(06:42):
transmit HIV through their blood but like not show up
on a test yet. But that window is it's not
an entire life, Like the lifetime band no longer made
any sense at all. And then even when it was
reduced to a year, that's like still a year was
like way longer than the testing seems to back up.

(07:03):
And then like now it is three months, and that
is something that started during the COVID pandemic. All of
this is only related to the United States. I have
no idea how the source any world. And even then,
it just it felt like the f d A was saying,
we're desperate for blood, so I guess we'll take your
blood now, um, when really what should have happened is

(07:25):
years and years and years ago. Some studies to figure
out like what are the right questions to ask individual people,
not to make a whole blanket statement of uh. And
then also like like what's the actual time period where
a person might have been exposed to HIV but not

(07:46):
have it show up on a test yet. I've been
trying to donate blood regularly. I'm not doing it quite
as regularly as my goal is to do. I just
there will be times where I'm like, there's no way
I'm gonna make it to the to the donation drive
to like this, I have to reschedule it sometimes. But
like the number of questions that are asked now is

(08:09):
I remember the first time I ever gave blood. I
feel like there were three questions that they were questions
that pertains to I think like HIV hepatitis and maybe
a third thing. Um. Now, it is a very long
list of questions that involves, uh, like your sexual history

(08:30):
and whether you've gotten tattoos recently in your travel history,
whether you have lived in the UK during the period
when when mad cow diseases have like a it's a
very very long list of stuff. I don't you ever
seem to get to donate blood. They always do the
spin and go, you're an emic, and I'm like, I

(08:51):
don't feel like and then that's the end. One of
the times I had there was a time I was
gonna go. The very first question that you are asked
when you're going to donate blood is are you feeling
well today? And there was one day where that answer
was no, and so I rescheduled it. Uh. And then
the day that I rescheduled it, I got there and

(09:13):
my pulse rate was too rapid and they'll check it
a second time. I'll give you a few minutes to
kind of chill out, just check check it a second time,
and they were like, your pulse is still a hundred
and two and any I don't know what was up
with me that day. So I had to defer that
day too. I got sent home and like, so that
kind of stuff has cost me to to have to

(09:34):
defer a couple of times. Um, there have been h
for a while. If you had been to Haiti at all,
even if you were on like a cruise ship docked
at the the private island that you never got off of,
you had to defer. I think that has loosened up
a little bit. But that's like a malaria risk. Um. Anyway,
this study that's happening right now to try to figure

(09:57):
out actual questions to ask instead of having this blanket
discriminatory band. It's called the Advanced Study. They have recruited
all their participants for it. I think they're expecting to
have the results of it by the end of the year. Um,
and I am hopeful that the result will be like

(10:19):
actual questions about people's behaviors to ask it really do
quantify an individual person's risk instead of it being like
no one who has had sex with another man, like
a man who's had sex with another man, or had
sex with a man who's had sex with a man
in the last three months, Just what is right now? Yeah,
I'll probably be disqualified for a while because of tattoos. Yeah,

(10:42):
the tattoo requirements are a little bit looser than they
were some years ago, because now there's stuff that has
to do with whether the state regulates the tattoo parlors.
That's how I learned. Massachusetts, a state that regulates a
lot of stuff, apparently doesn't regulate regulate our tattoo parlors
in a way that the FDA finds sufficient for blood donation.

(11:04):
Right now, I'm, you know, trying to get lots of
work done and finished up on my tattoos, so I'm
kind of there once a month at least, So I
don't know when I will you to try to give
blood again and be told once more that I am.
I one time didn't even get to the spin because
they were like, your blood pressure is way too low.
Oh yeah, I don't think that would be the case

(11:25):
now because I've put on some weight and I'm a
little older. But at the time it was like one
of those um, yeah, you will turn into a limp
rag if we try to take blood anyway. So yeah,
we've talked about my hypertension journey on the show. My
my blood pressure is doing pretty well right now. It
is mostly in the normal range with medication. Um but

(11:47):
when there's an app, you can look back at your
donation history, and there's a couple of times where I'm like,
I wish they had said, hey, you maybe should talk
to your doctor about this blood pressure because this is
a little well uh, but they didn't. I don't know
if there's a rule about how high your blood pressure
can be to donate blood, but if your pulses over

(12:10):
a hundred, they will tell you to go anyway. Um,
fingers crossed that we get to a more reasonable, not
discriminatory policy that is about actual risk factors and not
like a broad ban on people based on their sexual orientation.

(12:45):
We talked about Lady Chatterley's Lover. This week. We did
a book I'm pretty sure I've never read. I've read it,
but I'll confess to you I get my wires crossed
over things that happened in Lady Chatterly's Lover and things
that happened in Madame Bovary. And I have definitely read
Madame Bovary in one of my literature classes in college. Uh,

(13:08):
And we had we had a number of required readings
in that class that had to do with people being
unhappy and unfulfilled in their relationships. Yeah, there's a lot
of crossover between those two. Yeah, and as a consequence,
I get very confused. Yeah, I don't. I don't know

(13:29):
if you've ever read a plot summary of Lady Chatterly,
But their first sexual encounter happens in the forest on
the floor, and there's an event in Madame Bovary that
happens in a carriage, and I get those two switched
every time. Yeah, that I remember the carriage scene. Which
one is in which book? One of these that I
remember discussing in class. Also, I read that book and

(13:51):
I read Bovery in high school, and then when I
was in college, my high school English teacher asked if
I would like to guest lecture on it for her
class she had then, which was fun and made me
realize teaching is hard. I have so many side notes
for today that I should probably be slightly judicious about them. Um,

(14:13):
this one isn't really a thing that's worth a lot
of discussion, but it's a fun trivia point. We mentioned
in the episode that an Enjoyable Christmas a Prelude was D. H.
Lawrence's first published work, and he got to publish that
as part of a contest that he had won. But
the thing was he had entered multiple times, and so
he had used a different name for that one, and

(14:34):
it published not under his name but as his dear
friend Jesse Chambers. Um. Although people soon realized that D. H.
Lawrence was the true author, like, they didn't try to
hide it once it was published. But it just makes
me a little tickled that his first published work wasn't
actually under his own name. That's funny. Um. Something that

(14:55):
jumped out at me that I did not realize. It
didn't click with me, uh when I was reading the
outline ahead of time. It only clicked with me in
the studio. Um during the trial, when the prosecution was
like would you want your wife to be reading this?
I assumed that the jurors were all male, because like

(15:16):
there was a long time when the jurors would have
been on all mail. And so it wasn't until we
got to the part about the dedication on the like
the next edition of the book that that mentioned the
men and women on the jury, and I was like
the guy was standing up there being like would you
want your wife reading this in front of Like it

(15:38):
just added another layer of gross to me. So I
will tell you that I had the same journey of
discovery while doing the research, and I left it purposely
ambiguous in the thing because to me it is kind
of a punch of like, oh Lord that bands a
jerk at the end. I love this. I love this.
I'm glad we've had this conversation. Yeah, there's an interesting thing.

(16:02):
We mentioned his ashes being moved from France to Taos,
And now if you go to Taos, tause loves their d. H. Lawrence.
He didn't live there very long, but they really love d. H. Lawrence. Um.
And they have like entire um, like very beautiful spaces
dedicated to him. In the chapel where his ashes are
is still there, except there are a lot of people

(16:24):
that think his ashes aren't in there. Um. So there's
a d. H. Lawrence scholar named Emile de la Verna,
and he wrote a paper not that long ago, but
the case was made that when the ashes were being
brought back over, it was discovered that they were going

(16:45):
to have to pay taxes on them, and that without
telling Frieda, her lover her at the time not yet
her next husband, um head instead spread them in the
Mediterranean and then put dust and some earth in the
the Urn and that that is in fact with sin

(17:06):
Taos and he has a whole supporting thing around that. UM.
I will and make sure I include that in the
show notes. If you want to go read that paper,
it's available on j Store, but you do have to
be logged in to see it. Uh. It's just an
interesting theory. As I was reading, I was like, I
wonder how many people are talking about this in biographies

(17:28):
of him that are more recent, and they kind of don't.
I think most people are like, let's not, it's not Germany.
I Also we didn't talk about the fact that the
age Laurence painted a lot painted a lot of also
very provocative and sexually explicit paintings. I was reading one

(17:48):
account of them where someone said they're really not that explicit.
They're mostly very gropy, which is not incorrect. Um, but
if you go looking for them, he has a very
unique painting style. Uh. And we didn't really get to
talk about that. But I also mentioned that the US
and Great Britain are not the only places that this

(18:08):
book has a legal history. No, definitely not. And the
two that sort of broke my heart were in Japan
and India. Uh. In those cases. There was a full
translation of Lady Chatterley's Lover published in Japan and nineteen
fifty and that is its own famous subsanity trial in

(18:28):
that country. Um. Similarly, a lot of literary experts testified
for the defense. However, that publisher received a guilty verdict
in that case and had to pay a pretty significant fine.
And that's pretty similar to how it played out in
India as well. So it's kind of interesting. Um, it
was still banned in Australia even after the British case

(18:53):
around it, and then black market copies got smuggled into
Australia and started to be published republished there in mid sixties,
and that kind of led people to go, I guess
we're allowing this now, Like it wasn't much more relaxed
kind of proceedings. Um. It's just an interesting thing the
way one book can really like catalyze this really a

(19:14):
pretty serious discussion about what is and is not acceptable, uh,
in the realm of literature and art. Um. I mean
I think you and I have lived through plenty of those, right, Um,
where various artists and writers have been kind of called
on the carpet for being obscene and other people are like, no,
that's it's art, dude. I know. I don't think we'll

(19:37):
ever come to consensus because not everyone will agree what's acceptable. Sure.
I mean there are still you know, lists of banned
books that appear everywhere, and libraries do banned book promotions
and a lot of calls to band books ongoing currently, yes,
which is just fascinating to me. Um. There were some

(19:59):
really interesting things I didn't include because this was starting
to run a little bit long. Um news articles where
people had, of course, you know, reporters had, of course,
to get a slightly different spin on the story, talked
to like their local libraries about it and been like
what are you gonna do? And there was one library

(20:20):
where the head library and was very matter of fact
and I sort of loved it, where he was like,
I mean we haven't we've actually had it for a
little while, but like nobody checks that book out there.
They all read Sons and Lovers. I don't know, and
like we wouldn't let a kid get to the checkout
desk and take this book, like we did. We do
recognize that, like not every book is is for kids. Um.

(20:43):
It was just this interesting thing of like why do
you think this is a problem kind of like the
React books anyway, d H. Lawrence, he's so fascinating to me.
Probably kind of a mess on the side, but he
had a lot of weird things that happened. Anyway, that's
my things. On Lady Chatterle's Lover, which, um, I'm sure

(21:04):
people will ask us about various movies. There is a
new Lady Chatterley's Lover. I haven't seen it yet because
it isn't out yet. Also, I don't know that i'll
watch it. That's kind of not my genre of film,
So we'll see. It'll be out I think by the
time this airs, but it was not out when we recorded.
I think November when it's out on I'm pulling this

(21:25):
from memory net Flix. Don't quote me on that, but
I think November. If you're looking for a new version,
there have been lots of versions over the years, including
that French one that kind of riled up this whole
case again. Uh, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Emma Bovary, they're all one.
They're all one. To me, they're not. I know, they're different.

(21:48):
I you know, Gustafalobert would be chagrined I do wonder
what D. H. Lawrence would think of all this though, Yeah, yeah,
like if he would just be like what so many
lawyers I don't I don't know. Yeah, but his his
little boat got to fly. So there you go. If
you are coming up on your weekend, hopefully you will

(22:09):
enjoy some art or literature whatever you think is appropriate
for you. Uh. And if you can't do that, I
hope you at least have the best possible couple of
days ahead. We will be right back here tomorrow with
a classic episode, and then on Monday once again with
new stuff. Stuff you missed in History Class is a

(22:29):
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I
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