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Going Bananas · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. We tend not to think about the objects
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  Speaker 1: we encounter each day and where they came from. We've
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  Speaker 1: always used short plastic sticks with nylon bristles to brush
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  Speaker 1: our teeth, or washed our hands in porcelain basins, or
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  Speaker 1: enjoyed our morning cup of coffee in a ceramic mug.
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  Speaker 1: But who were the first people to brush their teeth
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  Speaker 1: that way, or wash their hands in a sink, or
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  Speaker 1: use a mug to hold hot beverages. For the most part,
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  Speaker 1: we don't think about those things because we don't really
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  Speaker 1: care as long as they work the way that they're
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  Speaker 1: supposed to. But one man cared, and he let everyone
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  Speaker 1: know it. Henry was upset. On December twenty, nineteen seventeen,
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  Speaker 1: he penned an article in the New York Evening Mail
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  Speaker 1: about an anniversary that seemed to have slipped by without
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  Speaker 1: any attention paid. There was no fanfare or fireworks, not
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  Speaker 1: even a short write up in the local papers. What
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  Speaker 1: had everyone forgotten the bathtub? December twenty of that year
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  Speaker 1: marked the seventy fifth anniversary of the bathtub's introduction to
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  Speaker 1: the United States. A party had been in the works
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  Speaker 1: months earlier when a surgeon stumbled upon the date while
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  Speaker 1: researching the origins of public hygiene. Unfortunately, the event was
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  Speaker 1: going to be held in Washington, d c. Which had
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  Speaker 1: recently banned alcohol. As a result, the party was canceled.
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  Speaker 1: Henry dove deep into the history of the bathtub in America,
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  Speaker 1: which had gotten its starts in Cincinnati in eighteen forty two.
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  Speaker 1: A salesman named Adam Thompson used to try owl to
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  Speaker 1: England on business and had gotten accustomed to visiting the
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  Speaker 1: baths there. Though the bathtub had been introduced years earlier,
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  Speaker 1: it was an uncommon practice even there. Early bathtubs were
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  Speaker 1: much smaller than they are today, not large enough to
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  Speaker 1: accommodate the full sized person. The act of bathing actually
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  Speaker 1: required the tub to be emptied and refilled by a
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  Speaker 1: servant until the process was complete. Thompson, however, saw a
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  Speaker 1: way to make it much easier. His version was enlarged
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  Speaker 1: so that he could sit inside it, and instead of
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  Speaker 1: having someone fetch water from another location and bring it
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  Speaker 1: to him, he hooked up pipes that filled the tub
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  Speaker 1: from the well in his garden. Six men would pump
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  Speaker 1: the water into a tank in the attic of his house.
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  Speaker 1: Pipes from the tank would then carry the water to
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  Speaker 1: the tub below. One line brought cold water straight from
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  Speaker 1: the tank, while another coiled around the chimney, which then
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  Speaker 1: heated it on the way down. The tub itself didn't
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  Speaker 1: look much like today's modern bathing vessels. Rather than being
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  Speaker 1: made out of cast iron or acrylic like more more
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  Speaker 1: are in tubs, Thompson's was hand built out of Nicaraguan mahogany,
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  Speaker 1: and it was massive, seven ft long by four ft wide,
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  Speaker 1: and it was lined with leads so that the water
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't leak out. It was so heavy that they had
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  Speaker 1: to have extra beams installed in the floor beneath it
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  Speaker 1: to support its weight. Thompson's tubs soon became a main
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  Speaker 1: topic of conversation when company came to visit. He demonstrated
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  Speaker 1: it to friends on Christmas Day and even invited them
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  Speaker 1: to take a dip if they liked. After that, news
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  Speaker 1: of the bathtub spread across Cincinnati. While the wealthy elite
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  Speaker 1: embraced it, several medical professionals came out against it, warning
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  Speaker 1: that frequent baths would cause fever and respiratory issues. News
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  Speaker 1: of the tub made it as far east as Pennsylvania.
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  Speaker 1: The Philadelphia Common Council went so far as to try
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  Speaker 1: to ban all bathing between the months of November and March,
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  Speaker 1: but couldn't get the motion to pass. Cities in Delaware
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  Speaker 1: couldn't keep the tubs from being installed, either, but water
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  Speaker 1: rates skyrocketed for those who owned them. Eventually, cheaper materials
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  Speaker 1: and construction made the bathtub a common sight in homes everywhere.
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  Speaker 1: All the medical debates and political outrage started to die
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  Speaker 1: down when it was clear that there was no way
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  Speaker 1: of stopping them. Vice President Millard Fillmore even visited the
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  Speaker 1: late Adam Thompson's home in eighteen fifty and bathed in
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  Speaker 1: his original mahogany tub. Later, when he became president, he
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  Speaker 1: ordered one to be installed in the White House. The
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  Speaker 1: trend took off from there, and bathtubs became a mainstay
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  Speaker 1: in homes, hotels, prisons, and other dwellings across the United States.
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  Speaker 1: Henry's article was reprinted in newspapers all over the country.
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  Speaker 1: Members of Congress cited it in legislation, encyclopedias included it
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  Speaker 1: in their entries on the bathtub. Clearly, the article was
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  Speaker 1: a viral hit, and then eight years later Henry followed
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  Speaker 1: it up with a new piece, one he titled Melancholy Reflections.
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  Speaker 1: Rather than expand on his history of the bathtub, the
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  Speaker 1: author penned something else, entirely a confession his original article, Well,
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  Speaker 1: it had been a hoax. Any truth it might have
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  Speaker 1: held was done by accident. Despite his admission, Henry L.
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  Speaker 1: Mankins piece is still quoted as fact today in published
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  Speaker 1: articles and essays. It seems that it's a stain that
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  Speaker 1: no amount of washing will ever be able to remove,
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  Speaker 1: no matter how are'd we try. Sometimes we can't help
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  Speaker 1: but find ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.
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  Speaker 1: The security guard who was supposed to be watching the
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  Speaker 1: i g R learned that the hard way, although not
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  Speaker 1: as hard as some others. The i g R was
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  Speaker 1: a radiotherapy clinic at a hospital in Brazil. The hospital
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  Speaker 1: closed and the clinic moved to a new location. Technicians
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  Speaker 1: left some old equipment behind, including a teletherapy machine used
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  Speaker 1: for aviation therapy, and a legal fight broke out between
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  Speaker 1: I g R. And the group that owned the old location,
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  Speaker 1: the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. For months, they
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  Speaker 1: battled over the contents that remained inside the building, and
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  Speaker 1: while both parties worked to sort things out, the court
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  Speaker 1: appointed a security guard to watch over the location to
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  Speaker 1: prevent items from being stolen. Two years later, on September seven,
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  Speaker 1: the security guard didn't show up for work. In his absence,
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  Speaker 1: to scavengers looking for scrap to sell slipped inside the
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  Speaker 1: abandoned hospital. As luck would have it, Roberto and his
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  Speaker 1: partner Wagner, stumbled upon the old teletherapy machine. Believing that
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  Speaker 1: they hit the big time, they started taking it apart
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  Speaker 1: and loading pieces into a cart. That night, they noticed
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  Speaker 1: something was wrong. They were very sick, vomiting frequently. As
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  Speaker 1: they broke their haul down even further, their symptoms grew worse.
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  Speaker 1: The following day, they dealt with diarrhea and dizziness, and
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  Speaker 1: Wagner himself suffered a burn on his hand that caused
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  Speaker 1: it to swell. It got so bad that he ended
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  Speaker 1: up losing several fingers. While he recovered, Roberto kept at it,
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  Speaker 1: finally breaking through to the core of the device. He
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  Speaker 1: jammed a screwdriver into the capsule to pry it open
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  Speaker 1: and saw a blue glow coming from inside. Unable to
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  Speaker 1: get the strange substance to react to fire or other materials,
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  Speaker 1: he decided to sell the lot to a local scrap
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  Speaker 1: yard owned by a man named d vere Alvez Ferreira.
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  Speaker 1: Ferrara was captivated by the blue light, believing that he
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  Speaker 1: was in possession of something valuable, possibly even holy. He
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  Speaker 1: brought it inside his home and invited friends to come
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  Speaker 1: and see it. He sold the rest of the salvage
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  Speaker 1: medal to a rival scrapyard. One visitor managed to pull
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  Speaker 1: a few rice sized grains of the substance from the capsule,
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  Speaker 1: which were then passed out as tokens of good luck.
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  Speaker 1: Ferreira's brother, Ivo took one home to show his wife
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  Speaker 1: and six year old daughter. The little girl was eating
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  Speaker 1: lunch when her father placed the material on their concrete floor.
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  Speaker 1: She picked it up it smeared it on her face
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  Speaker 1: like makeup. Some of it even made it into her sandwich.
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  Speaker 1: Everyone who had come in contact with Ferrara and the
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  Speaker 1: glowing blue grains started to get sick. Ivo's wife was
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  Speaker 1: the first to show symptoms. She quickly realized that their
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  Speaker 1: illnesses hadn't started until the blue stuff inside had entered
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  Speaker 1: their lives. She got the scrap metal back from the
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  Speaker 1: other yard and brought everything to a local hospital. Dr
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  Speaker 1: Paolo Roberto recognized her symptoms as well. Roberto, Wagner, and
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  Speaker 1: the Ferrara family had all been exposed to caesium chloride,
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  Speaker 1: the radioactive fuel that made the teletherapy machine work. Within hours,
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  Speaker 1: the authorities were at work on containment while the media
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  Speaker 1: alerted the public to the situation. Hospitals were immediately overrun
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  Speaker 1: with panic stricken people believing that they had been contaminated.
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  Speaker 1: Out of almost one thirty thousand patients, two hundred fifty
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  Speaker 1: showed signs of exposure. Of those, twenty required treatment for
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  Speaker 1: radiation sickness. Sadly, though many survived the ordeal, several did not.
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  Speaker 1: Two of Ferraira's employees at the scrapyard suffered from oregon
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  Speaker 1: damage due to their handling of the radioactive material and
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  Speaker 1: died just weeks after exposure. Ferreira's wife also passed away
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  Speaker 1: from exposure to the substance. In fact, she died on
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  Speaker 1: the same day as her niece, the young girl who
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  Speaker 1: thought the blue substance was makeup. And all of this
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  Speaker 1: tragedy could have been avoided if the state hired security
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  Speaker 1: guard had been at his post. For whatever reason, he
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  Speaker 1: happened to be in the wrong place at the very
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  Speaker 1: wrong time. Rather than protecting radioactive materials from falling into
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  Speaker 1: the wrong hands, the guard had taken his family, who
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  Speaker 1: was screening of Herbie Goes Bananas, a poorly received entry
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  Speaker 1: in the Herbie the love Bug film series. Thanks to
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  Speaker 1: the guard, Herbie Goes Bananas went from a box office
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  Speaker 1: bomb to a bomb of a very different kind. I
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  Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
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  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
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  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
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  Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,