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A Real Knockout · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Imagine this. The year is eighteen thirty and you have
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  Speaker 1: a horn growing out of the center of your forehead.
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  Speaker 1: It's the color and texture of tree bark. It started
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  Speaker 1: forming six years ago and now it's nearly ten inches long.
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  Speaker 1: You want this weird growth gone, but the doctors all
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  Speaker 1: tell you the same thing. Surgery is going to be
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  Speaker 1: horrifically painful. However, after six years of living with this
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  Speaker 1: thing growing out of your head, you don't really care anymore.
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  Speaker 1: You go in for surgery to handle the pain you
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  Speaker 1: know is coming. You're given whiskey that's it, drunk, but
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  Speaker 1: fully aware that a scalpel is aimed at your face.
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  Speaker 1: You lay back, bite down on a towel and hope
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  Speaker 1: for the best. It's the most excruciating thing you have
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  Speaker 1: ever experienced, but you survived the ordeal, and because of
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  Speaker 1: that you become famous for being one of the first
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  Speaker 1: successful plastic surgery patients ever. And I'm sure you've guessed
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  Speaker 1: by now that this is a true story. The patient
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  Speaker 1: in question was Madame Demanche of Paris. She had a
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  Speaker 1: cutaneous horn, which is a large tumor formed out of keratin.
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  Speaker 1: After her successful operation, she became a poster child for
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  Speaker 1: plastic surgery. A wax model of her face, horn and
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  Speaker 1: all was purchased by an American medical school graduate while
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  Speaker 1: he worked abroad. His name was doctor Thomas Mooder, and
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  Speaker 1: he would become one of the most important surgeons in
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  Speaker 1: the world. Born in Virginia in eighteen eleven, Thomas's boyhood
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  Speaker 1: was marked by tragedy. By the time time he was
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  Speaker 1: seven years old, his brother, mother, and father had all
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  Speaker 1: passed away from illness. He was sent to live with
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  Speaker 1: his grandmother, but soon she too died. He was then
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  Speaker 1: raised by a family friend until at fifteen years old,
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  Speaker 1: he left to go to college, and Thomas flourished in school.
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  Speaker 1: He flew through his undergrad studies and soon moved to Philadelphia,
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  Speaker 1: where he attended the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. At
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  Speaker 1: just twenty years old, he officially became doctor Muder. The
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  Speaker 1: next year, he took a trip to Paris to study
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  Speaker 1: the burgeoning field of plastic surgery. Now, just to be clear,
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  Speaker 1: doctor Mud wasn't doing facelifts. In the eighteen hundreds, plastic
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  Speaker 1: surgeons were most often focused on helping patients with congenital deformities,
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  Speaker 1: body growths, or injuries from severe accidents. Usually they worked
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  Speaker 1: with very extreme cases, like that of Madame Demnche. Doctor
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  Speaker 1: Mud purchased the wax model of her face while working
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  Speaker 1: in Paris and brought it back to Philadelphia the following year.
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  Speaker 1: In eighteen thirty two, he established his own medical practice.
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  Speaker 1: He soon gained a reputation as someone who truly cared
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  Speaker 1: about his patient's comfort and safety when he operated. He
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  Speaker 1: tried to keep the surgery clean and quick to minimize
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  Speaker 1: his patient suffering. But still, the sculpture of the horned
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  Speaker 1: woman served as a sad reminder people tended to avoid
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  Speaker 1: surgery even when they desperately needed it. It was just
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  Speaker 1: too painful, and a lot of nineteenth century doctors didn't
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  Speaker 1: seem to care. They viewed pain as a natural part
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  Speaker 1: of surgery, something to be accepted rather than avoided. But
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  Speaker 1: doctor Mutor disagreed if surgery wasn't so agonizing, people would
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  Speaker 1: be more likely to get the help that they needed,
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  Speaker 1: and that's why when he learned about a new medical
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  Speaker 1: technology in eighteen forty six, he was desperate to try it.
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  Speaker 1: He was called ether. Now, for those who don't know,
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  Speaker 1: ether was in early form of anesthesia. It knocked patients
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  Speaker 1: unconscious during surgery, preventing them from feeling any pain. Many
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  Speaker 1: physicians were opposed to its use, though, believing that it
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  Speaker 1: could be dangerous, but doctor Mutor saw it as an
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  Speaker 1: opportunity that couldn't be passed up. That same year, doctor
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  Speaker 1: Mudor became the first surgeon in Philadelphia to administer anesthesia.
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  Speaker 1: It was a huge success, and people begin flocking to
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  Speaker 1: him for pain free or at least far less painful
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  Speaker 1: medical care. Over the next few decades, the practice of
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  Speaker 1: administering anesthesia before surgery caught on. Meanwhile, doctor Muder became
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  Speaker 1: a professor at the local Jefferson Medical College. He lectured
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  Speaker 1: on the benefits of ether, inspiring a generation of physicians.
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  Speaker 1: By the time he died in eighteen fifty nine, he
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  Speaker 1: had become a symbol for a more humane, patient centered
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  Speaker 1: approach to medicine. He'd also amassed an impressive collection of
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  Speaker 1: medical specimens, which were eventually used to found Philadelphia's Moodor Museum.
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  Speaker 1: In these days, the museum is considered one of the
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  Speaker 1: nation's foremost collections of historical medical oddities. It houses a
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  Speaker 1: mixture of doctor MUD's belongings and other curious acquisitions like
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  Speaker 1: cross sections of Albert Einstein's brain, a tumor from US
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  Speaker 1: President Grover Cleveland's jaw, and of course that wax model
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  Speaker 1: of Madame Dimanche. So if you ever have to go
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  Speaker 1: to the oar, spare a thought for the horned woman
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  Speaker 1: and the surgeon she inspired, and be thankful that doctors
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  Speaker 1: can knock you out with more than just a stiff drink.
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  Speaker 1: On Valentine's Day in nineteen eighty one, twelve year old
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  Speaker 1: Todd Dombowski was walking down the streets in his Pennsylvanian hometown.
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  Speaker 1: His tennis shoes hit the asphalt with each step. Todd
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  Speaker 1: knew to never walk around barefoot. That was something that
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  Speaker 1: you just didn't do. There. He glanced up at the trees,
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  Speaker 1: admiring the first hint of green as winter turned into spring.
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  Speaker 1: Then suddenly he heard a cracking sound his heart leapt
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  Speaker 1: as the ground dropped out from beneath him, creating a
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  Speaker 1: sinkhole that was one hundred and fifty feet deep. Smoke
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  Speaker 1: billowed out of the fissure in the earth, and Todd
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  Speaker 1: fell right in. He flailed his arms desperately, only just
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  Speaker 1: managing to grab hold of an exposed tree root underneath
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  Speaker 1: the broken concrete. He held on for dear life, trying
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  Speaker 1: not to inhale the smoke, and of course he screamed
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  Speaker 1: for help. Thankfully, Tod's cousin was just up the road,
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  Speaker 1: and he ran down to poll Tod out of the sinkhole.
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  Speaker 1: Shaken by the close call, both boys rushed home. The
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  Speaker 1: worst part was this was just another day in Centralia.
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  Speaker 1: It had all started nineteen years earlier. In May of
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  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two, the city's landfill was starting to overflow.
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  Speaker 1: Their annual Memorial Day celebration was coming, and the last
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  Speaker 1: thing they wanted was to make citizens parade past a
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  Speaker 1: giant mountain of garbage. So the city council came up
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  Speaker 1: with a solution, burn all the trash. It seemed simple enough.
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  Speaker 1: The fire department surrounded the landfill with flame resistant material,
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  Speaker 1: then set the rubbish ablaze. When all the garbage had
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  Speaker 1: been reduced to ash, they doused the area with water
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  Speaker 1: and snuffed out any remaining embers, or so they thought.
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  Speaker 1: Two days later, the landfill was somehow on fire again.
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  Speaker 1: Firefighters sprayed more water, but it didn't seem to help.
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  Speaker 1: The following week, more flames arose. Confused, the fire department
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  Speaker 1: sifted through the ash to find out where these seemingly
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  Speaker 1: immortal flames were coming from. That's how they discovered that
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  Speaker 1: they had made a horrible mistake. You see, in the
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  Speaker 1: early twentieth century, Centralia was a mining town, but that
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  Speaker 1: was so long ago that when the officials lit the
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  Speaker 1: landfill on fire, they didn't think to check underneath it first.
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  Speaker 1: If they had, they would have noticed that all the
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  Speaker 1: trash was stacked on top of an opening of a
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  Speaker 1: coal mine. Completely by accident, the fire department had ignited
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  Speaker 1: that coal and it wasn't just a single mine. It
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  Speaker 1: was a labyrinth of them, stretching out beneath the city
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  Speaker 1: in all directions, all ablaze. Over the following months, a
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  Speaker 1: fire raged underneath people's homes and businesses. The ground was
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  Speaker 1: hot to the touch. Smoke rose out of cracks in
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  Speaker 1: the concrete, and people started getting sick because carbon monoxide
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  Speaker 1: levels became unnaturally high. Of course, the fire department tried
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  Speaker 1: to stop the blaze, but your regular run of the
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  Speaker 1: mill fire hoses were weak weapons when it came to
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  Speaker 1: putting out miles long underground coal fire. They sought outside
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  Speaker 1: help and ended up spending seven million dollars trying to
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  Speaker 1: put the fire out. But by nineteen eighty one, when
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  Speaker 1: twelve year old Todd almost fell into a flaming sinkhole,
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  Speaker 1: the mines were still burning. In nineteen eighty three, twenty
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  Speaker 1: one years after the fire began, the federal government stepped in.
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  Speaker 1: US officials spent forty two million dollars to purchase the
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  Speaker 1: entirety of Centralia, demolishing all the buildings and relocating the
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  Speaker 1: twenty five hundred people who once called the city home.
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  Speaker 1: The government even revoked the city's zip code, officially wiping
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  Speaker 1: it off the map, and just like that, Centralia turned
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  Speaker 1: into a ghost town, a smoky, abandoned abyss of a
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  Speaker 1: ghost town. However, sixty three determined citizens insisted on staying put.
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  Speaker 1: They remained in Centralia for another decade until the state
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  Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania invoked eminent domain in Nighttien ten ninety three,
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  Speaker 1: forcing the remaining locals to leave, well most of them.
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  Speaker 1: If you can believe it, exactly six people refuse to
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  Speaker 1: leave Centralia, even though it had become a dangerous ghost
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  Speaker 1: town where the streets routinely opened up to reveal the
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  Speaker 1: flaming mines below. In twenty thirteen, these remaining Centrallians sued
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  Speaker 1: the state of Pennsylvania for rights to their property. They
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  Speaker 1: each received a settlement of nearly three hundred and fifty
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  Speaker 1: thousand dollars and the right to stay in their homes
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  Speaker 1: for as long as they lived. And you have to
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  Speaker 1: admit it's a spooky image. Six people living in a
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  Speaker 1: town that doesn't officially exist, their homes nestled in between
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  Speaker 1: the rubble of raised buildings in the ash of a
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  Speaker 1: fire that's still burning. In fact, it was so spooky
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  Speaker 1: that it inspired the creators of a well known horror
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  Speaker 1: movie franchise. The setting of Silent Hill was inspired by Centralia,
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  Speaker 1: and these days the city is more commonly known as
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  Speaker 1: the real life Silent Hill. Sadly, it doesn't look like
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  Speaker 1: Centralia will be getting a new reputation anytime soon. The
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  Speaker 1: fire beneath the city has been going for sixty one years,
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  Speaker 1: and according to experts, there's enough coal in the minds
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  Speaker 1: to keep it burning for two hundred and fifty more.
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  Speaker 1: I guess that doesn't technically qualify as an eternal flame,
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  Speaker 1: but it's pretty darn close. I hope you've enjoyed today's
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  Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free
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  Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
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  Speaker 1: visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. This show was created by
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  Speaker 1: me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
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  Speaker 1: make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.