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Mechanical Mind · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Menk's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio
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  Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable,
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  Speaker 1: and if history is an open book, all of these
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  Speaker 1: amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for
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  Speaker 1: us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. When
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  Speaker 1: an athlete injures a muscle or attendant, they'll go through
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  Speaker 1: a variety of treatments to mend the tissue. They might
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  Speaker 1: soak their body in an ice bath to reduce inflammation,
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  Speaker 1: or do certain stretches to loosen things up again. But
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  Speaker 1: one man is actually responsible for many of the machines
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  Speaker 1: and techniques used today, and he brought them all the
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  Speaker 1: way from Sweden. His name was Gustaf Xander. Born in
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  Speaker 1: the thirties in Stockholm. He was kind of obsessed with
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  Speaker 1: fitness from a young age, focusing much of his study
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  Speaker 1: on Swedish medical gymnastics otherwise known as the Swedish movement Cure.
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  Speaker 1: Medical gymnastics were first introduced by Paer heinrich Ling, a
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  Speaker 1: poet and theology student who was tired of seeing Sweden
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  Speaker 1: taking a backseat to other stronger countries. So he came
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  Speaker 1: up with training regiments centered around physical education, fencing, massage,
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  Speaker 1: and dance that were eventually adopted by these Swedish government
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  Speaker 1: and Xander mastered Ling's exercises, but he lamented the need
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  Speaker 1: for other people to provide resistance so that the exerciser
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  Speaker 1: could build muscle. I mean, what if the assistant couldn't
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  Speaker 1: lift the weight or they just didn't feel up to
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  Speaker 1: helping out that day. So he came up with an alternative,
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  Speaker 1: one that removed assistance from the equation. Xander got to
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  Speaker 1: work on a series of machines which he built and
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  Speaker 1: honed through the fifties. The utilized levers and weights to
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  Speaker 1: provide the needed resistance, much like today's exercise and therapy equipment.
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  Speaker 1: They resuled something more akin to medieval torture devices than
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  Speaker 1: workout gear, but each machine was designed to massage or
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  Speaker 1: sculpt a particular muscle group within the body. They would provide,
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  Speaker 1: according to Xander's own words, increased well being and capacity
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  Speaker 1: for work. He earned his medical license in the sixties
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  Speaker 1: and began testing his machines on the students of a
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  Speaker 1: local school. The results were encouraging, with children demonstrating increased strength,
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  Speaker 1: then improved overall health. After using the devices for some time,
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  Speaker 1: Xander then opened his own school, the Medico Mechanical Institute
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  Speaker 1: of Stockholm, to give the public a taste of what
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  Speaker 1: mechanotherapy machines could do. They were built of wood and metal,
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  Speaker 1: some with cables and pulleys, while others required the user
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  Speaker 1: to be strapped in and pulled in a specific way.
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  Speaker 1: One device bore a striking resemblance to the lateral pull
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  Speaker 1: down machine used in today's modern gyms. The user would
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  Speaker 1: sit on a chair at an angle and pulled down
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  Speaker 1: on a rod connected to a cable. The resistance would
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  Speaker 1: agitate the muscles in their arms, and yet another contraption
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  Speaker 1: pummeled a person in the mid section with padded disks
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  Speaker 1: to stimulate their abdominals. Of course, with great success comes
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  Speaker 1: great profits. After winning awards for his designs in the
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  Speaker 1: seventies and opening more institutes, Xander eventually pivoted to private
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  Speaker 1: health spas for the wealthy. He also got his devices
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  Speaker 1: into private elite institutions, and the upper class certainly approved.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks to these miracle machines, it didn't matter if someone
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  Speaker 1: was actually fit. All that mattered was how they looked
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  Speaker 1: all the gains with very little effort. There were medico
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  Speaker 1: mechanical institutes in one hundred and forty six countries by
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  Speaker 1: O six and four years later. America had also gotten
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  Speaker 1: wind of his workout machines. But the thing was, these
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  Speaker 1: wooden appliances wouldn't fit in with modern gym equipment, which
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  Speaker 1: was made of steel, iron and rubber. But Xander didn't
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  Speaker 1: get a chance to improve his devices and the techniques
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  Speaker 1: that he pioneered. He didn't live to see their widespread
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  Speaker 1: adoption either, because he died in nineteen twenty. Almost all
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  Speaker 1: of his machines were invented in the eighteen hundreds. He
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  Speaker 1: didn't know it at the time, but his mechanotherapy ideas
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  Speaker 1: would eventually be adopted by physical therapists and doctors all
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  Speaker 1: over the world. They employed the use of machines to
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  Speaker 1: help repair and rehabilitate injured tissue in their patients. Today,
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  Speaker 1: mechanotherapy is used to treat everyone from injured athletes to
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  Speaker 1: people recovering from car accidents and major falls. And Jim
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  Speaker 1: Rats are quite familiar with his devices too, even if
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  Speaker 1: they don't realize it. The fitness world just wasn't ready
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  Speaker 1: for what Gustav Xander had built, and sadly he fell
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  Speaker 1: into obscurity following his death about fifty years later, though
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  Speaker 1: someone else would unknowingly pick up the torch. His name
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  Speaker 1: was Arthur Jones, the founder of exercise brand Nautilus. Jones
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  Speaker 1: also invented numerous devices and held the variety of patents
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  Speaker 1: from machines that targeted specific muscles in the body. He
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  Speaker 1: just didn't know that he was retreading ground that Zander
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  Speaker 1: had already worked on. When asked about Xander's contributions, Jones
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  Speaker 1: was quoted as saying, if I had known about and
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  Speaker 1: understood Xander's work, it would have saved me a lot
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  Speaker 1: of time and a rather large fortune in money. Because
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  Speaker 1: the man was a genius. His only problem was that
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  Speaker 1: he lived about a century ahead of his time. So
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  Speaker 1: the next time you visit the gym, give thanks to
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  Speaker 1: the Swede who brought fitness to the masses, and remember
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  Speaker 1: to wipe down the machine for the next person who
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  Speaker 1: uses it. Look around and you'll likely find an everyday
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  Speaker 1: object that you don't really think about. It might be
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  Speaker 1: your keys, or a pair of headphones, or even your
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  Speaker 1: computer itself. These things are always there because they've always
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  Speaker 1: been there. John Loud didn't have that luxury. What he
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  Speaker 1: needed hadn't been invented yet, but he didn't worry about
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  Speaker 1: it too much. He just made it himself. John Jacob
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  Speaker 1: Loud was born in November of eighteen forty four in Weymouth, Massachusetts,
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  Speaker 1: about sixteen miles south of Boston. He graduated from Harvard
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  Speaker 1: College in eighteen sixty six with a degree in law,
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  Speaker 1: gaining an appointment to the Suffolk County Bar six years later,
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  Speaker 1: but ultimately the legal profession wasn't for him. He instead
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  Speaker 1: gave it up to become an assistant cashier at the
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  Speaker 1: bank where his father worked, and then took over his
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  Speaker 1: dad's cashier position after his death in eighteen seventy four.
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  Speaker 1: It was a job that he held for the next
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  Speaker 1: twenty one years. But Loud wasn't just a cashier, at
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  Speaker 1: least in his heart. He had a keen interest in
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  Speaker 1: his heritage and became a genealogist with several different genealogical
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  Speaker 1: and historical societies throughout New England. He was even able
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  Speaker 1: to trace his lineage back to the Mayflower. On top
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  Speaker 1: of that, he also conducted his local choir was active
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  Speaker 1: within his church and he wrote poetry in his spare time,
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  Speaker 1: what little he seemed to have. And he'd gotten married
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy two to Emily Key Vickery, with whom
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  Speaker 1: he had eight children. Above all else, John J. Loud
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  Speaker 1: was an inventor. You see. Aside from all the other
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  Speaker 1: jobs and hobbies that he had, Loud also tanned leather.
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  Speaker 1: It was a passion for him. But he had run
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  Speaker 1: into a problem. The writing instruments of the time just
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  Speaker 1: didn't work well on leather. Fountain pen ink didn't dry
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  Speaker 1: quick enough and it ran everywhere. Meanwhile, his pencil couldn't
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  Speaker 1: make a dark enough line for him to see. Loud
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  Speaker 1: knew that there had to be a better way, and so,
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  Speaker 1: in true inventor fashion, he built one. As Loud himself
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  Speaker 1: put it, my invention consists of an improved reservoir or
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  Speaker 1: fountain pen, especially useful, among other purposes, for marking on
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  Speaker 1: rough surfaces such as wood, course, wrapping, paper, and other
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  Speaker 1: articles where an ordinary pen could not be used. It
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  Speaker 1: was a slender metal tube with a push button at
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  Speaker 1: the top, a tightly coiled spring inside, and most importantly,
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  Speaker 1: a small steel bearing at the bottom. As the tube
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  Speaker 1: was dragged across the surface. The bearing would pick up
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  Speaker 1: ink from within the reservoir and roll it on, leaving
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  Speaker 1: behind a darkened line that dried instantaneously. He was issued
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  Speaker 1: a patent for his invention on October thirtieth, eighteen eighty eight,
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  Speaker 1: but quickly found out that his creation had limited purpose
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  Speaker 1: outside of marking rough or coarse surfaces. With no way
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  Speaker 1: to market his new product, he abandoned it and the
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  Speaker 1: patent eventually expired, But it wasn't done for good. Others
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  Speaker 1: tried to patent similar inventions with the intent of making
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  Speaker 1: something that worked on all surfaces equally well, whether they
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  Speaker 1: were made of paper or fabric, but one man actually succeeded.
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  Speaker 1: His name was Laslow Bureau from Hungary in the early
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  Speaker 1: twentieth century. Bureau was a newspaper editor who, just like Loud,
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  Speaker 1: had grown tired of having to clean up the messes
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  Speaker 1: left behind by his fountain pens. The pages he marked
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  Speaker 1: up were often smudged because of the wet ink that
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  Speaker 1: they used, but one day he noticed that his newspaper
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  Speaker 1: had been printed with a fast drying ink that did
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  Speaker 1: not smudge. He thought that ink would work well in
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  Speaker 1: a pen, but not a fountain pen, so he asked
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  Speaker 1: his brother at Georg for help. Georg was a dentist
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  Speaker 1: and a chemist who knew how to mix the ink
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  Speaker 1: into something more viscous that wouldn't smear and take forever
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  Speaker 1: to dry. With a suitable vessel already created by others
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  Speaker 1: before him, Birou was able to devise a new kind
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  Speaker 1: of pen, one that used a tiny ball at the
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  Speaker 1: end of a tube to collect the ink from a
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  Speaker 1: cartridge inside, and as it rolled, it would deposit a
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  Speaker 1: line onto the paper that was already dry. Birerou demonstrated
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  Speaker 1: his first ball point pen in nineteen thirty one at
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  Speaker 1: the Budapesh International Fair. Over the next seven years he
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  Speaker 1: worked on it until he finally had it patented in
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  Speaker 1: Paris in nineteen thirty eight, and that patent was bought
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  Speaker 1: by Marcel Bick, the co founder of the Bick Company,
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen forty five. Today Americans refer to most disposable
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  Speaker 1: ballpoint pens as bis after the company that produces most
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  Speaker 1: of them, but over in England they're called Biros, named
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  Speaker 1: for the man who brought them to the mainstream. Sadly
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  Speaker 1: for John J. Loud, his name isn't often said at all.
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  Speaker 1: Even though he deserves just as much it as those
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  Speaker 1: who came after him for the ballpoint pen. Although I'm
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  Speaker 1: glad his name isn't attached to the pen today, I'm
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  Speaker 1: not sure anyone would want to write with aloud. 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
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mank 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 Lure dot com. And until next time, stay curious.