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Touchy Subject · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menkey'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 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: John Carter was born in July of eighteen fifteen in Kaga, Shaw, England.
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  Speaker 1: Growing up, John was not academically inclined. In fact, he
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  Speaker 1: was more of the class clown, a trait that continued
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  Speaker 1: as he got older. That said, he didn't channel all
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  Speaker 1: of his energy into mischief, he also poured it into
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  Speaker 1: his drawings. Carter was quite a skilled artist, all self taught,
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  Speaker 1: and often sketching on anything he could find, books, desks,
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  Speaker 1: and even the walls of his house. When he wasn't
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  Speaker 1: scribbling on the furniture, though, he was cavorting around town
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  Speaker 1: with a group of fellow rapscallions. Even as a married man.
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  Speaker 1: One of his favorite pastimes was something called rooking. Rooks,
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  Speaker 1: of course, were birds very similar to the American crow
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  Speaker 1: in both size and color. The young men would climb
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  Speaker 1: up trees and reach into the rook's nest to remove
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  Speaker 1: the unhatched eggs, then take them home and bake them
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  Speaker 1: into pies. During one late night outing in eighteen thirty six,
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  Speaker 1: Carter had climbed some forty ft up to retrieve a
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  Speaker 1: few eggs. When he tried to leap from one tree
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  Speaker 1: to another. He came up short, though, and plummeted back
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  Speaker 1: to earth. He landed hard on his back. His head
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  Speaker 1: was bent down and forward, with his chin touching his chest.
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  Speaker 1: His friends rallied around him to assess his injuries, and
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  Speaker 1: they were shocked to find him still breathing. Carter, weak
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  Speaker 1: and in pain, choked out the words pull me out
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  Speaker 1: as two of his mates grabbed his legs, One got
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  Speaker 1: behind him and managed to pull his head back into alignment.
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  Speaker 1: Carter almost immediately lost consciousness. They took him home to
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  Speaker 1: his wife, who then called for the doctor to come
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  Speaker 1: and evaluate him. It looked grim too. The doctor wasn't
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  Speaker 1: sure he would make it through the night. Yet only
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  Speaker 1: a few days later, Carter woke up. He'd survived his fall,
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  Speaker 1: but damaged his cervical vertebrae the bones in his neck.
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  Speaker 1: He may have been conscious, but he was essentially paralyzed.
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  Speaker 1: From the neck down. Carter it was despondent to him.
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  Speaker 1: His life was over a punishment, he believed, or his
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  Speaker 1: terrible behavior in the past. He soon found religion and
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  Speaker 1: began to wile away the hours each day by reading
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  Speaker 1: books his wife brought home for him. One particular story
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  Speaker 1: that piqued his interest was about a woman who had
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  Speaker 1: learned a sketch using her mouth after losing the use
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  Speaker 1: of her arms. Carter believed that he could do the same.
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  Speaker 1: His early pieces were unpolished. He started by having papers
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  Speaker 1: pinned to his pillows or using a slate to sketch
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  Speaker 1: using pencils and watercolors. He honed his technique over time, though,
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  Speaker 1: which started with his posture laying on his side with
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  Speaker 1: his head propped up on some pillows. He'd have the
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  Speaker 1: pencil placed between his teeth so that he could reach
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  Speaker 1: the custom light desk that had been made for him.
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  Speaker 1: When he was finished with the pencil portion, he would
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  Speaker 1: go over parts of his drawings with a fine paintbrush
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  Speaker 1: dipped in India ink. It was an exhausting process, but
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  Speaker 1: one that bore beautiful and realistic portraits, as well as
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  Speaker 1: sketches of animals that seemed to jump off the page.
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  Speaker 1: He even managed to write letters using the same methods. Eventually,
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  Speaker 1: Carter began to entertain guests as he sketched, with a
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  Speaker 1: woman named Anna Hanbury becoming a regular visitor to his home.
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  Speaker 1: She was so taken with his work that she started
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  Speaker 1: selling pieces to her friends for a shilling apiece. His
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  Speaker 1: reputation as a talented artist brought in all manner of
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  Speaker 1: commissions from people who were sympathetic to his condition and
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  Speaker 1: the circumstances surrounding it. He also toured his hometown in
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  Speaker 1: a special carriage pulled by two young boys that could
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  Speaker 1: accommodate the couch he was bound to. Sadly, his means
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  Speaker 1: of conveyance also became the cause of his death. When
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  Speaker 1: one of the boys tripped while pulling the carriage in
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  Speaker 1: late May of eighteen fifty, it flipped onto its side
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  Speaker 1: and Carter was thrown to the ground. He passed away
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  Speaker 1: just over a week later from the injuries he sustained
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  Speaker 1: that day. John Carter did not have a formal art education.
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  Speaker 1: He wasn't an upstanding member of the community, nor did
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  Speaker 1: he turn the art world upside down. He was just
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  Speaker 1: a man who had been given a second chance and
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  Speaker 1: used it to make the lives of those around him
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  Speaker 1: just a little more beautiful with nothing more than the
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  Speaker 1: pencil between his teeth. Hospitals have changed quite a bit
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  Speaker 1: since the nineteenth century, and not just the medical practices
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  Speaker 1: performed inside them. These massive facilities have actually shrunk down
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  Speaker 1: for the years. Older hospitals used to be larger with
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  Speaker 1: longer hallways, so doctors and nurses certainly got their steps
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  Speaker 1: in while visiting patients. They were also dirty, often described
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  Speaker 1: as houses of death. Surgeons churned through patients as though
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  Speaker 1: they were slabs of meats on a butcher block. Surgeons
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  Speaker 1: even wore the same coat for every procedure, which was
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  Speaker 1: usually covered in the blood and fluids of a dozen
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  Speaker 1: patients by the end of the day. Obviously, sanitation just
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  Speaker 1: wasn't much of a concern back then. However, some doctors
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  Speaker 1: like Oliver Wendell Holmes had begun speaking publicly about hospital
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  Speaker 1: cleanliness around eighteen. They talked about how hands were vessels
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  Speaker 1: for disease and that it was important to wash them often,
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  Speaker 1: especially between surgeries. Now, Florence Nightingale famously modernized nursing and
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  Speaker 1: promoted cleanliness while tending to British soldiers in India in
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  Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties. Thanks to her work, good hygiene, clean water,
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  Speaker 1: and proper drainage became standard in medical facilities all over
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  Speaker 1: the world. These advancements considerably reduced mortality rates among the
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  Speaker 1: sick and injured. In fact, cleanliness became so important medical
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  Speaker 1: professionals took to using strict regimens when preparing for surgeries.
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  Speaker 1: One such doctor named William Stewart Halstead, was the founder
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  Speaker 1: of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Whenever he and
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  Speaker 1: his scrub nurse prepared for a surgery, Halstead required both
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  Speaker 1: of them to first wash their hands with soap. Once cleaned,
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  Speaker 1: they would then soak their hands in a combination of
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  Speaker 1: potassium permanganates, mercury chloride, and a bath of hot oxylic acid.
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  Speaker 1: Like Holmes, Halstead also believed germs made their way into
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  Speaker 1: patients via the hands, so he took extreme precautions to
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  Speaker 1: make sure that his were as clean as possible. The process, though,
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  Speaker 1: took a toll on his assistant, Caroline Hampton. Caroline suffered
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  Speaker 1: from both exzema and contact dermatitis as a result of
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  Speaker 1: the chemicals, which caused redness swelling, rashes, and a lot
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  Speaker 1: of discomfort. It got so bad she considered resigning from
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  Speaker 1: her Asian, but Halstead couldn't imagine working without her next
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  Speaker 1: to him. She was efficient and to him, difficult to replace,
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  Speaker 1: so he went looking for a solution. It didn't hurt
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  Speaker 1: that he had feelings for her as well. He suggested
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  Speaker 1: that she cover her hands in colodeon, a viscous liquid
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  Speaker 1: that hardened to protect them from the harsh cleaning chemicals. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: colodeon didn't last long and it cracked after some use,
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  Speaker 1: but he didn't stop there. Halstead knew of a technique
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  Speaker 1: for making thin, pliable rubber that had been discovered by
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  Speaker 1: Charles Goodyear fifty years earlier, so he commissioned the Goodyear
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  Speaker 1: Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio to make a pair of
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  Speaker 1: gloves with gauntlets that she would wear during surgery. To
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  Speaker 1: ensure they fit properly, Halstead created plaster casts of Caroline's
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  Speaker 1: hands and had them sent to Ohio. What he got
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  Speaker 1: back was a set of rubber gloves that were thin
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  Speaker 1: enough for her to handle the various surgical instruments with ease.
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  Speaker 1: The gloves could also be washed and reused, so she
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't have to subject her delicate skin to of the
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  Speaker 1: various cleaning solutions that had almost ruined her career. Pretty soon,
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  Speaker 1: Caroline's gloves became the talk of the hospital. Other nurses
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  Speaker 1: began wearing their own rubber gloves during procedures. Doctors followed suit, too,
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  Speaker 1: especially after Halsted's colleague, doctor Joseph Bloodgood, saying their praises,
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  Speaker 1: and the hospital took notice, with a rate of post
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  Speaker 1: stop infections dropping from seventeen to a jaw dropping two.
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  Speaker 1: Not long after the gloves were introduced, Halstead proposed to
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  Speaker 1: Caroline and the two were soon married. She eventually did
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  Speaker 1: leave her position as his scrub nurse, but what she
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  Speaker 1: left behind changed the face of medicine for generations to come,
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  Speaker 1: and those gloves continued to be perfected, and today their
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  Speaker 1: use has spread far beyond Johns Hopkins. Since then, hospitals,
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  Speaker 1: veterinary offices, and other health care facilities across the globe
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  Speaker 1: have adopted rubber gloves to prevent the spread of disease,
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  Speaker 1: and modern variations of Caroline's original coverings are still worn
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  Speaker 1: to this day. All because man couldn't work without the
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  Speaker 1: woman he planned to marry by his side. After all,
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  Speaker 1: you can't spell glove without love. I hope you've enjoyed
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  Speaker 1: today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
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  Speaker 1: free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
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  Speaker 1: by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
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  Speaker 1: by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
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  Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
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  Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
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  Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,