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A Happy Accident · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
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  Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
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  Speaker 1: 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. She wasn't supposed to be Annie, but autocorrect
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  Speaker 1: has been causing problems for writers longer than any of
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  Speaker 1: us realize. It was in eighteen sixty one and the
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  Speaker 1: patriarch of the Riley family, Reuben, left home to join
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  Speaker 1: the Union Army. He became the captain of the first
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  Speaker 1: Company of Indiana Volunteers from Hancock County. Reuben was injured
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  Speaker 1: during the Battle of Rich Mountain in Virginia and was
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  Speaker 1: sent home to his family once he recovered. Heard. Not
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  Speaker 1: long after Reuben's returned to Greenfield, Indiana, their household grew
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  Speaker 1: by one. An orphan named Mary Alice Smith came to
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  Speaker 1: live with them in the winter of eighteen sixty one.
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  Speaker 1: She was about eleven years old, but her early life
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  Speaker 1: is a mystery. We don't know the circumstances that brought
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  Speaker 1: her to the Riley family, but we do know that
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  Speaker 1: she was born in Liberty, Indiana and was about the
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  Speaker 1: same age as one of the Riley boys, James. We
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  Speaker 1: also know that she wasn't an orphan, at least not
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  Speaker 1: in the way that we would think. Her parents death
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  Speaker 1: hadn't been the beginning of her troubles. They had separated
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  Speaker 1: when she was four years old, and she was sent
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  Speaker 1: to live with her grandmother. It would be another four
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  Speaker 1: years before her parents actually died. Mary Alice, who everyone
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  Speaker 1: just called Ali, was forced to bounce from one extended
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  Speaker 1: family member to the next until she ran out and
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  Speaker 1: had to rely on the kindness of strangers. At that time,
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  Speaker 1: there weren't many institutions that took in abandoned kids, especially
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  Speaker 1: not on the frontier. Adoption wasn't common, and the foster
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  Speaker 1: care system didn't exist yet, so many children like Ali
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  Speaker 1: were sent to live with families looking for an extra
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  Speaker 1: pair of hands to help around the house. Ruben Riley,
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  Speaker 1: well known to be a kind and generous man, was
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  Speaker 1: thinking about returning to the battlefield, and he knew that
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  Speaker 1: his wife would need help while he was gone. The
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  Speaker 1: bargain was always pretty simple. A child would be taken
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  Speaker 1: in and exchange for bed and board. They would do chores,
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  Speaker 1: look after children, and generally earn their keep. Ali had
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  Speaker 1: boarded with other families before the Riley's, so she likely
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  Speaker 1: knew what to expect. Reuben Riley's son James, remembered Ali's
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  Speaker 1: arrival well, later describing her as a slender wisp of
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  Speaker 1: a girl with spindle ankles, barely dressed for winter weather
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  Speaker 1: in a calico skirt in a summer hat. She had slim,
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  Speaker 1: blue veined wrists that she tossed among those loose and
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  Speaker 1: ragged tresses of her yellow hair. But what really stood
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  Speaker 1: out to James was the hollow, pale blue eyes, which
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  Speaker 1: followed every motion with an alertness that sugged rust did
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  Speaker 1: a somewhat suspicious mind. Maybe she didn't trust the new family,
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  Speaker 1: or maybe she didn't trust anyone. Happily, Alie warmed up
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  Speaker 1: to the Riley's and soon became the children's favorite playmate.
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  Speaker 1: They complained whenever chores took her away from them, and
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  Speaker 1: delighted in her infectious sense of humor and optimism. She
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  Speaker 1: was even known to say, I'm mighty glad I'm come
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  Speaker 1: to live in this here house. Ali's joy in little
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  Speaker 1: things deeply impacted James, who recalled how she turned her
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  Speaker 1: chores into little games, talked to herself, and how she
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  Speaker 1: found their grand curving staircase majestic. James carried her memory
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  Speaker 1: with him even after she left the family. Many years later,
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  Speaker 1: in a now grown up and respected author, James Whitcomb
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  Speaker 1: Riley published a poem called elf Child. The poem described
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  Speaker 1: the day a little wisp of a child came to
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  Speaker 1: live with his family, the chores she did, and the
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  Speaker 1: wild scary stories she told. Riley public the poem in
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  Speaker 1: the Indianapolis Journal, but changed the title to Little Orphan
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  Speaker 1: Alley to better remember his old friend. But then something
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  Speaker 1: bizarre happened when the poem went to the printers, although
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  Speaker 1: no one knows how. Maybe the type setter wasn't pain
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  Speaker 1: enough attention. Maybe James, like some of us, had handwriting
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  Speaker 1: that sent teachers into fits of despair. In any case,
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  Speaker 1: the l's were replaced with ends, and little Orphan Annie
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  Speaker 1: was born. From there, Annie seemed to take on a
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  Speaker 1: life of her own. In n eighteen, she became a
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  Speaker 1: silent film character, the subject of a song arrangement, and,
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  Speaker 1: of course, most famously, the nineteen four comic strip. The
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  Speaker 1: New York Daily News published the first strip that year
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  Speaker 1: about Little Orphan Annie, her dog Sandy, and Daddy Warbucks.
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  Speaker 1: Annie had grown far and beyond what James Riley had
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  Speaker 1: likely expected when he had written a poem about a
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  Speaker 1: childhood friend. I wonder if either James or Ali expected
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  Speaker 1: to see Annie one day make her debut on Broadway
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  Speaker 1: or grace the silver screen. Not once, not twice, but
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  Speaker 1: four times. Riley published other poems about Ali over the years.
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  Speaker 1: Where is Mary Alice Smith? Being one of the most
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  Speaker 1: well known, he wouldn't have had to look too hard
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  Speaker 1: to find her, though she worked in a tavern briefly
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  Speaker 1: after leaving the Riley family, but eventually married and settled
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  Speaker 1: down with her husband, John Wesley Gray in Hancock County, Indiana.
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  Speaker 1: But there's wasn't the viral world that we live in today.
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  Speaker 1: She didn't know the poem was about her until nineteen fifteen.
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  Speaker 1: Ali outlived James by several years, surrounded by children and
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  Speaker 1: grandchildren who might as well have delighted in the Indiana
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  Speaker 1: tradition of reading Little Orphan Annie around Halloween. Despite or
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  Speaker 1: perhaps because of the best efforts of ye old auto
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  Speaker 1: correct Orphan Annie has gone on to inspire plenty of
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  Speaker 1: people with her cheerfulness and optimism, even another Indiana author,
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  Speaker 1: John Gruel and his popular character Raggedy Ann. But that's
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  Speaker 1: a story for another your day. Every so often doctors
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  Speaker 1: come out with studies declaring certain foods as either being
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  Speaker 1: healthy or unhealthy. Two cups of coffee a day can
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  Speaker 1: prevent heart disease, but the caffeine can spike your anxiety.
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  Speaker 1: Eggs are high in vitamins like B twelve and ribel
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  Speaker 1: flavor that can also negatively affect your cholesterol. It's never
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  Speaker 1: fun finding out the foods and beverages we love the
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  Speaker 1: most may actually be hurting us. But nowadays we can
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  Speaker 1: quickly learn the truth and adjust our diets accordingly. That
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  Speaker 1: wasn't the case, however. In nineteenth century Tokyo, also known
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  Speaker 1: as Edo, a disease was running rampant through the country,
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  Speaker 1: especially among the emperor's family and other nobles. Back then,
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  Speaker 1: they called it kaka, but today it's known by the
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  Speaker 1: name barry Berry. Unlike other illnesses which would often target
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  Speaker 1: the poor, barry Berry was killing Japanese nobility instead, and
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  Speaker 1: that led to its other nicknames, The Edo sickness, or
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  Speaker 1: the affliction of eddo Someone with berry Berry would often
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  Speaker 1: get symptoms such as swollen legs, sluggish speech, paralysis, and
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  Speaker 1: eventually death, but nobody knew the disease is caused at
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  Speaker 1: the time. It struck the Emperor's aunt, Princess Kazu in
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  Speaker 1: the late eighteen hundreds and kicked off a massive investigation
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  Speaker 1: into its origin. Her husband had also died from a
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  Speaker 1: similar medical mystery ten years prior, possibly the same disease.
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  Speaker 1: Some doctors first believed barry Berry was caused by spending
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  Speaker 1: too much time on damp ground, while others prescribed fasting
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  Speaker 1: and various homeopathic remedies to cure the condition. A samurai
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  Speaker 1: afflicted with the disease agreed to try the herbal remedy
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  Speaker 1: one doctor prescribed to him, and he died months later.
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  Speaker 1: Mug Warts, an aromatic flowering plant, was also sometimes applied
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  Speaker 1: to the backs of patients and then burnt off the skin,
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  Speaker 1: but it didn't work. As time passed, more of japan
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  Speaker 1: Ends upper echelon continued to perish from barry Berry until
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  Speaker 1: a doctor named Kinda Heiro Takaki took up the cause. Takaki,
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  Speaker 1: who had enlisted in the Navy in eighteen seventy two,
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  Speaker 1: witnessed the same illness strike the Japanese sailors that he
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  Speaker 1: had served with back then. His superiors hadn't thought anything
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  Speaker 1: of it, but Takaki knew something was going on. He
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  Speaker 1: eventually left the Navy and enrolled in medical school in England.
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  Speaker 1: Once he was finally in a position to address the issue,
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  Speaker 1: he took action. As the director of the Tokyo Naval
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  Speaker 1: Hospital and later the vice director of the Naval Medical Bureau,
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  Speaker 1: Takaki started talking with Japanese sailors afflicted by barry Berry,
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  Speaker 1: and he made some important observations. First, prisoners suffered from
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  Speaker 1: the disease more than anyone else on the ship. Sailors
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  Speaker 1: and low level officers were affected slightly less, and higher
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  Speaker 1: ups almost never. He also noticed that the officers aid
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  Speaker 1: a diet that was higher in protein than that of
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  Speaker 1: the prisoners, and attributed that to the cause of barry
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  Speaker 1: Berry's proliferation among the lower ranks, who almost never eight protein.
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  Speaker 1: The disease was also strangely limited to Japan. European and
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  Speaker 1: American sailors were not affected by berry Berry, but their
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  Speaker 1: bread heavy diets couldn't be adopted by the Japanese sailors.
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  Speaker 1: They found it off putting. Still, Takaki wanted to get
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  Speaker 1: to the bottom of the issue. Then around eighteen eighty two,
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  Speaker 1: he got his chance. A training ship called the Usual
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  Speaker 1: had been loaded with Japanese cadets and navigated all around
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  Speaker 1: the Pacific Rim. It landed in places such as South America,
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  Speaker 1: New Zealand, and Hawaii before coming home. Upon its return,
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  Speaker 1: the re Usual had lost twenty five members of its
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  Speaker 1: three hundred and seventy six person crew to berry berry.
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  Speaker 1: Almost half the people on board had developed some form
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  Speaker 1: of it as well, so Takaki's new protein rich diet
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  Speaker 1: was greenlit aboard another training ship, the Sukuba, which set
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  Speaker 1: sail in February of eighteen eighty four with three hundred
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  Speaker 1: and thirty three sailors on board. There was a lot
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  Speaker 1: writing on this journey, as Takaki had assured the Emperor
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  Speaker 1: that his plan would succeed. Word came back from the
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  Speaker 1: ship seven months later in a telegram it read, not
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  Speaker 1: one patient, set your mind at ease. When the Tacuba
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  Speaker 1: finally returned, the results spoke for themselves. Fourteen crew members
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  Speaker 1: had developed barry Berry and nobody had died. The only
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  Speaker 1: reason those fourteen had even contracted it was because they
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  Speaker 1: hadn't been following Takaki's diet regiment. After his successful trial,
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  Speaker 1: the good Doctor had carte blanche to alter the diets
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  Speaker 1: of the entire naval fleet, and in doing so he
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  Speaker 1: managed to reduce reports of berry berry by percent, and
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  Speaker 1: nobody else died from it again. Sadly, Takaki's methods were
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  Speaker 1: shunned by others in the medical community, and the army
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  Speaker 1: was still dealing with berry berry outbreaks regularly. He had
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  Speaker 1: tried mixing barley with their daily rice to up their
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  Speaker 1: protein intake, but many saw barley as a holdover from
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  Speaker 1: ancient traditional methods rather than something a cutting edge Western
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  Speaker 1: doctor might prescribe. What nobody, including Takaki, realised, however, was
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  Speaker 1: that one specific food was slowly killing everyone. It was
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  Speaker 1: a staple of their cuisine and relatively inexpensive, so it
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  Speaker 1: was served everywhere. The culprit white rice. White rice was
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  Speaker 1: made through a painstaking process of husking and polishing, resulting
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  Speaker 1: in a bright white grain. Unfortunately, that process also stripped
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  Speaker 1: the rice of its natural thiamine. Since white rice was
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  Speaker 1: a symbol of higher status within Japanese society. For a
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  Speaker 1: long time, berry berry mostly affected the nobility. It was
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  Speaker 1: also served on board navy vessels in the eighteen eighties
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  Speaker 1: as a primary source of energy and sustenance, causing a
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  Speaker 1: B one shortage in many Japanese sailors. And that's what
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  Speaker 1: barry berry really is, a vitamin B one or thiamine deficiency.
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  Speaker 1: Takaki had figured out that more protein was the way
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  Speaker 1: to combat the disease, even if he never understood why
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  Speaker 1: the rice was the problem, but his work did help
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  Speaker 1: future researchers dis cover the root cause of barry Barry.
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  Speaker 1: It also earned him a place among Japanese nobility in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen o five, as well as a new nickname, the
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  Speaker 1: Barley Baron, and following his death in nineteen twenty and
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  Speaker 1: Antarctic Peninsula was named Kakaki Promontory after him. He is
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  Speaker 1: the only Japanese person to have such an honor. That's
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  Speaker 1: what you get when you stick to a problem like
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  Speaker 1: white on rice. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour
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  Speaker 1: of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
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  Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me, Aaron Manky
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  Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
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  Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
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  Speaker 1: and television show and you can learn all about it
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  Speaker 1: over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.