The Invention

0:00Today's podcast will feature three stories about inventions that you've definitely heard of. But I guarantee you, you've never heard the strange reasons these inventions were actually used or why they were even created. The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode. The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description. The first story you'll hear is called The Spectacle. And while this story is not about how this particular device was invented, it does make it very obvious why France eventually decided it could no longer be used in public.

0:34The second story you'll hear is called A New Technology, and it's about a doctor's savage invention that helped save mothers' lives during childbirth. And the third and final story you'll hear is called Healing Hands, and it's about a tool that would change the medical industry forever. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do and we upload four times a week. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Fridays. So if that's of interest to you, please offer to house sit for the follow button.

1:08But while you're there, make sure you glue all of their kitchen cabinets shut. Okay, let's get into our first story called The Spectacle.

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2:35Just after midnight on June 17, 1939, a crowd of people began to form outside of this unremarkable building in Versailles, which is a city in France. The atmosphere in this crowd was electric. They all knew why they were there. They knew what they were about to see, but even still, there was a lot of nervous anticipation. And so as such, some people were coping with these nerves by drinking alcohol and trying to laugh and have a good time, while others were much more subdued and were trying to be respectful about what they were about to witness. Between 1 and 2 a.m., the doors of this unremarkable building opened up and a group of men were dressed in the same dark uniforms came out and didn't say a word to the crowd and the crowd immediately went silent and began to back away from them and this group of men they walked right out in front of this building and they had lumber and they had tools with them and they began constructing this kind of strange wooden structure and so the crowd they wanted to get up close to see what these guys were doing but at the same time they didn't want to get too close and so as the crowd formed a sort of half moon around these men, these men that were doing the constructing were moving so seamlessly.

3:47Like all of them had built this structure dozens of times before and it was just muscle memory. And so by about 3 a.m. this structure was built and they placed this large basket next to the structure and then these men packed up their tools and the remaining pieces of lumber and they turned around and they went right back inside the doors into the building and were gone. At this point, the crowd had become quite sizable outside of this building, and they were growing kind of restless, because they knew now that this structure was built, that the next time those doors open, the show is really going to start.

4:19This spectacle they are all there for, it's about to happen. And the crowd all knew that this event couldn't happen if the sun was up, because if the sun was up and the area was well lit, the press would be able to take pictures and film it and that's not what officials wanted. They wanted this to happen in the darkness. But for whatever reason things seemed to be getting delayed inside of this building and so the crowd was just getting more and more restless. People are getting more and more drunk and they're getting louder and more disruptive and boisterous and then around 4 45 a.m the sun had come up and so the press was out in full force with their cameras trained at the doors of this building.

4:58And so the crowd really at this point is not actually expecting this event to take place because at this point it just seems totally unlikely. But at 4.50 a.m., those doors swung open and standing in the threshold was 31-year-old Eugene Wideman, who was a convicted serial killer. His arms were tied behind his back and the collar of his white shirt had been tucked down inside because they needed his neck to be free and clear because he was about to be beheaded. So the two guards on either side of Eugene, they pulled him forward out towards the crowd. So the executioners behind him, who were dressed all in black could filter out and take up positions alongside the guillotine, which is that wooden structure that had been built earlier in the morning.

5:41And so as Eugene is being brought out towards the crowd and everything is getting set up for his execution, the crowd went wild. They were shrieking and howling and laughing and pointing and booing and just generally being completely rambunctious and totally bloodthirsty. Eugene kept his head down. He did not want to look at the crowd and he did not want to look at the guillotine. And so eventually the two guards turned him and walked him directly towards the base of the guillotine at which point the executioners that had taken up their positions around this device they grabbed him and slid him forward so he was on his stomach on top of this wooden platform the guillotine and they slid him forward until his head poked through this opening at the very far end at which point his neck was positioned right under this huge blade that was dangling right above him and his head was positioned over a metal bucket on the ground which he would be looking directly at At this point, the crowd was at a fever pitch, and one of the executioners pulled a lever.

6:36The blade came soaring down, and it removed his head. His head fell into the bin, and the executioners pushed his torso into the basket that had been placed out there earlier. And then the executioners and the prison guards, they gathered up Eugene's body parts and went right back inside of the building, which was a prison. At this point, the crowd was cheering and going wild, and they ran up and began dabbing their scarves and their handkerchiefs in Eugene's blood, which was on the ground as a sort of souvenir from having been at this execution. And of course, because the sun had been out for this entire spectacle, all of this had been captured on film.

7:11And so later that day, and for the next couple of days, the headlines all over France were about this bloodthirsty crowd that was cheering as this man was beheaded, and it just overall made France look really, really bad. And so French leaders decided that from that point forward, they could no longer do any more public executions. So the guillotine would continue to get used for decades beyond this point, but it was all behind closed doors. Also, random fact about being beheaded by a guillotine, your head, after it's been separated from your body, stays conscious for about 10 to 12 seconds, so they say.

7:46And apparently there's been lots of cases where the executioner, after the condemned has had their head removed, will yell the name of the person who has just had their head removed, and that person's head will look over at the person calling to them and will blink or try to mouth words for several seconds before the lack of oxygen kills the brain and then the head is no longer conscious.

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11:21One day in 1785, a woman writhed in pain in a hospital bed at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, which was one of the largest and most advanced hospitals in Scotland at the time. Now, despite this hospital being enormous, the room this woman was in was very small. And it was very stark, too. The walls were blank. The floors were blank. There was just a single window to the outside. In fact, the only furniture in this room was the metal bed that she was lying on. And this woman, as she was laying on this bed, she was gripping the bed frame, and she was sweating profusely, and she was shrieking in pain like her body was being ripped in half.

11:56And surrounding her on all sides were all these nurses sort of anxiously watching her to see what was going to happen next. This woman was in labor, and she'd been in labor for several hours, and so far, it was not going well. So giving birth in the 18th century looked a whole lot different than giving birth today. Primarily because there really was very limited pain management tools at doctors' and nurses' disposal. I mean, there were no epidurals. They basically had opium they could just give to the women along with maybe some alcohol. That was it. Also, giving birth in the 18th century was far more dangerous to the mother than it is today.

12:32I mean, today, it's practically unheard of, at least in the UK, for mothers to die giving birth. It's something like 13 out of every 100 ,000 mothers dies during childbirth. So like.01 % of people. But in the 18th century, it was like 30 times higher. Basically women died at a fairly regular clip delivering babies. The reason for this was partly just because of bad sanitation. Back in the 18th century, it wasn't uncommon for doctors and nurses to not even wash their hands between patients. And so naturally, the spread of disease and bacteria was much higher. And then also, when it came to just complications, there just weren't that many available solutions.

13:11And so when this woman showed up at this hospital after her water broke, I mean, naturally, she was terrified. I mean, she obviously knew she had to come here and deliver this child. It was inevitable. But she knew the risks. And so here she is. She's terrified. But quickly, you know, the staff, they took her in. They got her to this room. They laid her down. and it just sort of seemed like everything was sort of normal. Like, they do this all the time. Yes, it's a risky and dangerous thing, but it just sort of seemed like her delivery was going to be fairly normal. And so for a couple of hours, she's laying in this bed, the nurses are checking on her, everything's fine, and then at some point, she begins to feel contractions.

13:46And so at this point, the staff is in the room with her, and they start encouraging her to push. And so she's pushing and she's pushing, but she's not progressing. And eventually, after an examination, the staff determines that her baby's skull is so big that the baby is not able to exit her body. The baby is stuck in her birth canal. And so by 18th century delivery standards, this is a huge emergency. This is a major complication. And so the mother and the baby's lives are now in danger. So if this happened today, this woman would just be given an emergency C-section, and very likely she and the baby would be fine.

14:24Now, back in 1785, C-sections did exist, but they were extremely dangerous to the mother. It was basically a death sentence for the mother, and so they were only used if there really was no other option, and basically the mother was going to die anyways. And so naturally, the staff did not want to go to C-section at this point, and the mom, the mother laying there, certainly does not want to go to a C-section, and so she's screaming in agony. You know, she's not progressing. It's like complete chaos in this room. And at some point, one of the nurses senses like, okay, we need to do something here.

14:56And so she left the room. And a couple of minutes later, she came back with this gray-haired surgeon. And he walks over and he surveys this mad scene of screaming and yelling. And there's bodily fluids everywhere. I mean, it's absolute madness. And he looks at the mom and he just says, everything's going to be fine. Okay. Your pain, this miserable situation you're in, it's going to be over in a second. and, most importantly, you and your baby are going to be just fine because I have a brand new piece of technology that's going to save your lives. Dr. John Aitken was one of the leading doctors at this hospital, and in fact, he was a pioneer in the field of childbirth at the time.

15:33And one of the things he really focused on was finding ways to make giving birth not only less painful for the mothers, but also less dangerous, you know, to lower the fatality rate. And recently, he had developed himself a new piece of technology specifically for the emergency that this woman was having when the baby got stuck in the birth canal. He had come up with it, and now here was his chance to put it to use. And so when he kind of explained this piece of technology to this totally distraught woman who can barely focus, you know, all she really heard was, it's gonna be okay, I'm gonna get rid of your pain, your baby's gonna be good, you're gonna be good.

16:09And she's relieved, and she's like, thank you, thank you, thank you. And then Dr. John Aiken, he leaves the room, and when he comes back, he's now carrying this instrument. And suddenly, the woman, when she sees the instrument, she goes from being relieved to being downright horrified at the idea that that is going to be used on her. But even though she began to panic and literally tried to leave the bed to get away from this doctor and this crazy, barbaric-looking tool, the staff literally held her down, basically strapped her to the bed. And then Dr. John Akin said, okay, here we go. And he turns on this instrument.

16:44And this woman, she's already in blinding pain. She can't believe she's experiencing this much pain. But when he begins to apply this instrument to her body, the pain somehow becomes even worse. It's like she begins having this out-of-body experience. The pain is so intense. And then suddenly, when it feels like it literally can't get any worse than this, that she must be dying, it all kind of fades for a second. and she hears this sound that she did not expect to hear. It was the sound of a baby crying. Her baby had just been successfully extracted from her stomach. Her baby was okay. And amazingly, she was okay too.

17:20Dr. John Aiken had been right. This instrument, despite how horrifying it was, really worked. And it literally did save her and her baby's lives. So the procedure that this woman underwent was known as a symphysiotomy. And the procedure itself had been around since, you know, the 17th century. This was a procedure used when a baby got stuck in the birth canal. And the way this procedure worked is they would go in and sever the joint called the pubic symphysis, which connects the left and right pelvis bones. So imagine, you know, right in the middle of your crotch, them going in there and cutting through this big, thick joint to basically open up your birth canal.

17:59I mean, this is a highly invasive and excruciatingly painful procedure. That is, until Dr. John Aitken invented this new piece of technology, the thing he just used on this woman to save her and her baby's lives. This piece of technology made the symphysiotomy basically more targeted and more efficient. So it's still totally invasive and painful and awful, but smaller incision, much faster, and a higher success rate. And so despite the fact that Aitken's invention sort of looked really barbaric, it caught on very quickly and sort of became the standard for how these symphysiotomies were done. They used this tool.

18:36And it would remain that way until about the turn of the 20th century, which is when C-sections became much safer, which meant the need for symphysiotomies decreased dramatically, which meant this tool was sort of no longer needed in hospitals. And so basically, this tool sort of faded into obscurity until another group, completely unrelated to medicine, found a very specific use for this instrument. In that group were lumberjacks. They found that this tool, which had previously been used to cut open women's bodies and sever these large joints, was also really good at cutting down trees. The device that Dr.

19:13John Atkins invented for medicine was actually just a chainsaw.

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21:55One morning in the summer of 1889, a 36-year-old surgeon named William Halstead and his head nurse, 27-year-old Caroline Hampton, stood in an operating room prep area in the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Halstead was the surgeon-in-chief of this hospital, And that morning, he and Caroline were getting ready for a surgery. Now, Dr. Halstead had already washed up and was prepped. And now, he was watching Caroline very closely to make sure she followed his hygiene requirements exactly. Caroline stood in front of a row of sinks that were all filled with different cleaning agents.

22:31She started by washing her hands with scalding hot water and medical-grade antibacterial soap. Then, she cleaned her nails with brushes and files. then she dipped her hands in acid, and then she finally finished with a five-minute soak in a highly corrosive liquid called mercury bichloride. Dr. Halstead ran a really tight ship, specifically when it came to handwashing. This was the process he believed was the safest. And Dr. Halstead's theory that basically nuking your hands with cleaning agents before doing anything in the medical field actually made him sort of unique at the time. Because this was 1889, and hand washing was just not very common, not even in hospitals.

23:13Germ theory, which is the idea that illnesses can spread by germs, germs that we can't see and they're all over us on our hands in particular, and so we have to kill the germs to prevent the spread of illness, right? That theory, germ theory, was very new at the time. And truthfully, a lot of doctors at the time didn't believe in germ theory, which meant they didn't do things which we would now consider standard hygiene practice in hospitals, like, you know, basic hand washing and regularly disinfecting tools and surfaces. And Dr. Halstead was a huge proponent of germ theory and aggressive hand washing.

23:49And so he had instituted this whole multi-step awful hand washing routine for his whole surgical team at Johns Hopkins, and the results had actually been fantastic. He had one of the lowest surgical mortality rates in the whole country. But despite that, people still sort of thought Dr. Halstead was crazy, including his own staff who, you know, complained about these highly corrosive cleaning materials that they were rubbing all over their hands all the time. Like, even if this worked, like this was kind of awful. But despite that, Dr. Halstead was not about to change his protocol. He knew it worked, even if it hurt.