Behind the Scenes Minis: Mold and Monarchs

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, A production of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. We talked about penicillin this week. Sure did. This is one of those topics that I was surprised to realize nobody had done on the show before, because we have lots of topics in the past archive that are already done we don't really think about. And it was also one that I had kind of in my head actively resisted doing because I was like, everybody knows this story about the mold and the Petri dish. Uh. Obviously a whole lot more than just the mold and the Petri dish, which was the whole focus of the episode. One reason that I was familiar with that story is that when I was a child, I really loved to do the school science fair. You did, Yeah, I loved it. I loved it a lot. When I was in I think fifth grade, my science fair was on mold, or my project was on mold. I grew mold on different foods. I remember there was bread, and there was I think lemons, and I don't remember what else, and I had them in different conditions. So I had ones that were left on the counter and ones that were in uh like a zip black bag on the counter, and I think once that were in the fridge. Um. And because I was a big nerd, I also wrote a number of papers on other topics that were relevant to my mold project, and one of them was about penicillin. And I put them in a little folder, and the little folder was like attached to my little science fair triptick ion science Fair at my school. I did not when the regional science fair that I then went to with my project. Um, I was so sloppy about science fair I did. The best one I ever did was about different kinds of fabrics and how they catch fire. But that's probably an indicator of who I was as a kid. I think that's a great idea for a project, though with it would be if I didn't wait until the very last minute. I kind of like threw it together. I could throw together some visuals, but there was never any real science to back it up. It was always like although that one was fun because I had Bert fabric on it, but yeah, I just never I never wanted to play the science fair game. I was like I was very into it. There was other stuff I was not at all into here. I think in middle school and r PE class. One year we had to write a report on I think ten sports, and the next year we had to write of one page I think it was one page per sport. We had to do it on twenty sports. And I put that off until the night before, at which point a twenty page report basically at that point to do in a night not possible. Uh. Did you plagiarize yourself? Oh? Well there was. Uh there was some just like scrawling things that were barely paraphrased from the encyclopedia. Um, but it was not done. Uh. This is one of the only times in my life, because I was a very rule following child, it was one of the only times in my life that I tried to fake being sick so that I would not have to go to school. I tried to. I did the thing where I tried to hold the thermometer to the light bulb to look like I had a fever. Um. My mom knew that I was not saying uh, So yeah, I thought it was a pointless waste of my time. That was a big problem with me in school. If I thought that something was a pointless waste of my time, I just would not do it. But I thought science fair projects were a great use of my time, including writing totally additional supplementary reports on mold. I was like, I'm gonna go make a dress. I know. Um, here's the thing that got me wondering that maybe you came across in your research or maybe not so in the reclamation of penicillin coming from urine. Um. I'm trying to think of the best way to word this question, not because it's sensitive, but just because I don't I want to make sure I used to write approach here. Does that mean that urine that was not collected could have been just introducing all kinds of penicillin into the general yes, um, you know, waste system, and possibly also contributing to the problem we now have um of antibiotic resistant things as I understand it, Yes, not just not just PENNI like, there are a lot of drugs that come out in the urine, and there's just a whole discussion of like what is the environmental effect of all of that, which is not a subject I am versed on at all, but I know it's a concern that exists. Another thing about the whole resistance question is those first those very first patients, uh, most of whom were successfully treated. We're getting a much smaller dose than is standard now. And part of the reason for that is like to make sure it really is a lethal dose to the bacteria and not something that's just gonna cause resistance. But the fact that treating one patient could use up all of the penicilla that blew my mind a little bit. Yes, I also was unsurprised, but still had my for real that once again egos came part of this whole party. Yeah, I get it. I was more interested in the ethics part of it. Those are interesting discussions to have about. Yeah, I can understand the logic for kind of all of those positions. We we didn't get into it very much in the episode, but I read several papers that were about what Germany figured out during the war, what they didn't figure out. There was one paper that was all about Hitler being treated with penicillin that had been seized from somebody that had gotten it from fleming Um, so like wasn't something that had been sent directly to a German researcher. It was like some some had been seized from someone in France or somewhere that Germany occupied that then was used to treat Hitler, and there was there was just a lot of focus in research puzzling out like what Germany did or did not know, which at this I was like, why is this something that we really need to know this much about it? The spot Um, yeah, it does seem like there were experiments that that happened, but no, like large scale German production facility and uh, there was one thing that I had in that line and I took out because I got confused about it when I was reading back over my stuff and then I could not find the source of it in my original research. That was I think in the Netherlands, like the Netherlands had done their own penicillin research and had a whole, a whole facility set up, and uh, there was a German guard that was stationed there and so they just kept that guy drunk on gin. He would not be too attentive to what they were doing, you know, like you do. Yeah, So anyway, that did not wind up back in the thing. Um. I am very appreciative that Fleming noticed something in that Petre dish that did lead to an important thing, but man, the whole I feel like every children's book about it is just basically like and then we had penicillin, just disregarding the part that he stopped working with it and it was not made into a usable drug to treat people until ten years later by totally different researchers, without whose work we also would not have penicillin. The last time I took penicillin, I was surprised that was what they prescribed to me, because I was like, we're still using penicillin. I don't even remember the last time I had penicillin. Um. I had a tooth that was going to need a root canal, but for reasons, we could not do the root canal anyway, uh or right? We could not do the root canal like right that minute. It had to be postpraged a bit. But it also was not like an urgent situation in that moment. And so the endodontist had persus just like, Okay, I'm gonna prescribe you with these antibiotics while you're away. If you start developing these symptoms in your tooth, start taking it. And I was like, okay, what are you gonna prescribe to me because I just there's want to have an allergy too, And she's like penicillin, and I was like, people still have that? What? Yeah? I literally cannot. I could not tell you the last time I had penicillin. Feel think it's been decades. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. So anyway, I'm glad antibiotics were developed. I hope, I hope we find some workable alternatives as antibiotic resistance becomes an increasingly bigger problem. Oh. That which reminds me of another thing that I found in research that didn't go into the episode was there has been some discussion of whether the team would have totally abandoned this whole avenue of research if they have tested penicillin on guinea pigs, because it is found to be toxic in guinea pigs, But later research suggested that it was not actually toxic in guinea pigs. It was just that it wiped out the like beneficial intestinal flora of the guinea pigs, and as a consequence, all the guinea pigs got sedith. Oh no, yeah, there's a very sad story, and also made me realize that CEDIF has been around a lot longer than I realized, because I feel like that's a thing that I've only heard about in the last decade or so forever. Yeah, So anyway, that's my last random aside of things that I read in research that did not make it into just to make everyone squirmls a little bit. Yeah, we talked about out the field of cloth of gold this week. We I have so many feelings, and I know you do too. Uh huh do you want to start? Sure? So for literal years I had written on my episode short list field of cloth of gold. Actually, what I had to think I had written was field of the cloth of gold, because a lot of people put at the right there, which makes it a little weird when you know what cloth of gold actually is, right. Uh, But like for a very long time, it was there on my list to do an episode on field of cloth of gold in the beginning of June. And then see, I never asked you if you were doing this because I thought Tracy does not want to talk about two men being being occurs Where we get to when the time to research that episode rolled around, we were in what I feel like is like the acute phase of the pandemic. The pandemic is still going on, but like we were still in the part where there were no vaccines and we didn't really know a lot of stuff yet, and things were closed and there was just perpetual uncertainty, and all of these people in my life were like just having all kinds of things happened to them that were bad, and I could not be there for any of them because of the pandemic that was going on. And George Floyd was murdered and the protests followed that, and there was just so much strife and and chaos and uncertainty, and I started looking at the field of cloth of Gold and went, I can't and deleted it off of the short list. Fabric That's my story. I love it. I love it. This I did. I will say, while I was researching this, I just kept texting my best friend and be like, oh and then expletives over some of the just weird to me behavior praise Grito. I was not born and royal because I would throw my hands up at all of the weird rules and behaviors and posturing involved. I mentioned in the podcast the bickering over the field, and they eventually did agree that they would have it more or less equidistant between the two encampments, which put it in English territory. And then to kind of make things a little more equitable, they extended the actual field of play fifty feet towards the French encampment, so it would be a little closer to it. And I'm like, this is the kind of stuff that would make me absolutely mad with fury. This ridiculous. To get over yourselves. Um. There have been some very interesting I did not go through them all because they get in the weeds in a way. I was not ready to for this particular aspect of it. Some very interesting economic studies and breakdowns of where all the money went, and particularly related to the pay that workmen were receiving, and how of course it really took estimated equivalent or perhaps even more people to put this thing together than actually attended it. Um. And of course they didn't. Yes, the economies were bolstered to some degree, but it wasn't like any of them were like I'm rich now because I made some stuff for the kings. Um. It's there's very interesting breakdowns. In the mid twentieth century, there was a big, a big economic study done of of like how all the money had gone various places and what it did and did not benefit for the actual countries. Um. The one thing that kind of is attached to that that I think is very interesting and isn't something measurable and it's not documented, was that it probably put French and English workers in a position where they would have been side by side working on projects together for probably the first time in either of their lives. And to me, that's such an interesting aspect that if we were if this thing were happening today, that would be the human interest story that appears on all networks, right of Like this carpenter from London is now friends with this brick lair from calais Um, which should be very interesting, but we don't. We don't know a whole lot about how that may have informed people's perceptions of the the long term enemy at that point. But I really wish we had some accounts of that. Yeah, that reminds me of articles that I've read in more recent years about like people who serve in the military or people who do uh some kind of like like service program who wind up meeting and become becoming really close to people who are outside of their like where they grew up, or their social and economic class, and how speculation about whether nations that have some kind of mandatory service for people when they sort of reach adulthood have more social cohesion because of those uh, And so I just just sort of makes me curious of like whether how that made like everyday people living in England and France feel about the other during that era. This is a little bit of a jump, but this is what I love about space exploration is because and it's why I get choked up when, like I see stuff like um years ago, you know, I got to go see the JADAST when it was at Goddard Space Flight Center and do some some projects there, and I would get choked up looking at it. And to me, it's because it's exactly that. It's the best of us. It is people from many countries, often various walks of life, from various socioeconomic levels, who have all dedicated their lives to furthering human exploration of space. And I think that is magical. That's to me, that's like why those things are just brain exploding in the best way. How much have you read about the painting, the big famous painting which will show up on our social of the field of cloth of gold really nothing. I had seen the painting before and that I had seen the dragon, and I did not know it was supposed to be a kite, and I was just like, why is there a dragon there? Yes, it's a kite. Um, it's kite that the English made. I don't think we included that in the episode, but worth worth including for consideration when you're deciding if you think it's a dragon or salamander. Um. Here's an interesting thing about it. The main image of Henry the Eighth, because he actually appears in a few places suggesting different aspects of this whole thing, but the main one, where he is riding on his horse into the processional for reasons we don't know, his head was removed and replaced. Well, that's weird after the painting had been completed. Um. And we don't know if that was like a thing where his likeness was changed for some reason, or if it was perhaps like a preservation such. We just we do not know. But I think it's very very interesting. Yeah, Henry the Eighth is such a trip in many ways, and I do sort of like we didn't talk about it a lot. We talked about how this was Henry when he was at his most handsome, but uh, Francis or Francois the first was similarly at his sort of like physical peak. He was roughly the same height as Henry the eighth. He was also considered very handsome and you know, athletic, And obviously it was very athletic since he was apparently an expert at wrestling, which was a very popular sport in France at the time. Uh so it made sense that he would have known a lot about wrestling. But uh, you know, the idea of these two incredibly like young, very powerful men having this big party together is part of why it's so compelling. Was so compelling then and remained so compelling to people now. Just the you know, two dudes peacock and around while they pretend that they're going to be BFFs forever is a very very interesting premise. I'm glad that we did this episode now, but I'm also glad that, like I, uh, but I did my I did not force myself to like Soldier through just because it was the five anniversary of the thing. That's the only reason it had been on my short list was because of that. Because even when I was reading your outline and I was reading about all of that, I was like, I am so glad I did not force myself through this. I mean, I'm of the lucky mindset where I find most of their behavior hilarious rather than angering. So it was kind of fun and funny, and I would be like texting my best friend and go oh, Henry the eighth is apparently on the verge of tears. It's very funny, this whole posting. I do love the idea of outfits that spelled out a poem. Yeah, that's amazed. Francis getting my endless respect for that one. So I'm just gonna think about them every time I see someone being very fake in their behavior to try to jockey for their own personal benefit, and the go, this is your own personal field of cloth of gold. I see you see alright? Uh. We hope that your upcoming weekend is an absolute delight and that is not filled with any irritating pomp or false posturing on anyone's part, and that if you have things to do, they go smoothly and they're not too troublesome and you can squeak out a little bit of time just for yourself if you want to hang around, we'll be right back here Tomorrow. We're gonna have a classic episode, and then on Monday there will be more new episodes. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.