Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Frying and I'm Tracy be Wilson. Hey, as
Speaker 1: we record this, we're in the middle of a pandemic.
Speaker 1: We sure are. This is the first time that we
Speaker 1: have recorded the podcast with everyone involved in their houses. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we are entirely remote this go around. This is our
Speaker 1: first of those. As Tracy just said, so, uh, Tracy
Speaker 1: is usually at home, but today I am also at home,
Speaker 1: and Casey are amazing super producer, also at home. So
Speaker 1: um fingers crossed that our maiden voyage of doing it
Speaker 1: this way works out fine. We did a test, it
Speaker 1: worked out fine. But yeah, all of this that's going on,
Speaker 1: all of these changes to our day to day lives,
Speaker 1: however temporary they may be, and the virus that has
Speaker 1: caused all of this at me to thinking about contagion
Speaker 1: and germ theory and the various points in history where
Speaker 1: people have been trying to figure out the science of disease.
Speaker 1: And as I kind of snorfled around on the Internet
Speaker 1: looking for things related to that, it led me to
Speaker 1: Maximum Pettenkofer and one of the things that I found
Speaker 1: in my research for this was a lecture by Yale
Speaker 1: professor Frank Snowdon. It's part of their Open Yale Courses,
Speaker 1: and he described Pett and co Forer as quote the
Speaker 1: most sophisticated and scientifically robust of those we might call wrong.
Speaker 1: So Pett and Cofer's ideas about specifically how cholera but
Speaker 1: also other diseases spread, we're not exactly right. But even
Speaker 1: though he was kind of on the wrong track, his
Speaker 1: work still had some really beneficial impacts on the way
Speaker 1: that we live. And he also had a lot of
Speaker 1: twists and turns in his early life. And I'm hoping
Speaker 1: that those which are pretty entertaining, plus talking about these
Speaker 1: concepts in a way that's a little bit removed from
Speaker 1: what we are all currently living through, will offer a
Speaker 1: way to consider just how far we've come in figuring
Speaker 1: out epidemiology. We do need to offer a quick heads up.
Speaker 1: There is a brief mention of suicide in this episode.
Speaker 1: I'll add an additional heads up just because I was
Speaker 1: eating my breakfast when I got to this part of
Speaker 1: the outline. Towards the end of the episode, there's a
Speaker 1: little gross medical bit that you know it'll become clear
Speaker 1: when we get closer to it. Yeah, no, part of
Speaker 1: you will doubt was that it so. Max von petten
Speaker 1: Coffer was born at home on December three, eighteen in Liechtenheim, Bavaria,
Speaker 1: near the Danube River. His father wasn't exactly a farmer.
Speaker 1: He worked the land, but really only to the point
Speaker 1: of subsistence. It was not a vocation really on his part. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were very poor. His family was Catholic and they
Speaker 1: were obviously of extremely modest means. Max was fifth in
Speaker 1: the birth order. He had a total of seven siblings,
Speaker 1: so that is a very z and crowded house. It
Speaker 1: made for more people than could realistically fit in their
Speaker 1: living situation. Max, as a consequence, did not have a
Speaker 1: bedroom of his own. He actually betted down each night
Speaker 1: in the hallway, which kind of a landing at the
Speaker 1: top of the stairs that had a little crooked to
Speaker 1: the side of it, and that is where he slept
Speaker 1: those early years of Max's life. Unsurprisingly, we're not particularly happy.
Speaker 1: The family's poverty took its toll, as the pett and
Speaker 1: Coverers just never had enough to make ends meet. When
Speaker 1: Max was nine, his fortunes changed though he was sent
Speaker 1: to Munich to live with an uncle, Dr Franz ex
Speaker 1: Pett and Cover. Franz was a successful apothecary. He was
Speaker 1: in a way better financial position than Max's parents were,
Speaker 1: so that constant state of need was no longer part
Speaker 1: of Max's life. After he moved to Munich, there was
Speaker 1: just a whole new future of possibilities opened up for him,
Speaker 1: and this is a case where he definitely explored a
Speaker 1: lot of them. First off, he started a formal education,
Speaker 1: so he attended Grammar's Cool and then he went on
Speaker 1: to high school and he graduated in eighteen thirty seven
Speaker 1: when he was eighteen. He graduated with honors, and he
Speaker 1: initially seemed to be leaning towards literary scholarship. He also
Speaker 1: wrote poetry, which is good enough to be published in
Speaker 1: a collection. He shifted his focus after he enrolled in
Speaker 1: college at the University of Munich. The idea on his
Speaker 1: uncle's part was that Max could study pharmacy and chemistry
Speaker 1: and then eventually take over the apothecary, and Max started
Speaker 1: his higher education with that as the plan. But there
Speaker 1: was also a problem, which was it turned out that
Speaker 1: he hated those courses. He also dabbled with the idea
Speaker 1: of law, maybe even theology. Those eventually turned out not
Speaker 1: to hold his interest either. Oh, if you've ever taken
Speaker 1: a class you hated, it's excruciating, So to have a
Speaker 1: bunch of them, I feel for him. Uh So Naturally,
Speaker 1: with none of these other ideas about his future really
Speaker 1: being anything that was working for him, he decided to
Speaker 1: become an actor, perfectly normal path for a scientist. Uh.
Speaker 1: He remembered acting in school plays and loving it, so
Speaker 1: that seemed to him like a perfectly good option that
Speaker 1: he hadn't explored yet. As you may imagine, none of
Speaker 1: this went over particularly well with his uncle. Uh. Their relationship,
Speaker 1: as a consequence, did, on a serious note, become really,
Speaker 1: really tense, and eventually there was a physical altercation where
Speaker 1: Franz hit his nephew and Max. At that point, this
Speaker 1: associated himself from his uncle, which also meant that he
Speaker 1: was separating himself from his uncle's financial support. His whole
Speaker 1: theater thing actually seemed like it might play out for
Speaker 1: a little while. In eighteen forty, he was appearing on
Speaker 1: stage as Max Tenkof in various productions. He was handsome
Speaker 1: and smart, and his time studying literature in his younger
Speaker 1: years really served him well. But depending on which biographical
Speaker 1: account you read, it seems like his reviews might have
Speaker 1: been pretty mixed, and it became apparent that this was
Speaker 1: not going to be away for Max to support himself. Yea,
Speaker 1: some accounts say that he got pretty um consistently, not
Speaker 1: even panned. It wasn't even that it was like people
Speaker 1: were like, he's fine. Others say he did he did
Speaker 1: quite well. So we don't really know, but clearly it
Speaker 1: was not a career that was going to work out.
Speaker 1: But he did make an important connection during this time
Speaker 1: as an actor. He met a young woman named Helene
Speaker 1: petten Koeper. They have the same name because she was
Speaker 1: a cousin, and they fell in love. The two of
Speaker 1: them married, and it was actually this marriage that ended
Speaker 1: up reconnecting Max to his uncle Franz, and Helene helped
Speaker 1: encourage the two men to reconcile. In eighteen forty one,
Speaker 1: Max moved back to Munich with his new wife and,
Speaker 1: with his uncle's support, started to study medicine. Just a
Speaker 1: year after that, he was publishing articles on chemistry, specifically
Speaker 1: on the detection and isolation of arsenic in March of
Speaker 1: eighteen forty three, he was granted an apothecary degree, and then,
Speaker 1: after completing his medical thesis on South American plants that
Speaker 1: were believed to have curative properties, he received the degree
Speaker 1: of Doctor of Medicine, Surgery and Obstetrics. Yeah. I'm not
Speaker 1: clear on why this whole science thing worked for him
Speaker 1: this round, unless he was really just trying to step
Speaker 1: up and find a vocation in which he could support
Speaker 1: not only himself but his new wife. He was very
Speaker 1: dedicated to Helene, But this time around it was like
Speaker 1: his curiosity kind of worked out and he got pretty
Speaker 1: into his medical career. Petton Coopher's medical education had always
Speaker 1: focused primarily on chemistry, and his first position after completing
Speaker 1: his education was working in a lab in Wurtzburg researching
Speaker 1: urine and isolating various substances in it. In this work,
Speaker 1: he showed that hiperic acid and sulpho cyanic acid were
Speaker 1: present in urine, and he also noted a component that
Speaker 1: was high in nitrogen, although he didn't specifically identify it.
Speaker 1: Later chemists would identify that as creatine and creatinine, and
Speaker 1: he also developed a way to test urine for bile salt,
Speaker 1: and that test has actually continued to be used right
Speaker 1: up to the modern day. He then moved on to
Speaker 1: the University of Geisson in eighteen forty four to continue
Speaker 1: his work as a chemist, but after working under mentor
Speaker 1: usedace Vun Lee Big for a while there, it was
Speaker 1: apparent that he wasn't going to be offered a professorship,
Speaker 1: which is something he had hoped for. There just were
Speaker 1: not any open positions. Yeah, it wasn't an issue with
Speaker 1: him not doing good work because though it did not
Speaker 1: lead to a full time job, his work with Lee
Speaker 1: Big was quite fruitful. He developed a copper amalgam for
Speaker 1: dentists to use as a filling for teeth. He also
Speaker 1: developed away along with Lee Big, to prepare meat extract
Speaker 1: as a suit base. That actually led to a company
Speaker 1: being started, and his interest and his skill in chemistry
Speaker 1: really suited industrial chemistry projects quite well, so he shifted
Speaker 1: away from medicine for a while. He was still using
Speaker 1: his chemistry knowledge on the job that he landed in,
Speaker 1: but it was very different from what he'd been doing before.
Speaker 1: He worked in a mint until eighteen forty seven, and
Speaker 1: in his time there it was his job to refine
Speaker 1: and improve the minting of coins so the most valuable
Speaker 1: medals used in their production could be stretched as far
Speaker 1: as possible. One of the other things that he worked
Speaker 1: on at this time in his life was developing a
Speaker 1: way to save paintings from mildew that formed as their
Speaker 1: varnish broke down. You know, I fell in love with
Speaker 1: him for this. Uh. He figured out a way to
Speaker 1: really carefully apply alcohol vapor to the surfaces of paintings
Speaker 1: and in doing so reactivate the varnish so that it
Speaker 1: would kind of reseal the painting and protect its surface
Speaker 1: from molden mildew. Penn Koefer had been made an associate
Speaker 1: in the Academy of Sciences in eighteen forty six, and
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty seven he was finally offered a professorship
Speaker 1: at the University of Munich. He taught medical chemistry there.
Speaker 1: This was a newly created position. He was paid a
Speaker 1: small yearly salary plus two measures of wheat and seven
Speaker 1: measures of rye. He had a research space at his disposal,
Speaker 1: and his lectures covered topics including public health, sanitation, diet,
Speaker 1: physical chemistry, and hygiene. Yeah, his interest in all of
Speaker 1: those really really continues throughout his life, and as we'll see, uh,
Speaker 1: it becomes very important. Three years into this new position,
Speaker 1: Pettenkofer's responsibilities grew because his uncle Franz died in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty and as a consequence, Pettenkofer inherited Franz's position as
Speaker 1: court apothecary, so he was kind of advising the government
Speaker 1: on on matters of chemistry. And this appointment included the
Speaker 1: residents that his uncle had lived in, in which Max
Speaker 1: had lived in as a child, so he got a
Speaker 1: house out of the deal, and he also got an
Speaker 1: additional salary for the apothecary positions. And things are going
Speaker 1: quite well. We are about to get into the work
Speaker 1: that Pett and co forerd did while trying to understand
Speaker 1: the spread of cholera, but first we will pause for
Speaker 1: a quick sponsor break. Starting in the eighteen fifties, cholera
Speaker 1: became the focus of much of Pett and Cooper's work.
Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty five, his fortunes continued to expand and
Speaker 1: his standing in the scientific community grew as well, and
Speaker 1: he was able to move his lab into the newly
Speaker 1: built Institute of Physiology, where he had more space to work,
Speaker 1: and this was also the year that he published a
Speaker 1: really important work, Investigations and Observations on the Method and
Speaker 1: Spread of Cholera. During this time, one of the important
Speaker 1: concepts that he wrote about was the idea of a
Speaker 1: healthy carrier. While he didn't agree with the contagion theories
Speaker 1: at the time, and we're going to get into that
Speaker 1: in a moment, he did think that there could be
Speaker 1: people who showed no sign of illness whatsoever and yet
Speaker 1: helped spread certain elements of disease. Max von Pett and
Speaker 1: Cooper started sharing his idea that cholera was linked to
Speaker 1: a micro organism, but he was also adamant that whatever
Speaker 1: that microorganism was wasn't enough to make someone sick by itself.
Speaker 1: He thought a series of conditions had to be met
Speaker 1: to cause an epidemic. There had to be the microorganism,
Speaker 1: specific local conditions, seasonal conditions, and individual susceptibility. He really
Speaker 1: didn't believe in the developing ideas that would eventually lead
Speaker 1: Louis Pasteur and Robert Coke to develop germ theory. Yeah,
Speaker 1: germ theory had been kind of developing over time, but
Speaker 1: they really solidified it uh in the eighteen hundreds. Pett
Speaker 1: and Kopher's idea was represented by the simple mathematical equation
Speaker 1: of X plus Y equals z, and in this model
Speaker 1: the outcome Z was cholera. The variable X was the
Speaker 1: presence of a micro organism, which, again on its own,
Speaker 1: he believed to be harmless, and the why variable represented
Speaker 1: the local conditions that were contributing factors that would enable
Speaker 1: that micro organism to actually become infectious. He thought that
Speaker 1: general n cleanliness offered nutrients for that X micro organism
Speaker 1: to thrive, and that water and warm temperatures and porous
Speaker 1: soil were also important contributors. The microorganism needed to ferment
Speaker 1: basically kind of the way a plant germinates, and then,
Speaker 1: building on miasma theory, it would release infectious elements into
Speaker 1: the air. And this idea of Pett and Cooper's came
Speaker 1: to be known kind of colloquially as the groundwater theory.
Speaker 1: It's also sometimes called localization theory. This theory was an
Speaker 1: opposition to the work of British physician John Snow, who
Speaker 1: we have an episode on and the Archive. Snow believed
Speaker 1: that whatever was causing cholera was something that was ingested
Speaker 1: and was not miasmatic. In eighteen forty nine, Snow had
Speaker 1: written an essay entitled on the Mode and Communication of
Speaker 1: Cholera outlining this idea, and in eighteen fifty four it
Speaker 1: seemed like he had proven it when he identified a
Speaker 1: water pump in London's Broad Street that seemed to be
Speaker 1: the source of multiple people's infections. That's a very short
Speaker 1: version of his story. H pettent Cofer was pretty adamant
Speaker 1: that Snow was oversimplifying things. He acknowledged that John Snow
Speaker 1: had clearly identified some factor in this whole process in
Speaker 1: the water, and he actually wrote that no one in
Speaker 1: his right mind could dismiss that finding. But what exactly
Speaker 1: was it about the water that caused illness? He felt
Speaker 1: as though it just could not possibly be a water
Speaker 1: borne pathogen. By the way, that word was not even
Speaker 1: in in the vernacular at that time. It wasn't coined
Speaker 1: until later. But he thought that anything that would have
Speaker 1: been in the water by the time it got to
Speaker 1: a human would have been far too diluted to actually
Speaker 1: be dangerous. That big gap in understanding really drove Pett
Speaker 1: and Cooper's work for the rest of his life. He
Speaker 1: wrote paper after paper over the next four decades, reiterating
Speaker 1: and refining his ideas. This stoked the fires of a
Speaker 1: long debate in the medical and scientific communities between the contagionists,
Speaker 1: who thought that Snow had identified the problem, and the
Speaker 1: anti contagionists, who thought there were far more factors involved
Speaker 1: than simply passing some sort of germ from person to
Speaker 1: person and bo Cholera was a concentration of his work,
Speaker 1: Pettenkopher continued to develop theories and experiments in other fields.
Speaker 1: Uh this is one of those things where you don't
Speaker 1: realize how much he worked on until you really dig in,
Speaker 1: because most of the biographies of the articles you find
Speaker 1: about him are just about his anti contagionism and cholera.
Speaker 1: But in eighteen sixty one he developed the first breath
Speaker 1: analysis apparatus. It was a chamber in which a subjects
Speaker 1: excelation could be analyzed to determine how the body was
Speaker 1: consuming and using fats and carbohydrates, forming an important foundation
Speaker 1: of metabolic research. He was then able to use that
Speaker 1: data that he gathered to develop some of the earliest
Speaker 1: calculations of caloric needs that a person may require in
Speaker 1: various living conditions. In eighteen sixty four, he became rector
Speaker 1: of the University of Munich. His influence and his work
Speaker 1: in hygiene led King Ludwig the Second of Bavaria to
Speaker 1: believe that hygiene research should be part of all of
Speaker 1: Bavaria as higher learning institutions. The king ensured that Bavarious
Speaker 1: three universities all had chairs of hygiene. Pett and co
Speaker 1: Forer filled that role at the University of Munich. Once
Speaker 1: these positions were established, hygiene became a required course and
Speaker 1: all their medical curriculums. And we're going to talk more
Speaker 1: about some of his work in hygiene as we go along.
Speaker 1: Uh In eighteen sixty five, Pett and co Forer, frustrated
Speaker 1: at the lack of journals that were publishing studies of hygiene,
Speaker 1: just formed his own uh Zitch Drift for Biology, which
Speaker 1: is Journal of Biology was the result. In eighteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: he was offered a very lucrative position. The University of
Speaker 1: Vienna was building a new hygiene institute. They asked him
Speaker 1: to run it. This was an enticing offer, but Pett
Speaker 1: and co Forer really preferred to stay in Bavaria, so
Speaker 1: he used this offer to his advantage and told the
Speaker 1: University of Munich that Vienna really wanted him so that
Speaker 1: he would consider staying only if he had an instant
Speaker 1: tute of hygiene there in Munich. The university agreed to
Speaker 1: build him one, which took the next seven years, but
Speaker 1: it did get done and Petton Coopher stayed ran this
Speaker 1: hygienic Institute at the University of Munich once it opened
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy nine. The institute was highly influential. It
Speaker 1: served as a prototype for other education and research programs
Speaker 1: around the world. That was a direct inspiration for the JOHNS.
Speaker 1: Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in Baltimore that
Speaker 1: was founded in nineteen seventeen. And one of the most
Speaker 1: important publications during this time when he was really really
Speaker 1: prolifically contributing to this idea of hygiene is a science
Speaker 1: was a lecture titled the Value of Health to a City,
Speaker 1: and this work broke down in numbers the cost of
Speaker 1: having a population that wasn't in good health. He noted
Speaker 1: the average number of sick days taken by a worker
Speaker 1: in Munich at the time, which was twenty and he
Speaker 1: calculated that those days cost the city three point four
Speaker 1: million gould In a year, and he then I outlined
Speaker 1: how if they developed a sewage system and they raised
Speaker 1: sanitation standards, the city could actually far exceed making up
Speaker 1: for those losses and actually save additional money every year.
Speaker 1: He studied how air quality impacted population health, how clothing
Speaker 1: impacted health, and the benefits of raising plants indoors. He
Speaker 1: examined how ventilation could contribute to or detract from overall health.
Speaker 1: The pet and Coper number, which is a number that
Speaker 1: represents quote an absolute CEO too concentration of zero point
Speaker 1: one percent or one thousand parts per million, is still
Speaker 1: used today. His teaching reflected his findings. He evangelized the
Speaker 1: importance of clean air, clean water, clean soil, a clean home,
Speaker 1: as well as good clothing and nutrition. Thus, this idea
Speaker 1: of hygiene as a medical issue really became an interdisciplinary field.
Speaker 1: Pet and Coper really considered the role of environment in
Speaker 1: a person's health, and to him it was very clear
Speaker 1: that city planning should include this as a consideration. He
Speaker 1: was not obviously the first person to think about this.
Speaker 1: You can find texts going far far back into ancient
Speaker 1: times where there are some connections being made about living
Speaker 1: conditions and health. But his work to identify specific causal
Speaker 1: relationships between the way people live and their health beyond
Speaker 1: what could be considered common sense was pretty new, and
Speaker 1: he recognized that this was a field that would also
Speaker 1: have to be agile as civilization shifted over time, writing quote,
Speaker 1: it is a peculiarity of hygiene to change its field
Speaker 1: of research and, within certain limits its field of study,
Speaker 1: according to time and circumstances. Even as the Hygienic Institute
Speaker 1: was under construction, other job offers came in. When Petton
Speaker 1: Cooper was asked to become head of the German Empire
Speaker 1: Health Council in eighteen seventy six, he turned it down,
Speaker 1: although he did serve in a smaller role as a consultant.
Speaker 1: We are about to head into the later years of
Speaker 1: Pett and Cooper's life, including one very strange and risky experiment,
Speaker 1: but first we are going to pause for a word
Speaker 1: from the show's sponsors. The eighteen eighties were prolific for
Speaker 1: Pett and Cooper, who continued his examination of cholera and
Speaker 1: his defense of his theory of how disease spread. In
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty two, he collaborated on a project titled Handbook
Speaker 1: for Hygiene with the German physician Hugo Wilhelm von Ziemsm.
Speaker 1: And that handbook which makes it sound like a handy
Speaker 1: thing you could put in your pocket, was actually published
Speaker 1: in five volumes. In eighteen eighty three, Petten Cooper founded
Speaker 1: a second periodical archive for Hygiene. This wasn't many ways
Speaker 1: an outlet for pett and Cooper to continue his writing
Speaker 1: about hygiene and disease in eighteen eighty six. In eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty seven, he wrote a total of seven fifty six
Speaker 1: pages of content for this journal. The same year he
Speaker 1: founded it, German microbiologist Robert Coke showed that Vibrio colora
Speaker 1: was the bacterium responsible for cholera. Pettenkofer continued to believe
Speaker 1: that this was only part of the cause. Though although
Speaker 1: Pettenkofer defended his ideas really to the end, Coke's work
Speaker 1: eclipsed his as it became the accepted scientific fact. One
Speaker 1: of the big drivers in his writing and research was
Speaker 1: field work. Pettenkofer was never just postulating about all of
Speaker 1: his ideas about how disease was passed. He wasn't just
Speaker 1: sitting in his study. He actually made a point to
Speaker 1: travel to locations where there had been cholera outbreaks and
Speaker 1: study the conditions there, because he was always looking for
Speaker 1: additional data to add to his ever growing body of works,
Speaker 1: all in the hopes that he could crack this problem
Speaker 1: and bring an end to epidemic outbreaks. And that's an
Speaker 1: important side note that we should make here. The reason
Speaker 1: the debate between contagionists and anti contagionists was so impassioned
Speaker 1: was because these were serious matters of public health. How
Speaker 1: could scientists and the municipalities who took their council protect people.
Speaker 1: In eighteen forty nine, a London cholera outbreak that had
Speaker 1: inspired Snow's work claimed the lives of more than fourteen
Speaker 1: thousand people. And this was only one issue that was
Speaker 1: in play. There were also leprosy which is now more
Speaker 1: often called hands and disease, typhus, plague, and yellow fever.
Speaker 1: Disease was something that everyone took seriously and that scientists
Speaker 1: were constantly trying to understand, even if they came to
Speaker 1: drastically different conclusions. So, going back to Maxivon Petton Coopher's
Speaker 1: field epidemiology, particularly in instances where the location of an
Speaker 1: outbreak didn't fit the model that he had developed, he
Speaker 1: was pretty quick to go there and try to figure
Speaker 1: out why. In most cases, these were instances where a
Speaker 1: city or a village that had had an outbreak was
Speaker 1: not built on porous soil, which was something that he
Speaker 1: felt was vital to how this whole system worked. For example, Malta,
Speaker 1: there had been a cholera epidemic on the island in
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty seven, but Malta was rock, which would seem
Speaker 1: to contradict Pett and Cofer's theory about porous soil. But
Speaker 1: when he actually went and visited the island, he saw
Speaker 1: that that rock was in fact porous. It's limestone, so
Speaker 1: he felt like this actually supported his idea. Conversely, he
Speaker 1: noted that the city of Leon, France, had not had
Speaker 1: an outbreak, despite being a major metropolitan area that had
Speaker 1: two rivers that skirted the city center and a bustling
Speaker 1: trade business. Pett and Cofer concluded that even though there
Speaker 1: were other factors that might contribute to an outbreak in Leon,
Speaker 1: the fact that the city's substrate was granted had saved
Speaker 1: it from epidemics. Yeah, he was like, this whole fermentation
Speaker 1: process cannot happen here because granite uh and through all
Speaker 1: of this cholera study. He was also still advocating for
Speaker 1: a general improvement in hygiene everywhere as a key to
Speaker 1: good health, and particularly drinking and just having good clean water,
Speaker 1: even though he didn't agree with the idea that contaminated
Speaker 1: water was what spread cholera. He thought everybody should just
Speaker 1: have clean water because that was best. He wrote quote
Speaker 1: for good health, pure water is as necessary as pure air,
Speaker 1: good food, comfortable quarters, and so forth. I myself am
Speaker 1: an enthusiast in the matter of drinking water, but not
Speaker 1: from fear of cholera or typhoid fever, but simply from
Speaker 1: a pure love for the good. For me, water is
Speaker 1: not only a necessary article of food, but a real
Speaker 1: pleasure which I prefer and believe to be more healthful
Speaker 1: than good wine or good beer. He was a borderline teetotaler.
Speaker 1: He was not really a fan of alcohol at all Boo.
Speaker 1: When Pett and Cooper turned seventy, the cities of Munich
Speaker 1: and Leipzig each gave him cash gifts to be used
Speaker 1: for his pet and co forer Foundation of Hygienic Investigation.
Speaker 1: In eighteen ninety, he was elected as president of the
Speaker 1: Bavarian Academy of Sciences, and in three he was given
Speaker 1: Munich's highest honor, which was the gold Burgess Medal, and
Speaker 1: that was in recognition of his lifetime of work. Is
Speaker 1: nine also brought some sorrow. Max's wife, Helene died that year,
Speaker 1: and the couple had also lost three of their five
Speaker 1: children over the years, and all of this loss really
Speaker 1: took a toll on the scientist in his later life.
Speaker 1: The most dramatic story of Pettenkopher's life and work took
Speaker 1: place in eighteen nine two. It is the part that
Speaker 1: I referenced grossing me out when I read this outline
Speaker 1: during breakfast. He was so convinced that a micro organism
Speaker 1: alone could not make you sick that he put his
Speaker 1: own life on the line to prove it. On October
Speaker 1: seven two, he got a culture of vibrio colliery from
Speaker 1: a sick patient. He makes it into bullion and he
Speaker 1: drank it. The experienced quote light diarrhea with an enormous
Speaker 1: proliferation of the basilly in the stool, but he recovered
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. The two of his students tried the same thing.
Speaker 1: They both survived, but also became very ill. These were
Speaker 1: Pettenkofer's thoughts on his rash experiment quote. Even if I
Speaker 1: had deceived myself and the experiment endangered my life, I
Speaker 1: would have looked death quietly in the eye, for mine
Speaker 1: would have been no foolish or cowardly suicide. I would
Speaker 1: have died in the service of science, like a soldier
Speaker 1: on the field of honor. Health and life are as
Speaker 1: I have so often said, very great earthly goods, but
Speaker 1: not the highest for man. Man, if he will rise
Speaker 1: above the animals, must sacrifice both life and health for
Speaker 1: the higher ideals. In Pettenkofer retired from teaching. Two years later.
Speaker 1: He also gave up his court apothecary position, and then, finally,
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety nine, he ended all his other professional
Speaker 1: obligations and retired primarily to Lake Starnberger in the southwest
Speaker 1: of Munich. We had a summer home there. In early
Speaker 1: nineteen o one, Pettenkofer entered a cious depression triggered by
Speaker 1: a painful throat infection. On February tenth, nineteen o one,
Speaker 1: he shot and killed himself. His body was autopsied, and
Speaker 1: it revealed that he had been living with chronic meningitis,
Speaker 1: as well as symptoms that would later be recognized as
Speaker 1: cerebral calcification. Betton Cofer was buried in his beloved Munich
Speaker 1: and thal Kirkner Cemetery. Today there's a statue of him
Speaker 1: in Maximilian Square in Munich. The Hygienic Institute at the
Speaker 1: University of Munich, which Pettenkofer had leveraged his Vienna offer
Speaker 1: to get built, was destroyed in World War Two and
Speaker 1: it was bombed on July four. More than twenty years later,
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty seven, it was finally rebuilt and it
Speaker 1: became the Maxivon Pettenkofer Institute. That institute continues today as
Speaker 1: a research and teaching organization focusing on microbiology, epidemiology and virology,
Speaker 1: and it also offers hygienic microbiological testing for clinical facilities.
Speaker 1: His period ucal Archive for Hygiene still exists today, although
Speaker 1: it's now published under the name International Journal of Hygiene
Speaker 1: and Environmental Health. Maxillon, pret and Cooper may have been
Speaker 1: wrong about the causes of epidemics, but he was obviously
Speaker 1: onto an important aspect of public health with his staunch
Speaker 1: defense of hygiene as vital for the well being of
Speaker 1: all humankind. The work that he did, as we said,
Speaker 1: led to sanitary reform in a number of places, which
Speaker 1: significantly improved the community's quality of life. And in modern epidemiology,
Speaker 1: there is a recognition that exposure and outcome can be
Speaker 1: influenced and modified by other factors, although it's not a
Speaker 1: cause and effect situation, like he thought, Yeah, there's they're
Speaker 1: definitely all kinds of things that can influence how easy
Speaker 1: it is for a pathogen to spread and uh infect people.
Speaker 1: But like it's not like you, you would only contract
Speaker 1: color o with these specific things happening, like you thought.
Speaker 1: So to quote with a quote that nicely summer rises
Speaker 1: pet and Cooper's ideology about the importance of good health. Quote,
Speaker 1: everyone who lives upon the earth deserves to be well,
Speaker 1: for a life without health is a misery martyrdom from
Speaker 1: which everyone longs for release, and when it may not
Speaker 1: be by other means, even by death. I don't know
Speaker 1: that everyone would agree with that perspective, but it does
Speaker 1: seem like some up his whole philosophy. Yeah, good health
Speaker 1: is the only way to live, and if you can't
Speaker 1: have it, it's not worth living. It's a little bit grim. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm like ablest right, Uh, Yeah, it's a He's such
Speaker 1: an interesting creature, and that he his position in all
Speaker 1: of this really does get eclipsed by UM Coke and
Speaker 1: by uh Louis Pasteur who were doing their stuff. And
Speaker 1: again because he was fundamentally wrong about contagion, but all
Speaker 1: of the other stuff he did was amazing. I had
Speaker 1: no idea about his work in metabolic science until I
Speaker 1: had gotten pretty deep into research, and I was like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, which is really fascinating because that's stuff
Speaker 1: that is still used all the time today, um, and
Speaker 1: it's an important part of some people's lives. Like if
Speaker 1: you are an athlete, you're depending on science that he
Speaker 1: developed to like maintain your optimal performance, because most athletes
Speaker 1: have a very serious, like nutrition plan that's developed after
Speaker 1: measuring how they're burning carbohydrates and fat, and that is
Speaker 1: all part of this. I love that, Uh, here's a
Speaker 1: trick that is happening as we transition to this new
Speaker 1: age of recording at home, I usually keep a nice
Speaker 1: stack of listener mail prepped in the office, and I'm
Speaker 1: bummed because that's one of the things that we won't
Speaker 1: be able to do for a little bit um because
Speaker 1: we're not there to receive it. And in fact, I
Speaker 1: think that building is is not going to be receiving it,
Speaker 1: at least not in the normal way that we have
Speaker 1: been Um, which stinks. But we'll get back to it,
Speaker 1: I promise once all of this blows over and I
Speaker 1: can get back to your marvel parcels and postcards, they
Speaker 1: will be top of mine. If you've been thinking of
Speaker 1: sending something to us, we definitely appreciate your thought and generosity.
Speaker 1: I would wait, yeah, hold off, because I don't know
Speaker 1: the fate of that stuff right now. Um. I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's going somewhere, and it's probably like being stored somewhere,
Speaker 1: but I don't know how long it's gonna take for
Speaker 1: anything to eventually get parceled out actually to us once
Speaker 1: everything is back up and running. So if you have
Speaker 1: something you've been longing to send us, just sit on
Speaker 1: it for a bit. It'll still it'll still be sendable
Speaker 1: with what we're all done. Um yeah. So what I
Speaker 1: will do is take this opportunity to thank our listener, Catherine,
Speaker 1: who is also someone who I interact with on Twitter
Speaker 1: a lot and has become something of a friend, and
Speaker 1: she very sweetly sent me a Godzilla magnet and a
Speaker 1: little r two D two lapel pin like R two
Speaker 1: D two in this really stylized way to our office.
Speaker 1: It was one of the last things I was able
Speaker 1: to open and before all of this happened. So thank
Speaker 1: you so much, Katherine, Like that was just the sweetest
Speaker 1: and I love that it relates to both Star Wars,
Speaker 1: which I love, and Godzilla, which we have talked about
Speaker 1: on the show before, and I also love. If you
Speaker 1: would like to write to us, email is a very
Speaker 1: safe bet that you can do that at History Podcast
Speaker 1: at i heart radio dot com. You can also still
Speaker 1: find us on social media as Missed in History pretty
Speaker 1: much everywhere. And if you would like to subscribe to
Speaker 1: the podcast, if maybe you're a new listener who has
Speaker 1: stumbled upon us looking for something to entertain you in
Speaker 1: these times have shut in uh, you can do that
Speaker 1: on the I heart Radio app, at Apple podcast or
Speaker 1: wherever it is you listen. Stuff you Missed in History
Speaker 1: Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.