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 Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. And uh,
Speaker 1: this is of course part two of our episode on
Speaker 1: Jean Baptiste Deny in the development of blood transfusions in
Speaker 1: seventeenth century Paris. You can call it part do since
Speaker 1: it's very French. Today, we are jumping right into part
Speaker 1: two of this story and the work that Dinny was
Speaker 1: doing developing transfusion techniques. If you have not listened to
Speaker 1: the first part, this one is going to be super confusing,
Speaker 1: so we definitely recommend that you do that because we're
Speaker 1: getting right back to the action. If somehow you have
Speaker 1: not listened to the first part of this, but you
Speaker 1: have listened to the way back in the archive interview
Speaker 1: called blood Work, which has some of the same themes,
Speaker 1: like this is way a lot of detail that was
Speaker 1: not part of that particular episode. Yeah. That episode is
Speaker 1: with an author named Holly Tucker about um her work
Speaker 1: writing a book about this subject, which I used for
Speaker 1: as one of my sources, and it gets into a
Speaker 1: lot of other aspects of book writing and research and
Speaker 1: and what was going on in the medical progression of
Speaker 1: humanity at the time, whereas I really really wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of break down this whole narrative of denise sudden
Speaker 1: rise to fame in medicine and what that was all about,
Speaker 1: and the things that were going on in Paris at
Speaker 1: the time in the medical community. Yeah, I imagine the
Speaker 1: like the subset of people who had somehow heard that
Speaker 1: earlier two part or but not part one of this
Speaker 1: might be really small, but just in case. In the
Speaker 1: last episode, we talked about denise second animal to human transfusion,
Speaker 1: which took place at the home of Aree Louis de
Speaker 1: mal Moore, and today we're gonna just jump right back
Speaker 1: into that moment. In the winter of sixteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: as you will recall, Dennis and his accomplices had kidnapped
Speaker 1: the subject of this transfusion attempt, that was a man
Speaker 1: named Antoine more Wax, and they had given him a
Speaker 1: transfusion of calf's blood against his will in an attempt
Speaker 1: to cure his mental illness. And when more Wam woke
Speaker 1: up the morning after the transfusion, he who had been
Speaker 1: again an unwilling subject, did seem to have improved. He
Speaker 1: was more docile, and he was less prone to outbursts.
Speaker 1: In all likelihood, of course, he was probably just weakened
Speaker 1: from the ordeal of the night before, but Denny, in
Speaker 1: his zeal, took the change in temperament as a sign
Speaker 1: that he was really onto something and that more wax
Speaker 1: could perhaps be cured completely if they gave him a
Speaker 1: second transfusion. The second transfusion was less tumultuous than the first,
Speaker 1: which had taken place just two days earlier. It was
Speaker 1: once again held at Monmore's home, but this time at
Speaker 1: Denise and assistance. There were fewer spectators. It does seem like,
Speaker 1: at least to cover your own, but idea the few
Speaker 1: who were allowed were doctors and surgeons. Additionally, this Patience,
Speaker 1: again by no choice of his own, did not resist. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think more than covering his tail, what he really
Speaker 1: wanted was we We discussed in the last episode that
Speaker 1: it was chaotic with that first one because there were
Speaker 1: so many people who wanted to be there and actually
Speaker 1: see what they believed could be history being made that
Speaker 1: it actually kind of hindered Denny and m ra A
Speaker 1: his surgeons abilities to really perform the work they were doing,
Speaker 1: so he was not afraid of um bad press or conflict,
Speaker 1: So I think it had more to do. It's just
Speaker 1: like I mean, people out of my way. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: M Ra could not find a vein in Marwa's right arm,
Speaker 1: and he and Denny came up with a number of
Speaker 1: reasons that that would be, none of which of course
Speaker 1: related to their prior transfusion which they had done on
Speaker 1: that arm. So they decided to use the left arm
Speaker 1: and they were successful, and they were able this time
Speaker 1: to get more calves blood into mare Wah, but he
Speaker 1: once again had a bad reaction almost as soon as
Speaker 1: they began. This time, more Wah was able to pretty
Speaker 1: calmly verbalize the sensations he was feeling. He described pain
Speaker 1: in his kidneys, a feeling that he was choking, and
Speaker 1: that he was nauseated, and once again the transfusion was stopped.
Speaker 1: More Wa vomited several times over the next two hours
Speaker 1: before passing out. So we should mention up front that
Speaker 1: this next account is the way that Denis recorded this story,
Speaker 1: and that's that Maura, as they found him the next morning,
Speaker 1: seemed like a completely different man, quiet, alert, polite, able
Speaker 1: to hold a conversation without any of the behavior that
Speaker 1: they had come to associate with him and the preceding months.
Speaker 1: He asked to see a priest so that he could
Speaker 1: give confession, which he did, and the priest was amazed
Speaker 1: by this transformation. Morhua's wife, Perina, who had not known
Speaker 1: where her husband had been taken, was brought into the
Speaker 1: Momour home and she was shocked as well. The two
Speaker 1: of them were described as embracing and Antoine Rhua described
Speaker 1: what he had been through. So incidentally, if you remember
Speaker 1: from the last episode we talked about more Wa having
Speaker 1: um kind of developed his issues with his mental health
Speaker 1: as a result of having been kind of scorned and
Speaker 1: mocked in a love affair gone wrong. So you may
Speaker 1: be like, well, what is up with the wife Morwan
Speaker 1: Perne had actually been married after he started having these issues.
Speaker 1: This marriage had been arranged by his family. They thought
Speaker 1: that the stability of a regular home life would cure
Speaker 1: him of his anguish and Perrine, who had endured unending
Speaker 1: abuse from her husband, had actually been searching for him
Speaker 1: around Paris and learned of his involvement in Denny's experiment
Speaker 1: through idle chatter on the street, and that was how
Speaker 1: she ended up in front of the Momore estate. Jean
Speaker 1: Baptiste Denny was convinced that he had just changed medicine
Speaker 1: forever and that he was about to be one of
Speaker 1: the most famous men in the world. That was sort
Speaker 1: of correct, although things did not play out the way
Speaker 1: he thought they were going to. So after being allowed
Speaker 1: to stay with her husband at Momore's home for two
Speaker 1: weeks while Deny monitored his health, the more Waws were
Speaker 1: sent home. Perrine was not convinced that Antoine was cured.
Speaker 1: She saw how different he was, but she also feared
Speaker 1: that this was not a permanent fix, and she was
Speaker 1: entirely correct. After two months, more was fever spiked and
Speaker 1: his behavior reverted to the violence and unpredictability that had
Speaker 1: preceded his transfusions. Perrine went to denise home in Paris
Speaker 1: and demanded he give her husband a third transfusion. This time,
Speaker 1: the procedure was performed in the Mala home, where, curiously
Speaker 1: Perne already had everything arranged, including the needed tools for
Speaker 1: the transfusion and a new calf. This sounds incredibly suspicious,
Speaker 1: and it is given that the Martis were pretty poor.
Speaker 1: Dennis initially refused to do this, suspecting that something was
Speaker 1: up with all this, but Parine showed the doctor the
Speaker 1: bruises she had from her husband's abuse. He acquiesced and
Speaker 1: went ahead with this transfusion, although by his own account
Speaker 1: this entire scene really troubled him and there were complications.
Speaker 1: As Denny and his surgeon Emirae were preparing, Mawa Mai
Speaker 1: had a seizure. Sometimes this is also written up as
Speaker 1: a series of seizures. They had already inserted a tube
Speaker 1: into his arm, and they had made an incision in
Speaker 1: his foot so that he could be bled of bad
Speaker 1: blood exiting the body just before this seizure happened, so
Speaker 1: as soon as it took place, they determined that they
Speaker 1: had to close all of his incisions. They had not
Speaker 1: at this point made any incisions in the animal, and
Speaker 1: the transfusion never happened, And then the next day Antoine
Speaker 1: Marhua was dead. Denis and Mra compared notes. They wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure they had not been the cause of
Speaker 1: his death. They also returned to the Morhoa home to
Speaker 1: speak with Paine and get a full account of Antoine
Speaker 1: Morhua's behavior and physical condition. In the hours between when
Speaker 1: they left and when he died, she really did not cooperate.
Speaker 1: M attempted to begin an autopsy, and an argument ensued.
Speaker 1: Parine ejected the two men from her home. Denis assured
Speaker 1: her that there would be an autopsy, but Paine buried
Speaker 1: Antoine's body later on that day to thwart any such plan.
Speaker 1: Yeah Denny returned to their house the next morning, and
Speaker 1: it was like he's already buried. So more. WAW's death
Speaker 1: was in what sounds like a very maccab thing, welcomed
Speaker 1: by the old fashioned Parisian doctors who had been suspicious
Speaker 1: of Denny and transfusion from the beginning. There was a
Speaker 1: feeling that at last this upstarts ambition had tripped him
Speaker 1: up for a practice that was controversial to begin with.
Speaker 1: The death of denise most famed subject made even his
Speaker 1: most ardent supporters doubt their position. In a letter to
Speaker 1: the publisher of Philosophical Transactions, King Louis, the fourteenth Secretary
Speaker 1: on Rigel wrote of Deny and m R a quote,
Speaker 1: their mischance will discredit transfusion, and no one will dare
Speaker 1: to try it in the future. On men. Deny himself
Speaker 1: had wondered if Peren had killed her husband and had
Speaker 1: used him and m R. To cover her tracks. Things
Speaker 1: just didn't add up. The surgical instru manson medical supplies
Speaker 1: that she had ready in their home, this new calf
Speaker 1: purchased and ready for the transfusions. All of this two
Speaker 1: months after MARTA's death. It was Perrine herself who finally
Speaker 1: answered these pretty puzzling questions for Denny. Sort of uh.
Speaker 1: Perine Mata paid a visit to Denny, and she spilled
Speaker 1: her story, or at least part of it. She told
Speaker 1: him that a group of physicians had approached her after
Speaker 1: Antoine's death, offering her money to testify that Denny had
Speaker 1: killed him. But she also told Denny that if he
Speaker 1: couldn't help her financially, she would have to take their money,
Speaker 1: as had been the case in the Maha home. Denny
Speaker 1: and Perine argued, and she left. His next step was
Speaker 1: to file a complaint against Mata's widow for extortion, as
Speaker 1: well as against the mystery physicians who attempted to bribe her.
Speaker 1: He could not name any man specifically. A hearing was
Speaker 1: held on April seventeenth of sixteen sixty eight. A judge
Speaker 1: was asked with sorting out the accusations against Denise for
Speaker 1: having possibly murdered Mala and denise counter complaint against parne
Speaker 1: Boas Denis was the first witness he was called. He
Speaker 1: described all of the details of LA's first two transfusions
Speaker 1: and how they had appeared to everyone to be a
Speaker 1: complete success. He also testified that the third transfusion had
Speaker 1: been halted before it even began because of plass seizure.
Speaker 1: And we're going to get into the testimony that was
Speaker 1: given by the widow parin Broi next, but before we do,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick breather and have a sponsor break.
Speaker 1: Karine Maua was the next person to be questioned after Denine,
Speaker 1: and she talked about how hard she tried to be
Speaker 1: a good and dutiful wife. She told the judge of
Speaker 1: how Antoine had once again become unpredictable just a few
Speaker 1: weeks after the seeming success of his transfusion at the
Speaker 1: memoir state she had cared for him when he had
Speaker 1: come home from carousing and she had endured his abuse,
Speaker 1: and as part of this testimony, she also disclosed that
Speaker 1: she had consented to sexual intercourse with her husband on
Speaker 1: four occasions after they had returned home from their time
Speaker 1: in Paris. This was intended to be evidence of her devotion,
Speaker 1: but it actually undermined her case. Denny had expressly forbidden
Speaker 1: sexual activity as dangerous to Marwa's health while he continued
Speaker 1: to recover. Denny had not wanted him drinking or carousing either,
Speaker 1: so basically this kind of helped Denny's case that he
Speaker 1: was not to blame for what had happened. The case
Speaker 1: continued to turn against Perine Maha from there. Neighbors testified
Speaker 1: that yes, the couple thought and Antoine could be violent,
Speaker 1: but that Parine had also struck her husband in seventeenth
Speaker 1: century France, that was pretty damning. There was also a
Speaker 1: suspicion among the neighbors, but no evidence that Paine might
Speaker 1: have been poisoning Antoine. This was lot of time in
Speaker 1: Paris when poisonings were pretty common, and so accusations of
Speaker 1: poisonings were also rampant, so suspicious neighbors in that regard were.
Speaker 1: That was almost a foregone conclusion. Yeah, I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't know about this when we started working on it
Speaker 1: um and it suddenly overlapped so much that we've talked
Speaker 1: about on Criminalia this season. It's like, I can't get
Speaker 1: away from poisoning everywhere. It's just everywhere I turned. So
Speaker 1: the police chief appointed by King Louis the fourteen, Nicola,
Speaker 1: took particular interest in this poisoning testimony because his efforts
Speaker 1: to curb the city's poisoning problem had been just exhausting
Speaker 1: and frustrating for him, and both Deni and Emirae told
Speaker 1: the judge that they had heard Antoine Maroi claim prior
Speaker 1: to their first transfusion treatment with him, that he believed
Speaker 1: his wife was trying to kill him. So despite everyone
Speaker 1: having believed that Maroa was a madman during that time,
Speaker 1: this still was very, very bad for Perrine. So it
Speaker 1: was believed that Mrs Mahua had been serving her husband
Speaker 1: arsenic and soup and small doses, and that that would
Speaker 1: kill him slowly and in a way that presented as
Speaker 1: any number of other common ailments, and incidentally, being fed
Speaker 1: arsenic and small amounts canned also caused delirium and seizures.
Speaker 1: Based on a whole lot of circumstantial evidence, Perine Maha
Speaker 1: was charged with murder and taken to a prison cell,
Speaker 1: but we just don't know what happened to her after that.
Speaker 1: The judge did believe that they had sussed out what
Speaker 1: had happened, and that Perrine had plotted against her husband,
Speaker 1: but he also thought there was more to the story.
Speaker 1: He really wanted more answers about how Perrine had gotten
Speaker 1: the poison. Our snake was readily available for purchase as
Speaker 1: a means of controlling rodent populations, but the Mahua's were,
Speaker 1: by all accounts penniless, so he believed that someone must
Speaker 1: have provided it, and the mystery physician and she had
Speaker 1: told Denny about had also apparently spoken with at least
Speaker 1: one of her neighbors offering to pay for a sworn
Speaker 1: statement about Mahua's death implicating Denis, so Dennis was cleared
Speaker 1: of all charges. The judge ruled that Mahua had not
Speaker 1: died due to negligence on John Baptiste Denise part, but
Speaker 1: because he had been poisoned with arsenic and that Paine
Speaker 1: Maha might have been abetted by anti transfusion saboteurs. We
Speaker 1: do not know the names of the saboteur doctors who
Speaker 1: Deni referred to as the quote enemies of the experiment.
Speaker 1: Numerous members of the Parisian medical establishment had spoken out
Speaker 1: about Denise procedures, and many of them have been theorized
Speaker 1: as likely culprits. The specific information has been lost uh
Speaker 1: if any had been named, as have the court records
Speaker 1: from denise trial, although some of the supporting documentation remains.
Speaker 1: But it did appear definitely that other men of medicine
Speaker 1: in Paris were so mortified by transfusion that they would
Speaker 1: rather kill a patient than risk the experiment, succeeding some
Speaker 1: of the possible suspects Pierre martin de la martinere uh.
Speaker 1: He had written numerous letters to high ranking officials describing
Speaker 1: transfusion as quote directly to the contrary and opposite of
Speaker 1: God's wishes, because it destroys his living images. Martiniere had
Speaker 1: also written to Denis that Satan was revealing himself in
Speaker 1: Denie's work. Another man who had become friends with Martiniere
Speaker 1: through their mutual disdain for transfusion and Denis in particular,
Speaker 1: was Gill Lemis had also written a number of letters
Speaker 1: to various doctors in Paris about the horrors of transfusion,
Speaker 1: and after Morea's death, he wrote a letter to a
Speaker 1: doctor named Rena Moureau, sounding almost giddy about Denise demise, saying, quote,
Speaker 1: the miserable adventure of the Madman's death will be enough
Speaker 1: to overturn all of his beautiful imaginations and to ruin
Speaker 1: entirely his high hopes. Both Lammie and Martiniere were mentioned
Speaker 1: in a use of writing by a lawyer named Louis
Speaker 1: de Baste. It was titled Reflections by Louis de Bust,
Speaker 1: Real Lawyer in Parliament on Disputes concerning transfusion. He described
Speaker 1: how divided the medical community had become on this issue,
Speaker 1: to the point that things seemed downright dangerous, and he
Speaker 1: believed the two named doctors had been conspiring against den. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you go back in the archive and listen to
Speaker 1: the episodes with Hally Tucker, she talks about discovering this
Speaker 1: piece of writing which had not really been known about
Speaker 1: prior to her research on the book. It had just
Speaker 1: been kind of sitting in archives. So it was kind
Speaker 1: of a big moment in terms of really kind of
Speaker 1: solving what had played out here. But to return to
Speaker 1: the events of April seventeen, sixteen sixty eight, the next
Speaker 1: part of the ruling that the judge made was far
Speaker 1: less favorable for Denny. The judge declared it illegal to
Speaker 1: use animal blood in transfusions to humans in the cases
Speaker 1: wrap up in sixteen sixty eight unless that usage was
Speaker 1: sanctioned by the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, and that
Speaker 1: meant that the very men who had been vocally decrying
Speaker 1: the use of transfusion were the ones who decided if
Speaker 1: it could be done, which they were absolutely never going
Speaker 1: to do. So we should mention that the entire idea
Speaker 1: of transfusion was anathema at the time, not because of
Speaker 1: the scientific problems with it those existed, but there still
Speaker 1: wasn't enough knowledge about the workings of blood and the
Speaker 1: circulatory system to really come to the conclusion that it
Speaker 1: was or wasn't a scientifically sound idea. At that point,
Speaker 1: the fears had more to do with moral and religious debate.
Speaker 1: There were concerns that someone who had a transfusion of
Speaker 1: animal blood might experience transmutation and developed characteristics of the
Speaker 1: animal from which the blood was sourced. Yeah, we mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier on in talking about the story that there was
Speaker 1: a patient who claimed that he was taking on animal
Speaker 1: characteristics and how problematic it was, and this whole thing
Speaker 1: brought up argument about identity and what it means to
Speaker 1: be human, and what it might mean to change the
Speaker 1: human form, and whether this was reaching too far into science,
Speaker 1: two places that were really the domain of God. Another
Speaker 1: layer of the religious issues that surrounded transfusion in its
Speaker 1: debate in predominantly Catholic France, it was the fact that
Speaker 1: Protestant England had started doing it first, so it was
Speaker 1: automatically viewed with a little bit of suspicion. It's also
Speaker 1: important to note that it was not acceptable in any
Speaker 1: sort of consensus to take blood from other humans. Things
Speaker 1: like dissections and autopsies were generally performed on the bodies
Speaker 1: of people who had been criminals, a trend that we
Speaker 1: have talked about on the show before. While there were
Speaker 1: physicians and scientists on both sides of that debate, many
Speaker 1: like Deny, thought that animals were a better option. So
Speaker 1: really this ruling just shut down any experiments or work
Speaker 1: in transfusions completely. Two years later, the or of the
Speaker 1: law made the use of blood from humans as an
Speaker 1: option not a matter of inference, but clearly spelled out
Speaker 1: all transfusions were banned in France. So for Deny this
Speaker 1: ruling uh in the initial case was a huge blow
Speaker 1: and it meant that the work that he was invested in,
Speaker 1: that he had made his name famous in Paris with,
Speaker 1: was essentially over. We'll talk about denise efforts to be
Speaker 1: able to continue his transfusion work after we first pause
Speaker 1: for a word from our sponsors. Jean Baptiste Deny argued
Speaker 1: against the decision that animal to human transfusions were banned,
Speaker 1: and he actually tried to rally the medical community to
Speaker 1: the cause. He kind of used his successes as evidence
Speaker 1: that no, we really should continue doing this work, and
Speaker 1: he started a petition to try to overturn the ruling,
Speaker 1: but he got fewer than ten signatures from the physiciss
Speaker 1: of Paris. He next got are Louis de Montmore, his
Speaker 1: financial supporter involved in this campaign. Malmore, through his rank
Speaker 1: and wealth, was on better footing to try to use
Speaker 1: the French legal system to his advantage than Ton. He was.
Speaker 1: He was still considered an outsider with a mixed reputation. Additionally,
Speaker 1: Momore had a law degree and he had worked as
Speaker 1: an appointed government official, and this approach had some success.
Speaker 1: With Momore's assistance, than he was able to take his
Speaker 1: case to Parliament, and the strategy in their approach was
Speaker 1: really pretty savvy. Even though this was technically an appeal,
Speaker 1: they opted to plead their case in the Grand Chamble.
Speaker 1: This is where issues of guilds and hospitals and universities
Speaker 1: were heard, and this was really smart for two reasons. One,
Speaker 1: it kind of sidestepped all the seedier criminal aspects of
Speaker 1: the more Wawk case, and it let Denny focus on
Speaker 1: the ability to pursue transfusion research as part of advancing
Speaker 1: science and medicine. To a case that came before the
Speaker 1: Grand Chambre just a year earlier about using chemical remedies
Speaker 1: in medicine, had gone against the wishes of the Faculty
Speaker 1: of Medicine at the University of Paris. The Conservative School
Speaker 1: had wished to keep chemical remedies out of medical practice,
Speaker 1: but Parliament had ruled them permissible, and Denny was hoping
Speaker 1: that his case would have a similar outcome in disregarding
Speaker 1: old guard physicians in favor of progress. The trial convened
Speaker 1: on November sixteen sixty nine. The public was not allowed in,
Speaker 1: but the trial had been publicized all over the city
Speaker 1: and it was as anticipated as any piece of entertainment.
Speaker 1: Of course, the Knee was famous, and this work was controversial.
Speaker 1: The death of Mahoi and the twists and turns and
Speaker 1: the prior hearing had been the talk of the city
Speaker 1: for months, so people from the court of King Louis
Speaker 1: the fourteenth, all the way down to the lowest class,
Speaker 1: we're really eager to see what happened next. The case
Speaker 1: was presented before Judge Matthieumulai. The legal case made by
Speaker 1: Denise representative Cletien de la Magnon was described as being
Speaker 1: exceptionally good. I think it's cited in one instance as
Speaker 1: being a masterpiece. But despite the preparation and the presentation
Speaker 1: and everyone talking about what a strong case it was,
Speaker 1: Molay refused to overturn the previous decision. The two physicians
Speaker 1: we mentioned a moment ago, Lemmy and Martiniere never faced
Speaker 1: any real investigation regarding whether they had been involved in
Speaker 1: more was death or in trying to bribe the widow
Speaker 1: Paene to help them ruin Denise. Let Me was suspected
Speaker 1: by some of his peers as possibly wanting revenge on
Speaker 1: Denis after the two men had a public argument in
Speaker 1: the streets, but let Me did what was probably the
Speaker 1: smart thing. As accusations started to really bubble He swore
Speaker 1: that he would neither speak nor right of the matter
Speaker 1: any longer, saying quote, I think I have said enough,
Speaker 1: and that was that for him. Yeah, he's not one
Speaker 1: of those people who says I'm never going to talk
Speaker 1: about us again and then tweet sixty more things like
Speaker 1: book about it. Martaigniere was far less restrained. Not only
Speaker 1: did he continue to denounce Deni and Transfusion, he also
Speaker 1: wrote that he had met with Perrin Mahroi to discuss
Speaker 1: whether she should seek legal action against Deny for her
Speaker 1: husband's death. He also named the apothecary where Peine had
Speaker 1: gotten her arsenic This essentially is like a confession, but
Speaker 1: it was never pursued. As such, he referred to Deny
Speaker 1: as a Transfusionist monster, and in a letter to Louis
Speaker 1: the fourteens first Minister of State, Jean Baptiste Colbert, he
Speaker 1: suggested that anyone quote whose inclination is to pull and
Speaker 1: push blood should basically be killed. I think the actual
Speaker 1: phrasing is that they should be taken to the Caribbean
Speaker 1: and sacrificed. After that second judge refused to overturn the
Speaker 1: judgment against Transfusion, Martiniere seems to have stepped away from
Speaker 1: medicine entirely. Following the heel trial, Motmore fell into a
Speaker 1: serious depression. He liked Deni had lost his dream, but
Speaker 1: without transfusion, his science academy could not keep going. It
Speaker 1: was the last setback. Accounts by his family indicate that
Speaker 1: he had to be cajoled into letting people care for
Speaker 1: him if he would not care for himself, and he
Speaker 1: never really returned to his former self. His son took
Speaker 1: over the family finances, and that was disastrous. Aria Louis
Speaker 1: de Malmore died in sixteen seventy nine. As for Deni,
Speaker 1: after the appeal, he kind of went back to the
Speaker 1: life he had before his sudden rise to fame, teaching
Speaker 1: medical students in his home. He also turned his attention
Speaker 1: to judicial astrology, in which the measurements of movements of
Speaker 1: heavenly bodies were being used to predict the future. Deny
Speaker 1: was critical of the practice, writing quote, predictions will always
Speaker 1: keep you in a state of suspense, in a state
Speaker 1: of impatient hope, and this hope will deprive you of
Speaker 1: everything that is good and agreeable in life. So clearly,
Speaker 1: by the time this was all over, he was not
Speaker 1: the same ambitious man he had been when he first
Speaker 1: got into medicine. Jean Baptiste Deinni died in Paris in
Speaker 1: seventeen o four. He was sixty nine. After France's anti
Speaker 1: transfusion rulings, other European countries followed suit. Even in places
Speaker 1: where there weren't rulings or laws against it. Transfusions were
Speaker 1: abandoned by the scientific community as an area of exploration
Speaker 1: for nearly a hundred and fifty years. There have been
Speaker 1: some references to Philadelphia doctor Philip Singh, physic achieving the
Speaker 1: first successful human blood transfusion in seventeen In some sources,
Speaker 1: they also note he didn't publish any information about his work,
Speaker 1: and that makes it a little bit difficult to verify.
Speaker 1: In a ninety two article about transfusion history, Dr cyrus C.
Speaker 1: Sturgis wrote that the earliest mentioned he ever found of
Speaker 1: the physics transfusion was in the Philadelphia Journal of Medicine
Speaker 1: and Physical Sciences from an team abstract, which mentions that
Speaker 1: is a footnote because it was notoriously light on record
Speaker 1: keeping and writing up his work. So this case continues
Speaker 1: to be just a footnote. Yeah, we don't really know
Speaker 1: if if that ever happened. The first recorded instance of
Speaker 1: human blood being used to save a patient is in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighteen. That procedure was performed by obstetrician James Blendell,
Speaker 1: who was frustrated at having lost patients to postpartum hemorrhaging.
Speaker 1: He wrote quote, I have seen a woman dying for
Speaker 1: two or three hours together, convinced in my own mind
Speaker 1: that no known remedy could save her. The sight of
Speaker 1: these moving cases led me to transfusion. Blendell had started
Speaker 1: his experiments somewhat as Denny and other predecessors had with
Speaker 1: animals and humans. Although his tests involved giving human blood
Speaker 1: to dogs with mortal results, he quickly determined that blood
Speaker 1: from one class of animal could not be used on another.
Speaker 1: His success rate with humans a human trance usians was
Speaker 1: only fifty percent, but it got the attention of the
Speaker 1: medical community, and jumps started the field of transfusion science again.
Speaker 1: One of the big developments in the century that followed,
Speaker 1: and what is often cited is ushering in the modern
Speaker 1: era of blood transfusions, was the discovery of what became
Speaker 1: the A B O blood group system. Austrian Dr Carl
Speaker 1: Landsteiner identified three types, which he called A, B, and C,
Speaker 1: beginning in nineteen hundred. His first publications on it were
Speaker 1: nineteen o one, so you'll also see that cited as
Speaker 1: the date. The A group had one type of antigen,
Speaker 1: the B group had another, and the C group, which
Speaker 1: was eventually changed to oh uh sometime later, had no antigens.
Speaker 1: The A B group, which has both A and B antigens,
Speaker 1: was identified by Alfred di Costello and ADRIANO Sterley in
Speaker 1: nineteen o two. Landsteiner went on to win the Nobel
Speaker 1: Prize for Medicine in nineteen thirty based on his work
Speaker 1: with blood groups. With that one piece of the blood
Speaker 1: puzzle figured out, things progressed rape with large steps forward
Speaker 1: developed During times of war, new ways to transfer blood
Speaker 1: from patient to patient were developed, as well as better
Speaker 1: storage and preservation methods for blood eliminated the need for
Speaker 1: the donor and the recipient to be in close physical proximity.
Speaker 1: The first blood bank opened in St. Petersburg, Russia, which
Speaker 1: was Leningrad at the time, in nineteen thirty two. The
Speaker 1: first blood bank in the US opened at Cook County
Speaker 1: Hospital in Chicago in nineteen thirty seven. The American Association
Speaker 1: of Blood Banks formed in nineteen seven and established the
Speaker 1: A A B B clearing House that is now called
Speaker 1: the National Blood Exchange in nineteen fifty three, and this
Speaker 1: created a system that enabled blood banks to exchange blood
Speaker 1: to meet the needs of patients around the country. The
Speaker 1: A A B B also published Standards for a Blood
Speaker 1: Transfusion Service, which evolved into Standards for Blood Banks and
Speaker 1: Transfusion Services on subsequent printings. Today, transfusions are a vital
Speaker 1: part of medicine. While whole blood transfusions are still performed,
Speaker 1: it's more efficient to separate the blood into its various
Speaker 1: components for medical use, and that way, one donation can
Speaker 1: be used for multiple patients who have different needs. According
Speaker 1: to the Red Cross, and estimated thirty six thousand units
Speaker 1: of red blood cells are needed in the US every
Speaker 1: day and nearly twenty one million blood components are transfused
Speaker 1: in the US each year. And according to the World
Speaker 1: Health Organization, A hundred and eighteen point four million blood
Speaker 1: donations are collected around the world annually. Those donations come
Speaker 1: from high income countries. And while Jean Baptiste Denny had
Speaker 1: to abandon the procedure that made him famous in Paris
Speaker 1: for a few years in the sixteen sixties. He does
Speaker 1: actually have a legacy that reaches us in modern medicine,
Speaker 1: one that most people probably have in their first aid
Speaker 1: kit at home. In his later work, he developed stiptic.
Speaker 1: That is correct, he invented a means to stop bleeding,
Speaker 1: although he doesn't really get credited with that inventioned very
Speaker 1: even if you look up, like if you do a
Speaker 1: web search for inventor of styptic, I found nothing. Um
Speaker 1: So it was more a matter of using the research
Speaker 1: that had been done in his biographies. It's an interesting story.
Speaker 1: It's such a um an intrigue story at a level
Speaker 1: unlike unlike we have ever quite uh probably not. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say we've ever quite, but it's not terribly common.
Speaker 1: We talk a lot about scientific developments and some of
Speaker 1: the conflicts around them, but very rarely do they evolve
Speaker 1: into a murder case that has twists and turns and
Speaker 1: like a shadow group of people orchestrating things and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: ultimately putting an end to a part of medical science.
Speaker 1: For yeah, I'm also interested in um in how the
Speaker 1: moral and religious objections to transfusion evolved over time, because
Speaker 1: like there are still people living today who will who
Speaker 1: will not have transfusions for religious or moral reasons um,
Speaker 1: but not like with the same explanation. That's why it
Speaker 1: was unacceptable in the seventeenth century for the most part. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I I this is pure speculation on my part.
Speaker 1: I haven't really done research into this. I think the
Speaker 1: work that was being done in obstetrics that saved a
Speaker 1: number of mothers early on in the nineteenth century, uh,
Speaker 1: and that work being published was probably a pretty significant
Speaker 1: shift in the perception um because it is hard to
Speaker 1: argue against something that is saving a mother and not
Speaker 1: orphaning a child. That would be my guess uh for
Speaker 1: less guesswork though, I have fun email. Since we're starting
Speaker 1: a new year, I'm trying to stick to fun thanks
Speaker 1: in the email. Uh, and it is about something I'm
Speaker 1: hoping to do this year, which is Rugaru Fest. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is from our listener Mandy, who writes first, I
Speaker 1: want to say what a bright light year podcast has
Speaker 1: been for me for many years, and especially right now.
Speaker 1: I had a baby back in June, and between a
Speaker 1: newborn and being stuck at home, things can feel awfully
Speaker 1: difficult at times. But your podcast has helped me feel
Speaker 1: more to the wider world in history, which has been
Speaker 1: immensely helpful from my mental health. Congratulations. Also, I can't
Speaker 1: imagine how stressful it would be to become a new
Speaker 1: parent in the midst of a pandemic, so I'm glad
Speaker 1: things seem to be going well, She says. I'm writing
Speaker 1: about your episode on Three Hellhounds, specifically the part about
Speaker 1: the rugaroo and rugarou Fest. I am from South Louisiana
Speaker 1: and currently live in New Orleans. At your Bob Hope
Speaker 1: Live show at the World War Two Museum, I was
Speaker 1: the person in the audience who had lost her voice.
Speaker 1: I also work in the nonprofit sector, and I am
Speaker 1: friends with Jonathan for a When I heard you mentioned
Speaker 1: him on the show, I immediately texted him to let
Speaker 1: him know that rugarou Fest was being featured on your podcast,
Speaker 1: and I sent him the episode and he was thrilled.
Speaker 1: It feels worth mentioning that he is as delightful as
Speaker 1: you might imagine a person who created a rugarou festival
Speaker 1: would be. Uh. And then he has a pet nutrient
Speaker 1: named Bene, which I love. Um. She says, I appreciated
Speaker 1: your showcasing the festival. Too often Louisiana is reduced to
Speaker 1: a sort of muddled version of Bourbon Street writ large.
Speaker 1: But as the festival highlights, we have a rich mix
Speaker 1: of community, some might say a gumbo forgive me, and
Speaker 1: the Bayou region is home to an incredible amount of
Speaker 1: pre colonial in American history, some of which is literally
Speaker 1: disappearing before our eyes. The festival supports efforts to teach
Speaker 1: and learn all about Louisiana is disappearing coast and heritage.
Speaker 1: So it felt especially apropro for stuff you missed in history.
Speaker 1: And then she gives us some suggestions. Um, I thank
Speaker 1: you for this lovely email. I'm so glad that. Um.
Speaker 1: The folks that put Rugaru Fest together, we're okay with
Speaker 1: that and liked it because you always worry when you
Speaker 1: mentioned something contemporary that someone will go you're a jerk.
Speaker 1: That's not correct. Yeah right, I mean it happens, um,
Speaker 1: And I really am intent on going this year, presuming
Speaker 1: that we are in a place where travel is available,
Speaker 1: because it sounds like the best time ever. Um, so,
Speaker 1: especially knowing how steeped in history, the whole thing is,
Speaker 1: I'm into it. If you would like to write to us,
Speaker 1: tell us about more festivals we can put on our
Speaker 1: dock after after travel becomes a reality again. You can
Speaker 1: do that at History podcast at i heeart radio dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find us on social media's Missed in
Speaker 1: History and if you would like to subscribe to the
Speaker 1: podcast that is easy as Pie, you can do it
Speaker 1: on the I heart radio app and 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.