Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, A production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy P.
Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. We talked about Charles Drew
Speaker 1: and Blood Banks this week, and it was the episode
Speaker 1: that we had to take the most composing ourselves breaks
Speaker 1: in a long time. I think, yes, it's for both
Speaker 1: of us. Yeah, the whole last portion. I mean, I
Speaker 1: feel like I haven't enough to take breaks because I
Speaker 1: get emotional. But um, yeah, that one was a lot
Speaker 1: of like read a paragraph, we both wait a minute. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the things I originally had in the outline
Speaker 1: that I wound up taking out was that one of
Speaker 1: the reasons there were so many doctors who had trained
Speaker 1: at Howard who were living in Winston Salem was a
Speaker 1: hospital called Kate B. Reynolds Memorial Hospital, which was nicknamed
Speaker 1: the Katib at the time that this happened. This was
Speaker 1: one of the biggest hospitals for black patients in the
Speaker 1: United States, and it was also home to a nursing
Speaker 1: school for black nurses. UM. Winston Salem was the closest
Speaker 1: city to where I grew up. I did not know
Speaker 1: that this ever existed. It closed a couple of years
Speaker 1: before I was born, and as I was sort of
Speaker 1: trying to track, I was like, why, like why were
Speaker 1: there so many like specifically how to like where were
Speaker 1: people practicing Winston Salem? And I found out about the
Speaker 1: KATIB and I got a little choked up about it.
Speaker 1: I was like, I think this is something I feel
Speaker 1: like I should have learned as somebody whose entire K
Speaker 1: through twelve education happened in the Winston Salem for scythe
Speaker 1: County school system. Well, but you know, I didn't know
Speaker 1: until just now. Another thing that came up as a
Speaker 1: parallel um was there was that passage that Charles Drew
Speaker 1: had written a letter to one of his his former
Speaker 1: coaches where he was talking about how there wasn't like
Speaker 1: a surgical tradition at Howard training Black surgeons, And it
Speaker 1: reminded me of our episode on Vivian Thomas UM, who
Speaker 1: if you do not recall, Vivian Thomas was an enormous
Speaker 1: part of developing a surgical treatment for a condition called
Speaker 1: te Trilogy of Fellow And UH did that um under
Speaker 1: a white surgeon. He was a surgical technician, and so
Speaker 1: we had a conversation in that about how uh Dr Blaylock,
Speaker 1: who he had been working under, was like had had
Speaker 1: some regrets that he had not sent Vivian Thomas to
Speaker 1: medical school, but if he had, what his likely role
Speaker 1: would have been as a doctor, which probably would have
Speaker 1: been UM, practicing in a hospital or a private practice
Speaker 1: or whatever with black patients. Um, which was like really
Speaker 1: the same point that Charles Street was making. M. Vivian
Speaker 1: Thomas's work was like just a few years after that,
Speaker 1: not long after that at all. But it's still sort
Speaker 1: of an example of how few opportunities there were for
Speaker 1: black doctors and surgeons to like make groundbreaking discoveries in
Speaker 1: the world of medicine because of the systems of racism
Speaker 1: that were in place, and even if they made them,
Speaker 1: they couldn't move forward in their careers, right right, Also,
Speaker 1: obviously there are still huge healthcare disparities along racial lines today.
Speaker 1: That is not something that has disappeared. Did not solve that. No,
Speaker 1: I um have a thing in this episode for which
Speaker 1: I'm deeply thankful, okay, which is to have another instance
Speaker 1: of a couple who got married very quickly, it seemed
Speaker 1: very happy. Yeah, well, there we didn't get into this,
Speaker 1: but there were some things about their relationship that did
Speaker 1: seem to be a little challenging. Like one of the
Speaker 1: things he really seemed to like about her was that
Speaker 1: he was really passionate and she was really grounded, and
Speaker 1: so it felt like she sort of anchored him in
Speaker 1: some ways. But that also seems to have sometimes led
Speaker 1: him to feel like he didn't have the kind of
Speaker 1: passionate connection like. So, like, there were some ways that
Speaker 1: I think their relationship was sometimes difficult, and the fact
Speaker 1: that he was at work so much and was separated
Speaker 1: from them so often, UM and then tragically died at
Speaker 1: just such an early age where their children were all
Speaker 1: still really little. Just as a married my person very
Speaker 1: quickly person. I'm happy for any instance where that doesn't
Speaker 1: turn into and then the whole thing collapsed in a
Speaker 1: crunchy pile of flames. Because people shouldn't do that. I Like,
Speaker 1: sometimes they should write right, sometimes they should m h um,
Speaker 1: Just just a personal note of appreciation on that one.
Speaker 1: You talked at the end of the episode about um
Speaker 1: the issues around HIV and blood donation. Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: know if you wanted to expound on that any further. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: so I don't. You and I both lived through the
Speaker 1: AIDS crisis, and I think that that folks who were
Speaker 1: not born yet might not have a sense of like
Speaker 1: how scary it was, UM and how there was a
Speaker 1: period of time when there wasn't there was no way
Speaker 1: to test donated blood for HIV, and there were people
Speaker 1: who went to get a surgery and got it necessary
Speaker 1: blood transfusion and contracted HIV through that transfusion. UM. And
Speaker 1: so in that environment where like there wasn't a way
Speaker 1: to test, and people knew that it like disproportionately was
Speaker 1: affecting men who had sex with men, Like I don't
Speaker 1: know that there would have been another way in that
Speaker 1: moment to have tried to protect the blood supply. But
Speaker 1: then tests did become available, and it became clear like
Speaker 1: that there is a brief window where a person could
Speaker 1: transmit HIV through their blood but like not show up
Speaker 1: on a test yet. But that window is it's not
Speaker 1: an entire life, Like the lifetime band no longer made
Speaker 1: any sense at all. And then even when it was
Speaker 1: reduced to a year, that's like still a year was
Speaker 1: like way longer than the testing seems to back up.
Speaker 1: And then like now it is three months, and that
Speaker 1: is something that started during the COVID pandemic. All of
Speaker 1: this is only related to the United States. I have
Speaker 1: no idea how the source any world. And even then,
Speaker 1: it just it felt like the f d A was saying,
Speaker 1: we're desperate for blood, so I guess we'll take your
Speaker 1: blood now, um, when really what should have happened is
Speaker 1: years and years and years ago. Some studies to figure
Speaker 1: out like what are the right questions to ask individual people,
Speaker 1: not to make a whole blanket statement of uh. And
Speaker 1: then also like like what's the actual time period where
Speaker 1: a person might have been exposed to HIV but not
Speaker 1: have it show up on a test yet. I've been
Speaker 1: trying to donate blood regularly. I'm not doing it quite
Speaker 1: as regularly as my goal is to do. I just
Speaker 1: there will be times where I'm like, there's no way
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make it to the to the donation drive
Speaker 1: to like this, I have to reschedule it sometimes. But
Speaker 1: like the number of questions that are asked now is
Speaker 1: I remember the first time I ever gave blood. I
Speaker 1: feel like there were three questions that they were questions
Speaker 1: that pertains to I think like HIV hepatitis and maybe
Speaker 1: a third thing. Um. Now, it is a very long
Speaker 1: list of questions that involves, uh, like your sexual history
Speaker 1: and whether you've gotten tattoos recently in your travel history,
Speaker 1: whether you have lived in the UK during the period
Speaker 1: when when mad cow diseases have like a it's a
Speaker 1: very very long list of stuff. I don't you ever
Speaker 1: seem to get to donate blood. They always do the
Speaker 1: spin and go, you're an emic, and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't feel like and then that's the end. One of
Speaker 1: the times I had there was a time I was
Speaker 1: gonna go. The very first question that you are asked
Speaker 1: when you're going to donate blood is are you feeling
Speaker 1: well today? And there was one day where that answer
Speaker 1: was no, and so I rescheduled it. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: the day that I rescheduled it, I got there and
Speaker 1: my pulse rate was too rapid and they'll check it
Speaker 1: a second time. I'll give you a few minutes to
Speaker 1: kind of chill out, just check check it a second time,
Speaker 1: and they were like, your pulse is still a hundred
Speaker 1: and two and any I don't know what was up
Speaker 1: with me that day. So I had to defer that
Speaker 1: day too. I got sent home and like, so that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff has cost me to to have to
Speaker 1: defer a couple of times. Um, there have been h
Speaker 1: for a while. If you had been to Haiti at all,
Speaker 1: even if you were on like a cruise ship docked
Speaker 1: at the the private island that you never got off of,
Speaker 1: you had to defer. I think that has loosened up
Speaker 1: a little bit. But that's like a malaria risk. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this study that's happening right now to try to figure
Speaker 1: out actual questions to ask instead of having this blanket
Speaker 1: discriminatory band. It's called the Advanced Study. They have recruited
Speaker 1: all their participants for it. I think they're expecting to
Speaker 1: have the results of it by the end of the year. Um,
Speaker 1: and I am hopeful that the result will be like
Speaker 1: actual questions about people's behaviors to ask it really do
Speaker 1: quantify an individual person's risk instead of it being like
Speaker 1: no one who has had sex with another man, like
Speaker 1: a man who's had sex with another man, or had
Speaker 1: sex with a man who's had sex with a man
Speaker 1: in the last three months, Just what is right now? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll probably be disqualified for a while because of tattoos. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the tattoo requirements are a little bit looser than they
Speaker 1: were some years ago, because now there's stuff that has
Speaker 1: to do with whether the state regulates the tattoo parlors.
Speaker 1: That's how I learned. Massachusetts, a state that regulates a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, apparently doesn't regulate regulate our tattoo parlors
Speaker 1: in a way that the FDA finds sufficient for blood donation.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm, you know, trying to get lots of
Speaker 1: work done and finished up on my tattoos, so I'm
Speaker 1: kind of there once a month at least, So I
Speaker 1: don't know when I will you to try to give
Speaker 1: blood again and be told once more that I am.
Speaker 1: I one time didn't even get to the spin because
Speaker 1: they were like, your blood pressure is way too low.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I don't think that would be the case
Speaker 1: now because I've put on some weight and I'm a
Speaker 1: little older. But at the time it was like one
Speaker 1: of those um, yeah, you will turn into a limp
Speaker 1: rag if we try to take blood anyway. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we've talked about my hypertension journey on the show. My
Speaker 1: my blood pressure is doing pretty well right now. It
Speaker 1: is mostly in the normal range with medication. Um but
Speaker 1: when there's an app, you can look back at your
Speaker 1: donation history, and there's a couple of times where I'm like,
Speaker 1: I wish they had said, hey, you maybe should talk
Speaker 1: to your doctor about this blood pressure because this is
Speaker 1: a little well uh, but they didn't. I don't know
Speaker 1: if there's a rule about how high your blood pressure
Speaker 1: can be to donate blood, but if your pulses over
Speaker 1: a hundred, they will tell you to go anyway. Um,
Speaker 1: fingers crossed that we get to a more reasonable, not
Speaker 1: discriminatory policy that is about actual risk factors and not
Speaker 1: like a broad ban on people based on their sexual orientation.
Speaker 1: We talked about Lady Chatterley's Lover. This week. We did
Speaker 1: a book I'm pretty sure I've never read. I've read it,
Speaker 1: but I'll confess to you I get my wires crossed
Speaker 1: over things that happened in Lady Chatterly's Lover and things
Speaker 1: that happened in Madame Bovary. And I have definitely read
Speaker 1: Madame Bovary in one of my literature classes in college. Uh,
Speaker 1: And we had we had a number of required readings
Speaker 1: in that class that had to do with people being
Speaker 1: unhappy and unfulfilled in their relationships. Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of crossover between those two. Yeah, and as a consequence,
Speaker 1: I get very confused. Yeah, I don't. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've ever read a plot summary of Lady Chatterly,
Speaker 1: But their first sexual encounter happens in the forest on
Speaker 1: the floor, and there's an event in Madame Bovary that
Speaker 1: happens in a carriage, and I get those two switched
Speaker 1: every time. Yeah, that I remember the carriage scene. Which
Speaker 1: one is in which book? One of these that I
Speaker 1: remember discussing in class. Also, I read that book and
Speaker 1: I read Bovery in high school, and then when I
Speaker 1: was in college, my high school English teacher asked if
Speaker 1: I would like to guest lecture on it for her
Speaker 1: class she had then, which was fun and made me
Speaker 1: realize teaching is hard. I have so many side notes
Speaker 1: for today that I should probably be slightly judicious about them. Um,
Speaker 1: this one isn't really a thing that's worth a lot
Speaker 1: of discussion, but it's a fun trivia point. We mentioned
Speaker 1: in the episode that an Enjoyable Christmas a Prelude was D. H.
Speaker 1: Lawrence's first published work, and he got to publish that
Speaker 1: as part of a contest that he had won. But
Speaker 1: the thing was he had entered multiple times, and so
Speaker 1: he had used a different name for that one, and
Speaker 1: it published not under his name but as his dear
Speaker 1: friend Jesse Chambers. Um. Although people soon realized that D. H.
Speaker 1: Lawrence was the true author, like, they didn't try to
Speaker 1: hide it once it was published. But it just makes
Speaker 1: me a little tickled that his first published work wasn't
Speaker 1: actually under his own name. That's funny. Um. Something that
Speaker 1: jumped out at me that I did not realize. It
Speaker 1: didn't click with me, uh when I was reading the
Speaker 1: outline ahead of time. It only clicked with me in
Speaker 1: the studio. Um during the trial, when the prosecution was
Speaker 1: like would you want your wife to be reading this?
Speaker 1: I assumed that the jurors were all male, because like
Speaker 1: there was a long time when the jurors would have
Speaker 1: been on all mail. And so it wasn't until we
Speaker 1: got to the part about the dedication on the like
Speaker 1: the next edition of the book that that mentioned the
Speaker 1: men and women on the jury, and I was like
Speaker 1: the guy was standing up there being like would you
Speaker 1: want your wife reading this in front of Like it
Speaker 1: just added another layer of gross to me. So I
Speaker 1: will tell you that I had the same journey of
Speaker 1: discovery while doing the research, and I left it purposely
Speaker 1: ambiguous in the thing because to me it is kind
Speaker 1: of a punch of like, oh Lord that bands a
Speaker 1: jerk at the end. I love this. I love this.
Speaker 1: I'm glad we've had this conversation. Yeah, there's an interesting thing.
Speaker 1: We mentioned his ashes being moved from France to Taos,
Speaker 1: And now if you go to Taos, tause loves their d. H. Lawrence.
Speaker 1: He didn't live there very long, but they really love d. H. Lawrence. Um.
Speaker 1: And they have like entire um, like very beautiful spaces
Speaker 1: dedicated to him. In the chapel where his ashes are
Speaker 1: is still there, except there are a lot of people
Speaker 1: that think his ashes aren't in there. Um. So there's
Speaker 1: a d. H. Lawrence scholar named Emile de la Verna,
Speaker 1: and he wrote a paper not that long ago, but
Speaker 1: the case was made that when the ashes were being
Speaker 1: brought back over, it was discovered that they were going
Speaker 1: to have to pay taxes on them, and that without
Speaker 1: telling Frieda, her lover her at the time not yet
Speaker 1: her next husband, um head instead spread them in the
Speaker 1: Mediterranean and then put dust and some earth in the
Speaker 1: the Urn and that that is in fact with sin
Speaker 1: Taos and he has a whole supporting thing around that. UM.
Speaker 1: I will and make sure I include that in the
Speaker 1: show notes. If you want to go read that paper,
Speaker 1: it's available on j Store, but you do have to
Speaker 1: be logged in to see it. Uh. It's just an
Speaker 1: interesting theory. As I was reading, I was like, I
Speaker 1: wonder how many people are talking about this in biographies
Speaker 1: of him that are more recent, and they kind of don't.
Speaker 1: I think most people are like, let's not, it's not Germany.
Speaker 1: I Also we didn't talk about the fact that the
Speaker 1: age Laurence painted a lot painted a lot of also
Speaker 1: very provocative and sexually explicit paintings. I was reading one
Speaker 1: account of them where someone said they're really not that explicit.
Speaker 1: They're mostly very gropy, which is not incorrect. Um, but
Speaker 1: if you go looking for them, he has a very
Speaker 1: unique painting style. Uh. And we didn't really get to
Speaker 1: talk about that. But I also mentioned that the US
Speaker 1: and Great Britain are not the only places that this
Speaker 1: book has a legal history. No, definitely not. And the
Speaker 1: two that sort of broke my heart were in Japan
Speaker 1: and India. Uh. In those cases. There was a full
Speaker 1: translation of Lady Chatterley's Lover published in Japan and nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty and that is its own famous subsanity trial in
Speaker 1: that country. Um. Similarly, a lot of literary experts testified
Speaker 1: for the defense. However, that publisher received a guilty verdict
Speaker 1: in that case and had to pay a pretty significant fine.
Speaker 1: And that's pretty similar to how it played out in
Speaker 1: India as well. So it's kind of interesting. Um, it
Speaker 1: was still banned in Australia even after the British case
Speaker 1: around it, and then black market copies got smuggled into
Speaker 1: Australia and started to be published republished there in mid sixties,
Speaker 1: and that kind of led people to go, I guess
Speaker 1: we're allowing this now, Like it wasn't much more relaxed
Speaker 1: kind of proceedings. Um. It's just an interesting thing the
Speaker 1: way one book can really like catalyze this really a
Speaker 1: pretty serious discussion about what is and is not acceptable, uh,
Speaker 1: in the realm of literature and art. Um. I mean
Speaker 1: I think you and I have lived through plenty of those, right, Um,
Speaker 1: where various artists and writers have been kind of called
Speaker 1: on the carpet for being obscene and other people are like, no,
Speaker 1: that's it's art, dude. I know. I don't think we'll
Speaker 1: ever come to consensus because not everyone will agree what's acceptable. Sure.
Speaker 1: I mean there are still you know, lists of banned
Speaker 1: books that appear everywhere, and libraries do banned book promotions
Speaker 1: and a lot of calls to band books ongoing currently, yes,
Speaker 1: which is just fascinating to me. Um. There were some
Speaker 1: really interesting things I didn't include because this was starting
Speaker 1: to run a little bit long. Um news articles where
Speaker 1: people had, of course, you know, reporters had, of course,
Speaker 1: to get a slightly different spin on the story, talked
Speaker 1: to like their local libraries about it and been like
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do? And there was one library
Speaker 1: where the head library and was very matter of fact
Speaker 1: and I sort of loved it, where he was like,
Speaker 1: I mean we haven't we've actually had it for a
Speaker 1: little while, but like nobody checks that book out there.
Speaker 1: They all read Sons and Lovers. I don't know, and
Speaker 1: like we wouldn't let a kid get to the checkout
Speaker 1: desk and take this book, like we did. We do
Speaker 1: recognize that, like not every book is is for kids. Um.
Speaker 1: It was just this interesting thing of like why do
Speaker 1: you think this is a problem kind of like the
Speaker 1: React books anyway, d H. Lawrence, he's so fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: Probably kind of a mess on the side, but he
Speaker 1: had a lot of weird things that happened. Anyway, that's
Speaker 1: my things. On Lady Chatterle's Lover, which, um, I'm sure
Speaker 1: people will ask us about various movies. There is a
Speaker 1: new Lady Chatterley's Lover. I haven't seen it yet because
Speaker 1: it isn't out yet. Also, I don't know that i'll
Speaker 1: watch it. That's kind of not my genre of film,
Speaker 1: So we'll see. It'll be out I think by the
Speaker 1: time this airs, but it was not out when we recorded.
Speaker 1: I think November when it's out on I'm pulling this
Speaker 1: from memory net Flix. Don't quote me on that, but
Speaker 1: I think November. If you're looking for a new version,
Speaker 1: there have been lots of versions over the years, including
Speaker 1: that French one that kind of riled up this whole
Speaker 1: case again. Uh, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Emma Bovary, they're all one.
Speaker 1: They're all one. To me, they're not. I know, they're different.
Speaker 1: I you know, Gustafalobert would be chagrined I do wonder
Speaker 1: what D. H. Lawrence would think of all this though, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: like if he would just be like what so many
Speaker 1: lawyers I don't I don't know. Yeah, but his his
Speaker 1: little boat got to fly. So there you go. If
Speaker 1: you are coming up on your weekend, hopefully you will
Speaker 1: enjoy some art or literature whatever you think is appropriate
Speaker 1: for you. Uh. And if you can't do that, I
Speaker 1: hope you at least have the best possible couple of
Speaker 1: days ahead. We will be right back here tomorrow with
Speaker 1: a classic episode, and then on Monday once again with
Speaker 1: new stuff. Stuff you missed in History Class is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.