Professor Walter's History Lessons

An aspirin by any other name...

In 1897 Chemist, Felix Hoffmann at Bayer in Germany, synthesized a stable chemical that relieved his father's rheumatism.  That chemical would become the active ingredient in aspirin named - "a" from acetyl, "spir" from the spirea plant (which yields salicin) and "in," a common suffix for medications.  In it's original powder form Aspirin would quickly become the best selling drug in the world, and a boom for Bayer.  In 1915 Aspirin was available in tablet form without a prescription from Bayer.  However the success of Bayer Aspirin would not be seen until after WWI saw its use for the Spanish Flu, and the end of its trademark in the United States.

The trademark for Aspirin was lost in the Treaty of Versailles, after Germany's surrender.  As part of the war reparations specified, Aspirin along with Heroin lost all status as registered trademarks in France, Russia, the UK, and the United States.  From that moment on the drug could be sold as aspirin.  Today the trademark for Aspirin is still honored on over 80 countries across the globe, but aspirin is generally the generic name used, even in those countries.  No word on Bayer's ownership of the trademark on Heroin.

-Professor Walter

The most deadly film of all time?

In 1956 Howard Hughes produced a film about Genghis Kahn starring John Wayne called The Conqueror.  The film was shot primarily near St. George, Utah 137 miles downwind of the U.S. Government's nuclear test site.  There are images of John Wayne with a Geiger counter on the site, however at the time the connection between radiation fallout and cancer was not fully understood.  By 1981, 91 of the 220 people who made the film were afflicted with cancer, an astonishing 41% of the crew. 

The factruth is that no one is certain if the high rates of cancer were a direct cause of the nuclear tests however Dr. Robert Pendleton, professor of biology at the University of Utah, made the observation,

"With these numbers, this case could qualify as an epidemic. The connection between fallout radiation and cancer in individual cases has been practically impossible to prove conclusively. But in a group this size you'd expect only 30 some cancers to develop...I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of The Conqueror would hold up in a court of law."

Many point to out the fact that smoking was prevalent at the time of the filming as a likely cause, however there are additional reports of visiting family and friends afflicted with cancer as well, including the majority of the 300 Indians of the Shivit Reservation who had served as extras on the film together. 

-Professor Walter

A genius in life, a secret in death

Born on January 2, 1920 as Issac Yudovich Ozimov in Russia, Issac Asimov went on to become one of the most prolific writers of the 20th century.  In his time he wrote or edited over 500 books and was a professor of biochemistry at Boston University.  While his life was well known and his legacy survives in books such as iRobot and the Foundation Series his death was purposefully obscured for a decade.

In 1977 Asimov had a heart attack and in 1983 triple bypass surgery.  During the procedure he required a blood transfusion.  When he died in 1992 his brother had reported that he died of heart and kidney failure.  The truth was that he was one of the millions of victims of AIDS.  At the time Asimov wanted to come forward and let the world know what had happened to him, but his doctors warned him against it  for fear that anti-AIDS prejudice, which was prevalent at the time, would extend to his family.  After Asimov's death, his family considered releasing the information, but the controversy which erupted after USA Today forced tennis player Arthur Ashe to announce his own infection convinced them not to. 

Ten years later, after most of Asimov's doctors had died, it was decided that the truth would be made public.

-Professor Walter

From blood plasma to the breakfast table

The ancient Peruvian Incas from the Andes developed a basic process of freeze-drying with is the removal of water content from frozen food.  The freezing temperatures of the mountains combined with the high altitudes made this possible.  With the advent of World War II this technique was considered as a solution to the problem of storing and preserving blood plasma and penicillin.

In 1940 Richard Stetson Morse founded The National Research Corporation in Boston, MA. to research vacuum packing and freeze-drying.  The US Army had a request for 500,000 lb powdered orange juice.  Under the leadership of John M. Fox NRC's new branch, Florida Foods Corporation won a contract to provide the powder for $750,000.  However, the war ended before the factory could be built.  The company chose to proceed forward despite the end of the contract, but decided against powered orange juice.  Instead they developed a procedure to remove 80% of the water from the orange juice and invented the first concentrate frozen juice product on the market.  From a slow start, going door to door, the product quickly became a hit with the name of Minute Maid.

In 1949 the company changed its name to Minute Maid and in 1960 it was purchased by Coca-Cola.  As of today Coca-Cola is the worlds largest producer of fruit juices.

-Professor Walter

You're going to blow that where?

North American Indians had many traditional remedies, including one to assist with the stimulation of respiration.  In this method tobacco smoke was introduced, via a rectal tube, into the rectum of a drowning victim to revive them.  The first documented case of this method being used in the western world was in 1746 when a woman who appeared to have drowned was resuscitate by a sailor inserting the stem of his pipe into her rectum and air was blown into the bowl through a piece of perforated paper.  This method became well practiced, and by the dawn of the 19th century tobacco smoke enemas were standard practice and considered as beneficial as artificial respiration.

However, in 1811 Benjamin Brodie showed, through animal experimentation, that the nicotine in the tobacco smoke was a poison that had a propensity to stop the circulation of blood.  The practice began to vanish shortly thereafter. 

There were always those who doubted the credibility of the procedure and they purportedly coined the phrase, "Blowing  smoke up my ass."  The phase lives on even though the procedure has long since disappeared.

-Professor Walter

Excuse me, but you look a little yellow

In 1964 Doric Foods of Mount Dora, Florida created a new drink called Sunny Delight.  The drink enjoyed much success in the United States and in 1999 was launched in the UK.  Within a year it became the third best selling soft drink behind Pepsi and Coke, based on the claims that it was a healthier alternative.  The Sunny Delight in the UK was very similar to the Sunny Delight in the US, however it used beta carotene for the coloring and additional vitamin A.

Since Sunny Delight was primarily water, high fructose corn syrup, and less than 2% juice, its heath properties were brought into question by the press and authorities.  Just as the negative backlash was reaching a peak something would happen that would cause Sunny Delight change their name and image to try and put the past behind them.

In 1999 Dr Duncan Cameron from Glan Clywd hospital had a patient who was a four year old girl whose hands and face had turned yellow and orange.  Further investigation found the beta carotene to be the cause.  The child had been consuming too much in the form of 1.5 liters of Sunny Delight a day.  Fortunately the condition disappears within a few weeks of not consuming Sunny Delight.  While the same affliction can occur from the consumption of too many carrots, the damage to Sunny Delight's reputation was severe.  By 2001 sales had more than halved.

In 2003 Sunny Delight disappeared from store shelves.  In its place was SunnyD, which contained 5% juice in the US and 70% juice in the UK.  Sales have not recovered to previous levels, but no one has turned yellow.

-Professor Walter

From the dinner table to malaria control in Africa

In 1867, in the Duchy of Limburg (now divided between Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany), Rudolph Banks invented a new type of cheese called Limburger cheese.  The cheese, which has a mild flavor, is well known for its pungent odor which is a result of the bacterium, Brevibacterium linens, used to ferment the cheese.  Brevibacterium linens is used for other rind-washed cheeses and is the same bacterium found on human skin and is partially responsible for body odor.  Today the cheese is a specialty cheese.

In 2006 Bart Knols of Wageningen Agricultural University, in Wageningen, the Netherlands; and of the National Institute for Medical Research / Ifakara Centre, Tanzania, and of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in Vienna, Austria and Ruurd de Jong of Wageningen Agricultural University and of Santa Maria degli Angeli, Italy won the Ig Nobel Prize, a parody of the Nobel Prize for science "that cannot, or should not, be reproduced", for proving that the female malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae was equally attracted to Limburger cheese as it was to human feet.

Today, as a result of that research, Limburger cheese is placed in strategic areas to keep malaria outbreaks under control.

-Professor Walter

What do you do when your goal has been met?

In 1938 President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis to defeat the epidemic known as polio (poliomyelitis).  At the time it was believed that FDR had been stricken with polio resulting in his paralysis, however the current belief is that he had Guillain-Barre syndrome.  FDR went on the radio asking every person to donate a dime for the cause.  It was later that entertainer Eddie Cantor coined the phrase March of Dimes as a play on word with the newsreel March of Time.  When Roosevelt died in 1945 he was honored by being put on the dime.  The choice of the dime was not because of the foundation he had started, but rather because it was the one coin that did not already have a president or founding father on it.

On April 12th, 1955 a news conference held at the Poliomyelitis Vaccine Evaluation Center at the University of Michigan changed the world.  In the conference they announced that Dr. Jonas Salk (whose work had been largely funded by The March of Dimes) had developed a polio vaccine that was safe, potent, and effective.  In 1958, with Polio under control, The March of Dimes had to make a choice.  Their goal had been met, and some said they should now disband.  Instead they chose to re-purpose themselves as a organization to prevent premature birth, birth defects, and infant mortality.  A new cause that may allow them to exist indefinitely.

Their efforts helped pave the way for the end of polio as a national epidemic.  Their continued existence has given hope to many, but has also been sighted as an example of bureaucracy maintaining corporate survival.  Regardless, their efforts helped to change the world and continue to do so.

-Professor Walter

Is a woman born with all her eggs?

Conventional wisdom held that all women are born with one to two million eggs, and that supply will last them throughout their life.  When those eggs are gone, the woman is infertile.  As accepted science, this was not contested, it was merely accepted as a fact.

In recent years this theory has begun to be questioned and in April a Chinese team lef by Kan Zou and Ji Wu of Shanghai Jiao Tong University found evidence that this theory is false.  As reported by Nature Cell Biology, they discovered a protein called vasa homolog, which is found only in germ-line cells.  These cells are the ones that generate the eggs.  While these findings have yet to be reproduced in humans, there is a real possibility that humans, also create eggs throughout their live.  

-Professor Walter