Professor Walter's History Lessons

You need emergency surgery and you are the only surgeon, what do you do?

In November of 1960 the Soviet vessel OB sailed from Leningrad on an Antarctic expedition.  Their mission was to construct a new polar base and spend the winter there.  On February 18th of 1961 the base, called Novolazarevskaya, was opened.  Their ship sailed leaving 12 residents to survive in their new shelter.  They were iced in and contact with the outside world was impossible.  Among the twelve person crew was a 27 year old surgeon named Leonid Ivanovich Rogozov.  His role was as the team's doctor, although he was also trained as a meteorologist and driver.

In April of that year Rogozov's heath began to decline.  We wrote in his diary on the 29th,

"It seems that I have appendicitis. I am keeping quiet about it, even smiling. Why frighten my friends? Who could be of help? A polar explorer’s only encounter with medicine is likely to have been in a dentist’s chair."

Rogozov could diagnose the ailment, but as the only doctor, could not treat it.  With the snowstorms above an airlift was out of the question and the lakes had frozen over preventing ship rescue.  By the 30th his condition had worsened.  He was vomiting and could no longer hide his illness from the crew.  Rogozov came to a terrible conclusion, he would have to operate... on himself.

"I did not sleep at all last night. It hurts like the devil! A snowstorm whipping through my soul, wailing like a hundred jackals. Still no obvious symptoms that perforation is imminent, but an oppressive feeling of foreboding hangs over me . . . This is it . . . I have to think through the only possible way out: to operate on myself . . . It’s almost impossible . . . but I can’t just fold my arms and give up."

"18.30. I’ve never felt so awful in my entire life. The building is shaking like a small toy in the storm. The guys have found out. They keep coming by to calm me down. And I’m upset with myself—I’ve spoiled everyone’s holiday. Tomorrow is May Day. And now everyone’s running around, preparing the autoclave. We have to sterilize the bedding, because we’re going to operate.

"20.30. I’m getting worse. I’ve told the guys. Now they’ll start taking everything we don’t need out of the room."

The room was scrubbed clean and two of his comrades were prepped to assist with the surgery.  His body was repositioned at a 30 degree angle with his right hip slightly elevated.  He opted to work on himself without gloves so he could work via sense of touch. 

Rogozov began the surgery with a 10 to 12 centimeter incision.  About forty minuted into the procedure he had to start taking breaks due to general weakness and vertigo.  Finally after an hour and forty five minutes the surgery ended with Rogozov taking sleeping pills to ensure as sound a sleep as possible.

The operation was a success and within two weeks he was able to resume normal duties.  A steady regiment of anti-biotics prevented infection.  Analysis of the appendix determined that if he had waited a day it would have ruptured and ended his life.  He returned to the Soviet Union on the next boat and never returned to the Antarctic.  He became a teacher at First Leningrad Medical Institute.  He died on September 21st 2000, nearly forty years after he had operated on himself.

-Professor Walter

Back from the brink - A national treasure nearly lost

The largest North American land bird is the California Condor.  The condor is a large black vulture with a bald head.  It is significant to many Native American tribes and is prominent in many myths.  Today you can see these majestic creatures soaring over the Grand Canyon, Baja, California and other places.  But this majestic species was on the brink of extinction in the 1980s and was saved; barely.

In the late 20th century the condor's population was collapsing due to poaching, habitat destruction, lead poisoning, and DEET exposure.  The condor, which is one of the longest living birds with lifespans of up to 50 years, does not reproduce rapidly.  With the impact, the total number of condors left dwindled to 22 in 1987.  The last birds were captured and bred at the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Los Angeles Zoo.  The program was a success and in 1991 they started releasing birds back into the wild.  Today there are 384 condors with 187 in the wild.

This is a rare example of a preservation program that was put into place before it was too late.  Historically preservation attempts occur when the population has shrunk to such a small size that recovery is not possible.  Remember, for each California Condor we have at least a dozen Passenger Pigeons or Labrador Ducks that don't make it.

-Professor Walter

An unexpected learning curve

The Macintosh Portable Computer was released by Apple Computer in September 1989.  The 15.8 pound computer was Apple's first attempt at a battery powered laptop.  It was large, heavy and rife with problems.  PC Magazine rated it 17 on the top 100 worst tech devices ever created.  Despite these shortcomings the Macintosh Portable did take one voyage a bit beyond its design specifications.  The laptop went into space aboard the Space Shuttle.  It was in the environment of weightlessness that some unexpected problems were discovered.

The first problem was with the trackball. It was quite easy for it to float away. At the time, trackballs were not integrated into many computers, and the Macintosh Portable had a full sized one included. The other problem was the floppy eject system. The Macintosh computer's floppy disk drive did not have a button to push. Instead you had to drag the disk icon to the trash, and the computer would automatically eject it. In outer space, the unexpected effect is that the disk does not stop... and floats away on the eject trajectory. 

These lessons learned were incorporated into future laptop designs.

-Professor Walter

The Ford Nucleon: miles ahead in alternative fuel innovation

In 1958 the Ford Motor Company was developing multiple concept cars.  One of them was designed to take advantage of the recent advances in nuclear power.  The car was a sleek two seater with a small nuclear reactor located in the rear.  Designed to go up to 5,000 miles on one nuclear core, the car was a leap forward in thinking.  Designers envisioned the owners driving their cars to changing stations at the 5,000 mile mark and replacing their nuclear core. 

The car was an example of the public's limited knowledge of atomic power at the time.  Designers assumed that the shielding and bulk of reactors would eventually be overcome.  They did not fully understand the technology to make such a system operate.  The car never passed the concept phase, and a working prototype was never built.  Today you can see a mock-up of this car at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

-Professor Walter

Charles F. Kettering - Protecting the people's hands

Charles F. Kettering was born in Loudonville, Ohio on May 8th 1876.  Despite his poor eyesight, he earned a degree from Ohio State University in electrical engineering in 1904.  His life would be rife with innovations, but one of his greatest would eliminate hand injuries, broken arms and deaths.

In the early days of the automobile the internal combustion engine was started via a hand crank.  If the engine backfired or misfired, the handle could kickback and break a thumb or even worse the person in question could be killed.  In 1899 Clyde J. Coleman filed the first patent for an automatic starter but it wasn't suitable for regular automotive use.  It wasn't until Charles F Kettering of Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (DELCO) invented the first reliable and useful electric starter.  In 1912 the Cadillac was the first vehicle to carry the innovation.

That single innovation saved more thumbs and arms than can ever be counted, but it also had another great impact.  Women were considered too fragile and weak to operate the crank starter.  Suddenly women were the ones behind the wheel and soon brands such as Plymouth were marketed toward them.

-Professor Walter

Henrietta Lacks and her medical revolution

Henrietta Lacks was a born on August 1st 1920.  She grew up on the same land her ancestors had as slaves, she was poor and lived a hard life.  She had four children, and a husband.  She was a normal individual of the time who would be buried in an unmarked grave when she passed, but she would start a medical revolution beyond anyone's expectations.

On February 1, 1951 Lacks visited Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for painful "knot" and vaginal discharge.  That day she was diagnosed with cervical cancer, of the type the doctors had never seen before.  She was given the normal treatment of radiation and X-rays but, as the autopsy after death would show, the cancer had metastasized throughout her body.  On October 4, 1951 at the age of thirty-one she died.  But, that is not the end of her story, instead it is the beginning.

On her first visit, without her knowledge, her cancerous cells were collected for research purposes as was standard practice at the time.  Those cells did something that no other cells had ever done before outside the body.  They grew and thrived in a culture.  These new cells were dubbed HeLa cells and a factory was setup at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama to produce more.  The factory started producing 3 trillion HeLa cells a week and sending them to researchers throughout the world.  The HeLa cells have been used for thousands of applications from the development of the polio vaccine to testing toxicity of glues.

No one really knows why the cells survived, or why they still are going strong.  Lacks had the human papillomavirus and syphilis which weakened her immune system.  There are theories that this may have allowed these "immortal" cells to develop.

In the 1970s her family learned that the cells were from their mother/wife when doctors contacted the family stating they wanted to test the children for cancer.  The family is poor and unable to afford the treatments that were generated with the cells.  To this day the family has never received any of the billions of dollars generated from the cells.  You can purchase a vial of HeLa cells today for $250.  As of today there have been over 50 million metric tons of HeLa cells produced.  Henrietta Lacks has been considered the most important person in medical history as a result of the cells.

-Professor Walter

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 flat world myth

One of the most frequently repeated myths is the belief that the people of the middle ages believed that the world was flat.  In fact this myth is so prevalent that it is often repeated in textbooks in schools throughout the nation.  The truth is that the Greek discovery that the world was round was firmly held as fact.  The modern origins of the myth like in Washington Irving's "History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828)" where the statement was made that Columbus was fearful of being accused of heterodoxy which would raise the ire of the church where flat-earth theory persisted, when the more learned people knew the earth was globular.  This error was largely ignored until Darwin published "The Origin of the Species (1859)".  The book was never placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum ("List of Prohibited Books"), however many bishops and other religious figureheads condemned it. 

Books such as John Drapers "The History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science (1874)" sought to reinforce the belief that the Christian Church was led by ignorance, reiterating Irving's error that the people of the dark ages saw the earth as flat.  By attributing this belief to the church it appeared that ignorance was the only reason to fail to accept evolution.  Throughout the next hundred years the misstatement about the flat earth was repeated over and over again.  Today the truth has been spreading, but the myth persists.

-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

Nikola Tesla, the enabler of the couch potato

According to Wikipedia

"A couch potato is a person who spends most of his or her free time sitting or lying on a couch. This stereotype often refers to a lazy and overweight person who watches a lot of television. Generally speaking, the term refers to a lifestyle in which children or adults don't get enough physical activity."

The tool of the couch potato is the remote control.  With this item a person may change channels without leaving their seat.  Millions of people use remote controls, yet few are aware that they are over 100 years old.

On July 1st 1898, Nikola Tesla applied for a patent for the first remote control.  The US Patent office issued him U.S. Patent 613,809 in November of that year for his invention.  That year he demonstrated it at Madison Square Garden by controlling a small boat he had dubbed a "teleautomaton".  Tesla's invention was enhanced and used to pilot planes in the years that followed and in 1939 the Philco Mystery Control was released as the first powered remote control for a consumer product.  In 1950 the Zenith "Lazy Bones" was the first television remote control, although it was wired.  In 1956 the Zenith Space Command became the first wireless remote control.

Today the remote control is a core component of every home entertainment system opening up a world of programming without ever needing to leave your seat.

-Professor Walter