Transcript
Matt Rogers (0:00)
This is an iHeart podcast. This is Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. JBL Tour Pro 3 earbuds are for those who don't conform to the standard. Yeah, I mean if you want to get into some touchscreen technology, how about the smart charging case clear sound? These are not standard things. You're only going to get them with the JBL Tour Pro 3 baby. And I love the sound of JBL and goes. These earbuds are packed with innovation because you can't stand out following others Touchscreen Smart charging case for one touch control, instant EQ customization, true adaptive noise canceling and the one of a kind audio transmitter which can plug and play with everything from game consoles to in flight entertainment. What more could you want? First doesn't follow. Grab a pair@jbl.com welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio.
Bowen Yang (0:58)
And Grim and mild.
Aaron Manke (1:03)
World is full of the unexplainable and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of curiosities.
Bowen Yang (1:26)
On July 2nd of 1881, the world famous inventor Alexander Graham Bell was working at his Lab in Washington, D.C. when he received some shocking news. President James A. Garfield had just been shot in the back at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station while waiting for a train. The assassin was a man named Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled office seeker. Furious that Garfield hadn't rewarded him with a cushy government job, Guiteau was immediately arrested and Garfield was rushed to the White House for treatment. Alexander Graham Bell, who lived just a stone's throw from the White House and had personally installed a telephone there a few years earlier. Earlier followed the story with rabid interest. He was disturbed by reports that the President's doctors couldn't find the bullet lodged in his body. Days after the shooting, they were still probing around in his wounds with their fingers, and if they didn't get the bullet out soon, the President would die of lead poisoning. Lying awake one night, Bell had a realization. This wasn't just a medical problem, it was an engineering problem. And in a way, he had already solved it. Flashback a few years to 1877, Bell had just patented the world's first practical telephone. But as his team rolled out that technology to the world, they ran into a frustrating issue. When telephone conductors were installed next to telegram wires, the signal became garbled with static. It seems that the Metal in the telegram wires was interfering with the electromagnetic fields that Bell's telephone system relied on, rendering them far less useful. As a clever workaround, Bell and his team installed something called an induction balance device. It equalized any interference from metal, cutting down on the static. Now, as President Garfield lay dying in the White House, Bell realized that the same principle could actually work in reverse. Rather than canceling out the interference from metal, he could amplify it. And so he got to work cobbling together parts from his telephone and the induction balance device. Early tests were promising, too. When the machine passed over metal, it emitted a distinct buzzing sound. When no metal was present, there was silence. Bell tested the machine by firing bullets into planks of wood and hiding them inside slabs of raw meat. Each time, the machine found the metal with ease. Once he was satisfied, Bell contacted the White House and offered his help. Dr. Willard Bliss, the President's head physician, was skeptical. But Bell's reputation gave him enough credibility to warrant a try. When he got to the White House, he found Garfield lying on his left side. Bliss had already determined that the bullet was somewhere on the President's right and didn't want to move him, so Bell was instructed to restrict his search area to that spot. As he ran his machine over Garfield's body, it emitted a faint buzz, indicating the presence of metal. But the signal was weak, and Bell couldn't pinpoint the exact location of the bullet. Before he had the chance to troubleshoot, though, Dr. Bliss hurried in, telling him to come back when the machine actually worked. Bell, understandably, was frustrated, but he didn't give up. Back at his lab, he made adjustments to reduce the machine's sensitivity to interference, and he ran more tests. A Civil War veteran volunteered to be examined, and when Bell's machine pinpointed a bullet lodged inside him, Bell was convinced that it worked. On August 2, he returned to the White House and examined the President for the second time. Only now there was no buzz, just agonizing silence. For Bell, this could only mean one the bullet wasn't where they were looking. He suggested moving the President for a more comprehensive search, but Bliss was fed up. He dismissed the inventor, indicating that his help was no longer needed. A few weeks later, on September 19, President Garfield died from the infection. The autopsy revealed what Bell already suspected. The bullet was lodged in his left side, exactly where Bell had been told not to look. The buzzing in his first examination was probably triggered by the metal springs in Garfield's mattress. If Bliss had just been willing to move the president, Bell would have been able to find the bullet. Even if he had, though, it might not have changed anything, because the bullet isn't what killed Garfield. The real culprit was infection, introduced by doctors poking around in his wounds with unwashed hands years after antiseptic methods had become standard practice in Europe. So while he was shot by Charles Guiteau, many historians argue that he was actually killed by his doctors, chief among them Dr. Bliss. Alexander Graham Bell was heartbroken, but he took solace in the fact that his invention worked. It just needed a new name. You see, Induction Balance Phone didn't exactly roll off the tongue, so it's remembered today instead that as a metal detector.