Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
Speaker 2: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Every family has its quirks.
Speaker 2: Often these little idiosyncrasies are passed down through the generations.
Speaker 2: It could be a distinctive smile shared by a group
Speaker 2: of siblings, a unique saying that originated with a great grandparent,
Speaker 2: a superstition that's persisted for centuries. Whatever the curious trait
Speaker 2: may be, it unites the family and represents their shared history.
Speaker 2: The same could be said for the Fugate family of Kentucky,
Speaker 2: only their cork was much more than curious. It was
Speaker 2: completely inexplicable. The story begins with Martin Fugate, a French
Speaker 2: orphan who emigrated to eastern Kentucky in eighteen twenty. Martin
Speaker 2: claimed a land grant in a remote area known as
Speaker 2: the Troublesome Creek. It got its name because the hunting
Speaker 2: trail that ran alongside the creek was overtaken by large trees, vines,
Speaker 2: and rocks, making it nearly impassable or troublesome. Very few
Speaker 2: people lived there, but it was what Martin could afford,
Speaker 2: so he built a life in the rough environment. Soon
Speaker 2: he met Elizabeth Smith, an American woman with red hair
Speaker 2: and porcelain skin. They got married and had seven children,
Speaker 2: and this is where the few gates odd Cork became apparent.
Speaker 2: Three of Martin and Elizabeth's children looked perfectly normal. They
Speaker 2: had pale skin, just like their mother. But the other four, well,
Speaker 2: they were not white, and they weren't any other recognizable
Speaker 2: human shade either. They were blue, and I don't mean
Speaker 2: slightly blue tinted, I mean bright, cartoonish, and impossibly indigo.
Speaker 2: The few other locals who lived near Troublesome Creek said
Speaker 2: that they were an I quote, bluer than Lake Louise.
Speaker 2: According to local legend, Martin himself was also blue. And
Speaker 2: while we have to take two hundred year old stories
Speaker 2: with a grain of salt, it would certainly make sense
Speaker 2: if the family patriarch was indigo colored. His children's hue
Speaker 2: was slightly less shocking. Still, the obvious question was what
Speaker 2: on earth was going on with the so called Blue Fugates. Well,
Speaker 2: Seeing as this was the mid eighteen hundreds, medical science
Speaker 2: wasn't exactly equipped to find the answer. People in Troublesome
Speaker 2: Creek and the surrounding communities thought that the family had
Speaker 2: some kind of curse. Very few people were willing to
Speaker 2: marry into the family. Often few Gates married their cousins
Speaker 2: or their aunts. This led to even more Blue babies
Speaker 2: being born. Still, despite their social isolation and restricted genepool,
Speaker 2: they seemed to be relatively healthy. By the nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 2: there were dozens of Blue Fugates and they were living
Speaker 2: well into old age. Whatever curse they had, it wasn't
Speaker 2: shortening their lifespan. But nevertheless, the family continued to be
Speaker 2: the subject of judgment and gossip. In nineteen sixty, nearly
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty years after Martin Fugate moved to
Speaker 2: Troublesome Creek, rumors about the Kentucky's Blue Family reached a
Speaker 2: man named Madison Coween. Luckily, though medicine had advanced in
Speaker 2: that last century and a half, Madison was a young
Speaker 2: doctor at the University of Kentucky, and specifically, he was
Speaker 2: a hematologist or a doctor who specializes in studying blood.
Speaker 2: When Madison heard about the blue Fugates, he wondered if
Speaker 2: their oddskin color could be the result of a blood disorder.
Speaker 2: So he went to Troublesome Creek and he met with
Speaker 2: a few of the members of the family himself. He
Speaker 2: took blood samples, and then he ran some tests. What
Speaker 2: Madison found was both groundbreaking and surprisingly simple. The blue
Speaker 2: Fugates had a disorder called met haemoglobinemia. You see the Fugates'
Speaker 2: skin turn into go because their blood lacked an enzyme
Speaker 2: called diaphrays. The enzyme helps process hemoglobin, which is a
Speaker 2: protein that contains iron. When hemoglobin isn't processed correctly, a
Speaker 2: person's blood oxygen level can drop dramatically. So the few
Speaker 2: Gates had an abnormally low blood oxygen level. It wasn't
Speaker 2: enough to cause any noticeable health problems, but it was
Speaker 2: enough to turn their skin bright blue. Luckily, doctor Madison
Speaker 2: Coeen found an existing treatment within the medical literature. He
Speaker 2: injected the feu gates with a chemical ironically known as
Speaker 2: methylene blue. It counteracts the enzyme deficiency and helps the
Speaker 2: body process hemoglobin. Within seconds of the injection, the fugates
Speaker 2: indigo hue faded to white. Madison gave the family a
Speaker 2: pill version of the methylene blue, which they could take
Speaker 2: daily to maintain their quote unquote normal skin. The story
Speaker 2: of troublesome creeks isolated indigo family is a curious one. Indeed,
Speaker 2: luckily the fugates medical mystery was salt, and these days
Speaker 2: they don't feel nearly so blue. Historically, emperors are not
Speaker 2: the kindest or most compassionate people. That was certainly true
Speaker 2: of Caligula. In the four years that he ruled over
Speaker 2: ancient Rome from thirty seven to forty one CE, Caligula
Speaker 2: gained a reputation as a psychotic and bloodthirsty ruler. If
Speaker 2: you don't believe me, here's a tale to prove it.
Speaker 2: According to a Roman historian, in the year forty CE,
Speaker 2: King Ptolemy of Mauritania came to Rome for a visit
Speaker 2: with the imperial court. Shortly after meeting, Caligula had the
Speaker 2: man executed. Why simple King Ptolemy had worn a purple cloak. Now, obviously,
Speaker 2: having a man assassinated for his wardrobe choices was not
Speaker 2: the most reasonable action, but Caligula was never known for
Speaker 2: his logical thinking, and in ancient times the color purple
Speaker 2: was truly to die for. That was a color pun
Speaker 2: by the way, So let me into some history to
Speaker 2: help you understand it. You see, the specific shade of
Speaker 2: King Ptolemy's cloak was called Tyrian purple. It was a lush,
Speaker 2: jewel like hue that glittered in the sun and deepened
Speaker 2: with age. Tyrian purple dye was so rare and so
Speaker 2: prized that it costs more than three times its weight
Speaker 2: in gold. It was also completely disgusting to make. Authentic
Speaker 2: Tyrian purple dye came from only one place, the mucus
Speaker 2: secreting glands of a few species of sea snails. The
Speaker 2: dye that kings and emperors coveted was literally derived from
Speaker 2: snail slime, and the process went something like this. Sea
Speaker 2: snails would be harvested from the coast and quickly transported
Speaker 2: to a nearby facility. They were then killed and their
Speaker 2: mucous glands were collected. To give you an idea of
Speaker 2: the scale here, making a single gram of dye required
Speaker 2: mucus from over eight thousand snails, so manufacturers had their
Speaker 2: work cut out for them. Once the mucus was collected,
Speaker 2: though it was treated in a number of ways, including aging,
Speaker 2: exposure to sunlight, and adding acid and heat. Eventually the
Speaker 2: slime was transformed into a glittering purple powder. Now, I
Speaker 2: guess this wouldn't be that gross if you can ignore
Speaker 2: the fact that hundreds of thousands of snails had to
Speaker 2: die to create a handful of purple powder. But the
Speaker 2: real clincher was the smell. One ancient Egyptian text noted
Speaker 2: that men who worked in Tyrian purple dyeing factories had
Speaker 2: hands that smelled like rotten fish. The tel mood actually
Speaker 2: gave a woman the right to divorce her husband if
Speaker 2: he took work in one of these snail dye factories.
Speaker 2: The stench alone was enough to break.
Speaker 1: Up a marriage. But the worst part was even after
Speaker 1: a fabric had been dyed and washed, the scent could
Speaker 1: persist for months. Just imagine a castle full of royalty
Speaker 1: all smelling like rotting snails. Given these gross origins, it's
Speaker 1: kind of surprising that Tyrian purple became the color of royalty.
Speaker 1: But those who wore it weren't thinking about animal rights
Speaker 1: or how bad their clothing smelled. They were thinking about
Speaker 1: what the color represented. It told everyone that they could
Speaker 1: afford to buy a dye that cost more than gold,
Speaker 1: which brings us back to Caligula, the murderous Roman emperor.
Speaker 1: When he saw Ptolemy wearing a Tyrian purple cloak, he
Speaker 1: interpreted it as a sign of aggression, as if the
Speaker 1: king were trying to signal his own superiority, hence the
Speaker 1: reason that Caliguila had the man assassinated. Luckily, today, purple
Speaker 1: is no longer a color worth killing over. An eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty six and eighteen year old British chemist named William
Speaker 1: Henry Perkin accidentally discovered a way to create synthetic dye.
Speaker 1: It was the first of its kind, and it was
Speaker 1: just slightly lighter than Tyrian purple. He called it mauve. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: the shade that had been reserved for royalty became widely available.
Speaker 1: Even so, traditional dye methods still do exist. One factory
Speaker 1: in Wojaca, Mexico, produces authentic Tyrian dye to this day.
Speaker 1: Just like in ancient times. It'll run you thousands of
Speaker 1: dollars for a single gram and it'll probably stink up
Speaker 1: your entire house. But there has been at least one
Speaker 1: improvement in dye production. Over the last two thousand years,
Speaker 1: the Wahaca Factory has discovered a way to extract mucus
Speaker 1: from c snails without killing them. Now they can probably
Speaker 1: say no snails were harmed in the making of this color.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
Speaker 1: Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.