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 right
Speaker 2: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
Speaker 2: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. I don't know about you,
Speaker 2: but my memory these days is pretty bad. I can
Speaker 2: barely remember to pick up the milk when I'm at
Speaker 2: the grocery store anymore. And yet there exists people in
Speaker 2: this world whose minds contain multitudes. Actress Mary Lou Henner
Speaker 2: famously had a condition called hyperthymesia, which allows her to
Speaker 2: remember almost every detail of her entire life. She can
Speaker 2: recall names, dates, and times of various events from her
Speaker 2: past asked, no matter how small. Only sixty two people
Speaker 2: in the world have been diagnosed with hyperthymesia, and we
Speaker 2: are still learning what causes it and how it affects
Speaker 2: those who possess it. But Stephen Wiltshier doesn't have hyperthymesia,
Speaker 2: which you might think he does considering his special talent.
Speaker 2: His mind is also a steel trap, but he isn't
Speaker 2: able to recall every moment of his life like the others. Instead,
Speaker 2: he has cities on the brain. Wiltshier was born in
Speaker 2: London in April of nineteen seventy four. His parents had
Speaker 2: come from the Caribbean, raised their son in the Little
Speaker 2: Venice district of West London, and Stephen was nonverbal early on,
Speaker 2: and three years into his life he was officially diagnosed
Speaker 2: with autism. Sadly, that same year, his father was killed
Speaker 2: in a motorcycle accident. Around five years old, Stephen developed
Speaker 2: a number of interests. Like a lot of kids, he
Speaker 2: had a passion for vehicles, especially American cars and London buses,
Speaker 2: as well as animals, and to express his love for
Speaker 2: these topics he began drawing them. But a few years
Speaker 2: later he shifted his focus from cars and creatures to buildings.
Speaker 2: His skills were evidence even from a young age. He
Speaker 2: understood perspective and proper technique in a way that most
Speaker 2: children his age just didn't. And he couldn't keep the
Speaker 2: pencil out of his hand either. But his teachers saw his.
Speaker 1: Obsession withdrawing as a means to an end in an
Speaker 1: effort to get him to speak, they confiscated his art supplies.
Speaker 1: Their thought was that if he wanted them badly enough,
Speaker 1: he would ask for them. After struggling with the sounds,
Speaker 1: Stephen eventually managed to say the word paper, and from
Speaker 1: there his vocabulary quickly grew. He was speaking in full
Speaker 1: sentences by the age of nine. But his language skills
Speaker 1: weren't the only thing progressing. His drawings were also getting better,
Speaker 1: and one of his teachers took notice. They didn't just
Speaker 1: see raw talent, they saw true art, and started entering
Speaker 1: his work in a number of local competitions and exhibitions.
Speaker 1: Stephen sold his first piece when he was only eight
Speaker 1: years old. As he took home more and more awards,
Speaker 1: I started asking questions, how could this child create such
Speaker 1: stunning drawings? And the answer is simple, That's because Stephen
Speaker 1: is a savant. When he stopped drawing animals and automobiles,
Speaker 1: he pivoted to crafting elaborate and detailed architectural sketches of
Speaker 1: made up cities. He would create them in his head,
Speaker 1: then transfer them to paper. He drew soaring skyscrapers and
Speaker 1: road systems, all of which were proportional and well thought out.
Speaker 1: He then turned his attention to actual skylines and cities.
Speaker 1: His first ever commission came from the former Prime Minister
Speaker 1: Edward Heath, who asked Stephen to draw Salisbury Cathedral for him.
Speaker 1: Now you have to understand what set Stephen's sketches apart.
Speaker 1: Isn't necessarily his artistic talent, which, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: is significant. It's that he only needs to see a
Speaker 1: place once in order to recreate it from memory. For example,
Speaker 1: after a brief helicopter ride over London, he drew a
Speaker 1: detailed four mile expanse of the area without the need
Speaker 1: for a single reference photo. Another chopper trip, this time
Speaker 1: twenty minute flyover of New York City, yielded a nineteen
Speaker 1: foot long panorama incorporating over three hundred square miles of
Speaker 1: the city, all from memory. But he still manages to
Speaker 1: add some flare of his own to his scenes every
Speaker 1: now and then. One of his sketches is titled City
Speaker 1: of London ten Years in the Future and features a
Speaker 1: number of yet to be built skyscrapers overlooking the Thames.
Speaker 1: Another is called the Great brand New and depicts a
Speaker 1: pair of hands holding a globe teeming with buildings that
Speaker 1: jut out from its surface like porcupines, quills, Stephen's work
Speaker 1: spans the globe, with drawings of places in America, Singapore,
Speaker 1: Canada and Europe that would be hard enough for any
Speaker 1: artists to draw, even with the use of reference photos,
Speaker 1: but knowing that they were all done from memory and
Speaker 1: in such great detail puts them on a whole other level.
Speaker 1: Stephen Wiltshire is someone with incredible talent, one that he
Speaker 1: has honed over the past forty some odd years, and
Speaker 1: it's clear that his only limits now are his imagination
Speaker 1: and having enough paper. Long before Martha Stewart taught television
Speaker 1: viewers how to bake bread and fluff their pillows, another
Speaker 1: lifestyle guru imparted her wisdom on the masses. Her name
Speaker 1: was Hannah Woolley. You've probably never heard of her before,
Speaker 1: but if you had been around during the sixteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: you definitely would have known her name. She was the
Speaker 1: Martha Stewart of the seventeenth century, the Gwyneth Paltrow of
Speaker 1: the pre industrial era. She was, to use the terminology
Speaker 1: of her day, a domestic goddess, although her road to
Speaker 1: fame was quite bumpy. Hannah was born in England in
Speaker 1: sixteen twenty two. While little is known about her early life,
Speaker 1: she must have had access to a handful of educational opportunities.
Speaker 1: She was said to have so called musical abilities and
Speaker 1: a working knowledge of Italian. The details of her parents'
Speaker 1: lives have been lost to history, but we do know
Speaker 1: that Hannah became an orphan in sixteen thirty six at
Speaker 1: the age of fourteen. Needing a way to support herself,
Speaker 1: Hannah applied for jobs as a governess, which was sort
Speaker 1: of like being a live in tutor. Her aptitude for
Speaker 1: music and languages landed her a job in the home
Speaker 1: of an English noble woman, teaching the family's children. Ten
Speaker 1: years later, when Hannah was twenty four, she quit her
Speaker 1: job to marry a teacher named Benjamin Woolley, and together
Speaker 1: they had four kids of their own. Throughout the sixteen
Speaker 1: forties and sixteen fifties, Hannah devoted her time to caring
Speaker 1: for her home and her children. She was unique in
Speaker 1: that she kept meticulous records of her household chores during
Speaker 1: a time when less than a quarter of British women
Speaker 1: were literate. Hannah could read and write, which gave her
Speaker 1: the ability to catalog the recipes that she made at home.
Speaker 1: By the early sixteen sixties, Hannah had journals full of
Speaker 1: domestic advice. There were exact measurements for preparing a violet
Speaker 1: flower syrup, detailed instructions on how to make eel high,
Speaker 1: and her opinions on the best way to decorate a
Speaker 1: mantle with wild moss and mushrooms. Of course, she planned
Speaker 1: to pass these writings down to her children when they
Speaker 1: grew up, but Hannah thought other people might benefit from
Speaker 1: her knowledge too, and so in sixteen sixty one she
Speaker 1: published a cookbook entitled The Ladies Directory. While cookbooks weren't
Speaker 1: brand new, Hannah's was the first ever published by a woman,
Speaker 1: and it was a big hit, big enough that she
Speaker 1: decided to keep writing more. In sixteen sixty four she
Speaker 1: published another cookbook called The Cook's Guide, and then very suddenly,
Speaker 1: her husband passed away. Now an orphan and a widow,
Speaker 1: Hannah had to figure out how to care for herself
Speaker 1: and her four children. In sixteen seventy she wrote a
Speaker 1: book called The Queen Like Closet, which, despite the name,
Speaker 1: did not chronicle the clothing of monarchs. Instead, it was
Speaker 1: in all around how to manual for housekeepers. It was
Speaker 1: also Hannah's biggest success yet, being reprinted four times and
Speaker 1: translated into German. Hannah became one of the first British
Speaker 1: women ever to make a living as a writer. She
Speaker 1: continued publishing cookbooks and housekeeping manuals all throughout the seventeenth century,
Speaker 1: eventually becoming a household name in England. And here's the
Speaker 1: most interesting part. Hannah was writing during a time when
Speaker 1: medicine was considered part of the domestic sphere. In addition
Speaker 1: to eel pie and mushroom decor, she also created recipes
Speaker 1: for medications and wrote instructions on how to perform minor surgery.
Speaker 1: And yes, most of these home remedies were what we
Speaker 1: would now call old wives tales. This was, of course,
Speaker 1: the era when medicine centered around balancing the bodies for humors,
Speaker 1: which were believed to be blood, yellow bile, black bile,
Speaker 1: and phlegm. Gross, I know, but this idea of four
Speaker 1: humors dates all the way back to ancient Greece and
Speaker 1: it was the way that people understood their bodies for
Speaker 1: over two thousand years. And so a lot of Hannah's
Speaker 1: medicinal recipes are focused on how to raise or lower
Speaker 1: the amount of certain humors. Lentils and cabbage were thought
Speaker 1: to increase levels of black bile. Blood letting, literally making
Speaker 1: yourself bleed on purpose was thought to decrease fever. Vinegar
Speaker 1: syrup could flush out excess phlem and it also was
Speaker 1: a cure for the plague. But if that's not a
Speaker 1: bold enough claim for you, Hannah also thought that she
Speaker 1: had a cure for breast cancer. Just mix a little
Speaker 1: goose dung with the juice of a celidyne flower, apply
Speaker 1: it like an ointment, and you'll be better in no time.
Speaker 1: But while a lot of Hannah's medicinal experiments should never
Speaker 1: be recreated, there is value in her work and in
Speaker 1: folk medicine in general. Modern studies often find nuggets of
Speaker 1: truth in weird ancient medicinal beliefs. In fact, a two
Speaker 1: thousand and six study found that the extract from the
Speaker 1: celandine flower actually does slow the growth of cancer cells,
Speaker 1: which means that Hannah Woolly's curious seventeenth century cancer treatment
Speaker 1: might not be as crazy as it sounds. But still,
Speaker 1: I think all of us can agree we can probably
Speaker 1: skip out on that goose dung. I hope you've enjoyed
Speaker 1: today's guide it tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities, subscribe
Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com.
Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.