Speaker 1: Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So, like
Speaker 1: months and months ago, like the beginning of our colleague
Speaker 1: Julie put a book on my desk titled Catching Breath
Speaker 1: and Making an Unmaking of Tuberculosis, and I was so
Speaker 1: excited about it that it became comical in the office.
Speaker 1: I think my actual immediate reaction was, we have to
Speaker 1: have this author on because so many great people died
Speaker 1: from TV, which I know is not the most respectful
Speaker 1: way to look at it, but I was really excited
Speaker 1: about this book. When I was a child, I was
Speaker 1: afraid of tb because my grandmother, long before I was
Speaker 1: born or my mother was born, and my grandmother was
Speaker 1: a child, she had to live in a tuberculosis sanatorium
Speaker 1: for a while because she had TV. And I like
Speaker 1: heard this story and in my child mind, like TV
Speaker 1: became a thing that my consume Me yeah, and I
Speaker 1: like that, was afraid of that, and I was afraid
Speaker 1: of dying in childbirth for some reason. With the good
Speaker 1: news is you don't how to do either of those things. Um,
Speaker 1: and it turns out that this book is also a
Speaker 1: delight to read. So if you're concerned that a book
Speaker 1: about a medical thing in history might be dry or boring,
Speaker 1: it is absolutely not. Catherine Locked the author. Her ability
Speaker 1: to demystify scientific concepts and make them super easy for
Speaker 1: people who are not scientists to understand is really fantastic.
Speaker 1: I asked her about it in the interview and she
Speaker 1: said it was hard, but it does not come off
Speaker 1: his heart. And her writing style really surprised me because
Speaker 1: she's quite witty. She is a microbiologist. She has a
Speaker 1: decade of research and tuberculosis specifically, so her knowledge even
Speaker 1: prior to researching this book is really vast and it
Speaker 1: spans centuries. So many many months later, Holly finally managed
Speaker 1: to get all the pieces in place to have her
Speaker 1: on the show. She was gracious enough to roll with
Speaker 1: having to schedule around a five hour time difference for
Speaker 1: a phone interview, so we are delighted and thankful that
Speaker 1: she did so. Thankful that's it seems like it should
Speaker 1: be easy, but it really does become tricky when you're
Speaker 1: scheduling around people's lives. Five hours suddenly can become a lot.
Speaker 1: So we're going to operate in there and learn a
Speaker 1: little bit about how tuberculosis became such a massive threat
Speaker 1: to humanity right out of the gates. Your background is microbiology,
Speaker 1: but will you share with us what piqued your interests
Speaker 1: in tuberculosis specifically? Okay? Um? So, So, I always wanted
Speaker 1: to be a micronologist since I was really young, just
Speaker 1: always been fascinated by the idea of this sort of
Speaker 1: invisible world bacteria that surrounds us, just out of sight. Um.
Speaker 1: And when it came to deciding what I wanted to
Speaker 1: work on, I simply worked for tuberculosis because it was
Speaker 1: the biggest infectious disease killer around and it's it's just
Speaker 1: quite fascinating thinking about how you get get these pathogens
Speaker 1: which end up killing their hosts, which isn't something that
Speaker 1: bacteria specifically sets out to do. And I just wanted
Speaker 1: to be part of the work that goes into trying
Speaker 1: to combat the biggest infectious disease killer. And do you
Speaker 1: find it challenging as a scientist too? Then when you're
Speaker 1: writing a book conveys scientific concepts to potential non scientist readers, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that did turn out to be a big sort.
Speaker 1: It was difficult when I was writing the book to
Speaker 1: try and make sure I didn't go to science, and
Speaker 1: I know that a lot of the people who have
Speaker 1: read it and actually scientists then complain that it's not
Speaker 1: science enough. So yeah, it's difficult getting the balance. But
Speaker 1: I think what I've tried to do in the book
Speaker 1: is find some of the interesting stories from speculosis history
Speaker 1: and try and use them to get across what's turned
Speaker 1: it into this world's biggest killer. And in the introduction
Speaker 1: to your book, you characterize yourself as wanting to rebrand
Speaker 1: tuberculosis for modern public awareness. Can you speak a little
Speaker 1: bit about why it needs rebranding. So when I tend
Speaker 1: to tell people that I've worked on subaculosis at a
Speaker 1: party or at a baby group, quite often, Um, a
Speaker 1: lot of people seem to see TV is this old
Speaker 1: fashioned disease that affected poets in the nineteenth century, and
Speaker 1: that it sort of disappeared when we invented antibiotics and
Speaker 1: is no longer a problem. And it was a huge
Speaker 1: problem in the nineteenth century. But I don't think a
Speaker 1: lot of people realize that it's still with us and
Speaker 1: it's still killing something like one point seven million people
Speaker 1: a year and causing ten million new cases every year.
Speaker 1: So I kind of wanted to rebrand TV. Is this
Speaker 1: modern day monster rather than this relic of the past.
Speaker 1: And the history of TV is really fascinating, but I
Speaker 1: do think we need to remember that it's not a
Speaker 1: disease of history. And when you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about how TV and Homo sapiens have this sort of
Speaker 1: hand in hand relationship that you talk about through evolution,
Speaker 1: mm hmm, okay, So it's it's thought that TV was
Speaker 1: probably infecting humans back when we were first starting out
Speaker 1: in Africa's cradle of life. And the idea is that
Speaker 1: TV then went to spread around the world with the
Speaker 1: first humans who will leading Africa during the out of
Speaker 1: Africa migrations. And you can still see all of these
Speaker 1: different lineages of TV in various parts of the world.
Speaker 1: And despite all the globalization that spread us humans everywhere, um,
Speaker 1: we still see these specific lineages of TV infecting specific populations.
Speaker 1: And the idea is that TV has effectively grown up
Speaker 1: alongside humanity. It's been with us throughout our entire history
Speaker 1: and in a way has learned from us. And that's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why it's so difficult to eradicate
Speaker 1: TB today just because it's been with us so long.
Speaker 1: Then why do you think it became so prevalent as
Speaker 1: a global threat before we figured out a way to
Speaker 1: deal with it. So I think the biggest thing that
Speaker 1: turned t D into the problem is today was when
Speaker 1: humans stopped living hunt to gather a lifestyles and moved
Speaker 1: to living at first in small villages, and then thanks
Speaker 1: to urbanization and industrialization, we've got the rise of these
Speaker 1: big cities which many of us live in today. And
Speaker 1: it was humans living in unhealthy, overcrowded conditions which really
Speaker 1: gave TV everything it needed to flourish and become this
Speaker 1: mass killer when it was infecting Hunt together as it
Speaker 1: had a very small pool of hosts to infects, and
Speaker 1: it was just one of many diseases that when we
Speaker 1: started living in towns and cities, suddenly found itself. With
Speaker 1: all of these hosts, it could spread you very easily,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of what turned it into what it
Speaker 1: is today. I was really delighted that you mentioned in
Speaker 1: your book the Jewitt City vampires and the New England
Speaker 1: vampire panic. They were actually a topic of a previous episode. Um,
Speaker 1: will you talk a little bit about how you see
Speaker 1: that point in history as really representative of how humans
Speaker 1: have dealt with tuberculosis historically. Yes. So I loved the
Speaker 1: story of the New England Vampires when I came across there,
Speaker 1: and I touched on it in the book, more from
Speaker 1: the TV side of things than the actual the history
Speaker 1: of the New England Vampires. So I included this story
Speaker 1: because I feel like it represented the sheer panic that
Speaker 1: would surround this disease back in the nineteenth century. So
Speaker 1: TV was a disease which was killing a huge number
Speaker 1: of people. It's been estimated it's killed something like one
Speaker 1: in certain people who have ever lived by this point
Speaker 1: in history, and it was a disease that could down
Speaker 1: whole families, sometimes months apart or years apart. But nobody
Speaker 1: knew anything about bacteria at this point, and they didn't
Speaker 1: know it was an infectious disease. They didn't know it
Speaker 1: was spreading through people coughing or living in overcrowded little houses. Um,
Speaker 1: And there wasn't anything anyone could do about it. So
Speaker 1: once you got it, you were quite possibly going to
Speaker 1: die from it, and people were willing to try anything
Speaker 1: to try and save their loved ones from this disease.
Speaker 1: So I think that's where this whole folk belief of
Speaker 1: the vampires rising from the grave at night to feed
Speaker 1: upon the living came from um in terms of consumption
Speaker 1: and TV. So the idea behind the folk belief was
Speaker 1: that someone who had previously died of TB or consumption
Speaker 1: is they have known back down, was coming back to
Speaker 1: life at night to come and feed on family members
Speaker 1: who were still alive. And the way to stop this
Speaker 1: mischievous undead person was to go to the graveyard and
Speaker 1: carry out various quite gaulish unto digging up the body,
Speaker 1: removing the heart, turning it into a potion, and then
Speaker 1: feeding this to the person who had t V. And
Speaker 1: it was just I think it was just the case
Speaker 1: of people wanting to try anything to save their loved
Speaker 1: ones when there wasn't any science that could do anything
Speaker 1: for them. I loved that Catherine included the New England
Speaker 1: vampire panic in her book. It made me so excited.
Speaker 1: When I got to that part, I was like, I
Speaker 1: know about this. We are going to have more with
Speaker 1: microbiologist and history author Katherine Lackey, but first we will
Speaker 1: pause for a quick sponsor break. In this next segment
Speaker 1: of my interview with Katherine Lacked, she shares her thoughts
Speaker 1: on why tuberculosis bea so romanticized in the nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: When you speak to the weird romanticism about tuberculosis that
Speaker 1: did happen in the nineteenth century, yeah, I always find it.
Speaker 1: It's it's probably what t D is best known for
Speaker 1: among many people, this idea that it was this romantic,
Speaker 1: passionate disease that could inspire creativity. And it was quite
Speaker 1: prevalence in Victorian London the nineteenth century, and I think
Speaker 1: part of the reason for that is that it's famously
Speaker 1: killed a large number of poets. It was killing a
Speaker 1: lot of other people as well, often the very poor
Speaker 1: people in the city, although that wasn't quite sort of
Speaker 1: romantic um. And so it was this disease where it
Speaker 1: sort of found its way into the culture of the day,
Speaker 1: and see these operatic heroines who were dying of consumption.
Speaker 1: It was in a lot of literature and art, and
Speaker 1: it just inspired a huge amount of the culture of
Speaker 1: the day. I think women, the ideal of beauty among
Speaker 1: women was seen to be this very pale, fragile consumptive look,
Speaker 1: which is quite strange when you think about it today
Speaker 1: that people were glamorizing this infection. But I think it
Speaker 1: was just a response to a disease that was killing
Speaker 1: such huge numbers of people. And I'm curious because I
Speaker 1: know it has changed over time, but what has TV
Speaker 1: treatment historically involved and how is it treated today comparatively.
Speaker 1: So it took a really long time for any sort
Speaker 1: of TV treatment that worked to be introduced. There were
Speaker 1: all of these historical attempts at treating it that wouldn't
Speaker 1: have done very much, and I think in Victorian England
Speaker 1: you had a lot of remedies that were just never
Speaker 1: going to work. The first real treatment, I suppose, was
Speaker 1: the invention of the sanatorium where people could be sent
Speaker 1: for the good diet, exposure to sunlight, exercise, and that
Speaker 1: went some way to treating TV, but it obviously wasn't
Speaker 1: a perfect cure. There were also at the turn of
Speaker 1: the twentieth century some fairly barbaric surgical treatments used to
Speaker 1: try and cure the disease, such as collapsing someone's lung,
Speaker 1: sometimes permanently, um to just also kill the TV infection
Speaker 1: that was in that lung and that was really the
Speaker 1: only way that people could be cured if they had
Speaker 1: a serious TV infection. And then in the nineties and
Speaker 1: fifties you started seeing antibiotics being introduced and this revolutionized
Speaker 1: the treatment of TV. And actually the antibiotics that were
Speaker 1: introduced in the fifties are still the ones that are
Speaker 1: commonly used today. So the treatment for a normal, um
Speaker 1: non drug resistant case of TV today would be a
Speaker 1: combination of four antibiotics that you would take for several months.
Speaker 1: So you take four of them for two months and
Speaker 1: then carry on taking two of the others for another
Speaker 1: four months after that. UM, so six month treatments in
Speaker 1: total with some fairly horrible, quite old fashioned antibiotics. And
Speaker 1: we are seeing a few new ones being introduced now,
Speaker 1: but not at a break that's quick enough to deal
Speaker 1: with the problem of drug resistance. I'm glad you mentioned
Speaker 1: drug resistant TV because that was what I was going
Speaker 1: to bring up next. Will you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about how drug resistance TV has evolved and sort of
Speaker 1: when we realized that was happening. Yes, So, drug resistance
Speaker 1: is always it's pretty much inevitable with any bacterial infection.
Speaker 1: The problem is is when it gets set in place
Speaker 1: in the population and takes hold. And today we're seeing
Speaker 1: huge numbers of cases of drug resistant TB. I don't
Speaker 1: think we fully understand how much there is out there,
Speaker 1: just because it's not very well documented at the moment um.
Speaker 1: So we can have cases today called multi drug resistant TV,
Speaker 1: which was the resistant to a couple of the frontline
Speaker 1: drugs that you used to treat it UM, and this
Speaker 1: can go all the way to completely or totally drug
Speaker 1: resistant TV, which is practically untreatable by current the drug
Speaker 1: the current drug regimens. So the first time people started
Speaker 1: to realize it was a problem UM So I can't
Speaker 1: remember the exact dates actually that we first started seeing
Speaker 1: a strain of TV called xdr TV emerging in parts
Speaker 1: of Africa, which managed to get itself into the news
Speaker 1: just because a huge number of the people who are
Speaker 1: infected with these strains of TV were dying from it UM.
Speaker 1: There's also been a lot of recent talking India about
Speaker 1: their huge drug resistance problem, which wasn't People didn't realize
Speaker 1: it was such a problem until plainly recently. How TV
Speaker 1: drug resistant strains emerged is that you get resistance in
Speaker 1: just one bacterium and then this multiplies and then start
Speaker 1: spreading to other people if it's left unchecked. And one
Speaker 1: really good example of this was in was following the
Speaker 1: collapse of the Soviet Union. So before before the collapse,
Speaker 1: you had a really good TV program, everything was well controlled,
Speaker 1: people had access to decent health care. However, when everything
Speaker 1: fell into ruin, people didn't have access to the same medicines,
Speaker 1: and drug resistance strains were able to have emerged and
Speaker 1: go unchecked. And we can actually trace back modern day
Speaker 1: drug resistance strains to this point in time and see
Speaker 1: that they saw of a number of them started off
Speaker 1: in the form of Soviet Union and then just gradually
Speaker 1: grew over time and developed resistance to further drugs until
Speaker 1: they reached a point where they're not really that treatable
Speaker 1: with any of the drug regiments that we have available today.
Speaker 1: You mentioned in your book that TV treatment even now
Speaker 1: is really really rough on the patient. UM. Will you
Speaker 1: talk about some of the risks in both previous versions
Speaker 1: of treatment, including collapse lungs, like what was the mortality
Speaker 1: like versus the actual cure um. I don't know the
Speaker 1: exact numbers, but without treatment for people who have a
Speaker 1: sort of serious TV infection around will die. Um, this
Speaker 1: is less if they have a TV infection, that's um,
Speaker 1: sort of a little bit more below the radar, I suppose.
Speaker 1: And then it's then around these people will die from
Speaker 1: if left untreated. So it works out around people with
Speaker 1: an untreated TD infection will go on to die from it.
Speaker 1: And today TV is essentially a treatable disease and we
Speaker 1: shouldn't be seeing any death. However, we are seeing one
Speaker 1: point seven million a year and unfortunately a lot of
Speaker 1: that not down to the disease itself, but it's down
Speaker 1: to all the social factors that are wrapped up to
Speaker 1: TV and the fact that a lot of people aren't
Speaker 1: being died nosed, or they don't have access to the
Speaker 1: proper treatment regiments. Um, what do you think is the
Speaker 1: most important moment in tuberculosis? Is long, long history. That's
Speaker 1: that's an interesting question. I I suppose. I would say
Speaker 1: the neo ethnic revolution where people stopped living these come
Speaker 1: together a lifestyles and moved to having little villages and
Speaker 1: relying on agriculture and farming to survive. And that was
Speaker 1: really set in motion TV's rise to becoming this huge
Speaker 1: global killer. The Industrial revolution as well was an assid
Speaker 1: turning point for TV, because he started getting these huge
Speaker 1: cities and people were living in really horrible, overcrowded conditions
Speaker 1: and it was a very unhealthy lifestyle, and this made
Speaker 1: them more likely to catch TB and then to go
Speaker 1: on to die from it. Um, we actually started seeing
Speaker 1: a decline in TB in cases like the UK and
Speaker 1: the S following the Industrial Revolution, when people started living
Speaker 1: healthier lifestyles and having better health care, better cleanness, last
Speaker 1: polluted cities, etcetera. And so that was sort of big
Speaker 1: turning point for humans, I suppose in our fight against TV,
Speaker 1: and in the modern world in the UK and US
Speaker 1: another high income countries, TV is no longer such a
Speaker 1: huge problem, So I think. I mean, this is one
Speaker 1: of the big problems with TV is that it is
Speaker 1: a disease of inequality and poverty and social factors. It's
Speaker 1: not just the bacteria. So when you say that's why
Speaker 1: there is this misconception that it's sort of history's disease,
Speaker 1: because the people that are talking about it are usually
Speaker 1: more effluent than the people actually dealing with it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so it's um, Yeah, it's it's difficult because
Speaker 1: sort of campaigning for a disease which isn't really that
Speaker 1: much of a problem in the UK um countries such
Speaker 1: as the US as well. But unfortunately it's going to
Speaker 1: take high income countries to be able to combat the
Speaker 1: problem with everyone's going to have to work together and
Speaker 1: we're not going to be able to get rid of
Speaker 1: TV in places like the US UK unless we get
Speaker 1: rid of it in the countries where it is a
Speaker 1: huge problem. So India, China, South Africa, Pakistan, Indonesia and
Speaker 1: Nigeria are the places where TV is currently the biggest
Speaker 1: problem in THESA or low income countries Prepared with our
Speaker 1: own I think it's a really great point to make
Speaker 1: that TV cannot be eradicated in affluent countries unless we
Speaker 1: also address it in countries where it's much more prevalent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we are also going to talk with microbol Just Catherine
Speaker 1: lackeyed some more in just a moment after we pause
Speaker 1: for one more quick sponsor break, So coming up find
Speaker 1: out what sort of testing we're really going to need
Speaker 1: to address the one point seven million annual deaths that
Speaker 1: still happen from tuberculosis. In your book, you make the
Speaker 1: case for raising TV awareness and making testing the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that people should be doing, even if they're asymptomatic.
Speaker 1: Will you talk a little bit about that. Yeah? So.
Speaker 1: Um one of the big problems with TV is that
Speaker 1: we don't have any really good diagnostic tests that is
Speaker 1: able to accurately tell us whether someone has the disease.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are methods of diagnosing it, but they're
Speaker 1: not always that good for use in countries where, for example,
Speaker 1: there isn't a dedicated power supply um or it's extremely
Speaker 1: hot and dusty, and you can't be using these high
Speaker 1: tech pieces of labor tooitments unless someone really well trained
Speaker 1: in them and you've got all the infrastructure and support
Speaker 1: that's required to sort of analyze the test results after
Speaker 1: you run the test itself. UM So, yeah, I would.
Speaker 1: I would love to see a world where people who
Speaker 1: are thought to have TV are tested using these modern,
Speaker 1: great new diagnostics. Um. I think it's more likely that
Speaker 1: we're going to have to develop new diagnostic tests that
Speaker 1: can be used out in places where they don't have
Speaker 1: access to these to the new technologies, and it would
Speaker 1: be nice to see everyone being tested. You have sensems
Speaker 1: of TV. But importantly, I'd also like to see a
Speaker 1: sort of a drug resistance profile being taken to new
Speaker 1: cases of TV, so we can pick up whether someone's
Speaker 1: infection is going to be a drug resistant one before
Speaker 1: they start treatment with the traditional drugs, which won't work
Speaker 1: if it's not sensitive strain, if it's a drug resistance strain.
Speaker 1: And to wrap up, is there any We talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about the Jewit City vampires and some other
Speaker 1: historical moments that you think are important. But do you
Speaker 1: have a favorite sort of time in history to talk
Speaker 1: about or do you know that has a unique story
Speaker 1: of TV within it. Yeah, So when I was starting
Speaker 1: out writing the book, I sort of thought to myself,
Speaker 1: I wanted to go back in time and find the
Speaker 1: first case of TV and have a look at how
Speaker 1: far back we could actually diagnose this disease. And one
Speaker 1: of the problems is that bacteria don't leave behind fossils,
Speaker 1: so you can't chase them all the way back into history.
Speaker 1: But the earliest diagnosed case in a human comes from
Speaker 1: this little village called athlete Yam that's dust off the
Speaker 1: coast of Israel, So it's been submerged under the sea
Speaker 1: for something like nine thousand years because of the conditions,
Speaker 1: so my layer of sediments and cool water. It meant
Speaker 1: that the bodies buried in this village were extremely well preserved,
Speaker 1: so when they were excavated in the night, people were
Speaker 1: able to detect tiny amounts of bacterial DNA from the
Speaker 1: TV pathogen in two of the people who were buried there,
Speaker 1: so a mother and a bait be and find that
Speaker 1: these are quite possibly the earliest diagnosed case of TV around.
Speaker 1: And I really liked that story because I came at
Speaker 1: writing the book from a very scientific perspective, and as
Speaker 1: I went about writing it, I started to think more
Speaker 1: about the actual people who were involved in the story.
Speaker 1: Um so yeah, it was. It was very interesting to
Speaker 1: find out about this village where this oldest case of
Speaker 1: TV was found. Obviously TV goes back a lot further
Speaker 1: in time, but it's much harder to diagnose it in
Speaker 1: ancient remains. And then finally, where can people find you
Speaker 1: if they want to learn more about your book or
Speaker 1: your work? I have a blog called Germsoo dot blogspot
Speaker 1: dot co dot uk where people can come and find me,
Speaker 1: and I sometimes blog about science and my book and
Speaker 1: other thoughts about the world of TV in general. Many
Speaker 1: many things to care from lockeed for taking time to
Speaker 1: speak with me. Uh. We're going to have a link
Speaker 1: to her blog that she mentioned in the show notes
Speaker 1: for this episode, so you can get there really easily
Speaker 1: and learn about all the things that she has to share,
Speaker 1: because she is really incredibly fun to read. Writer awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you have listener mail for us? I do, and
Speaker 1: it won't scare us about the possibility of contracting TV
Speaker 1: and not knowing it. It will delight us with gifts.
Speaker 1: I'm doing a little bit of an unboxing because this
Speaker 1: is an unusual and wonderful day when Tracy is actually
Speaker 1: in Atlanta and in the office with me. We are
Speaker 1: in a studio looking at one another across the table.
Speaker 1: It's pretty exciting. So instead of opening a parcel and
Speaker 1: holding it up for her in front of a camera
Speaker 1: on a computer, I can just show her cute things.
Speaker 1: This is from our listener Christina, when she writes, Hi,
Speaker 1: Holly and Tracy, I just wanted to say how much
Speaker 1: I enjoy listening to your podcast. I am an illustrator.
Speaker 1: And then she tells us where she lives and where
Speaker 1: she works. I'm not going to include that in the
Speaker 1: interest of her privacy, but she says, one of my
Speaker 1: former students turned me onto your podcast, and I've been
Speaker 1: binging it ever since. We illus traders work long hours
Speaker 1: straight through on projects, and it always helps to have
Speaker 1: educational and entertaining audio to keep us company in the
Speaker 1: wee hours of the morning or when we're on a
Speaker 1: twelve on a two hour commute. I know that thing.
Speaker 1: I do it when I sew Yeah. Enclosed are two
Speaker 1: calendars featuring an I P I created back in two eleven.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy the many historically charged characters and
Speaker 1: the merry quotations that come with each one. Thank you
Speaker 1: for keeping me saying have a wonderful year, Christina. Oh
Speaker 1: my goodness, Christina, these calendars are like cracked me. They're
Speaker 1: so wondrous. I'm handing them to Tracy. So what These
Speaker 1: are animals? The most beautiful and detailed illustrations UM of
Speaker 1: animals as various historical figures. This is a dog David Bowie. Yes.
Speaker 1: And there's um alten Maker. Yes. They're really amazing and
Speaker 1: her art is mind blowingly beautiful. I cannot be more delighted.
Speaker 1: There's a king tut and came out that is so gorgeous.
Speaker 1: Since I like anything with Egyptian imagery and I am
Speaker 1: a crazy cat lady, seelasically heaven to me. I feel
Speaker 1: like this sloth Josephine Baker is like a special homage
Speaker 1: to previous hosts of the show, which included some big
Speaker 1: time sloth fans. And also they did a podcast on
Speaker 1: jo swim Baker. Yeah, so I just I seriously love,
Speaker 1: love love these so much. Uh. This is one where
Speaker 1: there's also a Mary Smelly, which is Mary Shelley is
Speaker 1: a skunk that is so beautiful I kind of can't
Speaker 1: deal with it. This one has William Shakespeare. It's really
Speaker 1: really wonderful. There is also Teddy Roosevelt as a big
Speaker 1: gray cat, which is perfect. Um. Obviously, Christina, we are
Speaker 1: delighted beyond all measure by this gift. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: This also perfectly settles my my current quandary of what
Speaker 1: kind of calendar wall calendar I was going to get
Speaker 1: for next year, because I love a calendar, but it's
Speaker 1: hard to decide sometimes. Well, and this is the right
Speaker 1: size to go on the wall by my computer, because
Speaker 1: I have a Hamilton's calendar that I put for the
Speaker 1: big wall calendar but this is good for the adjacent
Speaker 1: to computer and I can then look at Kitty Roosevelt.
Speaker 1: It's the cutest thing. I mean, these are so gorgeous.
Speaker 1: I love, love love them. So we're going slightly bananas
Speaker 1: over here, Christina. We are going to um take some
Speaker 1: pictures of this and make sure they get up on
Speaker 1: social media. Uh. And we thank you so much. What
Speaker 1: a great way to start a new year. Yeah, is
Speaker 1: with a cat as king hut. If you would like
Speaker 1: to write to us about this or any other episode,
Speaker 1: you can do so at History Podcast at how stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot com. You can also find us pretty much everywhere
Speaker 1: on social media as Missed in History. You can visit
Speaker 1: our website, which is missed in History dot com. Sift
Speaker 1: through our archive of all the episodes, look at show
Speaker 1: notes for the episodes Tracy and I have worked on,
Speaker 1: and just see what we've been up to. Uh, we
Speaker 1: hope we do. Come and visit us at missed in
Speaker 1: History dot com. For more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. M