Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. When a doctor is
Speaker 1: referred to as a quack, it usually means that person
Speaker 1: is a fraud or doesn't know what they're talking about.
Speaker 1: The term derives from the word quack silver, which itself
Speaker 1: is an archaic Dutch word meaning hawker of self. Today
Speaker 1: we might call them a snake oil salesman. But back
Speaker 1: then men would stand on street corners and shout about
Speaker 1: the curative properties of whatever ointment or tincture they were
Speaker 1: trying to sell, almost all of it false. Not all
Speaker 1: of their sales tactics were stationary, though, a dentist in
Speaker 1: seventeen seventies London had the bright idea to take his
Speaker 1: show on the road. His name was Martin Van Butchell,
Speaker 1: and he wrote upon a white pony with purple spots.
Speaker 1: He painted those on himself. Though Butchell advertised his practice
Speaker 1: in local papers, often boasting about his talents at dental reconstruction,
Speaker 1: real or artificial teeth. His ad read from one to
Speaker 1: an entire set. He promised top of the line hardware
Speaker 1: fitted to the individual with no pain. Suffice it to
Speaker 1: say he didn't quite live up to those promises, but
Speaker 1: that didn't stop people from flocking to his door. It
Speaker 1: was London in the seventeen seventies and dentists were a
Speaker 1: hot commodity, especially among the elite. And even though sugar
Speaker 1: was a luxury for the middle and upper classes, its
Speaker 1: use increased fourfold in Britain during the eighteenth century. That
Speaker 1: meant that making a good living, even for quacks like Butchell,
Speaker 1: wasn't like pulling teeth. Even that was exactly what they did,
Speaker 1: I know. But as business grew, so did the competition,
Speaker 1: and soon Butchell had to come up with interesting ways
Speaker 1: to drum up new customers. Some dentists might have created
Speaker 1: advertisements or hired someone to walk up and down the
Speaker 1: block with the sandwich board sign hung on their shoulders,
Speaker 1: but not Butchell. He took his advertising game to a
Speaker 1: whole new level. He had his wife Mary sit in
Speaker 1: the front window of his practice as a way of
Speaker 1: enticing ailing passers by. She simply sat there, in full
Speaker 1: view for all Londoners to see. She didn't mind, She
Speaker 1: didn't complain about it, and that's because she was dead.
Speaker 1: Butchell had tasked his former surgery and anatomy professors with
Speaker 1: embalming his late wife. Then they replaced her eyes with
Speaker 1: glass ones, colored her cheeks and lips, and dressed her
Speaker 1: in a fancy gown before placing her in a glass
Speaker 1: topped coffin The display worked. Londoners came in by record
Speaker 1: numbers to see the deceased woman in the window, though
Speaker 1: not all of them were happy about it. Many scolded
Speaker 1: him for such a grotesque display or for not giving
Speaker 1: her a proper burial. She deserved better, they said. But
Speaker 1: none of that bothered Butchell, although it did bother his
Speaker 1: new bride, Elizabeth. After he remarried, she told him to
Speaker 1: get his dead wife's body out of the window. There
Speaker 1: was no way that she was going to share her
Speaker 1: man with another woman, even a dead one. Not wanting
Speaker 1: to risk losing two wives, he gave Mary's corpse to
Speaker 1: the brother of one of his former teachers. She was
Speaker 1: passed down over the years until she was eventually donated
Speaker 1: to the Royal College of Surgeon's Museum, where she was
Speaker 1: once again put on display. Now, if only Butchell's professors
Speaker 1: had taken a bit more care with his late wife's embalming.
Speaker 1: They hadn't done a very thorough job, and Mary's body
Speaker 1: began to slowly deteriorate. What was left of her was
Speaker 1: destroyed in nineteen forty one during a German bombing raid. However,
Speaker 1: Mary van Butchell's story left all those who heard it,
Speaker 1: especially her husband's patients, with one simple question. Why why
Speaker 1: did Martin van Butchell have his wife embalmed and stuck
Speaker 1: in his window? Well, it wasn't just about luring new
Speaker 1: patients into his practice. No, he had another reason. According
Speaker 1: to Butchell himself, there had been a clause in his
Speaker 1: marriage contract that stated he would continue to receive income
Speaker 1: from Mary's family as long as she remained above ground,
Speaker 1: and that's precisely where he kept her. Everyone knows that
Speaker 1: athletes are no stranger to superstition. Wade Boggs famously ate
Speaker 1: a whole chicken before every Yankees game. Michael jor In
Speaker 1: war his unc shorts under his Bulls uniform for all
Speaker 1: of his NBA games. There have been stories of unwashed socks,
Speaker 1: of lucky gloves, and all sorts of rituals that anyone
Speaker 1: outside the locker room might find strange. These sports stars
Speaker 1: believe their traditions were what helped them play their best
Speaker 1: and win. However, superstitions were not limited only to professional sports.
Speaker 1: The world of professional music is home to many bizarre
Speaker 1: customs and superstitions. For example, since the nineteen sixties, several
Speaker 1: famous rockers have joined what's known as the twenty seven Club,
Speaker 1: named for those who died at the age of Jimmy Hendrix,
Speaker 1: Janice Joplin, and Jim Morrison are all members, as is
Speaker 1: Kurt Cobain. Even weirder is the white lighter curse. Legend
Speaker 1: has it that any musician who uses a white lighter
Speaker 1: is doomed to an unpleasant fate. And wouldn't you know it,
Speaker 1: for people who were carrying white lighters when they die,
Speaker 1: i'd were Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain.
Speaker 1: Superstition has struck singers in the Philippines as well. Karaoke
Speaker 1: bars all over that country have pulled Frank Sinatra's My
Speaker 1: Way from their song collections due to the high number
Speaker 1: of deaths of people who have sung the song. But
Speaker 1: perhaps the worst case of superstition affecting a musician can
Speaker 1: be found in the case of Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg.
Speaker 1: Born on September eighteen seventy four, Schoenberg changed the face
Speaker 1: of music through two World wars. He also developed a
Speaker 1: severe case of triske decaphobia, the fear of the number thirteen.
Speaker 1: Schoenberg was known to avoid rooms, floors, and entire buildings
Speaker 1: numbered thirteen. In his compositions, he would number the measures
Speaker 1: between twelve and fourteen as twelve A. He even titled
Speaker 1: his last opera, Moses and Aaron, the latter name spelled
Speaker 1: with one a, much to my chagrin, instead of two,
Speaker 1: because otherwise the title would have had thirteen letters in
Speaker 1: it instead of twelve. And if his age or birthday
Speaker 1: year happened to be a multiple of thirteen, it set
Speaker 1: him on edge like nothing else. Here's an example. As
Speaker 1: his fifty six birthday approached in nineteen thirty nine, Schoenberg
Speaker 1: consulted an astrologer regarding his horoscope for that year, and
Speaker 1: even though nineteen thirty nine was not a multiple of thirteen,
Speaker 1: sixty five, certainly was. The astrologer told him it would
Speaker 1: be a dangerous year, but he would survive. That assurance
Speaker 1: calmed him. However, in all his worry about multiples of thirteen,
Speaker 1: there were other parts of his life that he hadn't considered.
Speaker 1: One such area was in the digits of his age.
Speaker 1: For example, on his seventy sixth birthday in nineteen fifty,
Speaker 1: another astrologer warned him to be careful. Not only was
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty a multiple of thirteen, but when the numbers
Speaker 1: seven and six from his age were added together, they
Speaker 1: totaled you guessed it, thirteen. It seemed as though Schoenberg
Speaker 1: couldn't escape the cursed number no matter where he went.
Speaker 1: On the day of his seventy six birthday, un nervous
Speaker 1: and depressed, Schoenberg decided to spend it in his bed.
Speaker 1: There was no party, no one paid him a visit
Speaker 1: or called to wish him well. At that night, he
Speaker 1: and his wife lay in bed, and she looked at
Speaker 1: the clock and said to herself, another quarter of an
Speaker 1: hour and then the worst is over. Soon after the
Speaker 1: words left her mouth, the phone rang. It was the doctor.
Speaker 1: Her husband made a sound in his throat, and then
Speaker 1: his heart stopped. Arnold Schoenberg's worst fear had come true.
Speaker 1: He died at thirteen minutes to midnight on his seventy
Speaker 1: six birthday in nineteen fifty on Friday, m I hope
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.