1 00:00:04,080 --> 00:00:07,520 Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I 2 00:00:07,640 --> 00:00:14,240 Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full 3 00:00:14,320 --> 00:00:17,960 Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, 4 00:00:18,239 --> 00:00:21,600 Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display, 5 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:27,560 Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet 6 00:00:27,840 --> 00:00:38,560 Speaker 1: of Curiosities. When a vital organ, such as the heart, 7 00:00:38,760 --> 00:00:42,520 Speaker 1: needs to be replaced, doctors utilize a complicated device known 8 00:00:42,560 --> 00:00:47,320 Speaker 1: as a CPB or cardio pulmonary bypass machine. The CPB 9 00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:51,280 Speaker 1: circulates blood and oxygen throughout the body during surgery, essentially 10 00:00:51,320 --> 00:00:54,240 Speaker 1: acting as a temporary replacement for one's heart and lungs, 11 00:00:54,560 --> 00:00:58,240 Speaker 1: hence its other name, the heart lung machine. Although the 12 00:00:58,280 --> 00:01:01,160 Speaker 1: CPB sounds like modern science, something that must have only 13 00:01:01,200 --> 00:01:04,120 Speaker 1: existed for a handful of years, right, in reality, it 14 00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:07,880 Speaker 1: dates back to eighteen eighty five. An Austrian German physiologist 15 00:01:07,920 --> 00:01:11,120 Speaker 1: named Maximilian von Frey built one, although that was only 16 00:01:11,160 --> 00:01:15,200 Speaker 1: a prototype. Then around ninety six, a Russian scientist named 17 00:01:15,200 --> 00:01:18,720 Speaker 1: Sergey Bruconenko took things a few steps further. In May 18 00:01:18,760 --> 00:01:20,800 Speaker 1: of that year, he attended a conference where he showed 19 00:01:20,800 --> 00:01:23,000 Speaker 1: off what he had been working on, he had created 20 00:01:23,040 --> 00:01:26,200 Speaker 1: his own heart lung machine, which he called the auto jector. 21 00:01:26,640 --> 00:01:29,040 Speaker 1: When he hooked up an organ, it would extract the blood, 22 00:01:29,160 --> 00:01:32,479 Speaker 1: warm it in a glass container, oxygenated, and then pump 23 00:01:32,520 --> 00:01:35,119 Speaker 1: it back into the body. Except he didn't do this 24 00:01:35,160 --> 00:01:38,040 Speaker 1: with a heart or a pair of lungs. He used 25 00:01:38,040 --> 00:01:41,840 Speaker 1: a dog's head instead. Brucon Enko was able to keep 26 00:01:41,840 --> 00:01:43,920 Speaker 1: a dog's head alive for over an hour and a 27 00:01:43,959 --> 00:01:46,880 Speaker 1: half before the blood clotted and could no longer be pumped. 28 00:01:47,280 --> 00:01:50,800 Speaker 1: The auto injector was a leap in medical technology and 29 00:01:50,880 --> 00:01:54,400 Speaker 1: became the talk of the medical community. Doctors and scientists 30 00:01:54,440 --> 00:01:57,600 Speaker 1: imagine a world where the human body, limited by organs 31 00:01:57,640 --> 00:02:00,800 Speaker 1: that broke down over time, could probably live forever with 32 00:02:00,840 --> 00:02:04,160 Speaker 1: the help of one of these devices. About ten years later, 33 00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:08,400 Speaker 1: in California, another doctor named Robert E. Cornish conducted similar 34 00:02:08,480 --> 00:02:12,079 Speaker 1: experiments with dogs. Not only did his techniques differ from 35 00:02:12,080 --> 00:02:15,760 Speaker 1: bruco Enko's, but so did his intended results. He didn't 36 00:02:15,760 --> 00:02:18,200 Speaker 1: want to just keep an organ from dying. He wanted 37 00:02:18,240 --> 00:02:22,240 Speaker 1: to reanimate the already dead. Cornish believed that if a 38 00:02:22,240 --> 00:02:25,400 Speaker 1: corpse was strapped to a large teeter totter and moved 39 00:02:25,480 --> 00:02:28,240 Speaker 1: up and down, quickly. The force of the movement would 40 00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:31,560 Speaker 1: circulate the blood inside. Meanwhile, a breathing tub would be 41 00:02:31,600 --> 00:02:35,440 Speaker 1: inserted into the mouth, while a mixture of adrenaline, anticoagulants, 42 00:02:35,440 --> 00:02:38,640 Speaker 1: and other ingredients would chemically shock the body into returning 43 00:02:38,680 --> 00:02:42,200 Speaker 1: to life. And just like his Russian counterparts, he looked 44 00:02:42,200 --> 00:02:45,399 Speaker 1: to the canine family for help. Now, Cornish was known 45 00:02:45,440 --> 00:02:48,320 Speaker 1: for having strange ideas. For example, he once invented a 46 00:02:48,320 --> 00:02:51,560 Speaker 1: pair of reading glasses meant for use underwater. However, he 47 00:02:51,600 --> 00:02:54,400 Speaker 1: didn't believe himself to be a mad scientist. No, he 48 00:02:54,440 --> 00:02:56,880 Speaker 1: felt he was doing the world favor, so he started 49 00:02:56,880 --> 00:03:00,280 Speaker 1: testing his theories on fox terriers that he named last Risk, 50 00:03:00,600 --> 00:03:03,080 Speaker 1: a reference to the gospel story about a man Jesus 51 00:03:03,160 --> 00:03:07,720 Speaker 1: race from the dead. After three unsuccessful attempts, Cornish finally 52 00:03:07,760 --> 00:03:11,960 Speaker 1: started making progress. His fourth test subject, Lazarus the Fourth, 53 00:03:12,320 --> 00:03:15,919 Speaker 1: was resurrected after five minutes and let out a small bark. 54 00:03:16,160 --> 00:03:19,120 Speaker 1: The dog did suffer serious side effects like blindness and 55 00:03:19,160 --> 00:03:22,560 Speaker 1: brain damage, but was functioning normally after about a week. 56 00:03:23,160 --> 00:03:26,160 Speaker 1: Lazarus the Fifth came back to life after thirty minutes dead, 57 00:03:26,440 --> 00:03:29,280 Speaker 1: having been deceased longer than any of his predecessors and 58 00:03:29,360 --> 00:03:33,320 Speaker 1: with fewer problems afterward. Unfortunately, Cornish was only one of 59 00:03:33,360 --> 00:03:37,080 Speaker 1: a few people interested in this research. Honestly, other scientists 60 00:03:37,080 --> 00:03:41,280 Speaker 1: just felt like his experiments were vulgar. But in seven 61 00:03:41,440 --> 00:03:45,280 Speaker 1: Cornish was finally able to apply his Frankenstein like methods 62 00:03:45,320 --> 00:03:48,360 Speaker 1: to something a bit bigger than a terrier, an adult 63 00:03:48,440 --> 00:03:52,440 Speaker 1: human cadaver, or at least that was the plan. Thomas 64 00:03:52,560 --> 00:03:55,640 Speaker 1: mcmonagle had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death, 65 00:03:55,800 --> 00:03:58,800 Speaker 1: and he reached out to Cornish about these experiments. He 66 00:03:58,880 --> 00:04:01,960 Speaker 1: wanted the doctor to revive him after his execution at 67 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:07,040 Speaker 1: sam Quentin Prison. However, the idea was almost immediately shut down. First, 68 00:04:07,120 --> 00:04:10,200 Speaker 1: mcmonagle was to be executed via gas chamber and his 69 00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:12,560 Speaker 1: body could not be recovered until the room was clear 70 00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:15,240 Speaker 1: of toxic gas, which would take an hour or more, 71 00:04:15,600 --> 00:04:18,960 Speaker 1: far too long for the body to remain viable. And Secondly, 72 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:22,159 Speaker 1: the warden fought against the planned tooth and nail. There 73 00:04:22,200 --> 00:04:24,239 Speaker 1: was no way he was going to allow his prisoner 74 00:04:24,440 --> 00:04:28,280 Speaker 1: to be resurrected after death. Cornish's work, as well as 75 00:04:28,320 --> 00:04:31,880 Speaker 1: that of Brukonnenko's, led to further investigation well into the 76 00:04:31,960 --> 00:04:36,919 Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, the Soviet Union performed countless experiments on animals, limbs, 77 00:04:36,960 --> 00:04:39,440 Speaker 1: and organs in an effort to not just cheat death, 78 00:04:39,680 --> 00:04:42,120 Speaker 1: but maybe put death out of business. The U. S 79 00:04:42,160 --> 00:04:45,720 Speaker 1: Military even had its own department dedicated to reviving the dead, 80 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:49,800 Speaker 1: which ran into the late nineteen sixties. Since then, the 81 00:04:49,880 --> 00:04:53,719 Speaker 1: idea has mostly well died out due to the ethical 82 00:04:53,720 --> 00:04:56,359 Speaker 1: dilemma it presents. There may come a day when the 83 00:04:56,360 --> 00:04:59,120 Speaker 1: body can exceed its lifespan through the use of external 84 00:04:59,160 --> 00:05:03,159 Speaker 1: machines or cybernetic enhancements, or even a complete upload of 85 00:05:03,160 --> 00:05:06,640 Speaker 1: our brains to the cloud. The question is will any 86 00:05:06,680 --> 00:05:22,760 Speaker 1: of us live to see it. There isn't much you 87 00:05:22,760 --> 00:05:25,159 Speaker 1: can do when the cards are stacked against you, and 88 00:05:25,200 --> 00:05:27,800 Speaker 1: that was certainly the case for Wilhelm Voight, who was 89 00:05:27,839 --> 00:05:30,400 Speaker 1: born into a poor Mennonite family in the city of 90 00:05:30,520 --> 00:05:33,800 Speaker 1: Tilsit near Berlin. As the son of a cobbler, he 91 00:05:33,880 --> 00:05:37,160 Speaker 1: was destined to follow in his father's shoes. No pun intended, 92 00:05:37,240 --> 00:05:41,520 Speaker 1: I swear. Gainful employment and career advancement didn't exactly exist 93 00:05:41,640 --> 00:05:44,120 Speaker 1: at the turn of the twentieth century, at least not 94 00:05:44,240 --> 00:05:47,080 Speaker 1: for someone like Wilhelm. So he did what any child 95 00:05:47,160 --> 00:05:49,600 Speaker 1: might do in a world where nothing seems within grasp, 96 00:05:50,040 --> 00:05:53,159 Speaker 1: he stole at the age of fourteen, Wilhelm earned his 97 00:05:53,240 --> 00:05:56,599 Speaker 1: first prison sentence, serving two weeks for theft, but the 98 00:05:56,680 --> 00:05:59,800 Speaker 1: crimes didn't end there. In fact, they escalated so much 99 00:05:59,800 --> 00:06:03,039 Speaker 1: so that he was denied residency papers in Prussia, which 100 00:06:03,120 --> 00:06:06,360 Speaker 1: made it impossible to work in the country. With nothing 101 00:06:06,440 --> 00:06:08,920 Speaker 1: left to do, Wilhelm continued on the path he had 102 00:06:08,960 --> 00:06:12,080 Speaker 1: set for himself, this time landing his largest sentence yet, 103 00:06:12,320 --> 00:06:15,679 Speaker 1: fifteen years in prison for fraud. He was promptly kicked 104 00:06:15,680 --> 00:06:18,920 Speaker 1: out of Prussia entirely, and that's when Wilhelm had an 105 00:06:18,960 --> 00:06:21,279 Speaker 1: idea that would change the course of his life, a 106 00:06:21,320 --> 00:06:24,279 Speaker 1: plan that carried with it an ingenuity that had evaded 107 00:06:24,360 --> 00:06:27,000 Speaker 1: him in his younger days of crime. Now a veteran 108 00:06:27,040 --> 00:06:29,679 Speaker 1: of fifty seven years, you might say that he saved 109 00:06:29,720 --> 00:06:33,520 Speaker 1: his best act for last. It started by him sneaking 110 00:06:33,600 --> 00:06:36,520 Speaker 1: back into Berlin, where he wasn't allowed to be. He 111 00:06:36,600 --> 00:06:39,359 Speaker 1: made his way through various second hand clothing shops and 112 00:06:39,400 --> 00:06:43,599 Speaker 1: acquired for himself a full Prussian Army captain's uniform, piece 113 00:06:43,640 --> 00:06:47,560 Speaker 1: by piece. After completing his costume on October sixteenth of 114 00:06:47,640 --> 00:06:50,560 Speaker 1: nineteen oh six, he walked right into the local army 115 00:06:50,600 --> 00:06:53,719 Speaker 1: barracks and ordered a small company of soldiers to come 116 00:06:53,720 --> 00:06:58,160 Speaker 1: with him. Seeing his captain's uniform, they willingly obeyed. As 117 00:06:58,360 --> 00:07:02,200 Speaker 1: Captain Wilhelm White passed firing range, he gathered even more troops, 118 00:07:02,480 --> 00:07:05,080 Speaker 1: and as his entourage grew, you can bet he began 119 00:07:05,120 --> 00:07:08,520 Speaker 1: to feel his grand master plan coming to fruition. With 120 00:07:08,560 --> 00:07:11,720 Speaker 1: his small army in tow, Wilhelm marched them twenty five 121 00:07:11,800 --> 00:07:15,040 Speaker 1: miles to Copennick with a very specific goal in mind. 122 00:07:15,440 --> 00:07:18,480 Speaker 1: He wanted to get a passport, which in turn would 123 00:07:18,520 --> 00:07:22,040 Speaker 1: allow him to get a job. Upon arriving in town, 124 00:07:22,080 --> 00:07:24,320 Speaker 1: he told his men that the mayor and the accountants 125 00:07:24,320 --> 00:07:28,520 Speaker 1: were both guilty of some financial indiscretions against Prussia, a lie, 126 00:07:28,800 --> 00:07:32,040 Speaker 1: but one they all believed. Then Wilhelm split his forces, 127 00:07:32,360 --> 00:07:34,920 Speaker 1: sending half to escort the new prisoners to the guard 128 00:07:34,920 --> 00:07:37,440 Speaker 1: house in Berlin, while the other half were to guard 129 00:07:37,440 --> 00:07:41,000 Speaker 1: the town hall. Unfortunately for Wilhelm, there was no passport 130 00:07:41,040 --> 00:07:43,720 Speaker 1: in the building, so rather than go home empty handed, 131 00:07:43,760 --> 00:07:46,720 Speaker 1: he relieved the town hall of its cash reserves and 132 00:07:46,760 --> 00:07:49,800 Speaker 1: then fled the scene. However, Wilhelm couldn't keep his mouth 133 00:07:49,840 --> 00:07:52,800 Speaker 1: shut about what he'd done. He told numerous friends about 134 00:07:52,800 --> 00:07:55,600 Speaker 1: his little adventure, and ten days later he was arrested 135 00:07:55,600 --> 00:07:58,680 Speaker 1: by a rather irritated Prussian army. He was sentenced to 136 00:07:58,680 --> 00:08:01,000 Speaker 1: four years in prison. Just when it seemed like his 137 00:08:01,040 --> 00:08:05,320 Speaker 1: life was over, fortune struck again, well, laughter struck more 138 00:08:05,400 --> 00:08:08,000 Speaker 1: like it. You see, the story of this little adventure 139 00:08:08,080 --> 00:08:10,480 Speaker 1: made it all the way up to the stern Kaiser, Wilhelm, 140 00:08:10,520 --> 00:08:13,280 Speaker 1: the second Emperor of Prussia, who found the whole story 141 00:08:13,320 --> 00:08:16,840 Speaker 1: so amusing that he granted him a personal pardon. Void's 142 00:08:16,960 --> 00:08:19,720 Speaker 1: name lit up the headlines the next day, the papers 143 00:08:19,760 --> 00:08:23,680 Speaker 1: calling him the man who made the Kaiser laugh. Never 144 00:08:23,720 --> 00:08:27,040 Speaker 1: want to miss an opportunity, Wilhelm began to sell photos 145 00:08:27,040 --> 00:08:30,600 Speaker 1: of himself to his new adoring fans. Six days after 146 00:08:30,680 --> 00:08:34,920 Speaker 1: his relief, Berlin's famous waxwork show unterd and Lynden had 147 00:08:34,960 --> 00:08:37,920 Speaker 1: not one but two Wilhelm voids in their midst, one 148 00:08:38,040 --> 00:08:41,080 Speaker 1: posing with the other. His fame became so widespread that 149 00:08:41,120 --> 00:08:44,199 Speaker 1: even Barnum and Bailey Circus helped out funding his tour 150 00:08:44,280 --> 00:08:48,320 Speaker 1: around Germany, where he reprised his role as captain. In 151 00:08:48,400 --> 00:08:52,160 Speaker 1: the end, Wilhelm even received his Holy Grail a passport, 152 00:08:52,480 --> 00:08:55,319 Speaker 1: although it wasn't from Germany, but rather Luxembourg, where he 153 00:08:55,320 --> 00:08:57,520 Speaker 1: would live out the rest of his days until his 154 00:08:57,600 --> 00:09:00,920 Speaker 1: death in nine two. He even after he was gone, 155 00:09:00,920 --> 00:09:04,400 Speaker 1: though Wilhelm voids, legend and likeness has lived on his 156 00:09:04,440 --> 00:09:06,640 Speaker 1: wax sculpture. It made its way to the famous Madame 157 00:09:06,640 --> 00:09:09,360 Speaker 1: Tussau's in London, and a statue was even built of 158 00:09:09,440 --> 00:09:12,800 Speaker 1: him in Copaeck, proving once again that if you try 159 00:09:12,800 --> 00:09:19,920 Speaker 1: hard enough, even a lie can become the truth. I 160 00:09:19,960 --> 00:09:23,439 Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. 161 00:09:23,800 --> 00:09:26,920 Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about 162 00:09:26,920 --> 00:09:31,480 Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show 163 00:09:31,679 --> 00:09:35,000 Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how 164 00:09:35,040 --> 00:09:38,640 Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, 165 00:09:38,880 --> 00:09:42,480 Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and 166 00:09:42,520 --> 00:09:44,760 Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World 167 00:09:44,800 --> 00:09:49,239 Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.