WEBVTT - Bedside Manners 1: Body of Knowledge 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:07.880 The scribe sat down to do his work. It was 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:10.320 just like any other day. He was in the business 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:13.560 of copying and pasting millennia before we had computers to 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:16.200 do the job for us. Bent over the page, he 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:20.600 carefully scratched out over four hundred lines of hieroglyphs. This 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:24.160 was a really important project. The document he was copying 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:27.560 was already over a thousand years old, and its preservation 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:30.920 was important. But although he was a master of his craft, 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:33.360 he was a bit out of his depth with what 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:36.880 he was transcribing. The source document talked about the human 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:39.760 body from the top down and from the inside out, 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:43.519 and this scribe was encountering glyphs he had never seen before. 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:46.320 He scratched out his errors and made notes in the 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:51.519 margins his writing implement, clumsily, making strokes for characters unfamiliar 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:54.720 to him. In fact, according to later scholars, he created 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:58.600 the earliest known asterisks in the history of bookmaking. But 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:02.520 what did make it onto his page was really marvelous stuff. 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:06.600 A collection of anatomical case studies and a treatise detailing 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:10.959 scientific procedures for dealing with various injuries. And then, in 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:14.320 the middle of his project, somewhere between the thorax and 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:19.120 the spinal column he quit. No one knew why, not James, 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.600 Henry Breasted, or any of the Egyptologists who came before him. 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:25.440 It had landed on his desk in nineteen twenty, already 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:29.520 estimated to be thirty years old. But James saw something 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:34.160 important and alarming when the scribe started writing again. He 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:40.040 started copying something completely different. Magical incantations to fight pestilence, 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:43.920 spells to manage women's health concerns, and tricks to make 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:48.200 old men young again. James and his fellow Egyptologists didn't 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:51.160 know for sure, but they suspected that this ancient scribe 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:53.760 was unaware of the importance of the work he had 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:56.680 left unfinished, and James would go on to spend years 0:01:56.720 --> 0:02:00.840 pouring over it. It proved to be a singular, remarkable artifact, 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:04.760 the earliest known evidence of human dissection as a practice, 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:09.720 a blueprint for ancient scientific surgery. Experts believe that the 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:13.400 original document copied by the scribe was known as the 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:17.079 Secret Book of the Physician and had originally circulated more 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:20.960 than five thousand years ago. This document was important because 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:24.399 it gave evidence of a stark departure from folk medicine 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:29.920 and magic, replacing it with rational scientific observation. It represented 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.720 a remarkable moment in time when people were finally pulling 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:36.760 the body apart and going inside of it to seek 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:40.920 out answers to its deepest mysteries. Sadly, James and his 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.880 contemporaries never found the source document, and because of that 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:47.920 we might never know how the original book ended. What 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:51.600 did the ancient Egyptians know about our inner workings? And 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.200 how long ago did they know it? How much was 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:57.520 lost only to need to be rediscovered again in a 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:01.359 different time, in a different place. For the moment, it 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:04.760 seems like it's lost to history, but the quest continues, 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:10.160 and as a story it illustrates a powerful idea. Even today, 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:14.400 we're still hard at work adding to our body of knowledge. 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:27.560 I'm Aaron Manky, and welcome to bedside Manners. Corpses have 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:31.480 been a hot commodity for centuries. Over two thousand years ago, 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:34.600 physicians in Greece were busy doing human dissections on the 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:38.760 unknowing dead and surgery on the unlucky living. They wanted 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:41.640 to know what made a person tick, But, as it 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:45.040 so often happens, moral taboos around the body won the 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.560 day and practices changed around one fifty b C. The 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:52.280 Romans had banned human dissection, so physicians were forced to 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:55.120 take a bit more of the offhand approach, if you will. 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:58.160 They began working on animal corpses, which were a poor 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:01.760 substitute for now of the reasons. And with this turn, 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:06.400 the parade of scientific progress around understanding our cavities ground 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:10.400 to a halt. But hungry minds never stopped seeking, They 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.800 just started to look elsewhere. Around one sixty two, A. D. 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:17.560 Claudius Galen came to Rome as a physician. He was rich, 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:22.040 well traveled, and educated, having dabbled in many schools of medicine. 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:25.600 He was also arrogant and popular, serving as a physician 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:30.000 to gladiators and emperors alike. But Galen's lasting legacy would 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:34.160 change the course of medicine for centuries. His impact came 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:36.400 in the form of a theory, one which had been 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:39.760 handed down by the ancient physician Hippocrates. It had to 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:43.080 do with how precise balance of certain bodily fluids could 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:45.919 make or break a person's health, and because he was 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:49.760 both prolific in his writings and a fanatical self promoter, 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:53.440 his ideas stuck around for a very long time the 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.719 Renaissance changed that. Though it was an explosive time of 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:01.640 profound cultural change, a veritable feast of scientific inquiry and art, 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:04.560 it was the perfect moment to interrogate the past and 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:08.440 to find new ways forward. At the time, European medical 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:11.560 schools were in the bad habit of not asking hard 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:15.880 hitting questions. They simply passed down the truths of the ancients. 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:19.680 The Catholic Church, meanwhile, had been practicing dissections throughout the 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:23.159 Middle Ages, well before the return of secular practice. During 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.039 the Renaissance. The clergy was in the habit of slicing 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:29.360 open their own in the search for physical proof of holiness, 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:34.119 and these sanctioned examinations did yield earthly gains. More folks 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:37.120 began to think about what dissection could offer outside the 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.159 walls of the church. By the mid fifteen hundreds, though 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:44.559 emboldened anatomists and training had taken notes Galen had never 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:47.680 opened a body, how could he possibly know what went 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:50.800 on inside there. They were out to shake the foundations 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:55.200 of their own profession. Flemish anatomist Andreas Vassilias wanted to 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:59.360 bring this practice back to the broader public. In fifty three, 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:03.320 he public the first ever systematic map of human anatomy. 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:07.720 His contemporaries soon followed, suits in droves and European operating 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:11.800 theaters opened for audiences. It was entertainment, but probably not 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:14.000 the sort of show that you'd want to see after dinner. 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:17.640 With the founding of London's Royal Company of Barber Surgeons 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:20.640 around the same time, the city attempted to establish two 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:25.560 distinct professional classes, those engaged in high level anatomical work 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:29.440 and those considered to be haircutters and bleeders. But although 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:32.640 there were anatomical theaters in London, there were no dedicated 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:35.800 schools to attend. This was due to the very strict 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.440 laws around what one could do with the dead, which 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:42.240 was well not a lot throughout the UK. There were 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:44.920 a lot of restrictions that kept teachers and students from 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:48.360 accessing bodies. One of the most effective was the Company 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:52.120 of Barber Surgeons monopoly on the few corpses of executed 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:56.239 criminals that were legally donated each year. In places like Paris, 0:06:56.600 --> 0:07:00.240 laws were more relaxed, so anatomical schools could access pps 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:02.960 Is for students to dissect. If London was going to 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:06.039 be a competitive place to train, there was an educational 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:09.160 void that needed to be filled. But you know what 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:12.280 they say, where there's a will, there's a way, along 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:14.680 with a bit of ingenuity to go with it. And 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:17.280 if you give an enterprising mind a scalpel, they're going 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:21.320 to want their own dissecting room to enter. William Hunter 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:25.280 William was a Scotsman who came to London around seventeen 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:28.840 forty two specialize in obstetrics, but what he found instead 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:30.880 was barely better than what he had had at home. 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:33.920 After some time, he decided to go his own way, 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:38.360 providing pupils with his own courses in dissecting, operative procedures 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:43.280 and bandaging. In the once opulent and now ceed Covent 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:47.360 Gardens neighborhood of London, William rented a flat right there 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:50.480 among the brothels and tenements. Williams set up a shop, 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.880 not a bachelor pad, mind you, but one for corpses 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:57.120 and those who sought to learn from them. In seventeen 0:07:57.200 --> 0:08:00.320 forty five, though something changed. There was a split within 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.400 the company of barber surgeons, with the barber's and the 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:06.720 surgeons each going their separate ways, and because of this, 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:09.960 the surgeons were obliged to relax their rules around how 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:14.040 human dissection occurred in London and who got to partake. 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:18.520 Within a year, William was advertising his lectures, offering the 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:22.920 community and I quote the opportunity of gentlemen learning the 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.360 art of dissection during the whole winter session in the 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:30.160 same manner as at Paris, and by all accounts, William's 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:33.520 school was an overnight sensation. In time, he would even 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:36.400 go on to expand his small solo operation into a 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:40.200 family business by inviting his brother John to join his ranks. 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:44.280 Both men were incredibly hard workers and together the brothers 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:47.320 would change the world. They would open up a bold 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:56.480 new landscape in the field of anatomical study. They couldn't 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:59.439 have been more different. While William had a knack for 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.600 drawing crowds, his brother John shrank from the attention. William 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:07.240 was refined and John was rough. William was smooth and 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:11.600 John was abrasive. But John was also fresh faced and bright. 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:14.840 Arriving from their Scottish home with an insatiable mind and 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.400 boundless gusto, he took the shadowing William in both the 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:22.000 classroom and the operating theater. He took classes alongside the 0:09:22.040 --> 0:09:26.480 other young minds and even acted as his older brother's assistant. Together, 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:29.320 they worked to make William's vision of his anatomy school 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:32.800 come to life. John, for his part, settled in happily 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:35.960 at twenty. He was finding his way and doing so 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:39.800 with beguiling confidence. He soon became a man about town, 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.640 frequenting the bars and theaters and coffee shops in the 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:47.480 colorful Covent Gardens area, and he developed relationships of all kinds, 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:49.960 some that would later come to help him with his work. 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.679 You see, William had given John a special task. It 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:55.760 was far from pretty, but to him it was a 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.959 privileged position. He would be in charge of finding fresh 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:02.640 specimens for their students. But of course, every job requires 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:05.240 having the right tools. After all, how could an artist 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:09.040 learn to paint without a canvas, or a potter without clay. 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:12.840 That same logic had always applied to anatomy. John was 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:16.320 a visionary, though, who dreamed of reforming medicine, and he 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.400 saw the study of anatomy as key to this. Theories 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:22.000 and concepts are one thing, but it was better to 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.000 learn from the dead than to make potentially fatal mistakes 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:27.760 with the living. In death, these bodies could give up 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:31.000 their secrets. The dead had a lot to teach, after all, 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.560 and John didn't want any opportunities to pass them by. 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:37.720 He was methodical in his work, and his acute attention 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:40.720 to detail set him apart from his peers. John was 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:44.839 working in a dynamic landscape on this internal world that 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:47.520 felt no different than trying to discover the secrets of 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:50.840 the stars. In fact, it was probably far more exciting 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:54.920 back then. Just how methodical was he well, He smelled 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:59.040 his specimens, even tasted them. He explored the body's dark 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:03.840 cavities like a passionate spelunker, documenting everything and reporting back 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:07.600 with his findings. John's approach might have been atypical, but 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:11.280 the data gathered as a result would prove to be unmatched. 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:15.199 It was during this time that William facilitated John's employment 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:19.199 at St. George's Hospital. There, he became a junior surgeon, 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:22.199 and along with his new title, he received something else, 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:25.400 keys to the hospital Morgue, where he was now able 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:30.360 to borrow and practice on new material. For twelve years, 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:34.720 the brothers worked tirelessly side by side. In time, John 0:11:34.800 --> 0:11:39.800 Starr would even usurp Williams. His affability and dexterity won 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:42.960 him many fans and followers. By the time he decided 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:45.280 to strike out on his own, John had become one 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:48.720 of the most experienced anatomists in all of Europe. He 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:50.720 was met with a snag though, even though he had 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:54.240 proven his skill, he lacked a professional degree in surgery 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:56.480 that would allow him to land a permanent job in 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:59.880 a hospital setting. Because of this, he took a detour 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:03.160 and headed to the battlefront, where he became an army surgeon. 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:06.120 Upon his return, he decided that he would set up 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:09.160 shop and in his own home. No less, his wife 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:11.680 and their four children opened their doors to the most 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:15.400 unfortunate cases. In doing so, John made a name for himself, 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:19.160 becoming a full fledged appointed surgeon at St. George's Hospital. 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.040 Within a few years he had even become the personal 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:24.960 surgeon of King George the Third. And it was right 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:28.480 there in his home office that John did his best work. 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:32.119 He was surrounded by a morbid menagerie of over fourteen 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:37.120 thousand specimens preserved as taxidermy and floating in jars. There 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:40.040 was a kangaroo skull and the remains of the first 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:42.720 giraffe to be exhibited in Europe, as well as a 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:46.760 bull from Queen Charlotte. In five, when he was ready 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.640 to expand his operations, he moved to a new house 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:53.560 at Lester Square. There he hosted distinguished guests and curious 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:57.080 students alike. The faint smell of death hung in the air, 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:00.520 ascent that couldn't be undone, despite the flower that John 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:03.000 kept in the big house To mask it. He had 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:06.880 created a teaching museum with a front entrance for visitors, 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:10.600 and as the whispers went a back door for the bodies. 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:14.560 In the still early morning hours, the resurrection men would 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:18.760 come knocking. They were a semi bunch, largely independent contractors 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:22.400 who operated in an underground black market operation to pilfer 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:25.839 the newly dead from the graveyards. John saw his work 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.120 as a force for good, but that didn't mean that 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:31.400 everyone wanted to end up on his operating table, especially 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:35.480 if they hadn't volunteered to do so. His work was necessary, yes, 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:39.080 but some might also argue that it was dishonorable. He 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:42.280 was just really good at using the ends to justify 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:45.360 his means. But as he and his family settled into 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:49.079 their new home, there would be one particularly controversial specimen 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:52.400 that John had his designs on procuring, one that would 0:13:52.400 --> 0:14:01.080 cast a dark shadow over his reputation for years to come. Ye. 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:05.640 Standing at eight ft two inches tall, Charles Byrne was 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:08.400 the tallest man in the world. His stature gave him 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:11.719 the markings of a celebrity, and his refined trimmings made 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:14.800 him a sight to behold. Charles's name splashed big and 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:17.680 bold in the headlines across Europe. He was gentle and 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:20.440 elegant and had come to town to entertain anyone who 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.160 would pay for the privilege. When he arrived in London 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:26.280 in seventeen eighty two, the twenty one year old Irish 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:29.600 Giants caused quite a stir. There was great curiosity about 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:32.440 Charles's height, and he was even presented before the Royal 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:36.400 Society in a game of good natured speculation. One story 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:38.680 that was told was a legend about his mother. It 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:41.040 was said that she had a love affair high up 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:44.320 in a haystack, pointing to the altitude as the cause 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:48.040 of his great stature. Maternal impression was a convenient and 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:51.280 common tool to blame the mother for the child's differences, 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:53.840 and for better or worse, it also made for a 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:57.600 great story. He was well known across the Irish countryside. 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:00.600 Some folks saw the potential dollar signs in the attention 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:02.320 that he received, and by the time he was a 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.400 late teenager, Charles had alighted off on a European tour 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:08.080 as a traveling showman. As he made his way through 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:11.400 towns and cities, folks gawkeed at Charles, whether or not 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:13.680 he was on stage. It was said that the Irish 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:16.560 giant could light his pipe from the street lamps without 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:20.200 so much as standing on his tiptoes. He entertained audiences 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:23.520 all across London, to including an engagement with the King 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:27.080 and Queen. He toured rooms and halls and taverns, the 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:29.080 ladder of which would prove to be the beginning of 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:31.640 his downfall. You see, it was at a public house 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:35.280 one evening when Charles was pickpocketed, his entire fortune vanishing 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:39.440 in an instant. When he realized this, Charles was inconsolable. 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:42.800 His drinking had increased in recent times, and this loss 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:45.480 made him seek the bottom of the bottle more than ever. 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:48.480 But although his body was still growing taller, was also 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:52.400 growing weaker. He contracted about of tuberculosis, and by May 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:55.280 of seventeen eighty three it was clear that death was 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:59.480 coming for the Irish Giants. Not all were saddened by this, though, 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:02.800 We're spurs were circulating in the anatomous circles, with each 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:06.280 person eager to get their hands on Charles's body. Charles, 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:09.400 of course knew this, and he was very, very afraid. 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.240 In fact, there was one surgeon in particular who was 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:14.840 the most eager of them all, the one and only 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:19.120 John Hunter. Now, according to legend, Charles had already been 0:16:19.160 --> 0:16:21.600 approached by John, who offered to give him money now 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:24.720 while he was still alive, in exchange for his corpse later. 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:28.560 Charles was utterly horrified. Of course, he, like many others, 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:31.800 considered human dissection to be its own kind of indignity, 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:35.800 better saved for criminals. Charles was also a god fearing man, 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:38.520 and he believed that he'd be denied a heavenly reception 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.760 on Judgment Day if his physical body was in pieces. 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:44.440 In the aftermath of his encounter with John Hunter, he 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:47.560 made his friends promise that when he did die, his 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:50.280 body would be weighed down in the led coffin and 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:53.600 thrown out to sea. But John Hunter was not to 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:56.600 be defeated. In fact, he hired a spy and installed 0:16:56.680 --> 0:16:59.840 him in an apartment close to Charles's quarters. This agent 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:02.880 was instructed to keep John up to date on Charles's 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:07.119 worsening condition and inform him of any dramatic changes. The 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:11.320 Irish Giant passed away on June one, three, and the 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:16.080 newspaper immediately reported it. A mass of hungry anatomists descended 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:19.960 on Charles's residence like vultures, each one clamoring for his body. 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:23.400 They offered ransoms and bribes to the undertakers, and went 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:25.719 so far as to buy their own diving bells, with 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:29.000 which they intended to raise the giant's leadline coffin from 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:31.760 its watery depths. But before he was shipped out to 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:35.400 see he was put on display intact one final time. 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.360 But little did they know that John Hunter was already 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:41.560 many steps ahead. It's been reported that John hired a 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:44.800 crooked undertaker to switch out Charles's body for his exact 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:48.879 weight and paving stones. The undertaker knew Charles's friends, and 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:50.840 it seems that he had encouraged them to make a 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.200 pit stop at a tavern as they ventured to their 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:56.080 own waiting ship. They left the body of their deceased 0:17:56.080 --> 0:17:59.119 companion outside in a barn where the undertaker and his 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:02.600 henchmen made this which and dashed away on paper. The 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.199 body of Charles Byrne was worth the modern equivalent of 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:08.600 about fifty dollars to John Hunter, but when he finally 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:11.600 took possession of this corpse, he panicked. In fact, it 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:14.879 appears that he never even dissected him. It's believed that 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:17.679 he was so afraid of reprisal from John's friends that 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:21.200 he quickly dismembered and boiled it, gathered the bones, and 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:24.399 then reassembled the skeleton. It would be four years before 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:27.360 he ultimately revealed his secret to the public, hoping that 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.159 that was enough time to have passed, that interest had waned, 0:18:30.480 --> 0:18:34.879 making the public outcry much less severe, and maybe it worked. 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:39.160 John Hunter's transgression, at least to some degree, had been forgotten, 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:42.080 along with the last wishes of Charles Byrne. Of course, 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:46.120 today his skeleton is still on display, having never made 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:54.560 it to his final resting place. It's easy to believe 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:58.000 the exploitation of Charles Byrne was all in vain, and 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:00.840 in a way it was John got what he wanted, 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:04.320 Charles's body and the opportunity to learn what made that 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:07.159 body so different what it was that caused him to 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:09.840 never stop growing? And if there was anyone who was 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:12.520 going to be capable of cracking this mysterious coat, it 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:15.640 would have been John Hunter. After all, his work had 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:19.120 led to an explosion in knowledge about the body, everything 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:23.679 from bone growth, inflammation, and venereal diseases to the lymphatic system, 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:27.320 child development, and dentistry. If Charles's body had to fall 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:30.520 into the clutches of someone's hands, John's were at least 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:33.920 very capable. But nerves got the better of him. John 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:37.560 squandered the opportunity to advance medical science. However ill gotten 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:40.240 the gains may have been. It would be another century 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:43.280 before a defect in the pituitary gland would be pinpointed 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:46.680 as the cause for gigantism. John didn't slow down, though, 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.520 he worked hard and continued to have a career after 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:53.480 this unseemly chapter. He advanced through the ranks, eventually becoming 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:57.359 the Surgeon General in sev He died three years later 0:19:57.480 --> 0:19:59.720 of a heart attack, and in keeping with his own 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:04.520 pro actuses, John Hunter donated his body for autopsy. Almost 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:08.040 two centuries later, in nineteen seventy two, twenty year old 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:11.040 Brendan Holland traveled from his home in Ireland to St 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:14.920 Bartholomew's Hospital in London. He was almost seven feet tall 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:19.280 and still growing. After having his pituitary gland radiated, that 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:22.960 growth stopped. In two thousand nine, a leading experts on 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:26.919 growth hormone conditions came upon something really interesting. She had 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:30.359 been working with Charles Burns and Brendan Holland's DNA and 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:33.840 was able to identify a rogue gene mutation. Come to 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:36.520 find out, it's thought that both men shared a common 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:40.560 ancestor as far back as fifteen hundred years ago. Distant 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:46.040 cousins spread across centuries and united by microscopic programming that 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:56.720 shaped the stories of their lives. Our long and winding 0:20:56.800 --> 0:20:59.119 history with the human body has given us plenty to 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:01.879 think about all these years later. From the battle to 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:05.480 make dissection acceptable to the ethical struggles around how to 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:08.639 use it, we've done our best to navigate quite the 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:12.040 bumpy road, and that challenge has never gone away. In fact, 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:14.200 we have one more story to share with you about 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:17.639 that ever evolving field. Stick around through this brief sponsor 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:26.800 break to hear all about it. Right. Dr William M. 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.639 Bass was no stranger to the dead. As a forensic anthropologist, 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:33.639 he was a combination of an archaeologist and a detective 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:37.280 who specialized in reading bones. So when Dr Bass was 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:39.720 called to do some sleuthing on some remains found in 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:42.919 a shallow grave, he was prepared to perhaps find a 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:46.600 freshly laid murder victim. But this, as it would turn out, 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:50.600 but proved to be no ordinary case. The grave had 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:52.960 been dug a few feet down and in it was 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:56.399 a headless body atop a coffin. Dr Bass knew that 0:21:56.480 --> 0:21:59.840 this particular coffin belonged to a Confederate soldier by the 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:03.280 name of Colonel William Shy. But as to how this 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:07.159 second person got here, well, that's what Dr Bass needed 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:10.120 to solve. He saw that the headless body still had 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:13.600 pink skin, and it had really no signs of extensive decomposition. 0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:16.080 So the corpse was removed and sent to his lab 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:20.720 for further investigation, but Doctor Bass stayed behind. He continued 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:22.920 to poke around the scene and saw that the colonel's 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:25.320 coffin had a foot wide hole in it, and upon 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:28.520 looking into his box, Doctor Bass found exactly what he 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:31.920 was expecting. Nothing. He knew that after more than a 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:35.280 hundred years in the muggy Tennessee heat, a body would 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:39.280 have disintegrated completely. Doctor Bass presumed that the hole in 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:42.520 the coffin had been made by a murderer who figured, well, 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:44.479 they might as well take a look around while they 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:47.359 were burying their victim. But back at the lab, the 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:50.879 mystery was deepening. The lab had deduced that the body 0:22:50.920 --> 0:22:53.119 belonged to a white man in his mid twenties, and 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:55.159 he appeared to have been dead for a little bit 0:22:55.240 --> 0:22:58.000 less than a year. But his suit was somewhat tattered 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.119 and it had some very odd detail and lacing. This 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:04.960 gave Dr Bass an idea, so he went back to 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:08.359 the colonel's grave. Further inspection helped him locate a skull 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:11.160 at the bottom of the coffin, one with a very 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:14.760 obvious bullet hole, and one that very much seemed to 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:17.960 match the recovered body. And that's when the true story 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:21.560 snapped into place. It seems that, despite all odds, Colonel 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:25.800 William Shy was this headless mystery man. But the question remained. 0:23:26.320 --> 0:23:30.000 How the investigators determined that Colonel Shy, being from a 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:33.119 wealthy family, had been embombed, and when he was sealed 0:23:33.119 --> 0:23:36.680