Distillations

Lessons from the Polio Pioneers in an era of misinformation.

Can scrutinizing the ailments of historical figures really teach us anything?

This episode of The Disappearing Spoon explores how an antarctic scientific expedition turned deadly thanks to an unlikely source: dog liver. 

This episode of The Disappearing Spoon follows blood thinner warfarin’s unlikely journey from moldy clover and cow killer to lifesaving drug.

Learn what two famous neurological traumas—one involving a U.S. president, the other a Supreme Court justice—can teach us about how our own brains perceive reality in this episode of The Disappearing Spoon.

An interview with Sam Kean about his book The Violinist’s Thumb.

How a bloody gun duel between two doctors in Transylvania sparked a frenzy of outrage—and helped create the American Medical Association.

In a building full of dead bodies, how can you tell a murder victim from an unlucky stiff?

What a bizarre psychological disorder can teach us about memory, human nature, and our sense of who we are.

Could a Soviet-era therapy offer a new defense against antibiotic-resistant superbugs?

The life of chimney sweeps was nasty, poor, brutish, filthy dirty, and usually short, thanks to a rare cancer of the genitals.

Vox’s Unexplainable podcast interviews Distillations about how Alzheimer’s research has stubbornly focused on a single theory for decades.

A scientific dispute takes a violent, absurd turn.

How early anatomists provoked some of the strangest riots in history by stealing the dead bodies of the poor.

How an early 20th-century doctor pitted one scourge (malaria) against another (syphilis).

How a weird “scientific” diet fad conquered America in the early 1900s.

Scientists created an effective male birth control pill in the 1950s, but it had one undesirable side effect.

When the global vaccine supply chain depended on children.

A crusading doctor’s stomach-churning efforts to beat back pellagra in the American South.

From Paracelsus to OSHA.

A wildlife painter who ran afoul of xenophobic authorities during World War II found refuge and renewed purpose in the lab.

In the fight against breast cancer, entrenched interests and outmoded ideas may be hurting patients.

Will stigma and cost undermine the therapy’s promise?

Tracing the immense misery wreaked by the mosquito.

The virus that made America talk about abortion.

In the late 1960s an international contingent of psychiatrists took up a monumental task: making schizophrenia mean the same thing to doctors around the world.

Thirty years of research have failed to solve the Alzheimer’s riddle. Is the problem a blind embrace of scientific dogma?

Gene editing promises to revolutionize medicine. But how safe is safe enough for the patients testing these therapies?

When the United States and Mexico resolved their beef.

This fermentation vessel comes from a short period in penicillin’s history. We had figured out that penicillin could kill bacteria, but we didn’t know how much medicine people needed or how to mass-produce it. The vessel’s car-muffler shape proved ideal for growing the mold from which penicillin is extracted.

Many of us think pumping is a new part of motherhood, but some fascinating 19th- and 20th-century objects from our collections show the practice has been around (in some form) for a long time.

One woman’s quest to end her pain. 

Part 3: Searching for Meaning in Kensington.

Part 2: Synanon and the Tunnel Back to the Human Race.

Part 1: The Narcotic Farm and the Promise of Salvation.

The strange, sometimes sickening things we’ve done to understand what goes on inside our guts.

The latest painkiller revival has left a trail of bodies, with no end in sight.

City dwellers of the 19th century were dogged by a foul terror: miasma.

Fermentation is the key to many of the lifesaving drugs we have today.

This episode highlights a bottle of mid-20th century vitamins that are actually caffeine pills in disguise.

Warfarin, a drug that started life as a rat poison, is one of the most important treatments for heart disease and stroke. But for all its success the anticoagulant remains as dangerous as its origin suggests.

Do cats mess with your brain?

Candy stores in the 19th century sold sweets as deadly as they were delicious.

A globe-hopping doctor and a weird amphibian produce a fast, inexpensive pregnancy test.

Using 21st-century medicine to maintain a 300-year-old way of life.

In a time of warring empires and transoceanic voyages, sailors dreaded scurvy more than any other disease.

John Harvey Kellogg’s Battle Creek Sanitarium was at the intersection of new ideas of religion, health, and nutrition.

For more than a century ozone therapy has been a source of false hope for the sick and ill-gotten gains for the crooked.

The unnatural history of a carbonated drink.

An early dietitian set out to prove that vegetarian cooking was good for the body. Others who followed tried to show it could be tasty and even good for the soul.

When does self-experimentation cross the line?

A molecule used in antifreeze may one day heal damaged spinal cords. 

A simple invention that saved lives and led to the discovery of a hidden form of life.

Once upon a time all births were natural. A lot has happened since then.

The story of Louis Pasteur and the development of the rabies vaccine.

Dive into the world of nixtamalization and discover the ancient chemical practices behind your taco.

In the 1920s author Paul de Kruif turned science into an adventure story.

How one man’s youthful rebellion may unlock a cure for cancer.

Using chemistry to put a lid on unsavory practices.

Blood is powerful, but it can also be dangerous.

Sophisticated drugs have enabled those with HIV to live long lives—as long as they take their medication.

Anthropologist Jason Pine offers an up-close view of methamphetamine culture in small-town America.

Relics from a lab hint at centuries spent trying to solve diabetes.

Health fads come and health fads go, though few were as downright odd as the 1920s’ and 1930s’ craze for yeast cakes.

For much of the 20th century the instrument of many murders, suicides, and accidental deaths could be bought at the local drugstore.

What do ancient Egyptian mummies, early modern medicines, a 19th-century philosopher, and a 21st-century chemist have in common?

Through war and peace doctors struggle to prevent disease. The Civil War was no exception, except in the case of one doctor who did his best to spread sickness.

Can a tool that helped create atomic weapons become a tool for healing?

Mix a 19th-century chemist with a road builder in South America. Add cows and boil.

No, not that kind of pen—this is the kind of pen that saves lives. Discover the history of the EpiPen.

During the American Civil War the North and South developed different strategies to treat malaria.

Chlorpromazine, once celebrated as the “chemical lobotomy,” shifted medicine’s approach to mental illness.

Neither medicine nor food, the vitamin pill was born in the early 20th century and came of age during World War II. Now, vitamins are here to stay—and so is the controversy that swirls around them.

Amphetamine didn’t cure anything, but it did make you feel better. Chemist Gordon Alles faced this paradox after patenting his discovery in 1932.

The controversy around animal magnetism.

Thomas R. Tritton reviews Carl Zimmer’s A Planet of Viruses.

John Hickman reviews Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.

The impact of the Civil War can still be seen politically, socially, and economically, but its influence on medicine is often obscured.

A 19th-century chemist was the first to raise the alarm about adulterated food.

Thin became “in” during the 1920s, and the calorie became a vital tool in the battle to lose weight. Yet before becoming a fashion necessity, the calorie had a decidedly less glamorous role in agriculture, laboratories, and factories.

In the 1970s The Dow Chemical Company undertook a massive campaign to raise awareness about the importance of safety both within and outside of the workplace.

In the 19th century chemical oblivion replaced liquor, opiates, and bleeding as the numbing agent of choice in the surgeon’s toolkit.

Insulin was first used to treat diabetes in the 1920s. Since then doctors have used a multitude of tests to screen for the disease.

Absinthe, an alcoholic drink introduced to France in the 1840s, developed a decadent though violent reputation. To some the drink symbolized creativity and liberation, and to others, madness and despair. One thing was certain: more than science was behind European responses to its influence.

In 1856 William Palmer, or Palmer the Poisoner, was tried and convicted in Victorian England’s trial of the century. The case also introduced forensic chemistry as a means of conviction.

At the turn of the 20th century diphtheria was a feared childhood illness, until a new treatment method came to the rescue.

In the late 19th century cod-liver oil was proclaimed the cure for many ailments. One problem: the oil’s foul taste.

David Caruso reviews Leo B. Slater’s War and Disease: Biomedical Research on Malaria in the 20th Century.

Meet sodium chloride, the latest nutritional villain. But are the alternatives scarier than the substance it’s replacing? A brief history about a “terrifying” food.

David Healy reviews Nicholas Rasmussen’s book On Speed: The Many Lives of Amphetamine.

From antiquity to the present, lead has taken on many roles—from artificial sweetener, to paint ingredient, to modern health scourge. 

Aspirin has had a long history as a pain reliever. But only in the 1970s did scientists begin to uncover its chemical secrets.

The history of pasteurization and the controversy surrounding it demonstrate the complexity of milk as a chemical substance and as the subject of polemics on pathology, modern farming, and health and nutrition.

Scott Podolsky reviews Robert Bud’s Penicillin: Triumph and Tragedy.

For decades a culinary foe of conscientious consumers, MSG continues to thrive in its 100th year of existence.

In the 18th century Joseph Priestley and others developed processes for manufacturing artificially carbonated mineral water, uniting the therapeutic powers of an ancient natural restorative with the emerging science of modern chemistry.

Arthur Daemmrich reviews Jeremy Greene’s Prescribing by Numbers: Drugs and the Definition of Disease.

From antibiotics to chemotherapy, modern pharmaceuticals transformed the experience of illness in the 20th century.