Curio Cabinet

Henry David Thoreau: transcendentalist philosopher, writer, and rugged individualist. Well, maybe not that last one, but he never claimed to be. Walden; or, Life in the Woods was published on this day in 1854, and the tale of Thoreau’s time spent in a woodland cabin still resonates with readers today. Yet as popular as the book is, a mischaracterization of Thoreau seems to have stuck around: namely, the idea that he was a hermit roughing it out in the wilderness on his own. The fact is, Thoreau wasn’t really a loner, and that he didn’t even try to hide it. Walden Pond wasn’t geographically isolated, being located near Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau even mentions that he made regular trips into town on foot. The property was owned by his mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, and when Thoreau finally left Walden Pond after just two years, it was at Emerson’s invitation to stay with his family while he went to Europe.
 
While at Walden, Thoreau wrote about how his mother brought him food and helped with his laundry, and how he would often entertain visitors at his cabin. So why does the myth of Thoreau as a loner persist? It’s hard to say. It could be that the title of the book gave people the impression that the author was deep in a forest, cut off from civilization. Alternatively, it could be that philosophers like Thoreau are portrayed as misunderstood geniuses rejected by society. While that’s a romantic notion, the truth is that Thoreau was always very well-integrated with society at large. We’ve written before about how he ran his family’s pencil-manufacturing business, taking it over entirely after his father’s death. And while he never married or had any children, he had many friends who held him in high esteem, leading his funeral to be a crowded affair. Thoreau’s most controversial ideas actually revolved around his condemnation of slavery, but abolitionists were growing in number in the 1800s, and being in the North, he was by no means alone in his beliefs. Ultimately, Thoreau’s mythologized portrayal might have more to do with what his readers wanted him to be, rather than what he was. Or maybe a lot of college students never got around to doing the assigned reading, and wrote their essays based purely on Walden’s title.

 
[Image description: Henry David Thoreau] Credit & copyright:
B. D. Maxham, National Portrait Gallery, Wikimedia Commons, Image cropped for size, Public Domain

You might need a COVID booster shot soon, but at least no one is trying to convince you to eat human flesh to maintain your health. In Medieval and Renaissance Europe, you likely wouldn’t have been so lucky. For centuries, the mummified remains of ancient Egyptians and other cadavers were a preferred cure-all. People with aches and pains could venture to the apothecary for some ground up skull. For frequent headaches, physicians would sometimes prescribe a course of mumia, a medicine made from ground up mummies. But some ailments were thought to require something a little fresher. If a patient were suspected of having a blood disease weakening their body, they might be given fresh human blood, sometimes straight from the donor.
 
One would think that eating human flesh would be taboo in Europe, so how did consuming mummies catch on? Medicinal cannibalism was popular throughout Europe largely due to the belief that “like cures like.” If something was wrong with a person’s body, Europeans believed that the vital essence of another body could cure it. The practice goes as far back as the time of ancient Rome, when it was believed that the blood of a slain gladiator contained his essence, and could heal or revitalize those who consumed it. There were skeptics, of course, but the practice was popular enough and mummies in high enough demand that entire industries were formed to create mummy forgeries. These fake mummies were usually made from the bodies of executed convicts, while the executions themselves were a reliable source of fresh blood for those who lacked money to purchase medicine. In fact, the last case of a witness attempting to gather blood from a recent execution occurred in Germany in 1908. Medicinal cannibalism largely fell out of fashion around the 18th century, but the use of human remains lingered in the fringes of medicine and beyond for a while after. We’ll just stick to ibuprofen, thanks!

 
[Image description: A brown ovular box with the inscription "MUMIÆ" and inventory number 218. From the pharmacists collection of Museums für Hamburgische Geschichte in Germany. ] Credit & copyright: Christoph Braun, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

This summer, don’t hit the rapids without your jacket! For such a simple device, the life jacket or personal floatation device (PFD) has an impressive record of saving lives. Yet, when one tries to pinpoint an exact inventor, patent, or even invention-date for life jackets, the waters get a bit murky. That’s partly because humans have been using floatation devices for as long as we’ve relied on water—in other words, since before recorded history. The first PFD’s weren’t jackets, but rather inflated animal skins or bladders that fishermen held onto while wading in streams, lakes, or the ocean. Such devices were used by many cultures all over the world. In coastal European countries like Norway, fishermen would sometimes tie blocks of buoyant wood or cork to their arms while working.
 
The beginnings of the modern life jacket date back to the early 19th century. In 1802, Abraham Bosquet, of the British Royal Navy, wrote a letter to his superiors suggesting that ships be outfitted with canvas jackets filled with cork shavings. A life jacket made from cork was even made available for sale to the general public in 1804, in the popular British periodical The Sporting Magazine. A company called Bather’s soon began producing a popular model of life jacket known as the “Companion” made from cork sheets. But the need for life jackets didn’t become widely apparent until the 1850s, when metal boats began replacing their wooden predecessors. After all, when metal ships sank, their wreckage didn’t provide much floating debris for sailors to cling to until help arrived.
 
Even though life jackets existed before his time, many people credit the invention of the modern life jacket, which fits over the head and is strapped around the chest, to Vice Admiral John Ross Ward of the Royal Navy. When he was just a Captain, Ward served as the Inspector of Lifeboats at the UK’s Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Knowing how dangerous it was for rescue crews to work from lifeboats in choppy seas, Ward created a life vest in 1854 with a shape we would recognize today, though it was made from cork.
 
By the early 1900s, kapok, a lightweight fiber made from the fruit of the kapok tree, had replaced cork as the go-to material for life jackets. Soft jackets filled with kapok were more comfortable than cork and easier to put on. As naval battles broke out in World War I, militaries sought to improve their life jackets’ designs. Realizing the importance of life jackets to war-time success, many militaries continued making improvements even after the war ended, in 1918. In 1928, another supposed life jacket inventor took center stage: American merchant and fishing enthusiast Peter Markus. Markus knew that most fishermen refused to wear cork or even kapok life jackets because of how bulky they were. So, he decided to work with a naturally buoyant substance that had no bulk at all—air. In 1928, Markus patented his first design for an inflatable life jacket. It was made from rubberized cloth and could be inflated via two cords attached to cartridges of carbon dioxide. When the cords were pulled, the vest inflated within moments, making it particularly useful in emergency situations. The jackets were also easy to store when deflated. When World War II broke out in 1939, the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Air Force distributed Markus’s life jackets to servicemen. Among soldiers, the jackets earned the raunchy nickname “Mae West” because they supposedly mimicked the Hollywood actress’s curves when inflated.
 
Inflatable life jackets are still used today, most notably on commercial airplanes in case of emergency, but most modern life jackets use plastic foam to float. Thermoplastic Polyurethane is one of the most common foams used today, and is usually covered by a vest made from nylon or polyester. Life jackets are usually bright orange or yellow, allowing them to be spotted from long distances, and many even include strips of reflective material for night time use. Their only drawback? Modern foam jackets definitely won’t help you look like Mae West.

 
[Image description: Yellow-and-orange life jackets hang from hooks at a beach, with people in the background.] Credit & copyright: distelAPPArath, Pixabay

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of Work Like a Dog Day, enjoy these curios all about work and business. 

In 2016, the Baroque Valletta became the first commercial ship to pass through the newly expanded Panama Canal. The massive structure is 70 feet wider and 20 feet deeper than the original. Its successful test run heralded a new era of global shipping, and elicited 10,000 sighs of relief. Workers expected a disastrous failure, so much so that the Panamanian government and its consortium of contractors tried to keep the event a secret.  

From the outset, everything about the expansion project seemed questionable: the managers, the plans, the location. Construction was initiated under President Ricardo Martinelli's administration, which was plagued by corruption. (Martinelli, whose term ended in 2014, is currently the target of an extradition request from Interpol for embezzlement and spying.) Stoking the flames of suspicion, the administration selected a plan $1 billion cheaper than other proposals. To top it all off, geologists had determined in late 2007 that fault lines in Panama were more earthquake-prone than previously thought, with some spots akin to San Francisco in their risk.  

Not that previous canal projects went off without a hitch. The first attempt, by the French in the 1880s, to link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans via Panama failed miserably. After nearly a decade and 20,000 fatalities, France abandoned the idea. The Americans only focused on the Panama Canal after having their own failure in Nicaragua in the 1850s. And when Colombia, which owned the Isthmus of Panama at the time, refused to lease the land, President Teddy Roosevelt lent military support to a coup for Panamanian independence.  

The original Panama Canal, which was finished in 1914, was overdue for an update—no matter how messy. With more major global players and improved nautical technology, the size and scope of goods being transferred had become too big for the century-old structure to handle. What was once a feat of modern engineering risked going the way of the Erie Canal, made obsolete by more current modes of transportation.  

The expansion was supposed to be finished by 2014, to coincide with the centennial of the original Panama Canal's opening. But construction logistics, money squabbles, and complications from climate change delayed the project by two years. Plus, a major snafu in the design caused a huge leak in one of the locks that was captured on camera by a worker. Even now, after the Canal's completion, doubts remain about the strength and stability of the structure—and contractors are seeking $3.4 billion in payments, some of which may be in addition to the $5 billion cost that was estimated at the outset of the project.  

Still, since the Baroque Valletta made its way through the new locks last year, the Canal has stayed open. And as long as British grocery stores want Ecuadorian bananas and American factories want minerals from Rwanda, we're guessing it's going to stay that way.
 
[Image description: Equipment and boats on the Panama Canal] Credit & copyright: neufal54, Pixabay