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BBC sounds, music radio

1:17

podcasts. Hello,

1:20

and welcome to your Dead to Me, the Radio 4

1:22

comedy Podcast that takes history seriously.

1:25

My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian

1:27

author and broadcaster. And today, we're

1:29

gonna rock down to Electric Avenue,

1:31

and then we'll go inquire, which I mean,

1:33

will be zapped back to the seventeenth, eighteenth,

1:35

and nineteenth centuries in America and

1:37

Europe. To supercharge our knowledge

1:40

of the history of electricity or rather

1:42

vital electricity to be precise.

1:45

And joining me to do that are two live

1:47

wire guests. In history corner, his professor

1:49

of history at the University of Aberythwaft is

1:51

an expert on the history and culture of Victorian

1:53

science and electricity. You may have read

1:56

some his stimulating research in one

1:58

of his many books including shocking bodies,

2:00

life, death, and electricity in Victorian

2:02

England is Professor Ewan Riese Morris.

2:05

Welcome

2:05

Ewan. Thanks

2:06

very much, Greg. It's a pleasure to be here.

2:08

And in comedy corner, she's comedian writer

2:10

and actor who you will have seen on top telly

2:12

shows like muck the week QI, Frank Boyle's New

2:15

World Order, and late night Mass. She's also

2:17

an award winning writer and performer of various

2:19

audio shows, including fight, homecoming, okay

2:21

computer, and the BBC technology podcast.

2:23

Human error, and you'll certainly remember her

2:25

4 episode on Ivan the

2:27

Terrible. It's Olga Cook. Welcome back Olga.

2:29

The chemistry is electric.

2:33

Olga, you're Russian born, but you went

2:35

to an American high school, and you said

2:38

previously your historical education was limited

2:40

to basically American presidents. But you

2:42

have a degree in computer science. You are

2:44

at clever clogs. A new host of technology podcast.

2:47

So I'm guessing this is

2:49

in your

2:49

wheelhouse. I feel like you're giving me too much

2:51

credit. Do

2:54

you use electricity? Are you familiar with it

2:56

on a daily basis? I

2:59

use electricity everyday, but as far as I know,

3:01

it works my magic and magnets, and

3:03

I will not be proven otherwise. So

3:06

what do you know?

3:13

This is where I guess what you are lovely

3:15

listener, might know about the history of

3:17

vital electricity. And I'm adding

3:19

the word vital in there because it's important. And

3:22

the fact you are listening to this podcast means congratulations.

3:24

You have experienced electricity firsthand, Hooray.

3:27

But what do you know about how electricity

3:29

came to be understood? As a natural

3:31

force. And you've possibly heard of the big

3:33

names, that's your Thomas Edison, your Joseph Swan,

3:35

your Michael Faraday, your Nicolas Tesla. Not

3:37

only did their inventions still shape the world

3:40

today, inspired countless films and

3:42

TV series and band names ACDC, songs,

3:44

books, indeed Elon Musk. Tesla

3:47

now of course is a brand of electric car,

3:49

but That's not what we're focusing on

3:52

today. Now we are throwing out all

3:54

the classic normal stuff and we're gonna be talking

3:56

about vital electricity. So

3:58

let's plug in switch on and

4:00

see how many terrible electricity puds I

4:02

can cram into one episode. I'm buzzing already

4:05

off we go. Right. Olga, What do

4:07

you think we mean by vital

4:10

electricity? Oh, man. You're

4:12

setting me up for failure here. Not

4:14

at all. I'm gauging the level. I'm trying to

4:16

find, you know, if it's a phrase that has

4:18

any kind of frame of reference for

4:20

you. I'm

4:21

gonna throw out that there's maybe like naturally

4:23

occurring that it's like organic, but I have

4:26

no idea.

4:26

Like, Whole Foods electricity. Yeah.

4:28

Exactly. Not battery firmed. Like,

4:30

whatever lightning is.

4:32

I mean, have we got a sort of simple

4:34

way of defining vital electricity?

4:37

It's meant to be the stuff that runs

4:39

in our nerves makes our bodies work.

4:41

It's the answer to how the mind talks

4:43

to the

4:43

body. It's it's vital electricity. It's

4:45

the electricity of life. That's what it is.

4:48

Like that. That's good. That's a t shirt logo,

4:50

the electricity of life. So we're

4:53

not talking about light bulbs. We're not talking about

4:55

magnets particularly today. We are talking

4:57

about how electricity was

4:59

discovered and understood as part of

5:02

organic

5:02

life. So you were right, Olga. Organic was right.

5:04

So

5:04

it's the electricity that turns on the light bulb when

5:06

you have an idea

5:07

Exactly. Yes. Exactly. The one

5:09

above your head because being and,

5:12

mean, Olga, again, a difficult

5:14

question. Do you know where electricity comes from?

5:16

A stork brings it.

5:20

Mommy and Daddy have a special cuddle and then

5:22

a stork brings them. No.

5:25

I mean the

5:25

word. Do you know where the word electricity comes

5:28

from? The etymology of it. Does

5:30

it have to do with electrons?

5:31

Its legs.

5:33

Or Elektra from, like, mythology.

5:35

Oh, interesting. That's a good guess. It's a Greek

5:37

mythology. Eun, if we got

5:40

an etymological history

5:41

here, mean, that's not actually that

5:43

far off, really. The word electricity

5:46

does indeed come from ancient Greek.

5:48

It's the ancient Greek word for amber.

5:51

Which is electron. The association's

5:53

there because Greek philosophers, failures

5:55

of Melites, in particular, realize

5:57

that if you can rub a piece of

5:59

amber. Than something weird

6:02

happens to it. Think of those kind of

6:04

children's party games with balloons when it kind of

6:06

grab balloon in the old shoulder. It attracts

6:08

bits of fluff and feathers and stuff like that.

6:11

Well, that's what happens when you're robot.

6:13

It's what we would call static

6:14

electricity. You

6:15

should always ask for consent when you're a robot.

6:18

And electric fish as well. I've got some of the

6:20

Greeks and the Romans. I mean plenty,

6:22

for example, talks about electric

6:24

fish, electric deals, and

6:26

they even reckon that you can cure

6:28

various kinds of diseases by

6:31

playing around with electric deals and

6:33

giving yourself a little A little jolt.

6:36

Yeah. I mean, we talked about this in a previous episode

6:38

on the history of ancient medicine. There are

6:40

a few diseases you could be treated with an

6:42

electric a torpedo fish, I think, was

6:44

the particular

6:45

species. They recommended it for gout headaches.

6:47

And do you want to guess the third medical condition,

6:50

Olga? Microns. Migraines is

6:52

yeah. Migraines is absolutely right.

6:53

Isn't migraines? Yeah. But

6:56

the the less charming one, but apparently, actually

6:59

quite a good one was hemorrhoids. They would zap

7:01

you on the bum with an electric

7:02

eel, and then apparently that helps.

7:04

Sounds like an excuse. I'm sorry. Sounds like I'm sorry. like

7:08

I'm I'm really sorry. You

7:11

can check out that episode on BBC sounds, but

7:13

when it comes to the ancients, they are fascinated by electricity.

7:15

They can't quite figure out what it is. They're also

7:18

really fascinated by thunderstorms and lightning.

7:20

They're drawn to it, but they can't quite understand it.

7:22

So they call it electricity because

7:24

they they basically they named it after Amber, after

7:26

the sun. The color of the sun. But we're gonna

7:28

jump forward now to the seventeenth century, to

7:30

the sixteen hundreds. Because here we get

7:32

an English physician called William Gilbert.

7:35

Who publishes his book called Day Magnete,

7:37

which means on the magnet, which

7:39

was all about static electricity. And

7:41

then in sixteen forty six, we get Sir Thomas

7:44

Brown who becomes the first person to

7:46

use the word electricity in the English language.

7:48

For him, a piece of Amber gemstone Amber

7:51

again was an electric. So

7:53

it was an object. And that meant that it had

7:55

attractive properties here. So in the seventeenth

7:57

century, electricity meant something that was

8:00

magnetized, disposed, or attracted. And

8:02

then in sixteen sixty three, we have shock waves

8:04

through the scientific community with the accidental

8:07

invention of the first electrostatic generator

8:10

by Otto von Gerica in Germany.

8:12

What's an electrostatic generator? It's

8:15

typically

8:16

a glass globe or jarred

8:19

or glass disk. Basically,

8:21

you're rotated. And if you're on diarically, you hold

8:23

a piece of leather up against it. And

8:26

then you get what we would call static

8:28

electricity. Produced by the rubbing

8:30

of the leather or the cloth or whatever.

8:32

Against the glass. Okay. So the

8:34

German buff in Otto von Gerica is doing

8:36

that in sixteen sixty three, but Let's

8:38

talk about an an Englishman called Francis Horgesby

8:41

and his purple light. This is

8:44

our first big light bulb moment or

8:46

rather light ball moment because

8:49

He's dealing with electro luminescence. Olga,

8:52

what is electro luminescence? Do you know? Okay.

8:54

So I said this before we started recording,

8:56

but I'm currently on day four of a

8:58

New Zealand jet lag, so I don't know

9:00

where I am or what time it is. But while

9:03

I was in New Zealand, I went to a glowworm

9:05

cave. Oh, where the worms were glowing

9:07

with bio luminescence. So I know

9:09

what that is and that's when something

9:12

glows and it is a big,

9:14

like a bad fell big. I'm assuming

9:16

fireflies are also bioluminescent. Mhmm.

9:18

And whatever avatar is also by aluminum.

9:21

So that's the science

9:23

I know. So electro luminescence

9:26

would mean that something glows

9:29

because of electricity. Professor?

9:32

Pretty much. And

9:35

it's all down to our friend, Francis

9:38

Huxby. Huxby ran about

9:40

the beginning of the eighteenth century. He's

9:42

hired by the Royal Society of London for

9:44

the improving of natural knowledge, aka

9:47

the Royal Society, to be their

9:49

experimentalist. He's working under

9:52

Sur Isaac Newton, the president, which

9:54

is not necessarily a a good place

9:56

to be. And his job essentially

9:59

is to produce cool experiments.

10:01

For lack of a better word 4 the royal society's

10:03

weekly get together. So

10:05

he's on the lookout for for spectacular

10:08

things to do. It's basically an air pump.

10:10

So he's rotating it because it's an air

10:12

pump. It's been evacuated. There's vacuum

10:14

inside. And he notices that

10:16

if you do the usual producing static

10:19

electricity thing, rubbing a

10:21

piece of leather or cloth for whatever. Against

10:23

it, then you

10:25

start getting a bluish purplish light

10:28

where the leather is kind of touching the glass

10:30

globe. It's a similar party trick. I mean,

10:32

it's it's a way of showing off god's

10:35

powers in nature. Because that's

10:37

really what all of these guys think. I mean,

10:39

all of these forces like electricity and magnetism

10:41

and heat and light aren't intrinsic to

10:43

matter. They're given to matter by

10:45

God. So when you're making electricity

10:48

visible, lights glow in the dark, then

10:50

that God's power you're showing off and

10:53

that's why Spectacle is so important.

10:55

Wow. Okay. So a bluey purple light

10:57

is got in the room. Pretty much. Wow.

11:00

Hawksbee's quite an interesting guy because

11:02

we have Horizon Newton as the president of the Royal

11:04

Society who is your classic

11:06

megabuff in gentleman scientist. But

11:08

Horkby's kind of ordinary, isn't he

11:10

even? Horkby's a mechanic.

11:13

He's a worker. He's an assistant. And

11:15

the Royal Society, the Resolute Debt

11:17

the oral society. This is a society of

11:19

gentlemen. Because for reasons that

11:21

you will find deeply confusing, only

11:23

gentlemen says the gentleman can

11:26

produce true knowledge. Right? So, yeah,

11:28

people like Hawkes me or Robert Hook. What

11:30

should we say? They have an ambivalent relationship

11:33

with the gent's. Because they think

11:35

they're very making knowledge too, but they're not

11:37

gents. They're workers. They're people that muck around

11:39

do things with their

11:39

hands. They're assistants. They're mechanics. They're

11:41

the guys actually make things make things work. I

11:43

think he'd previously been in drapery. I think

11:45

in the I think he sort of comes to science in

11:47

midlaid, which is, you know, quite extraordinary. Yeah. I

11:49

mean, a lot of these got yeah. They start off as

11:51

apprentices. They work in in

11:53

particular trades and

11:56

move towards the production of these interesting

11:58

snazzy instruments as another way of making

12:01

money really.

12:02

Like Harrison 4, he used to be

12:04

a carpenter. Yes.

12:07

Absolutely. Harrison 4, I mean, they

12:09

he was watching his thirties as a carpenter, and then

12:11

he became a movie star. Yeah. And

12:12

Higgsbee's got as you said, his gig is to

12:14

entertain people kind of every week He's

12:16

basically a comedian, Olga. He's gotta get new material

12:18

every every Wednesday and do a new

12:20

show. What

12:21

I've learned so far is that men love getting together

12:23

in Robin one o.

12:27

Spot on. So, yeah, a lot of pressure for Hawksby,

12:29

but he is performing these things, the electro luminescence,

12:31

the blue, the purple, that's got in the room.

12:34

And this is very early in the seventeen hundreds. He's sort

12:36

of around in seventeen 05I think he's doing

12:38

this seventeen 06I think

12:40

And we get other sort of gentlemen scientists.

12:43

Natural philosophers is the term. They're not really

12:45

scientists yet. They're they're philosophers still.

12:47

We get Stephen Grey. There's a fantastically

12:50

named Frenchman called Charles François de Sisten

12:52

Nadeau Fe, what a name. And George Bose,

12:54

they're all adding to the Electrical Research. And

12:56

what updates are they popping in the WhatsApp

12:58

group

12:59

chat? What's going on? The key

13:01

thing is that gray in

13:03

particular shows that the

13:05

electricity doesn't just kind of stay

13:07

on your glass globe. That the electricity can

13:09

be conducted away and

13:12

used elsewhere so to speak. So you can

13:14

have a piece of metal attached to the globe

13:16

and that carries the electricity away. Or

13:18

Grey's favorite, you can have a child

13:22

You can have the little boy

13:24

suspended in the air. And

13:26

if the boys speak to her touching

13:28

the the globe that's producing electricity.

13:31

Then at the other end, with his hands I

13:33

mean, his hand will kind of attract

13:36

the flavors and fluff 4 whatever it is

13:38

that they're playing around with. They discover

13:40

you can electrify water and try that

13:42

at home. It's not a really good

13:44

idea. They think there are two

13:46

kinds of electricity, vitreous

13:49

and resinous fats produced by

13:51

glass, produced by amber, I mean, all kinds of debates

13:53

around the dispute bubble. I mean, what is this stuff?

13:55

Is it one thing? Is it two

13:57

things? How do you make sense? And

13:59

how do produce nice interesting

14:01

effects to wow the room. Although

14:03

you visibly recoiled when you

14:05

and said a small boy who was suspended

14:07

in the ceiling. I can't.

14:10

That's such hands on parenting.

14:14

They weren't his children. That's

14:17

even worse. These are orphan

14:19

boys.

14:19

Oh, my god. Oh, no. No.

14:24

Did

14:24

they know what they were signing up for? These poor

14:26

kids? He's done

14:28

there. Hold that.

14:30

Who's,

14:30

like, we discovered this thing. What should we try it on?

14:32

I don't know. Water, a baby. Like,

14:35

what list? What list?

14:38

So we've gentleman gathered around watching children being

14:41

electrocuted and water being electrocuted. This sounds

14:43

very dangerous. But as you say, there are discoveries

14:45

being made and and the ability to conduct it

14:47

away from the glass is kind of fascinating. And

14:49

actually glass is an interesting point

14:51

because we then get the discovery of

14:53

how to store

14:54

electricity. I mean, where do you keep your electricity

14:56

all good?

14:57

lady never tells. I'm

14:59

so sorry for asking. Obviously,

15:03

we have batteries and so on, but at this stage in the

15:05

early seventeen hundreds, you're keeping it

15:07

in literally in glass jars like it's

15:09

jam. How does electricity go in a

15:12

jar? You and have I misunderstood? No,

15:14

you haven't misunderstood at all. By a large

15:16

electricity is a fluid. That's what these

15:18

guys reckon. So I mean, where else are you

15:20

gonna keep the fluid of a van

15:23

in a jar? A lighter jar as

15:25

they come to call it is It's

15:27

a capacitor. Basically, it's a way of storing

15:30

electric charge. And what

15:32

various experimenters at the same more

15:34

or less at the same time, von Kleist

15:37

machine Brook, Kanayas, all

15:39

these different guys. Pretty much

15:41

around him at the same time realized that he can use

15:43

gauze to store electricity.

15:46

So you're attached sort of the inside

15:48

of a jar to your electrical machine.

15:51

You crank it

15:51

up. You're generating the electricity. So

15:53

you crank it by hand. You probably don't.

15:55

Your yeah. Your

15:57

your servant does. Right. I suspect. A small

15:59

boy from the orphanage. Yeah. Sure. He stays

16:01

quite hard work. And in that way,

16:04

you build up the charge, you build up the charge,

16:06

and then you can, so to speak,

16:08

let it go. And again, it's

16:10

not what you might call a

16:12

safe occupation, particularly

16:15

since you don't really know how much electricity

16:18

you've added to the job. We're talking

16:20

in modern terminology, thousands

16:23

potentially. Really? Revolts. So

16:26

if you kind of idly touch it at the wrong moment,

16:28

then there will be a frying

16:31

sound. I thought it would be because it's sort of

16:33

hand cranked. I

16:33

thought it would be like twenty volts and you'd get

16:35

a sort of like buzz and you no.

16:38

You've got to be quite careful with those fighting

16:40

jobs you need as

16:41

well. I mean, there were fatalities when

16:43

kind of over enthusiastic. Cranking,

16:46

so to speak. So So

16:49

-- Yeah. -- it's it's the thing you need to be careful

16:52

about. But, yeah, I mean, now you can store it.

16:54

You've got more electricity, which of course

16:57

means you can produce more and more

16:59

spectacular effects. I

17:01

mean, Boza has this fantastic, gratification,

17:04

experiment. The price of the bikini of sight.

17:06

He has this hat where his victims

17:09

were. And as you crank

17:11

apple. Just me if you got enough electricity. Then

17:13

you get that blue glow on the hat.

17:15

Just a kind of like a

17:16

halo. It's like a saint. That's vacation.

17:19

Yeah. That's where you can start to do if you got

17:21

lots and lots and lots of this lovely fluid.

17:23

Olga, you're blinking in wonder. I

17:27

feel am I is this real?

17:29

It doesn't make sense. Because

17:32

we're talking so much about thing the dry and I'm just waiting

17:34

for it. It's like and then you have your dry rug. There's and

17:36

then you use that electricity

17:38

too. And then the thing you're risking

17:40

your life for is for a little hat.

17:43

Show your hat.

17:47

I'll tell you later about the Venus kiss. You

17:49

could tell us now about the Venus kiss, maybe. Yeah.

17:51

It's another one of those party tricks.

17:54

This time, you have a young lady. She's

17:56

standing on a stool, so she's insulated.

17:59

She's attached to the

18:01

electric machine. She's insulated. So

18:04

The stuff can't flow, so she's fine until

18:06

one of the gentleman kisses her. The gentleman

18:09

question isn't standing out of the stool, so

18:11

isn't insulated. So literally,

18:13

at that point. Yeah. Sparks fly

18:15

between

18:15

them. That's the Venus case. Goodness,

18:18

mate.

18:18

Have these people tried cherades or devil's

18:20

eggs.

18:24

Okay. So we have Peter von Mushinberg

18:27

who is a professor at Leiden University

18:29

and that's where the lieden jar gets its

18:31

name. I mean, Olga, if we were to name

18:33

a jar after you and put vital

18:35

fluid in it, what fluids going in there? I

18:40

didn't write this one.

18:43

Oh, man. Every time I come on,

18:45

it's just various ways get me to say the word

18:47

passed. Yes.

18:51

It is, sir. It's a it's not I think it's a trap.

18:54

It's a very sort of interesting thing

18:57

that they are experimenting with these dangerous

18:59

things. But as Olga says, there's not a huge amount

19:01

of Usefulness at the moment is this is all

19:03

just sort of experiment for the sake of

19:05

of the thrill of it and the wonder

19:07

of

19:08

it. But we also have

19:10

little known fellow by the name of Benjamin

19:12

Franklin, Olga. He wasn't an American

19:14

president, but I'm I suspect he might have snuck

19:16

onto your curriculum. Do you know about Franklin

19:18

and his electricity experiments? No.

19:20

I just know him for money. It's

19:24

all about the Benjamin. He's famous

19:26

for his kite experiments, isn't he? You and

19:29

he's out there in a in a lightning storm risking

19:31

his

19:31

life. What is there more to this story? Is

19:33

there more to his research? Franklin is

19:35

in all sorts of ways a key figure

19:37

in terms of history of electricity. He's mainly

19:39

known for flying that character of

19:41

Understorm. Again, great risk

19:43

to life, limb, and everybody around him.

19:45

Things men will do instead of going to therapy.

19:49

The usual stories that frankly Franklin's

19:51

showing that lightning is electricity will

19:54

I mean, everybody kinda knows that lightning

19:56

is electricity. What Franklin's

19:58

doing is showing that you

20:00

can draw and direct the

20:02

lightning in various ways.

20:04

So you can send it where you want it to. So

20:06

4 example, away from tall buildings.

20:09

So ideas about lightning

20:11

conductors and stuff like that.

20:13

And he's also engaged in the process

20:16

to to figure out. Well, what is this stuff?

20:18

Is it two fluids? Is it one fluid?

20:20

Franklin argues it's one fluid we

20:22

have kind of ended essentially depending which

20:24

way is going, so to speak, it's

20:26

positive or negative. And

20:28

very, very famously, this is the greatest thing

20:31

that Franklin ever does. He

20:33

shows that you can cook your Thanksgiving Turkey

20:36

using electricity. Wow. 4

20:38

meat he says is unusually tender.

20:41

When it's cooked by electricity.

20:43

Okay. Now we're talking. That's a

20:45

party trick. Yeah.

20:47

Gabble. Gabble, baby.

20:50

I mean, that's really quite extraordinary that he's

20:52

out there risking life and limb in a

20:54

thunderstorm with a kite in the sky and lightning

20:56

flashing around him, and then he's using it to cook his dinner.

20:59

That's hardcore science. But

21:01

we also have philosophers zapping

21:03

each other to see what it does to

21:05

humans. So already we've heard about a small boy being

21:07

electrocuted.

21:08

Okay. Can we just come back to the fact that they

21:10

zapped a boy before they did

21:12

a turkey. Interesting.

21:14

Well, yeah, priorities, priorities, value

21:16

systems. Turkey's are valuable,

21:18

Olga. They're expensive. So

21:22

it doesn't feel like that much care and attention's

21:24

being paid to the the safety of of children,

21:27

but we now have to talk about safety of monks

21:29

because there is a really famous Well, there are several

21:31

famous

21:31

experiments, but one of my favorite ones is

21:33

is in France, even where We get

21:35

a a big public demonstration of

21:38

how electricity can pass through many

21:40

people. Don't we? This is the Abe Nolly,

21:42

a cleric, no less. Professor

21:45

of physics, he's doing what all these guys

21:47

are doing. I mean, he's he's bucking around with the

21:49

with the generators. He's playing around with light

21:51

in jars. Seeing what kind of interesting

21:54

things you can do. His best

21:56

performance, so to speak. This is

21:58

a performance in front of the French king, in

22:00

front of Louis the fifteenth. He

22:02

lines up a hundred and eighty, I

22:04

think it is, Royal Guardsman, all

22:07

in the line, all holding hands,

22:09

and then the guardsmen as the

22:11

end kind of grabs hold of a chain

22:14

coming from the generator or lied

22:16

and joke. What happens? They

22:19

all jump simultaneously. So

22:21

imagine a line of a hundred

22:23

and eighty royal guardsmen holding hands

22:26

leaping into the air simultaneously as

22:28

the jolt passes through

22:29

them. Nothing deterred. He does it

22:31

again, just with a bunch of cartesian

22:34

monks.

22:34

Two hundred monks. He's actually a

22:36

refugee monks. He can't stand

22:39

jumping into the air simultaneously. There's

22:42

a lot of interesting iconography going

22:44

on. This is the age of absolute monarchs.

22:46

This is the age of kings like Glue the

22:48

fifteenth. They think that people should jump

22:51

exactly when he says jump and

22:53

hey, Nolly is providing him with

22:55

a technology that can make people jump

22:57

exactly when he wants them to jump.

22:59

Yeah. And it's it's showing that electricity

23:02

can pass through people all the way through and affect

23:04

all of them. So it's not just that one man on the end

23:06

gets

23:06

shocked. It's all of them are

23:08

receiving the shock. I

23:09

mean, I've seen pictures of

23:11

regency ladies and gents doing

23:14

that trick and the comfort

23:16

of their own drawing rooms. There's

23:18

somebody cranking up the machine and, yeah, they're all

23:20

holding hands going.

23:22

Life before Game Boy is a, you just

23:24

When I say jump, you say how

23:26

high voltage. Yeah.

23:30

You can have that. Thank you, Olga.

23:32

I mean, we now get to my favorites. Of all

23:34

the electrical experiments with the German naturalist

23:36

Alexander von

23:37

Humboldt, who's a a very big deal

23:39

in Germany. He's not so well known. Humboldt University's

23:42

Yeah. Isn't it? Right. He's basically the German Darwin

23:44

-- Pretty much. -- but in the UK, he's not

23:46

very well known. He's not so well known here.

23:48

And and I'm gonna try and celebrate

23:50

him now with his finest achievement. In

23:53

seventeen ninety, he put an electrode in his

23:55

mouth and it

23:58

gets better older. It gets better.

24:00

He put an electrode in his mouth and

24:03

a cathode I think it was maybe an anode

24:05

4 inches into his rectum and

24:08

then he turned on the power. And,

24:11

Olga, I'd like you to read his

24:13

description

24:14

of how that felt, please. You think

24:16

people in the olden times are so sophisticated. How

24:21

come well, it's okay when he does it, but when I do

24:23

it, I'm asked to leave dinner party. So

24:27

nozating cramps and discomforting stomach

24:29

contractions, then abdominal pain of

24:31

severe magnitude. Followed

24:33

by involuntary evacuation of

24:35

the

24:35

bladder. What struck me more is

24:37

that by inserting the silver more deeply

24:40

into the rectum, A bright light appears

24:42

to

24:42

be 4 both eyes. You

24:45

better hear us.

24:47

Waterboarding couldn't get that information out

24:49

of there. Yeah. Not I

24:52

just I'd find astonishing. He's like, I've litigated

24:54

my rectum, but I'll go further.

24:56

It's I need to go more deeply to see what happens

24:59

to my

24:59

eyes. Oh, yeah. A bright light.

25:01

Well, I've already pissed myself, so I might as well

25:03

go for this. Oh,

25:06

goodness me. I mean, phone humble is even extraordinary guy

25:08

and maybe we'll do an episode on him one day, but like

25:10

just that's one of my favorite things from history ever.

25:12

So the power of electricity to inflict

25:15

pain, stomach cramps, and all sorts.

25:17

But it's also starting to be heralded

25:19

as a cure as a healing

25:22

power. We've already had roman doctors zapping people's

25:24

bottoms with electric eels and torpedo

25:26

fissures, but in the seventeen hundreds, we

25:28

get electrotherapy, this

25:31

actual idea. So although

25:33

we're gonna do a mini quiz, which of

25:35

these conditions in the seventeen hundreds

25:37

was not believed to be curable using

25:40

electricity? Fever's? Deafness,

25:43

blindness, headaches,

25:46

stopped menstruation, tapeworms,

25:50

syphilis, kidney stones,

25:53

hemorrhoids. Which of those was

25:55

not believed to be cured by

25:57

electricity?

25:58

I'm gonna say fevers. I'm

26:00

afraid it was syphilis. All the others

26:02

were believed to be, yeah, all the others so

26:04

fever's deafness, blindness, headache, epilepsy

26:07

stop menstruation, tapeworms, kidney

26:10

stones, and

26:10

hemorrhoids. People are zapping away

26:13

with their light in jars. Yeah. Because okay.

26:15

Well, the kidney stones hemorrhoids and

26:17

tapeworms that makes sense because there's, like,

26:19

objects you're you're trying to

26:21

zap. Yeah. Sure. Obvious

26:23

BBC disclaimer here, please 4 the love of

26:25

God, do not electrocate yourself. To cure any

26:27

of these, please go see a doctor. Ewen,

26:30

what new devices are applying this

26:32

electrotherapy? Because it's not just people holding

26:35

lighten jars now there's gadgets on the market.

26:37

Yeah. I mean, by I mean, certainly, by the time you go into the

26:39

nineteenth century. We're going into the age of

26:41

electricity. People thinking about a future. The future

26:43

is gonna be electrical. So

26:45

you have electric towels, you

26:48

have electric hair brushes, you

26:50

have electric chains, you have electric belts,

26:52

you have electric vis that and the other. The

26:55

relationship between some of

26:57

these Gizmos and

26:59

your actual electricity is

27:02

kind of a tangential

27:04

that best don't think there was anything

27:06

terribly electrical about the electric tower,

27:08

for example. But

27:10

yeah, and the idea is that electricity will

27:13

cure diseases. You can I mean, you could even have

27:15

an electric bath? No water involved.

27:18

I mean, if there were water involved, then

27:21

there'd be a very, very brief the electric

27:23

ball. Yeah. Right. But No. I mean, the idea

27:25

is that you bathe yourself in assessing

27:27

it. You're immersed in electricity,

27:30

or the electric fluid. Right. And it's meant to have

27:32

all kinds of restorative properties.

27:36

The notion is that Even

27:38

if electricity isn't the kind of the nerve

27:40

4, then the nerve force is

27:42

very similar to electricity. So

27:44

if things aren't working, then A quick

27:46

jolt to electricity will kickstart

27:49

faulty systems, shall we say? Okay.

27:51

Electric sandals, electric bandage, electric tooth

27:53

box, Don't know what that is. Possibly

27:55

a toothbrush.

27:57

Any of these appealing to you, Olga, a hairbrush

27:59

doesn't sound too bad. What

28:00

I still can't wrap my head around

28:02

is that they still don't know what electricity

28:05

is, and yet their instinct always

28:07

is to get it as close and

28:10

inside and close to their bodies as they

28:12

possibly

28:12

can. And that's just so counterintuitive

28:15

to me. I mean, everybody thinks that there

28:17

is some kind of weird, intangible,

28:20

visceral link between electricity

28:22

and life. I mean, That's because of the shock thing,

28:24

I guess. Yep. You know from experience.

28:27

It does something to

28:28

you. So, well, maybe that's

28:30

something something good. And for the

28:31

third time in the podcast, I have to talk about electricity

28:34

treating hemorrhoids.

28:35

Oh my god. Because we have a something called the SIDSbad,

28:38

which is invented by George Smith in seventeen

28:40

eighty 4. And that uses electrified

28:42

hot water to treat your

28:45

piles, which again, that's water and

28:47

electricity in a very sensitive part of

28:49

body that it should not be make I'm wincing

28:51

talking about

28:52

this. Yeah.

28:52

Don't do that at home. Yeah. Absolutely. So

28:54

there we go older. What we've learned is that people in history

28:56

love to electricate their asses. But

28:58

we also have the electropathic belt.

29:01

This feels slightly less dangerous, but

29:03

it's very marketed, isn't it? There's

29:05

merch, there's There's

29:06

posters. I think we can show you a poster Olga.

29:09

Alright. I'm I'm looking at about

29:11

four different fonts. Parnas,

29:14

electropathic

29:15

belts. They look like tiny little

29:18

corsets.

29:18

Yeah. I was gonna say like, wrestlers, but you

29:20

know what my wrestlers win winner or boxes

29:22

winner? Yeah. Bell

29:24

or whatever and they get a bell. Like, it's kind of for

29:26

that. Shape, and you wear it around the midriff.

29:28

For weak men, for delicate women, it's it's

29:31

a belt for pussies.

29:32

Mhmm. It's what it's not popping. Closer

29:35

than you think. Yeah. So

29:37

god. I mean, you

29:39

and what's how electropathic are

29:41

we

29:41

talking? Are are these wired up to

29:43

the mains? Or are they just sort gently magnetized

29:45

in a perfectly innocent way? You're spot on.

29:48

Gentlemen wear anectropathic belts, ladies

29:50

wear electropathic corsets.

29:53

There are discs of copper and zinc

29:56

sewn onto the inside of

29:58

the belt. And the idea is that

30:00

the basically, your body fluids, your

30:02

sweat is meant to stimulate an electric

30:04

current. Spil or alerts doesn't work.

30:06

Mean, there's no electricity coming out of these things,

30:08

which is probably just as well. They're meant

30:10

to cure exhaustion, weakness,

30:13

stability, and digestion, nervous

30:15

disorders, I mean, the usual

30:18

list. Certainly,

30:20

in the advertising aimed at men,

30:23

There's more than a hint that these are

30:26

a cure for for impotence.

30:29

What's going on here? Is

30:31

that You

30:32

look much sexier in a belt. I think

30:34

that's the thing. The victorians

30:36

have invented this disease. This disease is

30:38

called Spermatorrhea. You

30:40

get spectrometeria by ranking

30:42

too much. You're expanding nervous

30:45

energy. You only have so much nervous power in

30:47

you.

30:48

Overuse it, you become weak

30:50

and languid and listless, you can't get it

30:52

up, and that's where the psychopathic

30:55

belt comes in. So it's the no

30:57

fap movement. It's the it's

31:00

it's very Instagram advert. No.

31:03

Not November. Fab failed December.

31:07

Okay. So we're talking here about electricity

31:10

in in the booj war, but aren't we? We're talking about

31:12

electricity as the ability to reinvigorate

31:14

your sex

31:15

life, which brings us I'm very

31:17

pleased to say to James Graham. I

31:19

don't mean the brilliant modern playwrights and screenwriter.

31:21

I'm talking about the eighteenth century sexologist,

31:24

the Scottish Charlotte and Quack,

31:26

but that maybe that's a bit harsh. He had some interesting

31:28

ideas, but in the 1790s, he

31:30

becomes a big

31:31

celebrity. So who is James

31:33

Graham Ewen, and and what's he up to? You might

31:35

call him a Charlotte, and he's got a medical degree. Mind

31:37

you, quite a few Charlotte's in the eighteenth and

31:39

nineteenth Century. had medical

31:41

degrees. Dr. Oz has a medical individual.

31:45

He's a strange individual. He's

31:47

a vegetarian, the worst. A

31:50

red flag.

31:53

He's an old pumeter. Okay. That's

31:55

that's bad. He thinks he shouldn't wear too much.

31:57

Bad for you, and he thinks that sex

31:59

is therapeutic.

32:00

Let's hear him out. Let's hear him out.

32:03

He does become very famous. Briefly,

32:06

So what is his great claim to fame?

32:08

This is it. In seventeen seventy nine, he

32:11

opens his own therapeutic

32:14

institute. It's the template

32:16

a Scalapium sacrum. It's the Temple

32:18

of Health. He invests a

32:20

bomb. Something like ten thousand

32:23

pounds. Ten thousand pounds at the end of the eighteenth

32:25

century is a lot of money. And

32:28

he packed the place with electrical

32:30

machines, light and jars, conductors,

32:34

There's an electrical throne, all

32:36

kinds of stuff. There's an electric

32:38

bed. There is the celestial bed.

32:41

Huge. It's twelve foot long, nine

32:44

foot wide. And if

32:46

you're having trouble in

32:48

the Procreation Department, shall

32:51

we say? Then if

32:53

you're very, very wealthy, you get to spend

32:55

the night with whoever

32:57

it is you wish to procreate with. On

33:00

the celestial bed. That's meant to do the

33:02

job. The electric aura, the

33:04

electric surroundings are meant to kind of

33:06

properly stimulate you. And

33:08

there are scanfully dressed

33:11

women hanging around just to kind of

33:13

add extra. Titilation

33:16

shall we say to the to the performance? One

33:18

of the women who worked there late

33:20

late to famous as Emma

33:22

Hamilton to William Hamilton's wife

33:25

and Lord Nelson's mistress.

33:27

Okay. So what in this palace, how

33:30

would it feel physically for me to

33:32

lie on an electric

33:33

bed? Would I feel like a little current

33:35

or shock or static or nothing.

33:37

Well, I'm tempted to say it depend who you were there

33:39

with. There's

33:44

not much really electrical going on

33:46

with -- Okay. -- the electrical bed,

33:48

all the electrical gadgetry of

33:51

late eighteenth century electrical stowmanship. Averang

33:54

the bed, so to speak, because that's what electricity

33:57

looks like in the late eighteenth

33:58

century. And

33:59

by this point, they're also using electricity 4,

34:01

like, normal stuff like light bulbs. Too. It's

34:03

not Not with the SLS still there. That's eighteenth

34:05

century. What? By the time CB harness

34:07

is mucking around at the end of the nineteenth

34:09

century, then yes. You got light bulbs

34:11

as well. Not of the eighteenth century. We're

34:13

talking the seventeen sort of eighty seventeen, seventeen nineties,

34:16

so they're a hundred years away from the light bulb.

34:18

What?

34:19

Priorities, priorities, come on.

34:22

You're

34:22

electrifying a bed before a light bulb.

34:26

I'm gonna lose my

34:27

mind. I'm so upset.

34:31

My main take over you and is that the bed is twelve

34:33

foot long and nine foot wide. That feels

34:35

like too much bed. I mean, one

34:37

London's who else was there. Sure. Right.

34:39

Okay. Alright. So this

34:41

this celestial bed as it was called,

34:44

you're surrounded by the paraphernalia of electricity.

34:46

There's fear to the showmanship. There are beautiful

34:48

women. It's to get you in the mood. And

34:50

and in theory, it's sort of it's almost

34:52

placebo effect, but the idea is that electricity

34:55

is coursing around you as you make love,

34:57

your your wife or or whatever,

34:59

and you are trying to get pregnant,

35:02

you're trying to have a child. So it's yeah.

35:04

Yeah. In some ways, it's sort of fertility treatment.

35:06

It's kind of fascinating that's happening in the

35:08

eighteenth

35:08

century. They're trying to electrify that baby

35:10

a sooner, sooner.

35:18

James Graham had some interesting ideas. He was

35:20

quite an early he believed women

35:22

should have rights. He was quite progressive, and

35:25

then he unfortunately had a mental health breakdown

35:27

ended up forming a cult in which he was the only

35:29

member and and and died. So

35:32

we are talking here about James Graham trying to

35:34

revive people's sex lives. With

35:36

electricity. But then we get to our

35:38

Italian physicists, and they are

35:40

trying to revive more than sex

35:42

lives. They're trying to revive the dead.

35:45

So it's a it's sort of frankenstein time.

35:47

And you and who's the first of the

35:49

Italian? Because I've called them the Italians because

35:51

they they are all Italian, but who's the first?

35:53

Okay. Luigi Galvani is

35:56

the first action to the ring.

35:58

Galvani, for reasons that was

36:00

best known himself, is

36:02

playing around with frog's legs.

36:04

And he's doing electrical experiments

36:07

as you do and the legs twitch.

36:10

What's going on here? Where's the electricity coming from?

36:12

He decides that he's discovered what he calls

36:15

animal electricity. So the electricity

36:17

is being generated inside the frog's

36:19

legs and the frog's leg kind of jerking

36:22

is the sign of electricity

36:25

being there. The other Italian, Alessandra

36:27

Volte. It turns up. Volte

36:29

has intrigued. He does

36:31

similar kind of experiments himself. But

36:34

he decides that Galvani is wrong. The

36:36

electricity isn't produced by the frog's

36:38

legs. The electricity is produced by

36:41

the contact of the metals. And

36:44

to prove this, he

36:46

produces what we would now

36:48

call a battery. This is the first battery

36:50

invented in eighteen hundred. The voltaic pile

36:53

you get a zinc disk, a piece of

36:55

cardboard soaked in acid, or something like

36:57

that, then a copper disk, then -- Yeah.

36:59

repeat the process that's what it's called a pile.

37:02

What he wanted to show was he that he could

37:04

produce galvani's effects with

37:07

no animals present. And that's the first

37:09

battery. Which turns out to be a hugely

37:11

useful device for the rest of the nineteenth

37:13

century. Others don't

37:16

quite by Volta's theory.

37:18

I've come across one experimenter and

37:21

I can't remember what he's called. But

37:23

what he did is not able to respond

37:25

to Volta. Was produced what

37:27

I can only really describe as a meat battery.

37:31

Oh, wow. I'm listening. So

37:35

you have a layer of muscle. You have

37:37

a layer of brain, then

37:39

you have your piece of cardboard soaked in

37:41

blood, then muscle

37:43

brain tissue you make a

37:45

big sandwich and

37:48

you can show that this gives you electricity.

37:50

Like a little human trifle. So

37:54

Yes. Electricity. Yeah. No metals here.

37:56

So it's not produced by the metals. So

37:59

big arguments. Where is this electricity coming

38:02

from? Is it coming from the animals? Is it coming

38:04

from the battery? Are they the same? Are they different?

38:07

So all kinds of mucking

38:09

around with electricity and

38:11

bits of flesh and bits

38:13

of animals and indeed can

38:16

do course bits of human.

38:19

Cricky. A meat I did not expect meat

38:21

battery. I mean, we've we've plums some

38:23

weird depths today, but meat battery

38:25

feels very matrix. But that

38:27

feels like that's what the machines are doing to us.

38:30

Okay. And and I've I've referenced

38:32

it lightly, but I'll I'll say it now explicitly.

38:35

Frankenstein is a novel that's written

38:37

at this time in his We're talking the early eighteen hundreds.

38:39

Mary Shelly is very influenced by science,

38:42

and her book is about the

38:44

resurrection of a human corpse. And

38:46

she's getting these ideas from

38:48

science. This stuff is sort

38:50

of in the ether because we also have

38:53

a guy called Aldini as well who

38:55

is playing with body parts.

38:57

Sorry. Can I can I say a pun, please?

39:00

Permission to pun?

39:01

Permissioned upon, permission granted.

39:04

Mary Shelley heard meade

39:06

battery. And she invented Frankenstein,

39:09

the world's first Beefcake.

39:13

Come on. Okay. Thank

39:15

you. That's why we booked you. Giovanni

39:19

Aldini. Another Italian, and

39:21

it's all in the family. Albania's Luigi

39:24

Gervani's nephew. Okay. So one of

39:26

the things that he's interested in doing is basically protecting

39:29

Yep. The family name. I mean, nasty

39:31

old Volta has impuned his

39:33

uncles reputation, so Galvanny

39:35

wants to do good. So he's doing

39:38

experiments with various body parts.

39:40

Again, I mean, one of the things he's trying to do is produce

39:42

electricity with no battery. He's

39:44

not quite producing beach batteries, but I mean,

39:46

he's generating electricity from cows

39:49

heads. And he wants to

39:51

show that you can use electricity

39:54

to at least reproduce the

39:57

appearance of life. So

39:59

he gets to play around with

40:02

the corpses of electrocuted criminals

40:04

in Bologna, which is where he's

40:06

at, which is not ideal

40:08

because in Bologna

40:10

at this stage as part of what's been conquered

40:12

by Napoleon values the French

40:15

method of execution. Bolognese,

40:23

So you're not really gonna be able to restore to

40:25

life, a headless criminal. Being

40:28

a nineteenth century in eighteen o

40:29

two, eighteen o three, he comes to London. Yeah. He's

40:31

trying to persuade everybody that uncle Galvani

40:33

is right. And he gets to

40:35

carry out experiments on the

40:37

corpse of the murderer. A guy

40:40

called George 4, something he'd mean again

40:42

hung. So he was still all the pieces

40:44

were present and correct, so to speak.

40:47

4 is executed at Newgate,

40:49

then she's paraded through the

40:51

streets to their old colleague of surgeons where

40:55

Aldini is gonna carry out his

40:57

electrical dissection. So, basically,

40:59

hooks him up, cuts open his arms

41:01

and legs, attaches batteries,

41:04

you know, the arms kind of leap around,

41:07

open up his chest. One of things

41:09

they're trying to do is see if they can get

41:11

his heart going. There's some disagreement

41:13

just to whether or not they can, but kind

41:16

of very dramatic effects. Thanks. So

41:18

his jaw quivered one eye opened

41:21

and the subsequent part that processed the

41:23

right hand was raised and clutched

41:25

and the legs and things set in motion.

41:27

That's the that's the Times reporter describing

41:31

what he's seen. And there's no doubt

41:33

that Shelly knows about this kind

41:35

of stuff. I don't know how to put myself in that sort

41:37

of situation of what it must be like to watch

41:39

this, Olga, back in eighteen

41:41

03A crowd in a room to watch

41:44

body being electrified like

41:45

that. It must have been sort of horrific

41:48

and also thrilling. Yes. Now people

41:50

just watch stand up comedy.

41:55

The the past hour has taught me is that

41:57

I am never donating my body to science.

41:59

It's not happening. No good. It's

42:01

gonna come a minute.

42:04

I think there's an ethical bodies now that

42:07

that sort of stop scientists from

42:09

from doing what they want. But yes, I'm still reading

42:11

from meat battery, to be honest, Ewen. But

42:13

from reanimating corpses, let's

42:15

maybe jump to creating corpses

42:18

by which, I mean, they're talking here about

42:20

the electric chair. You know, we've talked about electricity

42:22

being discovered, people going, oh, wow, what's this

42:24

and shocking themselves? Then they're starting to cure

42:26

themselves with it. Now they're figuring out what

42:28

is life? Is life itself electricity? And

42:31

now they're saying, can we end life

42:33

with electricity? Because we get

42:35

to the late nineteenth century where you have a

42:37

progressive movement in theory

42:39

to humanely execute

42:41

with what becomes the electric chair.

42:44

And this is a We

42:46

can blame a dentist for this. Can't we you? And -- Yes.

42:49

-- amongst others, a gentleman by the name of Alfred

42:51

p Southwick. ADVOCATES. View

42:53

subelectricity as a as means of execution.

42:56

And yeah, this is a cutting edge

42:58

of progress, a scientific sanitized

43:01

way of killing doing away with all that kind of

43:03

barbers, you know, hanging people

43:05

and all that. Yep. This is gonna be

43:07

safe, clean, efficient, scientific

43:10

killing. Using electricity, it's

43:12

mixed up with all sorts of things. There

43:15

are big fights going on about ACD

43:17

seat. And, yeah, eventually, New

43:20

York, of course, warehouse, but New

43:22

York, could they pass the relevant legislation

43:24

first? Eighteen ninety, the

43:27

first man to be killed by

43:29

the prices that gets to be called electrocution is

43:33

William Kenler, who murdered

43:35

his common law wife. With

43:37

an axe. He's I mean, he you know, he's not a nice

43:39

man. Yeah. I mean, he wasn't a nice

43:41

guy. But I mean, what happened to him,

43:43

on the other hand, wasn't a

43:46

very nice thing. No. You look. Since

43:48

it turned out that no, actually,

43:50

electrification wasn't safe,

43:53

painless, seamless scientific

43:57

way of killing basically

43:59

he was cooked. There

44:01

are graphic descriptions in the press.

44:04

They gave him a jolt. It wasn't

44:06

enough. So they just kind of cranked

44:08

it up and then let me get the descriptions of you.

44:11

His hair is burning, his skin

44:13

is cripping. There's a horrible

44:15

smell, so it was

44:17

all disgusting and awful and barbaric.

44:20

And everybody of the press will

44:22

convince, okay, that's it. This is a terrible

44:24

idea. We're not doing that again.

44:27

But

44:27

hey, look, No. They're still

44:29

doing it. Yeah. More of

44:31

this century later. They're still doing it.

44:33

They persevered. And electricity.

44:37

Electrification, new word entering the

44:39

the category Mhmm. -- became the

44:41

means of executing criminals

44:43

in the US by the by the beginning of

44:45

the twentieth

44:46

century, really? Yeah. think by the nineteen forties,

44:48

I think half of all American states have adopted

44:50

it. As the execution method, even

44:53

though, you know, the backlash against it, when

44:55

Kemler is is executed, people are horrified.

44:59

And yet somehow it becomes accepted. But it's fascinating,

45:01

isn't it? That process has begun with a

45:03

kind of humane effort

45:05

to try and execute people

45:08

kindly and ethically and actually

45:10

have been really

45:11

horrific. Tell me

45:12

more about this concept of executing people

45:14

ethically

45:15

Yeah. I mean but that's what the

45:17

guillotine was for. You know, we've mentioned the guillotine. That was

45:19

the same thing. The idea of of saying, look, you

45:21

need to be able to end life fast payinglessly.

45:24

And so a dentist saying, hey, I've got dentist

45:26

chair. Let's just wire it up with electricity.

45:28

It's horrifying that it's shocking, but there is there's behind

45:31

there's this sort of this notion that it

45:33

can be done cleanly. So we've gone

45:35

from the Abbot Kinley, the French cleric

45:37

zapping monks and soldiers, which is little

45:39

bit of fun. To by the end of the

45:42

nineteenth century, the state, executing

45:44

people with electricity. So vital electricity

45:46

is a story both of of life and

45:48

health, and then also of death. Final

45:51

thought, actually, UN, before we did the newest window,

45:53

but one of the great technological revolutions

45:55

of nineteenth century is the telegraph machine.

45:57

That's cooking wheat stones machine in in Britain

45:59

and in America, it's morse morse code.

46:02

This is a huge communication revolution.

46:04

It's exciting. It's fascinating. You can communicate.

46:06

Around the world very, very fast. But

46:08

again, electricity and vital electricity

46:10

sort of plays a part in how people understand

46:12

it. Is that right? Yeah. I'm absolutely having

46:15

very, very quick once

46:17

telegraph network start proliferating from

46:19

the late eighteen forties, eighteen fifties onwards,

46:22

people start developing this kind of fascinating kind

46:24

of two way analogy. People

46:27

describe the telegraph, light

46:29

conurbuses. Yep. It's the nervous system of Britain.

46:31

Very headquarter of the electric telegraph company.

46:34

Is the great brain that kind of

46:36

governs the network of

46:38

the empire. And people use the telegraph

46:41

analogy to explain how nerves work.

46:44

Nerves are just like telegrops.

46:46

There's very strong sense in which

46:49

the victorians themselves see

46:51

those kinds of technologies as kind of

46:53

extending the senses, very

46:55

fantasize about being

46:57

able to build machines that

47:00

will allow you to see

47:01

things, to transmit

47:03

vision -- Yeah. -- as well as sand with a telephone

47:05

or things like that. The notes of the, you know, you

47:08

can make your body better in different

47:10

sorts of ways through electrical technologies.

47:12

That's true now with biohacking, isn't it? There's

47:14

a host of podcast about technology in the

47:16

internet. I'll I mean, we're still having these sort

47:19

of 4 on me that kind of the internet

47:21

as a great brain and Yeah. I think what

47:23

you're describing about extending the nervous system,

47:25

I think, rings very true with like the

47:27

biohacking community and the idea of sort

47:29

of extending the limits of the human body

47:32

with technological inventions, like

47:34

various, like mechanical and electric

47:36

exoskeletons that people are building for

47:38

themselves or like chips that people put into

47:41

their bodies to open their houses and

47:42

stuff. I mean, we like to think that we're incredibly

47:44

bold and that all of this stuff and all

47:46

these new questions. Yes. We can do this

47:48

stuff. All the Victorian are doing, they're still thinking

47:51

about this stuff. More than a century ago.

47:53

So you're saying people are putting their front door key

47:55

into their body, while Benjamin

47:57

Franklin was popping his front door key on his

47:59

kite and popping into the

48:00

sky. So there's not so much differences there.

48:02

Or our petals. That

48:06

was humble. Let's all let's all be honest, humble.

48:08

It's the best.

48:09

I mean, one of the name we should mention super quick.

48:12

It's Faraday because he's a very important

48:14

guy in the history of electric magnetism and he

48:16

comes along and goes, and it's actually not a fluid.

48:18

It's a force. He's an interesting guy and he's,

48:20

I'm right. Maybe we'll do an episode on him one day, but

48:23

we do have lots and lots of big

48:25

superstars by the late nineteenth century, your

48:27

your Tesla's, your edesomes, your houses,

48:29

your swans, and maybe we'll come back

48:31

to those. But the idea of vital electricity

48:34

is such an interesting part

48:36

of history, and it's full of big shocks.

48:38

Honey one's window. It's

48:45

time now for us to close the

48:47

circuit on this conversation and for

48:49

professor, you want to give us his nuance

48:51

window. So this is where

48:53

Olga and I recharge you're

48:55

welcome. While Professor Ewan gets two uninterrupted

48:58

minutes to tell us what we need to know about

49:00

today's

49:00

subjects, and Ewan you're gonna tell us about

49:03

how vital electricity was politicized.

49:05

Two minutes on the clock, take it away.

49:08

Like everything, it's all about politics.

49:11

Certainly of the eighteenth century. Remember, I said

49:13

that because of one of the things that deuteronians think

49:15

they're doing is quite showing off electricity.

49:18

If they're showing that gold is in the room.

49:20

Well, that actually matters politically because if

49:22

God is in the room, God is kind

49:24

of ticking the box and yes, the political

49:26

system that we have right now is a right one because

49:29

gold wouldn't allow it otherwise, so it's electricity

49:31

for the status quo. And then

49:33

you have Joseph Priestly, non

49:36

4, Discover of Oxygen, Inventor

49:38

of soda pop, all kinds of interesting stuff.

49:41

What does priestly think? The English

49:43

hierarchy, if there be anything unsound

49:45

in his constitution, is equal reason to

49:47

tremble even at an air pump

49:50

or an electrical machine. Electrical

49:52

machines reveal the

49:54

true order of nature and they

49:57

tell you that there's something wrong.

49:59

So, at the beginning of the eighteenth

50:01

century, electricity is about the status

50:03

quo by the end of the eighteenth century. Electricity

50:06

is the revolutionary spirit.

50:09

And priestly is the guy who's delivering

50:11

it. So come the French revolution. Certainly,

50:14

people in England, people like Edmond Burke,

50:16

are arguing that it's all the philosophers fault.

50:18

It's them that have set off the revolution.

50:21

There's a brilliant cartoon priestly

50:23

being dangled by a Frenchman in

50:25

front of the mob. He's holding the

50:28

prime conductor of an of an electrical machine.

50:30

He's and pointing it. He's electrifying the

50:32

crowds. It's connected to a

50:34

a lieden jar where all this electricity is coming

50:37

from. Electricity is political, esoteric

50:39

revolution, and going into the nineteenth

50:41

centuries about materialism. If you

50:43

can produce life by means of electricity,

50:46

if you can do things like Aldini, then

50:48

that means they they need to talk about souls anymore.

50:50

It's all material. So it's kind of grist

50:52

to the mill, political radicals as

50:55

kind of an arm of the revolution that's

50:57

gonna be spreading across

50:59

Europe. They hope. Amazing.

51:01

Thank you so much. Goodness, Maye. That's fascinating.

51:03

I'll go any takeaways on that. Oh, god. I didn't

51:05

know that I had to have a takeaway, but I am fast enough.

51:09

That's very

51:10

Interesting. No. No takeaways

51:12

required. We talk about electrifying a crowd.

51:15

Don't we? I mean, as a as a comedian, I'm

51:17

sure you've had great nights where the crowd feels

51:19

electric. The room feels like it's buzzing literally.

51:21

Yeah. I just wanna put them all up my

51:24

butt.

51:28

That metaphor of electrifying an

51:30

audience or a mob, it's kind of fascinating that

51:32

even in eighteenth century, there's already this

51:34

sort of notion of energistic passing

51:37

through people and energizing them and turning

51:40

them into radicals and

51:42

revolutionaries and people with

51:43

guillotine. So, yeah, really, really

51:45

interesting. But it's interesting how when you describe

51:47

how electricity was pulled aside and how it feels

51:50

far fetched. But in in reality, that happens with

51:52

everything. And the parallel that came to mind

51:54

is art. And how any sort

51:56

of art was always politicized. And when he

51:58

said God was in the

51:59

room, the thing that came to mind was like frescoes

52:01

were never credited. Right? Because they creativity

52:03

came from God and just

52:04

changed with person. Yeah. Sorry.

52:06

That's not funny. It's not about butts, but that's what

52:08

it made me think.

52:13

Yeah. We were really looking for a butt related comment,

52:16

but okay, I will accept that. Thank you, Olga.

52:19

So what do you know now? What

52:26

is time now for the sub, what do you know

52:28

now? This is our quick fight quiz for Olga

52:30

to see how much she has learned. You did very well last

52:32

time. You got eight and a half out of ten on a very tricky,

52:35

if I'm a terrible special. So are you feeling

52:37

switched on for this one? Classic

52:40

pun. Sorry, I've got loads of them. I've got just a

52:42

big list of puns that I can dangle

52:43

here. But we've got ten questions. Do you feel like you've

52:45

heard some shocking stuff?

52:47

Absolutely. But I believe that the

52:49

force is with me. Let's go. Okay.

52:53

Spoken like a true Faraday fan. Okay. Right.

52:55

Have you got ten questions? Question

52:57

one. Where does the word electricity

53:00

come

53:00

from?

53:01

It comes from the Greek word for Amber.

53:03

It does very good. Question two.

53:05

Was twice accidentally invented in

53:07

the seventeen forties to store

53:10

electricity. Glass jars? Yeah.

53:12

Lightened jars. Question three.

53:14

How many Carthagin monks were simultaneously

53:17

electrocuted by Jean Antoine Nollais in

53:19

seventeen forty

53:20

six?

53:20

It's it's a hard pass from me. I don't

53:22

remember. Two? Two

53:25

hundred. It was two hundred mugs.

53:27

Two hundred mugs. Question number

53:29

4. The four Faraday discovered electricity

53:31

was

53:31

4, it was largely believed to be what?

53:34

A

53:34

fluid.

53:35

It was a vital fluid. Question

53:38

five, Francis Horsby was

53:40

the chief experimenter for the royal society

53:43

in seventeen o

53:44

five. With his spinny glass glow

53:46

thingy, what color did it glow?

53:48

Purple.

53:49

It was purple blue. Question

53:52

six. Name one of the many electric

53:54

products created to supposedly solve

53:56

medical problems like exhaustion. Belt.

53:59

Yep. Mattress towel, electric

54:01

tubers, sandals. Absolutely. Well done

54:04

very good. Question seven.

54:06

Named two features of James Graham's

54:08

celestial sex

54:09

bed.

54:10

It was twelve feet long. It

54:12

was -- Yep. -- it was surrounded by sexy

54:14

ladies. It was. Question

54:18

eight. Can you remember the name of the Italian

54:20

physicist who invented the Voltaic pile

54:22

battery? Is Volta?

54:25

It is Voalte. Yeah. Question nine.

54:27

The idea of Galvanism

54:30

meant what?

54:32

Oh god. Think Frankenstein. Oh,

54:35

reanimating bodies with electricity. And

54:37

question ten, what was Alfred p Southwicks

54:40

invention in the late eighteen

54:42

hundreds that is still unfortunately used

54:45

today.

54:45

The electric tire. It was

54:48

nine out of ten very good. Well done, Olga.

54:50

Okay. Is it very well? And

54:53

with jet lag as well, which is very impressive. Well,

54:55

thank you so much, Olga, and a listener. If

54:57

you're keen for more Olga Cook, then you can go and

54:59

listen to our excellent episode on Ivan the Terrible.

55:01

He was Terrible. Older was very funny. So, you

55:03

know, it's worth listening. If you wanna know about

55:05

the woman behind Frankenstein, check out our episode

55:08

on Mary Shelley. We've got them all on BBC

55:10

sounds plus many, many more. And remember,

55:12

if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review,

55:14

share it with your friends. Tell everyone,

55:16

subscribe to your Dead to Me on BBC sounds. Do all

55:18

that stuff so you never miss an episode. I

55:20

would like to say a huge thank you to our

55:22

guests. In history corner, we have the Electrifying

55:25

Professor, Eun Riese Morris from the University

55:27

of Aberystwith. Thank you, Eun. It's been

55:29

my pleasure. Spin a hoot. Annie

55:32

comedy corner, the always

55:33

sparky, vulgar cock. Thank you, vulgar.

55:35

Thank you so much. And you love

55:38

e listener. Join me next time as we plug ourselves

55:40

into another fascinating topic. See

55:42

endless puns. But for now, I'm off to go

55:44

and see whether some underpants can cure my hemorrhoids.

55:52

You're dead to me with a production by the athletic

55:54

BBC Radio four. The research was by Roxie

55:56

Moore. The episode was written by Emma Lagos,

55:58

Roxie Moore and Me. It was produced by

56:00

Emma Lagos and Me. Your assistant producer

56:02

was Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, the project manager

56:04

was Eilah Matthews, and the audio producer was

56:07

Steve Hanky.

56:19

Please, I beg you in the name of God

56:21

and need some assistance from you. Who

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is worthy? Of our

56:25

trust. I just thought this is very

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very shady and there's something

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didn't believe me. I said, well, I'm not a

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skimmer. I'm not a bad person.

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Join me, Matthew Syed, for the latest

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