Futility Closet - 336-A Gruesome Cure for Consumption

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 11,000 quirky curiosities from a cemetery train to a mountain climbing dog. This is episode 336. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In the 19th century, some New England communities grew so desperate to help victims of tuberculosis that they resorted to a macabre practice, digging up dead relatives and ritually burning their organs. In today's show, we'll examine the causes of this bizarre belief and review some unsettling examples.

Starting point is 00:00:50 We'll also consider some fighting cyclists and puzzle over Freddie Mercury's stamp. In 1990, three boys were sliding down the slope of a gravel pit in Griswold, Connecticut, when they dislodged two human skulls. The local police feared at first that this might be the work of a serial killer, but then it became clear that the bones were more than a century old. The hillside had been a farm cemetery in the colonial era. At first, there seemed nothing remarkable about this. Such plots are common in New England, and the 29 bodies in this one were buried in the style of the time, lying in simple wooden coffins with their arms at their sides or crossed over their chests. But burial number four was different. The skeleton inside had been rearranged. The skull and thigh bones lay on top of the ribs

Starting point is 00:01:35 and vertebrae, like a skull and crossbones. At the time, archaeologists referred to the man as JB because those letters had been spelled out in brass tacks on his coffin lid. DNA analysis later suggested that he might have been John Barber, a man who'd lived in the area in the early 1800s. Lesions on his ribs suggested that he'd suffered from tuberculosis, and it appeared that his bones had been rearranged about five years after his death. That suggested a gruesome explanation. It was known that a similar story had unfolded about 50 years later in the neighboring village of Jewett City. Three members of the Ray family had died of tuberculosis, a father and two sons. In 1854, when a third son fell ill, family and friends had gone

Starting point is 00:02:16 to the burial ground, exhumed the bodies of the dead brothers, and burned them. This is a terrible but fascinating phenomenon of the 19th century. Some communities in New England believed that the dead fed upon the living, that this accounted for the symptoms of tuberculosis, and that the only way to end the affliction was to disinter the body. This phenomenon is generally called the New England vampire panic, a term that's both lurid and misleading. The people who practiced it did not use the term vampire, though some historians and newspapers did, and they didn't believe that the dead were leaving the grave to suck blood. Rather, they generally believed that the dead maintained some spiritual connection with their living

Starting point is 00:02:53 relatives and could use it to drain the life force of their loved ones without leaving their graves. If nothing was done, the living victims would themselves die. About 80 cases of this are known, ranging from 1784 to 1892, most of them in rural New England. Not everyone who tried it was convinced it would work. The practice was closer to what might be called folk medicine, a reputed remedy that a desperate family member might resort to when no other answer seemed possible. Tuberculosis was the scourge of the 19th century, as mysterious as it was deadly. Where many diseases followed a clear course, tuberculosis manifested slowly and its symptoms were ambiguous.

Starting point is 00:03:31 A victim who contracted it might pass in and out of remission for months, years, or even decades. Some families were ravaged while others remained untouched. And it was everywhere. By 1800, it accounted for nearly a quarter of all deaths in the northeastern United States, and it remained the leading cause of death throughout the 19th century. By 1800, it accounted for nearly a quarter of all deaths in the northeastern United States, and it remained the leading cause of death throughout the 19th century. Doctors blamed everything from drink to dancing and prescribed everything from brown sugar to horseback riding,

Starting point is 00:03:56 but there seemed no reliable treatment. With no other explanation, people turned to the supernatural for understanding and the hope of a cure. It seemed natural to suppose that tuberculosis victims were being preyed upon. The illness was known as consumption because it appeared that its victims were being consumed, as if something were draining the life from them. They grew ashen, lost weight, and coughed up blood. One 18th century description reads, the emaciated figure strikes one with terror, the forehead covered with drops of sweat, the cheeks painted with a livid crimson, the eyes sunk, the breath offensive, quick and laborious, and the cough so incessant as to scarce allow the wretched sufferer time to tell his complaints. The panics took place in the midst of these outbreaks. The disease spread easily within a family, so often after one member had

Starting point is 00:04:40 died, others began to lose their health. According to the belief, this might be a sign that the dead one's corpse had been inhabited by a kind of evil spirit that was sustaining itself by draining the life from the living. If that was the case, the bond had to be broken. So the corpse was dug up and examined. If it appeared unusually fresh, and especially if the heart or other vital organs contained liquid blood, then it was deemed to be feeding on the living. There were a number of ways to stop the attacks. One was to turn the body over in its grave.

Starting point is 00:05:10 In other cases, the family would burn the organs, and sometimes family members who were ill would inhale the smoke or consume the ashes as a cure. In cases like JB's, where essentially nothing remained of the body but bones, it might be decapitated. This is horrible to describe and even more horrible to contemplate, as it was usually the dead person's own family who resorted to this measure, but often they saw no other alternative. Connecticut State archaeologist Nick Bellantoni said, this was being done out of fear and out of love. People were dying in their

Starting point is 00:05:39 families and they had no way of stopping it, and just maybe this was what could stop the deaths. They didn't want to do this, but they wanted to protect those that were still living. People were desperate. Anthropologist Michael Bell said, there are times in life when you need to have an answer. You need to have a course of action, to actually do something and not just sit there and watch your family die. And so folklore provided an avenue for this, a door, really, from fear and disease into hope. Though it often occurred in private, the practice was sometimes known and accepted by the community at large, by town authorities, and even by clergymen. Here are some examples. In 1788, the Reverend Justice Forward of Belchertown,

Starting point is 00:06:15 Massachusetts, had lost three daughters to consumption and two more had fallen ill. He was reluctant to open his family's graves, but allowed himself to be convinced. His mother-in-law's grave was opened first, but nothing unusual was found. Forward wrote in a body just dead, but far nearer a state of soundness than could be expected. The liver, I am told, was as sound as the lungs. We put the lungs and liver in a separate box and buried it in the same grave ten inches or a foot above the coffin. Despite this measure, Mercy died shortly afterward, but Forward's other children seemed to recover, which lent support to the theory. Rachel Harris died of tuberculosis in Manchester, Vermont in 1790. Her husband married again the following year, but the new bride began showing similar symptoms, and family friends

Starting point is 00:07:14 reasoned that Rachel was responsible. So in February 1793, as many as a thousand people watched the ceremonial burning of Rachel's heart at a blacksmith's forge. An early town history says, Timothy Meade officiated at the altar in the sacrifice to the demon vampire who it was believed was still sucking the blood of the then-living wife of Captain Burton. It was the month of February and good slaying. In the late 18th century, the Spalding family of Dumberston, Vermont, lost nine members in 16 years. When another daughter grew ill, a local historian wrote in 1884,

Starting point is 00:07:48 the body of the last one buried was dug up and the vitals taken out and burned, and the daughter, it is affirmed, got well and lived many years. The act, doubtless, raised her mind from a state of despondency to hopefulness. In February 1796, the town council of Cumberland, Rhode Island, granted permission for Stephen Staples to exhume the body of his 23-year-old daughter, Abigail, who had died of consumption. The record of the council meeting reads, Staples, late of Cumberland, single woman, deceased, in order to try an experiment on Levina Chase, wife of Stephen Chase, which said Levina was sister to the said Abigail, deceased, which being duly considered, it is voted and resolved that the said Stephen Staples have

Starting point is 00:08:35 liberty to dig up the body of the said Abigail, deceased, and after trying the experiment as aforesaid, that he bury the body of the said Abigail in a decent manner. It's not clear whether the exhumation went forward, or if it did, what was the result of the experiment. In Woodstock, Vermont, in 1817, a Dartmouth College student named Frederick Ransom died of consumption and his father had the body exhumed. Frederick's brother Daniel wrote in his memoirs, For it was said that if the heart of one of the family who died of consumption was taken out and burned, others would be free from it. And father, having some faith in the remedy, had the heart of one of the family who died of consumption was taken out and burned, others would be free from it. And father, having some faith in the remedy, had the heart of Frederick taken out after he had been buried, and it was burned in Captain Pearson's blacksmith forge.

Starting point is 00:09:12 However, it did not prove a remedy, for mother, sister, and two brothers died with that disease afterward. And when Nancy Young of Sterling, Connecticut died in 1827 at age 19, her siblings began to fall ill, and their father asked his friends and neighbors to dig up and burn her remains, quote, while all the members of the family gathered around and inhaled the smoke from the burning remains. That's from an 1892 reprint in the Patuxet Valley Gleaner. It appears that cure didn't work as five more children died. It's not clear where this odd belief came from, but it may have been introduced by traveling healers from Eastern Europe and Germany. In 1784, Councilman Moses Holmes warned

Starting point is 00:09:51 the residents of Willington, Connecticut to beware of what he called a certain quack doctor, a foreigner, who was urging families to exhume and burn their dead relatives in order to stop an outbreak of consumption. Holmes had seen several children disinterred. He wrote, and that the bodies of the dead may rest quiet in their graves without such interruption, I think the public ought to be aware of being led away by such an imposture. Nonetheless, the beliefs seemed to find a home in rural New England, where 90% of the residents in the 1800s were unchurched, practicing instead various folk religions and possibly more open to supernatural beliefs and traditional remedies. The quintessential case unfolded in Exeter, Rhode Island in 1892. It centered on a young woman named Mercy Brown, known to her family as Lena. Thanks to the Civil War and westward migration, Exeter's

Starting point is 00:10:36 population had dwindled to less than a thousand, and consumption was assailing the families that remained. The Browns had begun to fall ill in December 1882. First, Lena's mother died, then her sister. Within a few years, her brother Edwin sickened as well. He left for Colorado Springs, hoping that the climate there would improve his health. Lena didn't herself grow ill for nearly another decade, but when it happened, she faded quickly and soon passed away. Her obituary, published in January 1892, read only, Miss Lena Brown, who has been suffering from consumption, died Sunday morning. Edwin had returned from Colorado while Lena was on her deathbed, and now his own condition began to worsen. Several neighbors approached the children's

Starting point is 00:11:15 father, George Brown, to suggest that an unseen force was preying on the family and that Edwin might yet recover if the bond were broken. George gave his permission, and on the morning of March 17th, a party of men dug up the bodies his permission, and on the morning of March 17th, a party of men dug up the bodies of the three women in the presence of the family doctor and a correspondent for the Providence Journal. Lena's sister and mother had been dead for more than a decade at this point, and little more than bones remained of them. But blood was found in Lena's heart and liver, so the party burned them on a nearby rock. According to some accounts, the ashes were mixed with water and given to Edwin to drink. If that happened, it didn't work. He died less than two months later. The Lena Brown case

Starting point is 00:11:50 is the last known case of the New England Panic. It unfolded in 1892, the same year that General Electric was established and Thomas Edison patented a two-way telegraph. Ten years earlier, the German physician Robert Koch had discovered that tuberculosis is caused not by a supernatural influence, but by a specific microorganism. The fact that the disease is contagious was established soon afterward, and infection rates began to drop as hygiene and nutrition improved. At the same time, modern practices of chemical embalming became more common, which made the notion of reanimated corpses seem less plausible. But at the time, these advances hadn't yet penetrated rural New England, and George Brown, Lena's father, was besieged on all sides by a number of people

Starting point is 00:12:31 who expressed implicit faith in the old theory, according to the Providence Journal. It says that he agreed only to satisfy the neighbors who, according to another newspaper account, were worrying the life out of him. He asked a doctor to perform an autopsy at the cemetery, and he himself chose not to attend. The doctor, Harold Metcalf, acted under protest as it were being an unbeliever, according to one account. He honestly reported finding blood in Lena's heart and liver, but he judged that this wasn't surprising as Lena had been dead only two months and had been laid to rest during a cold New England winter. So the awful task went forward, perhaps for the last time. George Brown himself never contracted tuberculosis.

Starting point is 00:13:09 In fact, he survived until 1922, giving him 30 years to reflect that his doubts had been well-founded. Thank you. in the support section of the website at futilitycloset.com. Or if you'd like to make a more ongoing donation to our show, you can join our Patreon campaign, where you'll also get access to bonus material like outtakes, more discussions on some of the stories, extra lateral thinking puzzles, and what's going on behind the scenes of the show. You can learn more at our Patreon page at patreon.com slash futilitycloset, or see the Support Us section of the website for the link. And thanks so much to everyone who helps make Futility Closet possible. In episode 329, we discuss spectators at sporting events being hit with various things,

Starting point is 00:14:26 such as balls, pucks, vehicles, and even hot dogs. And we got some interesting follow-up on that topic. A couple of our listeners let us know about a somewhat famous letter written by an attorney who was concerned that he might be injured by paper airplanes being thrown around in the stands during Cleveland Brown NFL games. So he wrote to let the team owners know that, I will hold you responsible for any injury sustained by any person in my party attending any one of your sporting events.

Starting point is 00:14:54 Apparently, what is even more famous than this letter is the reply that was sent to it. Robert Johnson from Austin, Texas wrote, In 1974, a Cleveland Brown season ticket holder, Dale O. Cox, of the Akron law firm Rutzel & Andres, brought the injury risks from paper airplanes constructed from game programs to the attention of team ownership. In a tersely written response, General Counsel James Bailey responded to Cox thusly, Dear Mr. Cox, Attached is a letter that we received on November 19, 1974. I feel that you should be aware that some expletive hole is signing your name to stupid letters. Very truly yours,

Starting point is 00:15:34 James N. Bailey. And Robert sent a link to the Snopes website, which evaluated the authenticity of the two letters after they started circulating on the internet in 2010 and found them both to be genuine. Snopes reports that Michael Heaton of the Cleveland Plain Dealer tracked down the two letter writers in late 2010. Bailey, the Brown's general counsel, told Heaton that he'd been hearing from old friends who had seen the letter online and said, I was all of 28 years old when I wrote that letter. I should have been more cautious. and said, I was all of 28 years old when I wrote that letter. I should have been more cautious. I'm just glad my mother's not around to see that letter. Cox, who wrote the first letter complaining about the paper airplanes, told Eaton that he was still a Browns season ticket holder and said that he hadn't been angry with the response he'd received. He said, I thought it

Starting point is 00:16:19 was pretty cool. I've used that letter a couple times myself since. And apparently Bailey's reply is rather well regarded by at least some attorneys. Charles Hargrove had also sent this story to us and included a link to an article on the Find Law blog where an attorney wrote a 2016 post that said that that letter could be the best legal response letter ever. I bet there are a lot of lawyers who would like to send letters like that. I wonder if you get sued nowadays if you send a letter like that. John Hymer from Hickory, North Carolina wrote, After listening to your recent discussion and the subsequent follow-up regarding spectators injured or killed in baseball games, my immediate thought turned to what I consider to be the holy grail of baseball spectator injuries. On October 17, 1957, during a game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Giants, future Hall of Famer Richie Ashburn of the Phillies hit the same spectator

Starting point is 00:17:16 with foul balls twice in the same at-bat. The spectator, Alice Roth, was hit in the face by an Ashburn foul ball, breaking her nose and bloodying her face. Ashburn was visibly shaken and upset by this, and play was held up for several minutes while paramedics treated Mrs. Roth. Fearing more severe head injuries, she was placed on a stretcher, and the paramedics began to carry her out of the stands to take her to a local hospital. Play resumed, and on the very next pitch, Ashburn fouled a rocket into the stands again, straight into Mrs. Roth on her stretcher as she was being carried out, this time breaking a bone in her leg. After the event, the Phillies invited her family into the clubhouse and gave them free tickets and an autographed baseball.

Starting point is 00:17:58 After that, the kids visited Roth in the hospital and one reportedly asked, Grandma, do you think you could go to an Eagles game and get hit in the face with a football? Thank you for the wonderful podcast, which gets me through my dreary work days. And John sent a link to a 2017 story from Forbes about this rather unfortunate baseball fan, which goes on to say that Ashburn actually visited Roth in the hospital and they became friends, and that Roth's son went on to become a bat boy for the Phillies. So I guess the family didn't have any hard feelings about the incident. That seems almost impossible. I mean, I'm sure it's true, but what are the odds?

Starting point is 00:18:33 Yeah, but you have to figure, like, how many people go to baseball games over all the years that baseball's been played. So even if the odds are teeny tiny, right, eventually it's going to happen to someone. And both of them were serious injuries. Serious injuries. Yeah. It makes a great family story, though, I'm sure.

Starting point is 00:18:51 Yeah, I guess. In episodes 321 and 329, I discussed the so-called baseball rule, which has historically kept baseball teams largely immune from litigation from injured fans due to the assumption of risk that spectators presumably knowingly take when they go to a game. John Samankiewicz, an attorney here in Raleigh, sent a follow-up on that. Just listen to the Cock Lane Ghost podcast and saw the attached article in North Carolina Lawyers Weekly. Turns out North Carolina's very own Court of Appeals dealt with this issue quite recently about an incident in Durham. It also talks about an argument to abandon the baseball rule using

Starting point is 00:19:30 the argument that baseball is dying. Interesting anecdote about that argument in the article as well. John sent an article from January titled Litigant Cries Foul Over Court's Baseball Rule about the legal arguments made in the case of a fan who had been injured by a foul ball at a Durham Bulls baseball game. After the Bulls' motion to dismiss the suit was granted, the plaintiff appealed and her legal counsel argued to the North Carolina Court of Appeals that the waning popularity of baseball in America means that the baseball rule should be abandoned as archaic and out of step with the sport's arguably diminished place in popular culture compared to its historical primacy in the American sporting landscape. And John explained that the thrust of this baseball is dying argument is that if it's a popular sport, it's generally known that these things happen and that there's risk involved.

Starting point is 00:20:23 So the attendee can knowingly assume the risk. On the other hand, if it's a dead sport, fewer people attend and it may be the first time John Doe goes to a baseball game and doesn't realize that he may be in danger in the stands. He can't assume the risk if he doesn't know that there's a risk. I'm not saying it's a good argument, but it is an argument. The article from North Carolina Lawyer's Weekly notes that the contention that baseball is dying has actually been around for quite some time, and that a writer for Sports Illustrated found editorials making such assertions throughout the 20th century, dating back to at least 1905, which, the article says, means that the baseball is dying argument is even older than the baseball rule itself. As it was, the chief judge in this case didn't directly weigh in on the merits of the argument, saying that since the baseball rule has been held by the state Supreme Court,

Starting point is 00:21:16 the Court of Appeals didn't have the authority to set it aside and the plaintiff's arguments were rejected. That is kind of a clever argument. I don't know if I'd have thought of that if I were a lawyer. It's an argument, you know. Although I guess if people have been offering it for a hundred years, it kind of undercuts it. On a rather different way that fans can be at risk at sporting events, Carlos Q. Coutinho wrote, I just finished listening to episode 329. I was surprised when you were talking about objects hitting fans at sporting events that you didn't mention the 1955 Le Mans disaster. It killed 83 spectators, the driver of the car, and injured 180 more. It's the most catastrophic crash in motorsports history. There is film of the event, although it's hard to watch.

Starting point is 00:22:00 Wonderful work as always, and thank you for the podcast. It's one of my favorites. So, wow, this was pretty horrifying. On June 11, 1955, during the annual 24 Hours of Le Mans motor race in Le Mans, France, one car rear-ended another at high speed and was launched into the air. When the car hit a concrete structure, it broke apart, and several parts of the car flew into the crowded stands of spectators. When the rest of the car landed on a nearby protective embankment, its fuel tank exploded and the crowd was then showered with burning bits of the car, leading to the very high numbers of deaths and injuries that Carlos mentioned. Although this tragedy led to the

Starting point is 00:22:40 temporary ban of motor racing in several countries. Surprisingly, this particular race continued after the horrific accident, with several explanations offered later by the race director, including that if the huge crowd of spectators had all been trying to leave the area at the same time, they would have severely impeded access for emergency crews trying to deal with the deceased and injured. And I will admit that I didn't even attempt to watch any video of this event, but if you're interested, searching for 1955 Le Mans will get you several hits. Yeah, I think I've heard of this. I don't think I've ever seen it. I didn't care to see it. And for a rather different take on fan injuries,

Starting point is 00:23:19 Jesse Unlinden, Kitchener, Ontario wrote, I thought of another source of spectator injuries at sporting events, altercations with the athletes. In your most recent remarks on spectator injuries, you mentioned professional cycling, where spectators are sometimes hit by the cars and motorcycles that traverse the race route with the cyclists. Because road cycling races usually take place on long, outdoor public routes, spectators cannot generally be completely fenced off from the road. This can result in spectators standing dangerously close to where the riders will pass by, and sometimes even intentionally interfering in the race. Several times in recent

Starting point is 00:23:56 years, riders have physically assaulted spectators who have gotten in the way or knocked them off their bike. Usually they only receive a minor punishment from the race officials, and after each incident, there are renewed calls for fans to be more respectful of the riders, and failing that for more fences. So just a little searching turns up articles like When Riders Attack Memorable Scuffles from Recent Cycling History from Cycling News, or an article on Velo News titled Froome's Spectator Punch, How Does It Stack Up?, that compares some recent incidents where cyclists lashed out at spectators. While riders may get into it with each other, or sometimes officials connected to the race, physical assaults on spectators seem to be not uncommon, after spectators accidentally or

Starting point is 00:24:40 deliberately interfere with or fluster the riders by verbally assaulting them, getting in their way, or just being weird and distracting, like wearing an odd costume and running alongside and very close to a rider. An example of this last one happened to Lance Armstrong in 2009, when a man wearing a yellow and black devil kind of costume and wearing a trident composed of enormous syringes was running alongside the cyclist when Armstrong shoved him into a snowbank. I guess I never thought about this before, but spectators have more access to a cyclist than to most other athletes. Yeah, like you don't really get to get that up close and personal usually with baseball players, I guess. So I guess now

Starting point is 00:25:19 we have to add competitor's fists to the list of things that you can potentially be hit with at a sporting event. As always, a big thank you to everyone who writes to us. I really appreciate your follow-ups and comments and the links and articles and pronunciation help that so many of you have sent. If you have anything you'd like to add to our discussion, please send that to podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. I'm going to give him an interesting sounding situation. He's going to try to guess what's going on by asking yes or no questions. This puzzle comes from Safiya Flurry in Kingston-upon-Hall, England. In 1999, the Royal Mail issued a postage stamp commemorating the life of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury. The stamp immediately caused uproar among philatelists

Starting point is 00:26:12 across Britain. Why? Oh, wow. That's okay. Uproar, you say? Yes. Meaning they weren't happy with the stamp? Right. There's something about it that they disapproved of? Yes. Okay. Because the stamp... Okay, where do you start with this? Did it seem to imply something disparaging or unfortunate about Freddie Mercury? No.

Starting point is 00:26:38 No? Would you say the stamp was accurate in what it did present? Yes. Okay. So would you say this controversy didn't surround the substance, the content of the stamp's depiction itself with something else? I'm sorry. I don't understand the question. Could the appearance of the stamp have been changed to redress entirely this problem?

Starting point is 00:26:59 Yes. So it's something on the stamp? Yes. Okay. I'm assuming this has something to do with the way he's depicted. Is it something other than that? Yes, it's something other than that. Oh, really? Yes. Is it's something on the stamp. Yes. Okay. I'm assuming this has something to do with the way he's depicted. Is it something other than that? Yes, it's something other than that. Oh, really?

Starting point is 00:27:09 Yes. Is it the price? No. They thought they were pricing him too low. Okay, that's very interesting. So you say it's the Royal Mail? Yeah. I'm trying to think what would be on those stamps.

Starting point is 00:27:23 And your question was a good one about could they have changed the appearance of the stamp? Could the stamp have had a different appearance and that would have addressed the objections? And the answer is yes. Is it the fact that they singled him out? No. Okay. Was there any text on the stamp apart from the... Not that I'm aware of.

Starting point is 00:27:42 Was it a likeness of him? I believe so, yes. Okay, but I'm sorry. You were saying that it's something other than his likeness. It's not him. It's not Freddie Mercury. But it is something about the appearance of the stamp. Okay, so then this was different from other stamps that were in circulation at the time.

Starting point is 00:28:00 Yes. What a significant book. I'm trying to help. Yes. Okay okay all right so this may have happened if you put another celebrity on the same stamp this same controversy may have arisen is that fair to say yes like if you swapped out freddie mercury for an actor or something yeah uh-huh okay and all the rest of the stamp was the same yes yes people may have objected for objected for the same reason all right somehow this feels like I'm making progress and yet I'm not getting anywhere.

Starting point is 00:28:27 All right. So why would you object to a stamp then? All you're asking me is people objected to a Royal Mail stamp in 1999. Yeah. It's something about the appearance of the stamp. Its size? No. Its shape?

Starting point is 00:28:43 No. All right. I think I've already asked this, but was it text? I don't know if there was any text. That's irrelevant. There may not have been. There may not have been. All right, something about the way the stamp was intended to be used? No.

Starting point is 00:28:59 Something strictly about the appearance of the stamp, of what you could see when looking at the stamp. What can you see when looking at a stamp that's not his image? Right. That's not Freddie Mercury. And that's not text. It was something on the stamp other than his likeness. Yes. Wow.

Starting point is 00:29:19 This is a good puzzle. What the heck would you put on a... Well, what might you see on a stamp with Freddie on a well what might you see if on a stamp with freddie mercury what else might you see um you mean something in the image yeah an image of something yeah if i understand you correctly i mean as opposed to like a second i don't know what it would be some other element that's in there apart from the likeness of freddie mercury there is another element but apart from the image of Freddie Mercury, yes. I mean, it's like a microphone or something that's in his, the depiction of his...

Starting point is 00:29:52 It's not a microphone, but it's something that wouldn't surprise you to find out it was on a stamp with Freddie Mercury. I'm trying to think what else that would be, though. But it's, okay, so just to be clear, though, it's something within the same image that shows him. It's not like a second image that's on the same stamp, is what I'm asking. It's within the same image, but it's not Freddie Mercury, and it has nothing to do with Freddie Mercury.

Starting point is 00:30:18 So there's one image on the stamp. Yes. Okay, that's what I'm asking. It's part of the same picture. Well, what the heck is Freddie? So is he doing something I need to work out other than singing? No, he was probably singing. And what else might you see?

Starting point is 00:30:30 If you just took a picture of Freddie Mercury while he was singing, what else might you see in the background? Was he performing live, presumably? Yes. So drums or the rest of the band? The rest of the band, yes. Is it because they were sort of relegated to a secondary status behind him? No.

Starting point is 00:30:48 I don't think people would object to that. I think this is going to be very difficult to guess, but yes, you could see one of his bandmates. And there was an objection to that because his bandmate wasn't dead and Freddie Mercury was. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, this is very difficult to guess, I think. was. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, this is very difficult to guess, I think. In the background, you could see Roger Taylor at the drums, but convention dictated that the only living persons to feature on postage stamps were members of the British royal family. You couldn't show living people.

Starting point is 00:31:15 Roger Taylor was included by accident and was the first identifiable living non-royal to appear on a stamp. Despite being in Queen, he wasn't a Queen, Sophia says, and the rule was changed in 2005 so that living people could be included on postage stamps. And that wasn't obviously intended. It was accidental, but you could identify him. And she says that this almost happened in 1967 when there was a stamp commemorating the voyage of Gypsy Moth 4, in which there's a blob sort of representing the captain. This is presumably Francis Chichester. However, the blob isn't recognizable enough. So it didn't quite cross the threshold for being objected to.

Starting point is 00:31:53 So Roger Taylor was the first living person to definitely appear. That's really interesting. So, and Sefi asked if I could give a shout out to her sister, Lucia, and her partner, Eugene, who first introduced her to our podcast. So thanks to Lucia and Eugene for spreading the word about our show and indirectly contributing to our getting this puzzle. And if anyone else has a puzzle for us to try, please send that to podcast at futilitycloset.com. Futility Closet is a full-time commitment for us and is supported entirely by our amazing listeners. If you'd like to help support our celebration of the quirky and the curious, please check out the support us section of the

Starting point is 00:32:30 website at futilitycloset.com, where you can find a donate button and a link to our Patreon page. At our website, you can also graze through Greg's collection of over 11,000 tantalizing tidbits. Browse the Futility Closet store, learn about the Futility Closet books, and see the show notes for the podcast with the links and references for the topics we've covered. If you have any comments or feedback for us, please email us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. All our music was written and performed by the incomparable Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 336-A Gruesome Cure for Consumption

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