Don't Drink the Water, Stupid!

Celebrate Poe

• Learn how “The Masque of the Red Death” IS and IS NOT about cholera.
• Learn a bit about the horrible mob violence that occurred in Paris as a result of cholera.
• Listen to an absolutely horrible account of a typical 19th century operation done before painkillers were used!
• Learn how John Snow (not the Game of Thrones guy!) found the connection between contaminated water and cholera.
• A shoutout to Blackheath, England!
• Learn how to make the somewhat tedious (but necessary) step of washing your hands a lot easier with Poe and Shakespeare - or anyone else you choose.

0:00 INTRODUCTION
1:08 REVISITING “MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH” AND CHOLERA
2:50 REPORTS OF HEINRICH HEINE REGARDING PARIS, CROWDS, AND MOB VIOLENCE
9:02 GHOST OF MR. POE EXITS
9:28 SURGERY WITHOUT PAINKILLERS!
10:29 ACCOUNT OF AN OPERATION WITHOUT PAINKILERS
12:10 ETHER AS A PAINKILLER
12:21 JOHN SNOW (AND ETHER)
13:35 SNOW TRIES TO FIND OUT CAUSE OF CHOLERA
14:16 STUDYING WATER IN SOHO
17:01 HEINRICH KLEIN SOLVES TUBERCULOSIS AND CHOLERA
17:46 SHOUTOUT TO BLACKHEATH, ENGLAND
18:27 “ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH” (HENRY V)
18:55 MORE BLACKHEATH (FRANKENSTEIN TO BOY GEORGE)
20:08 INTRO TO COVID PRECAUTIONS
20:48 CATHOLIC HYMN
21:55 HOW DO I LEARN TO RECITE?
24:13 ALONE
25:10 A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM

26:08 ANNABEL LEE
28:02 THE RAVEN
36:25 THE BELLS INTRO
37:12 THE BELLS
41:24 SHALL I COMPARE THEE TO A SUMMER’S DAY?
44:15 LIFE IS FINE
44:49 SOURCES, OUTRO
SOURCES
Sources for this episode include Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography and by Arthur Hobson Quinn, The Poe Log: A Documentary Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Dwight R. Thomas and David K. Jackson, Edgar Allan Poe: The Man by Mary E. Phillips, Edgar Allan Poe by George E. Woodberry from the American Men of Letters series, The Year Without a Summer by William K. Klingman and Nicholas P. Klingman, Cholera: A Worldwide History by S.L. Kotar and J.E. Gessler, Cholera: The Victorian Plague by Thomas Amanda, Global Climate and Infectious Disease: The Cholera Paradigm by Rita R. Colwell, and The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson.