Nollet fought with rival scientists about the nature of electricity. Just how did electricity flow? And how quickly did it flow?
To answer this last question, he assembled 700 monks (Nollet himself was a deacon). He got the men to hold hands. He shocked the first man using a Leyden jar, an early type of capacitor. He then observed how soon after the initial spark that the final man jumped. All the men jumped, more or less simultaneously. This proved that electricity travels quite quickly. Good job, Nollet!
A Doctor Demonstrated How Dangerous Black Widow Spiders Are By Letting One Bite Him
Lastly, we’d like to share a comparatively recent story, from just 90 years ago. At the University of Alabama, Dr. Allan Blair was investigating the most important subject of all: spiders.
The black widow spider at the time had a reputation for being dangerous. Science does not rely on reputation, however. Science cares about properly documented phenomena, and so, Blair sought to answer whether such a tiny creature could really inflict as much pain as popular wisdom said. He held one such spider to his little finger and let it bite him. Then he sat down to write what he experienced.
“Dull, aching pain,” he wrote, 20 minutes in. Two minutes later, “Slight aching pain was present over the lateral surface of the left side of the chest.” An hour after this, “Aching pains were present in the muscles of the neck,” and then the pain was too great for him to keep writing. His assistants now had to take over that job, even as Blair was transferred to the hospital.
“Severe aching pain” turned to “agonizing pains.” Next, “the patient was unable to straighten up or stand… being in a condition of profound shock.” His mouth stuck into an oval shape, he threw up and a visible red streak now climbed up his hand. The next morning, he “became so upset mentally that he was afraid if firm control was not exercised he would go insane.” He improved over the course of that day, however, and spent most of it drinking orange juice. The next day, he was able to return home.
Blair provided a useful account of the bite’s effects. “The venom injected by the bite of the adult female spider, Latrodectus mactans, is dangerously poisonous for man,” he concluded. However, he did not succeed in what he originally intended to do. The original plan was for him to receive multiple bites and gauge whether immunity reduced successive bites’ pain. “I was presented with the opportunity of deciding this point,” he wrote, “but lacked the courage to submit myself to a possible repetition of the first experience.”
Never mind, Blair. We still honor your sacrifice, and when we today play with our pet black widows, we make sure to wear gloves.
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