Follow the Leader

no legacy to overcome. However, being the first comes with its own set of problems. For one, there's nobody to tell you what to expect. One man didn't need anyone to tell in the odds though. In fact, he was the person reassuring people right before they did something risky. This man, you see, was a surgeon. His name was Evan O'Neil Kane, and he was born in eighteen sixty

one to Elizabeth and Thomas Kane. Thomas was a Civil War hero and the founder of the town where they lived, Kane, Pennsylvania. Elizabeth was a prominent doctor in the town. After Thomas's death in eighteen eighty three, Elizabeth Evan and Evan's brother William, founded the Woodside Cottage Hospital right there in Kane. One year later, Evan graduated with his medical degree in Philadelphia

before returning home to practice at the family's hospital. The facility was unique and that the doctors who were not part of the Kane family often found themselves at odds with Evan and the rest of the clan. For one, when Evan became chief surgeon, he insisted his diagnosis be the final word when it came to a patient's treatment, even if he wasn't their primary doctor. Complaints by the other medical staff resulted in Evan and his assistant to be enforced to give up a little more control of

their hospital, but Evan didn't let it stop him. His job had always been to put the patient's needs first. Now he did this in a variety of ways, one of which was as a railway surgeon. If a rail worker was injured out on the tracks, Evan would travel from the hospital to the scene of the accident and stitch the patient up in the field. These incidents inspired him to come up with new ways of performing cleaner, more efficient surgeries when not in the sterilized environment. Of

the operating room. For example, he drafted a paper describing a method of infusing the body with intravenous fluids while away from the hospital. It prevented hemorrhage induced vein collapse thanks to the ten needles supplying the fluids instead. The design was modified by man named Edwin Hasbruck, but the technique described by Kane in his original paper is still

in use today. Looking back, though, some of Kane's first weren't so great as best as bandages may have been a breakthrough when he invented them one hundred years ago, but today they would pose a serious health risk. Still, he did come up with a way for surgeons to not only stitch up head wounds in the field, but also see effects of the damage more easily by using mica to make tiny windows into the brain. But perhaps his greatest achievement was his contribution to surgery itself. In

nineteen twenty one. Ether was often used as a general anesthetic for all kinds of surgeries, no matter how big or small. It was dangerous and in many cases wholly unnecessary. Kine was sixty at this point and had already performed roughly four thousand apendectomies. He'd always used a general anesthetic like ether, but thought a local anesthetic might provide better results as long as the patient could handle it. To prove this, he scrubbed his hands and prepped for a

test appendectomy. He used a new kind of local anesthetic called novocane to numb the area instead of a general anesthetic, which put the patient to sleep. No Vocane had recently pushed out cocaine as the local anesthetic of choice, since it was far less dangerous and less addictive. Evan propped the patient up on a few pillows, injected them with no vocane, and got to work. The surgery took longer

than usual, but Evan was an expert. He cut through the necessary tissue to remove the patient's appendix and seal the blood vessels before stitching them up and sending them home. The next day. The media was in awe of Evan's skill. Newspapers printed article after article about the miracle surgery, which didn't just use a new kind of anesthetic, but an entirely new method of dissection mirrors. Evan had needed mirrors

to see what he was doing. His patient hadn't been like the other four thousand he'd operated on in the past. This one was different because this time Evan was the patient. In fact, over the course of his career, Evan O'Neill kane operated on himself three times. He performed a follow up surgery on himself a little over ten years later, when he was seventy years old. The plan was to remove a hernia he had gotten in a horse writing accident.

He was back in the operating room just thirty six hours later, though, stitched up and ready to get back to work. And I know some might call that being a show off, And while that might be true, I'd prefer to think of it as more than a little curious. A person driven by their beliefs can do incredible things. They can do immense good for the world, like helping

those less fortunate than themselves. They can also inflict pain on those who don't share their beliefs, and in rare cases, they can change what others believe as well, for better or for worse. Martin Luther, for example, kicked off the Protestant Reformation when he nailed his ninety five Theces to the door of the Wittenberg Castle church in fifteen seventeen. He was declared a heretic by the Catholic Church and forced to go into hiding. Still, his beliefs made people

question their own, and he changed Christianity forever. Stephen and Nicholas had also changed things. In the year twelve twelve, Stephen of Klua, a small town in northern France, claimed to have heard the voice of God. This voice, according to Stephen, had told him to gather as many people as he could find and march them into Jerusalem, where they would push out the Muslims living there and reclaim

the area for Christianity. Stephen traveled all over France, preaching to crowds about how God had sent him on this mission this crusade. Though some weren't swayed by his sermons, Stephen was able to garner support from over thirty thousand believers who followed him across Europe. Unlike the first crusades that were launched in ten nine, Stephen's endeavor lacked two big advantages. First, he didn't have the backing of the Pope,

and secondly, he and his followers were without weapons. Instead of swords, shields, and spears, his followers carried crosses and flags that didn't bother Stephen, though, who was on a mission of peace, not violence when it came to those living in the Holy Land, even though invading another country that way was automatically an act of hostility. Meanwhile, in Germany, another crusader was building his own army. His name was Nicholas,

and he hadn't been spoken to by God. Instead, it had been an angel that came to him with a similar directive. Like Hannibal. In the year to eighteen BC, Nicholas led his thousands of followers over the Alps in order to reach Jerusalem. And while Stephen and Nicholas were marching their orders from Heaven, the Catholic Church was getting nervous. They hadn't sanctioned either of these movements, so they viewed

them more as potential enemies. Any immortal man with the power to convince that many people to follow them halfway across the world was someone to fear. The thing was, Stephen and Nicholas were not men. They were boys, twelve year old boys, and their followers were children too, tens of thousands of children who had been coaxed away from their families to march with the purpose of displacing indigenous

people in the name of their own religion. As Steven and his band of young crusaders reached Marseilla, they were tired and hungry and wild with Zelo Tree. Nicholas's group didn't fare any better once they finally crossed the Alps into Italy. In fact, it's believed that both armies disbanded at this point. Many gave up and returned home to their families, while others stayed along the Italian coast and found jobs. Their plan had been to work until a

ship came in that would carry them all to Jerusalem. Sadly, quite a few children met unfortunate fates. They died at sea, some became beggars on the streets, or were sold into slavery. A very small collective did make it to Rome, though, where they hoped to get a blessing for their mission by the Pope himself. Instead, he gave them a pat

on the back and sent them home. There was no way twelve year olds were going to carry out a crusade by themselves, So how did two young boys manage to convince thousands of other children to follow them all this way? Well, Stephen happened to tap into a collective of children who believed that they had been put on this earth to perform miracles. Nicholas, on the other hand, used all sorts of other methods to lure children to his cause, like impassioned sermons, the promise of miracles once

they reached Jerusalem, and songs. Nicholas gained a bit of a reputation for his use of music to draw children to his cause, and because of that, the legend has it that he was the inspiration behind a chilling character created around the year thirteen hundred. That tale also involved a musician who lured followers to go on a journey, although his followers were not kids, but rats, a musician named the Pied Piper. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided

tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.