Guardian Angels

This of course led to infections, which turned into high fevers and eventually death. Treatment was rudimentary and scarce. Many people who survived lost limbs to gang green and penicillin hadn't been discovered yet. The Civil War saw the earth of an organized ambulance system as a way to safely and quickly rush injured soldiers to local hospitals. Trains were also used as mobile medical units, but care itself had not advanced in any meaningful way. It wasn't like there

was time either. With war raging across the country. However, some soldiers suffered from gunshot wounds found themselves being healed by something outside the realm of modern medicine. It was a phenomenon that had to be seen to be believed. You might say they had a guardian angel watching over them. In early April of eighteen sixty two, over forty thousand Union soldiers had been camped out along the Tennessee River

near the little town of Shiloh. A second division of roughly twenty additional troops were on their way, but the Union soldiers, led by Ulysses S. Grant, had no idea what was coming. Meanwhile, forty thousand Confederate troops were moving in from the south, hoping to catch Union forces off guard. On the morning of April sixth, Confederate soldiers emerged from the nearby woods and surprised Grant's army, beginning what would become the bloodiest battle of the war. The Battle of

Shiloh lasted two days. Between both sides, over twenty three thousand lives were lost, more casualties than in any other battle in American history up to that moment. The surprise attack didn't matter anyway. The Confederates, with their antiquated weapons, were forced to retreat while both sides tended to their dead and wounded. The night after the fight rains started moving into the area, the soil turned to mud. Injured soldiers waited for medical support, and then they noticed something

odd about their wounds. They were glowing. No one had expected it. Being in the middle of nowhere with no access to proper medicine, as limited as it was at the time, didn't leave them feeling hopeful. But a miraculous thing was happening. The soldiers whose wounds had emitted a soft blue glow survived more often than those whose wounds had not. They healed faster, they were fewer cases of infection and amputations. Those who witnessed it started referring to

it as angels glow. If only it had been that divine. Sadly, angels had not descended upon Shiloh to save the Union troops. In fact, the truth about their glowing wounds had nothing to do with guardian angels at all. As it turned out, the whole area was crawling with nematodes, tiny worms that ate insect larvae they found in the mud. Well, they didn't exactly eat the larvae, They burrowed inside it and then vomited up a special kind of bacteria called photo

herabdous luminescence, and the bacteria was special for two reasons. First, it killed the larvae from the inside for the nematodes to eat, and secondly, it gave off a soft blue glow, and that's what the soldiers were seeing, glowing blue bacteria thrown up by hungry worms inside their wounds. Kind of gross, I know, but that's not all. The bacteria didn't just eat insect larvae. It ate pretty much anything in its path,

including other bacteria that might have caused infections. Those soldiers had survived at a much higher rate than the rest of the army did because of nema towed vomit. The medical profession might not have learned much about proper care during the worst of the Civil War, but the soldiers sure learned something else. A cure could always be found in nature, even in the most unlikely of places. The greatest minds in history left behind legacies of legendary proportions.

Albert Einstein's theories and research have contributed to some of the most important scientific discoveries of the last sixty years. Leonardo di and She's art has influenced not just other artists all over the world, but inventors as well, and William Shakespeare's impact on literature and theater continues to inspire new generations of writers everywhere. However, their work is only

part of their genius. We'll never know their hopes and dreams, the passing thoughts that might have changed the world if they had been explored, if only there had been some way to peek inside their minds. Well, one man may have done exactly that in sev kicking off over two hundred years of rumor about what happened to one of the most important historical figures of all time. His name

was Dr Frank Chambers. For years he kept a diarrhea of his day to day life, and it was in this record that he wrote some entries about a bold endeavor that he had undertaken. You see, he wanted something, something that belonged to a famous literary figure, the aforementioned Bard of Stratford upon Avon, William Shakespeare. Shakespeare had died almost two centuries prior, in sixteen sixteen, and his body had been buried in the Church of the Holy Trinity,

about one hundred miles northwest of London. So Dr Chambers led a team of gray robbers into the church one night with a plan to dig up Shakespeare's body. They weren't after jewels, though, or even a quill pen he might have been buried with. No, they wanted something else, a piece of the man himself, specifically his skull, And according to the stories, Chambers was successful in his pursuit and reportedly later sold the skull for three hundred British pounds.

But something about these stories never seemed to add up to a lot of historians. It just seemed too outlandish to be true. Shakespeare's grave had been unmarked, so successfully finding it in the dark seemed like a fool's Errand there was also the inscription, meant to warn away potential robbers, blessed to be the man that spares these stones, and cursed be he that moves my bones. That should have been enough to give anyone pause, but not doctor Chambers allegedly.

Of Course, in his explanation of his exploits, the intrepid thief may note of several specific details. For example, he claimed Shakespeare was not buried in a coffin, but wrapped in cloth and placed into a shallow grave. That only lessened the credibility of a story. After all, why would someone as famous and brilliant as William Shakespeare have been buried in such a common and unfitting way. Unfortunately, there

was no way to be sure. The Church would not let anyone else exhume the body for verification, and they heated the bard's final request that no one disturbed his grave. And so for centuries the rumors of doctor Chambers exploits persisted, although no one took them too seriously. Scholars and theater aficionados alike just couldn't accept that such a great mind might be resting in such a mundane grave. That was until two thousand sixteen, four hundred years after his death.

That's when archaeolo just found another way to get the answers they needed. Using ground penetrating radar, the scientists scanned Shakespeare's grave to get a more accurate picture of what was inside, and what they found shocked them. Dr Chambers, who had sworn the truth about his outrageous claims regarding the writer's grave, had been right all along. William Shakespeare had in fact been wrapped in cloth before his burial

in a shallow grave only three ft deep. What's more, perhaps the boldest and strangest claim of all hadn't been so strange. The head really was missing. No one knows where it is today or who might have it, but I like to imagine it's being used in a very special performance of Hamlet. Dr Frank Chambers confused the literary world for centuries with his amazing claim, but in the end it was proven true. He might have been our predecessor in many ways, but he certainly found a to

get ahead of us. 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.