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be trifled with. We see it all the time in nature. When an animal feels its offspringer threatened, it will attack, whether it's an alligator or an angry goose, and human parents are no different. Just ask Liam Neeson what happens when a parent can't fight the enemy hurting their child? Where do they turn over? Fifteen thousand children each year are diagnosed with cancer in the United States. Another eighteen hundred die from unknown causes. It's up to doctors and

specialists to help them fight what's killing them. But sometimes even doctors need a little help. And in nineteen seventy seven, one little girl got the treatment she needed from a very unexpected place someone's attempted murder. The girl was from Qatar, only nineteen months old. Her parents had taken her to London. They were desperate for answers. Their daughter was barely conscious and suffering from a number of symptoms, including numbness, lethargy,

random blackouts, and loss of hair. In other words, she seemed like she was dying, and yet her mother and father were at a loss for a reason why, as were her doctors back home. Her symptoms were indicative of a number of other ailments, including epilepsy and encephalitis, but tests revealed none of those to be the culprit. They had to act fast, or else this poor girl would

perish before their very eyes. The London doctors eventually ran out of options, and then, almost miraculously, a nurse stepped forward with a suggestion perhaps the young patient was suffering from thallium poisoning. Thallium is a metal that is naturally a blue white hue until it's exposed to air, at which point it turns gray. It was first discovered in eighteen sixty one by British chemist Sir William Crooks, and was once used as a household pest killer until its

ban in nineteen seventy two. Thallium also occurs naturally in the Earth's crust, but when ingested via the stomach or the lungs, it can cause all kinds of symptoms, including numbness and hair loss. And as it turns out, the nurse was right. The little girl had been suffering from thallium poisoning. The nurse had remembered a case where an english woman named Ginger Corrigan had exhibited many of the same symptoms. She'd lost much of her hair and had

been hospitalized with flu like symptoms. Her doctor had died ghosed her with bronchio pneumonia, despite the unusual symptoms she presented that didn't quite correspond with his assessment. She wasn't responding to antibiotics either. It wasn't until one of her acquaintances, a historian named Mark Easterbrook, connected the dots that she received the care that she needed. Ginger had been poisoned

with thallium. Mark realized it after remembering an article on thallium poisoning that he had read while traveling abroad in America. It had been a story about a factory where the workers started dying of mysterious causes such as paratyphoid, bulber paralysis, and epilepsy. There was also the presence of numbness in

the limbs as well as hair loss. Eventually, it was discovered that the factory workers had been subjected to high levels of the metallic substance, eventually succumbing to its effects, and Ginger would have met a similar fate had it not been for Mark's quick thinking. The nurse in London had a similar Eureka moment as well. She'd read all about Mark and Ginger, but not in a police file or in the news. Mark and Ginger weren't real peace people.

They were characters in the detective novel The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie, first published in nineteen sixty one. Christy went into specific detail on the symptoms of thallium poisoning in her novel, as well as the other diseases. It can appear to be the nurse had been reading The Pale Horse at the time the young Katari girl came into the emergency room and she recognized the same symptoms

as in the book. Doctor Victor Dubowitz, the physician assigned to the girl's case, consulted Scotland yard, who put him in touch with a particular thallium expert, a convicted criminal who had used it to poison his pets, coworkers and family. He confirmed their suspicions, and after a few more tests, the results were clear. The little girl had been poisoned, but not on purpose. She'd gotten into a stash of

rat poison in the family's home. Although thallium had been banned for use as a pesticide in several Western countries, there were other places around the world where it was still in use, including Qatar. The girl was quickly treated and really at least without further incident. As for the nurse, they should have added the letters MD to her name, not because she was a doctor of medicine, but because

of her impromptu role as medical detective. Firefighters around the world rely on fire hydrants to provide a source of water to extinguish fires. It's hard to imagine a world without them. But did you know that the patent for the fire hydrants was actually lost. Our story begins in the eighteen hundreds in the United States, where there was a growing need for an efficient way to supply water

to firefighting crews. At the time, water mains were being installed beneath the streets of major cities, but there was no easy way for firefighters to tap into them. Firefighters had to rely on water pumped from wells or cisterns, and as you might imagine, the process was a slow and inefficient one, which was bad news for the owners of the burning buildings. Then came the invention of the fire hydrant. But here's where it gets complicated. We're not

sure who invented it. It could be Birdsill Holly Junior, an inventor and engineer, or it could be Frederick Graft Senior, the chief engineer of the Philadelphia Waterworks, who created the first pillar style fire hydrant in eighteen oh one. Experts say Graft is the original inventor, but that Holly made improvements. Both men filed patents decades apart. Graft created a type of pillar fire hydrant that is referred to as a wet barrel. It resembles a barrel with a faucet and

a valve on top. Holly was an inventor and engineer who had already made a name for himself by developing a revolutionary steam engine in eighteen sixty nine. He turned his attention to the problem of supplying water to firefighters, and it came up with a design for a new type of fire hydrant. Holly's version of the hydrant was

unlike anything that had ever been seen before. It featured a top mounted valve could be turned on and off with a simple wrench, and it had a system of underground pipes that allowed water to flow directly to the fire hydrant from the water main. Holly knew that his invention was going to be in high demand. He immediately set up a company to produce the hydrants, and within a few years his invention had become the industry standard.

Over time, Holly's hydrants were installed in cities and towns across the United States, and they saved countless lives and millions of dollars in property damage by providing firefighters with a reliable source of water. So why is it that we don't know who to credit? Because decades before Holly filed for his patent, something odd happened with Graft's patent. He lost it. If an inventor couldn't prove that they were the inventor, it left them vulnerable to competitors who

might take the idea as their own. Without a patent, Graft couldn't prove the fire hydrant was his idea and had no legal protection, not that he would have taken Holly to court Graft had died in eighteen forty seven. Holly went on to manufacture his hydrant and sell them throughout the country. But how to Graft lose his patent? Oddly enough? By fire. The blaze broke out in the early morning hours of December fifteenth of eighteen thirty six

in the old Blodget's Hotel building in Washington, DC. The fire raged for hours, and when the smoke cleared, all of the nine thousand, nine hundred and fifty seven documents and seven thousand other items relating to those documents were destroyed by the fire. Graft's patent for the fire hydrants was among those documents. You see, the building was the

US Patent Office. Ever since, there have been many articles written on the invention of the fire hydrant, causing some to say that the question of which inventor to give credit to just might be a hot topic. 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. This show was created by me Aaron Mankey 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 Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.