Strike the Match, Part 3

had a poem by chemistry this one. I had never heard of this, this particular poem before. I was just looking up. I was just researching phosphorus and then lo and behold, there's a poem by Emily Dickinson. And I was like, oh, well, we've got to include this. I've got to do a cold reading of this poem. I'm not sure it's actually about chemistry. I have no idea

what this one's about. Like like many of her great poems that I really do enjoy a reading line by line, it ultimately becomes very difficult to understand what they're about. If anything. Yeah, Like it's it's almost I guess certainly not literally about phosphorus, but it is at least using phosphorus as a metaphor for something. It's bringing up tinder and the white and the red. Well, I can't help but wonder if that is a reference to white and

red phosphorus we'll be discussing in this episode now. In the last episode, we finally got to the friction match attributed to the English chemist and and druggist John Walker, who in the eighteen twenties put together this paste made of antimony sulfide, potassium chlorate, all bound together with a gum, put that on the end of a stick, gave it to you with a piece of sand paper and said

have fun. That's right. We also discussed the properties of phosphorus, white phosphorus, and some of the danger us sounding inventions, or not just dangerous sounding, but outright dangerous inventions that sought to take advantage of its incendiary properties. Right. And then, as pointed out in one of our sources for this episode, uh an article by Pollock, Brown and Reuben that was published in two thousand fifteen in Cranio Maximo, Facial Trauma

and reconstruction. Around eighteen sixty, phosphorus and strike matches began to come together in a major way, right, because there are different recipes you can use for a kind of strike match, right. Uh. Obviously, phosphorus has an advantage because it has uh the the ability has a low ignition point in the ability to ignite in the presence of oxygen, so it's not hard to get it burning. Then would

also sometimes be combined with like some sulfur elements. There are a few different ways you can put together the chemical head of a match, but phosphorus is clearly a

winner for that recipe. Yeah. The authors here mentioned that in eighteen fifty nine, which would have been the year of Walker's death, he found uh white phosphorus also sometimes referred to as yellow phosphorus being added to sulfur based match dick coatings to trigger an even more volatile flame, which is you can imagine it could be more beneficial,

especially if you were in a trying environment. Even today, you can get you can get matches that flare up more and a little or a little more you know,

almost explosive at the initial strike. Another thing I'm not positive about, but I kind of wonder if having more power in the phosphorus and less in the sulfur would make the matches less noxious in terms of fumes and smell, because remember in the last episode, one of the main types of matches were these things called lucifers, the sulfur based strike matches that were being produced by a guy out of London I think named Samuel Jones. And you know, it was like warned, it was like, be careful in

haling this stuff. It is not for the week of lung. Now. According to Jamie Wizniak, who was one of the authors that we referenced in the previous episodes, who wrote wrote a piece about the history of matches, you had an earlier innovator by the name of Jacob frederic Or, who is often credited as the first manufacturer of the phosphorus

based friction match. However, French chemist Charles Mark Saria, who lived eighteen twelve through demonstrated the design earlier than that, and all of this began to get going really in earnest around um eighteen thirty, but again eighteen sixty. By that point, the white phosphorus friction match was apparently very popular. So here we go a new evolution in our match technology. They were very popular, they were handy, but as it

turns out, their manufacturer was coming at a horrifying price. Yes, so to be clear that there are no shortage of horrors to be found within the Industrial Revolution, the world's growing demand for manufactured goods, in the rapidly changing ways that these goods were produced and introduced a variety of environments and practices that were harmful to human and environmental

well being. So the manufacturer of the phosphorus match, though, presents a particularly pronounced and horrifying example, and that is in the creation of these phosphorus matches, Uh, the individuals who work to create them day in, day out, hour upon hour began to suffer from what is known as Fossey jaw, or more officially, phosphorus necrosis of the jaw. This is a necrosis of the bones in the face that was common enough that it got a cute nickname

Fossey jaw. And somehow that makes it so much worse, you know, especially when you're looking at photographs. I mean, this was an age of a photographic evidence. We have photographs of the kind of damage that was wrought on people's facial features. Yeah, like what if you had like a cute, funny name for cholera, Like that's telling you you're getting cholera away too much? Yeah, it makes it. Yeah,

it just makes it all the more sinister. Um. So, humans have been working with white phosphorus since its discovery in the seventeenth century. But it's one thing for an alchemist or a chemist to encounter the fumes of its um of of working with it, you know, perhaps in passing inside of a layer or a workshop. It's quite another for these fumes to be summoned in an industrial environment and inflicted on unsuspecting workers day in and day out.

And that's exactly what happened. So Pollock at All discussed this in that that paper. The full title is Fossey Jaw and this Fosse Jaw of the nineteenth and twenty first century, The Dioternity of John Walker and the Friction match Man. I had to look up the word diuternity. I was not familiar with that one. Apparently it means having the quality of long lasting nous. So they point out that the vats that were used to create these

the phosphorus pace for these matches. It released all these toxic fumes, and these were particularly pronounced in the dipping centers and in the drawing rooms for the matches. As such, the dippers and the handlers were exposed to it the most, right because there were a number of different jobs. I mean, one of the things that came about during the Industrial Revolution was like the division of labor into smaller and

smaller jobs repeated more and more. So like there were some people whose job was just to like cram the matches into the boxes as fast as they could and whatever, and so like those people were at lower risk than the people who were dealing directly with the fumes at the more volatile stage. And these sort are some pretty

tough fumes. I mean, we know today that as little as fifty milligrams of white phosphorus can prove fatal, for for instance, and and here that the fumes are just you know, and imagining the places where these uh, these matches are being produced, the ventilation is probably not that great, and the levels of the toxicity from this exposure basically broke down as follows. This again according to Pollock at all. So, first of all, ginger ittis within three to five years

of exposure, so gum disease. Yeah. Uh, and then also sequestriation of alveola crest bone within three to five years of exposure. Now, sequestration in the medical sense is abnormal separation, and the area in question this is the uh, the most coronal portion of the bones surrounding the two. So yeah, as in common terms, people would talk about the teeth becoming loose, because like the bone and the gums, everything that's sort of holding them in place is getting loosened

up and coming away. Yeah. The fun part two is that if you read this entire paper, you will begin to feel your teeth loosen a little bit. I got so gross Starward researching this episode. Yeah, that's grim stuff. So yeah, this would also this could also result in lost teeth, of course, uh, because then the next level is full on osteo necrosis of mandibular and maxillary bone stock. This would be the Fossey jaw within three to five

years of exposure. So we're talking quote death of bone tissue due to temporary or permanent loss of blood supply to the bones. And the authors described this resulting in quote unrelenting jaw pain. Yeah, and of course you can understand why, because the bone is basically turning into a sponge, you know, like it's like losing density because it's not being able to replace itself with new tissue, because is

not getting the blood flow. It needs something that's even more eerie and kind of hard to believe, but I read read mentions of this and a couple of sources. There is this idea of the phosphoric luminescence as the gums begin to separate and the jawbone begins to decay. Apparently some victims gums would glow a faint, pale green in the dark. That is horrifying. And yet there's more, because this could also lead to oral and oro cutaneous fistula.

These were also common, and fistially means connections between two hollows, so like unnatural connections between two hollows, and with increased exposure, they could also develop fossy lung resulting in cough speutium production and hemoptysis, and hemoptysis is coughing up blood, and then you could also develop Fossey brain. This would be where the individual would would would have seizures. Obviously this

could be fatal. You could also become anemic. This would be where the blood lacks enough healthy red blood cells or or hemoglobin. And then also you could have Fossey marrow and this would just be reduced white blood cells. Now there are lots of existing photographs of what this is like, it's uh, it's horrible. Yeah. Yeah, we're talking complete decomposition of the jaw and extensive inflammation of the

surrounding tissue. And it did not apparently take the match industry long to realize that there were some serious issues going on. Yeah, I was reading actually as early as eighteen fifty two. Charles Dickens wrote about quote one of the Evils of matchmaking in his weekly magazine Household Words,

which include it. Included reports from different matchstick factories about the like the disease and the conditions there, Like he talks about one factory that I don't know exactly what it was they did, especially he he reports like some hygiene conditions they're involved, like washing and stuff like that, But I don't know exactly how that would contribute to

reducing the exposure to the vapors or something. But he's like they were were doing dental washings for the individuals and he doesn't say, dental It sounds more like some kind of bathing or something. But I don't know. I don't fully understand what was happening there. But he at least says, you know, in some factories the conditions aren't as bad as in others, and it seems to be suggested that you can do something to prevent this. But I don't know, I mean maybe, I mean, I'm sure

Charles Dickens was not an epidemiologist here. Well, you know, I think I'll probably get to this in a bit. But but later on you do see some of these factories implementing dental checkups and some level of dental care for the individuals. So that's why my mind immediately thought went to like the idea of maybe like a mouthwash being instituted for for everybody, to what a degree that

it would actually help, you know, I'm not sure. So I found a good post about Fossey jaw and the the actual medical progression here by Susan Isaac on the blog for the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons in England, and a lot of this post focus is on the experience of a surgeon named James Rushmore Would who wrote a medical article in eighteen fifty seven about his attempts to help a patient named Cornelia, who was

a sixteen year old girl. She worked full time in a New York match stick factory for about two and a half years. And I will warn you this is going to get pretty graphic for a minute here, but I think it's important to to drive home what these workers were facing, and so U consider yourself warned. Uh So quote in May eighteen fifty five, she was seized with a toothache and swelling on the right side of

her lower jaw. To relieve the pain, first her gums were lanced and later a tooth was extracted, but the swelling gradually increased until a spontaneous opening formed under her jaw, which continuously discharged pus. Despite this, she continued to work in the factory until a week before she was admitted

to Bellevue Hospital on seventeenth December eighteen fifty five. Uh So, So, once she's at Bellevue, she starts to have real difficulty eating, obviously because it's too painful for her to chew, and she had severe pain in the jaw and swelling of the face, and eventually would decided that the only way to save her was to remove the decaying bone on the right side of her jaw, and this is an intervention.

At the time, they thought that you remove the decaying bone and that prevents the spread of the phosphorus poisoning to other parts of the body, like it prevents it spreading to the brain. So this surgery took place in January of eighteen fifty six. There was no anesthesia. He had to use what was called a chainsaw to cut down the middle of the jaw, and that this wouldn't be a motorized chain saw like we have today. This would be more like a chain or a wire pulled

back and forth by hand to saw the bones. Isaac compares it to a big cheese wire. And then in the middle of the procedure, the chain broke and he had to get the rest of the jaw half off using for saws. So she survived the surgery and she was healing, but then the left side of her jaw started showing the same phosphorus poisoning symptoms the right had, and in the middle of February they had to go

back in and remove the entire remaining lower jaw. As she was treated with loudon um, and in the following days it says she received wine and quote a daily lead an opium wash. But amazingly, Cornelias survived the surgery and she was still able to move her tongue in mouth. Apparently she recovered to better health after this, and would mention that he apparently was proud he had somewhat preserved the appearance of her face despite having to remove the

entire lower jaw. My goodness. But yeah, I mean, it's unbelievable, especially given the medical technology of the day. Like they didn't have antibiotics at this point. They couldn't give her that. So I'm sure a lot of people going in for these kind of surgeries probably didn't fare as well as Cornelia did. Uh. And the surgery is just as described as unimaginable to right, and and and and indeed we're seeing this carry out prob by an extremely gifted search

and of the day. You know, not everybody was was lucky enough to have access to someone like that. Yeah, but so this is what tons of workers in these factories of the period we're facing. And one of the hardest things to understand is that it wasn't like nobody understood what was going on. You know. It wasn't like

nobody knew that phosphorus could be bad for you. Oh yeah, I mean white phosphorus was already recognized as an irritant poison, and poison literature of the eighteen tins bone necrosis was reported as early as eighteen forty. By eighteen sixty nine, phosphorus wasn't use as a poison by criminals. And this duding wasn't doing large part because white phosphorus pace was being used in animal poisons like for you know, poisoning of rats and vermin and whatnot. Um and there was

no cure. That was another reason it was again popular with with criminals, at least until an individual by the name of Jacques Person who lived in eighteen sixteen through eighteen eighty conducted experiments on dogs and found that turpentine could be It could be used to treat such poisonings as it hinders the him a globin attacking properties of phosphorus in the blood. Early in eighteen thirty nine. In fact, the hazards were to some degree appreciated within the industry.

Uh The issue contributed to a major London strike in eighteen eighty eight, for example. Yeah, I'm gonna come back to that in detail in just a minute. And like I mentioned earlier, match factories began to offer free dental care and regular inspections for employees. Um I believe it is that that cranio facial paper actually had a photograph of one of these dental clinics from a match factory.

And yet the use of white foster has continued until the early twentieth century, when an international ban came into place in I believe nineteen o six, and major international manufacturers followed suit over the following decade. Well, maybe we should take a quick break and then when we come back, we can talk more about the rebellion of the match stick factory workers and the strike of eighteen eighty Alright, we're back. Let's talk about the match sticks strike. Okay.

So I was reading about the British campaign against conditions in match stick factories in the eighteen eighties in a short article by University of Bradford nursing and healthcare scholar named Catherine Best. And this was especially good because through it I found a link to an original document from the period. That's just amazing. Um, So Specifically, she is focused on the match stick girls who worked in the East End of London, often for fourteen hours a day

for low pay under pretty miserable conditions. For example, employers would impose fines on the workers for all kinds of ways they screwed up and at the job, so like if they accidentally spilled matches on their bench, you could get a fine, or if you talk to the person next to you during a shift, you could get fined. So just all sorts of punitive measures to try and

ensure production goes off without a without a stitch. Yes, and most importantly, there, of course, is this constant exposure to the now well known hazards of white phosphorus vapors like as we discussed, the negative health effects of white phosphorus were well known by this time, but also at this time they were not sufficient workplace safety laws in place,

so there are no laws to protect the workers. Really, factory owners are just sort of on their honor, and of course many of them are going to decide, well, what am I going to make less money or am I going to subject my workers to this peril as one of the costs of doing business. You can guess which one a lot of them chose. Oh yeah, because you can also imagine workers and I mean the factory owners having an attitude of like, well, we'll do something about this later. Right now, we got to focus on

on the profits. But of course, uh, the the white phosphorus poisoning that's going to come in every day for work on time, it's never going to fail to show up. That is a very good point. So then in the year eighteen eight, Annie Bissant wrote an expose of the conditions that Anton May, which Catherine Best points out, this is confusing, is somehow not the same as a different modern company called Bryant and May, which also makes matches. So so I guess whoever the modern one is, don't

hold this story about this other company against them. But anyway, so Annie bisson wrote this article for a London socialist journal published on June and so she goes through explaining the impossibly low wages they get paid and how you know you can barely survive on them, and then she describes factory conditions, including all of the supposed infractions that workers get charged fines for, including the ones I mentioned a minute ago, but also things like quote one girl

was fined for letting the web twist round a machine in the endeavor to save her fingers from being cut, and she was sharply told to take care of the machine quote never mind your fingers. Another who carried out the instructions and law to finger thereby was left unsupported when she was helpless. The wage covers the duty of submitting to an occasional blow from the foreman, one who appears to be a gentleman of variable temper and quote

clouds them quote when he is mad. Bissan also describes this unbelievable episode I was getting so mad just reading about it, where the factory owner, Mr Theodore Bryant wanted to build a statue in honor of a Mr Gladstone.

She doesn't say exactly who this is, and I'm not positive, but I think it probably refers to the British politician William Ewart Gladstone, who had been the Prime Minister of the UK several times in the late eighteen hundreds, and so the owner he likes this public figure, probably this politician. He wants to fund the creation of this statue and his honor and quote in order that his work girls

might have the privilege of contributing. He stopped one shilling each out of their wages, and further deprived them of a half day's work by closing the factory quote giving them a holiday. Oh my god. You know we mentioned Dickens earlier, and it's amazing how you know it's as poorly as we perceive Ebenezer Scrooge prior to his m his his great change, Like Scrooge is nowhere near as

bad as this guy is sounding. No, at least because because Scrooge at least got to like be mean to your face, like you got to fully acknowledge, like, Okay, my boss is mean, and he like knows he's mean. This guy is like, wouldn't you love the privilege of contributing to this statue that I want to build an honor of a politician. Well, I'll just dock your pay

so that you can contribute. That's just that's that's unimaginable, And according to Pissan, this leads to some of the workers gathering as the statue is unveiled, bringing bricks with them and pelting it at it's unveiling, and then intentionally cutting themselves and smearing their blood on the marble. Because the statue they believe was paid for by their blood. Oh my god, my goodness. I don't know if there's a movie about this, but there should be absolutely, I mean,

this is dramatic. And then at the end Bissant encourages a boycott of Bryant and May matches. No, no big surprise there. She's like, you know, we're gonna make them pay, and she writes, quote, Oh, if we had but a people's Dante to make a special circle in the inferno for those who live on this misery and suck the

wealth out of the starvation of helpless girls. Failing a poet to hold up their conduct to the execration of posterity enshrined in deathless verse, let us strive to touch their consciences i e. Their pockets, and let us at least avoid being quote partakers of their sins by abstaining from using their commodities. Yeah, and this is this is ultimately why we need We do need laws and regulations in place to make sure that you know, the certain

a certain threshold is reached and maintained by companies like this. Yeah. I mean, even with laws and regulations in place, employers can be infuriating sometimes, but like you know, without any leash, without without laws and regulations to try and circumvent like like this, this is the level that the waters fall too.

So obviously the bosses did not love this article that she published, and so it led to a series of retaliatory actions by the factory bosses, which in turn led to a strike of more than four hundred women and girls who worked in the factories, and eventually it was resolved.

The strikers negotiated a list of demands from the owners, but still it wasn't until almost two decades later that white phosphorus was made illegal for match manufacturing in the UK and was according to Best basically taxed out of business practicality in the United States. So, like she said, they put a punitive tax on it that made it not feasible to use white phosphorus anymore. Again, kind of speaking to their their conscious right in their pocketbooks. Yeah, yeah,

the conscience and the pockets Now another huge change. Perhaps one of the more important changes here came via the discovery of a morphous or red phosphorus in eighteen forty five by Austrian chemist anton Of von Schroeter I Gotta admit it made me think about Star Trek. You know, it's like so like red matter, yeah and the stuff. It sounds like an alternative sci fi version of something. Yeah,

but I mean in a sense it's it's pretty interesting. Basically, red phosphorus is obtained through the heat treatment of white phosphorus in a sealed, lightless environment, which is a detail I love because that makes me think back to white phosphorus is alchemical origins. You know, it sounds like something from the world of alchemy that it must be brewed, Uh, you know, away from the light of the sun, in the darkness in the pit of my layer. Yeah. So

red phosphorus is comparatively non toxic and does not spontaneously combust. Uh. Swedish chemist jons Jacob Brazelius saw the potential for match is and an author Albright, developed a means of mass producing red phosphorus by eighteen fifty one, and this would pave the way for what we come to know as the safety match. Well, maybe we should take a quick break and then we come back. We can explore the

safety match. Alright, we're back. So at this point we have friction matches that no longer depend on a toxic poison. But there was another risk factor with the friction match, and this is this one is I think exemplified by the cool images you might have seen a various villains striking matches on say the brick wall of an alley and then lighting their smoke or their belt buckle, or with their fingernails the shoe on the shoe. Yeah, that's

a good cartoon character move. Yeah, and it's it's there's it's something magical about It's like I can summon fire out of the very rocks, out of the space between my fingernails, etcetera. Striking a match on a part of your body is kind of like the people who like to open bottles with their teeth. Yeah, this raises an

interesting side question. I forget what it was, but there was some time in the past several months where I caught my son attempting to open something with his teeth and I had to say, I was like, what are you doing? And I had to bring myself down and not because then I realized, have I asked myself, have I ever said don't use your teeth to open something? Like?

I don't think I had. Um, it makes me wonder like to what extent the using of our teeth to open things and to perform various tasks is kind of ingrained in us, and you know we you know, if not for a parental voice telling us, no, you don't need to do that, or if not for life lessons that show you that the dangers of trying to open too many bottles with your teeth, that we would just depend on them. Maybe I am just weak willed by nature,

but I am not a tooth opener. I do not have it in my d na to put my teeth on that random thing. I do not, at least not. I don't know if I did when I was a kid, but I certainly don't now, and that's one of the reasons I was kind of like horrified when I when I caught my son trying to open something with his teeth.

Though I do remember thinking this is hilarious in retrospect that when I was a kid and I saw other kids doing that, you know, they open the coke bottle with their teeth or whatever, I remember thinking, wow, that person is really brave. Of course, now we know they just didn't have a responsible adult in their life to yell at them. That's a guy can depend on alright, So, um so yeah, these strike anywhere matches that uh that that that's just strike off of a wall or a

boot or what have you. Uh So, if a match head can ignite via friction like this, then it can potentially obtain that friction not only um you know, on purpose, but you know, when you're striking it, but also accidentally by striking against, among other things, their match heads. And of course this would not be an issue if you only carried a single match at a time, or you kept individual matches stored inside of friction proof storage cylinders

or something, but that's hardly practical. Matches frequently come in boxes, and you do not want an entire box of matches suddenly igniting in your carriage and your home and your satchel, on a ship or you know, wherever you happen to be carrying them. Usually bad when your cargo spontaneously catches fire. Yes right, yeah, nobody, nobody needs that. So the answer to all this is going to be the Safety match,

and it is going to merge out of Sweden. So Sweden was really big in the match game at the time. This is where Alexander Lagerman would bring the first automated match fabricator online in eighteen sixty four, and the resulting high speed production would lead to the invention of the match book by American Joshua Pussee in the eighteen nineties.

But before all of this, the idea emerged that the red phosphorus necessary to the match striking could be placed elsewhere, not in the head of the match, but in a special strike plate on the side of the box. So you'd be like taking the phosphorus and the sulfur away from each other, and you don't just get to hang out in the same room. We'll put you together when

it's time, all right. And so this brings me back to again to my childhood of playing with matches, watching cool villains and cowboys and whatnot, strike matches off of just random things. And I remember trying to do this, you know, with a safety match, and and I remember my disappointment at not being able to carry this out. Did you think it was a problem with the matches or did you think it was a problem with yourself?

I well, you know, once you've destroyed half a box of matches trying to look cool, you realize, well, maybe it's not me hit as the matches. Maybe there's something different about these matches. Uh, and and that is indeed the case. So yeah, the idea is to take that red phosphorus and put it in that strike plate, so the match head contains like paraffin or sulfur while the red the red phosphorus is again in the strike plate

along with something like powdered glass to help create the friction. Now, Swedish chemist Gustav Erik Posh is credited with first devising this technique, but he wasn't able to fully realize it. I believe I was reading that he was having trouble getting the you know, the chemical just right. He couldn't he couldn't make it happen. The idea was there, uh, and he had that he was on to the right track, but he just couldn't make it work in a consistent manner. Yeah,

I've usually seen credit given to somebody named Johan Lundstrom. Yes, this would be the Lundstrom brothers, John and Carl, who improved on these designs and then they introduced the safety match to the market in the late eighteen fifties. Now strike anywhere matches are still available. I mean that's where the cowboys and the villains were getting them. Obviously, some of my cooler friends had them when I was a kid, and they these would you know, generally contain say, phosphorus

sesquist sulfide instead of white phosphorus. But there have been journal articles about poisoning's mostly I was finding them from the first half of the twentieth century concerning match and max matchbox dermatitis from the use of such matches. They even made mention of tooth loosening as well, so again it seems like there were still some health concerns with with with these this variety of phosphorus match Now, of course,

the the evolution of the match doesn't stop there. We eventually get the match book, which comes online, and then the matchbook becomes of course very popular for advertising first or spreading propaganda, especially in the age of smoking, you know, I mean, this is the how you have your handy light,

you know, if you don't be. In addition to the lighter technology, they're mainly useful for writing a clue in in a detective story, yes, and then forgetting about it, losing the match book or you wind up murdered and someone else reads your matchbook. You also have the incense match, where something else is added to the chemistry of the match head in order to produce a more pleasing aroma. You also have varying match book designs. I was looking around it at just some of the different designs you

can get nowadays from major match manufacturers. One that I remember encountering pretty early in my life was the popular lipstick box. So it's a little more like a little casket. I mean, match boxes are always going to be caskets for dolls and action figures and occasionally actual animals, but this one is more slender. Uh. So they're a huge

variety of different box designs. You also see long fireplace matches, right because because sometimes you need to get the fire further in to say, you know, the logs of a of a fireplace that have been prepared. Also, there's the subject of waterproof matches, and you can you can also make waterproof matches using a variety of different recipes to treat normal safety matches. But it also seems that nothing quite beats keeping your matches as dry as possible through

other means such as waterproof cylinders. But then again, they're gonna be situations where you're trying to use matches uh in say, very moist or rainy conditions, and that's where the necessity comes into play. But then also some of these environments will call for stronger burning matches, such as lifeboat matches, which are just a variety that are going to ignite and burn, you know, brighter and stronger uh at,

you know, higher temperature. Man, this history of matches has proven so much more interesting than I might have guessed. We got to see the iceman, we got two muskets, we got to uh nineteenth century labor conditions, We've got to crazy medical misadventures. This has been all over the place. Yeah, we had we had alchemists, we had plenty of the elder, we had Emily Dickinson, um we ebonez are Scrooge popped up. You really couldn't ask for a better journey through human

techno history. It's been fun. But maybe we gotta put out the light we do. It's burning a little too close to our fingertips. It is time to just go ahead and blow it out and uh stomp it under

our feet. But we will be back with future episodes of Invention where we will continue this journey through techno history, exploring the various inventions and innovations that changed the way we live and and ultimately what we are in the meantime, if you want to check out other episodes, you can head on over to invention pod dot com and that will probably shoot you over to the I Heart listing for our show. Well it we've been having some issues today.

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