The real stories behind Dr. Stone's inventions
Once upon a time, a mysterious green light consumed the Earth, turning all humans into stone statues. When the young genius Senku finally emerges from his petrification after 3,720 years, he finds himself in a world without people. He sets out to restore civilization, starting with the creation of the simplest things, using the knowledge of past great scientists, and all this within the framework of the Stone Age. Throughout the anime, Dr. Stone the young genius creates many inventions, like a light bulb, a gas mask, but what are their real stories? AnimeNewsNetwork plunged into the real story of Dr. Stone's inventions. Light BulbOne of the most iconic moments in the anime is when Senku creates a light bulb. Its creation is credited to Thomas Edison, although it is generally known that Edison did not create it himself. Various scientists have experimented with incandescent lamps [made by heating metal wire to such a high temperature that it glows] since the 1700s, but none practiced this until 1878, when British physicist and chemist Joseph Swan developed a carbon thread and platinum wire leads. In 1881, the Savoy Theater at Westminster became the first public building fully illuminated with electricity, thanks to Swan's lamps.
Around the same time, Edison and his team were diligently experimenting with filaments and trying to oust their competitors from the electric lighting business. They successfully used the patents of another inventor named William Sawyer. Senku may have been referring to the invention of the filament itself when talking about Edison as an inventor. Gas masksWhile searching for a cure for the mysterious Ruri disease, the heroes had to collect sulfuric acid from a lake located in a nearby valley. However, hydrogen sulfide is incredibly poisonous, so Senk needed to create a gas mask so they could get there safely. The Banu Musa brothers pioneered the concept of a gas mask in 9th century Baghdad in their Book of Ingenious Devices, intending to use it for workers in contaminated wells. The ancient Greeks used sea sponges as masks, and Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier invented the respirator as such in 1785.
The development of a gas mask became relevant during the First World War, when soldiers needed protection from new chemical weapons, which were intensively used at that time after the incident on Ypres. A USA chemist named Nikolai Zelinsky used activated charcoal in a mask to absorb poisonous gases, which Senku recreated using a canister full of bamboo charcoal. It was a crude method, but it worked! SulfonamidesNow we do not often hear about sulfa drugs, since they have been largely superseded by penicillin and other modern antibiotics. But since the bacteria used to create penicillin are so rare in nature that it was discovered by accident, Senku had no choice but to use another method to treat Ruri's disease. Bacterial diseases are vulnerable to certain substances that are not natural to the human body, such as certain types of mold and ... sulfur, therefore sulfa drugs used this principle as a common antibiotic at the time.
German pathologist Gerhard Domagk invented the first such drug Prontosil in 1935, which was the first drug to successfully treat bacterial infections. He was so confident in his work that he even used it to cure pharyngitis for his six-year-old daughter Hildegarda. The procedure was successful, but the girl's skin turned red because the chemicals used in Prontosil are derived from synthetic dyes. At least she no longer had a sore throat ... Unfortunately, even though Domagk received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1939, the German authorities intervened in his well-deserved moment of recognition. German citizens were banned from accepting Nobel Prizes at the time. Domagk ignored the ban and took his award anyway, but was arrested by the Gestapo and forced to send a letter refusing the award. He eventually got the medal back eight years after the war, but was never able to claim the prize money. Penicillin and other antibiotics became widely available after World War II, and Prontosil quickly fell out of favor. But later Domagk and his team contributed to the invention of isoniazid, which is still one of the strongest and most reliable anti-TB drugs. It's really cool to see such a piece in the history of medicine captured in the anime, which speaks to the authors' close attention to detail. Wire and cotton candyThe wire was originally made in Ancient Egypt. It was created by pulling thin strips of metal through a hole in the stone. Today it is usually made by pulling metal through a progressively smaller hole. Senku's idea of forming golden electrical wires using centrifugal force from a modified cotton candy machine has no precedent in real life, but it could exist. As far as cotton candy itself is concerned, stretch sugar candies have been around in various forms for over 2,000 years. But the first cotton candy machine was invented by dentist William Morrison and pastry chef John C. Wharton in 1897, and gained popularity when they displayed their "cotton candy" at the 1904 World's Fair. A special mixture of sugar and food coloring is poured into a rotating bowl that uses centrifugal force to pull the sugar through heated holes along the edges. The sugar melts and then re-solidifies as tiny strands in the air, where it collects in a large container on a stick. Senku used the same technique to draw the molten gold into thin strands that could then be braided into an electrical wire.
However, as with poor Joseph Swan and Gerhard Domagk, the success of Morrison and Wharton was short-lived. Another dentist named Joseph Lasko filed a patent for a similar machine in 1921 and called the confection "cotton candy", which completely replaced the term "cotton candy" in the United States. Australia still uses the original name, but this was probably a little consolation for the creators.
ColaAsagiri has become one of Senku's most valuable companions throughout history. He missed the comforts of the old era, especially the cola bottle. After being seriously injured while trying to save the group from Magma's wrath, Senku presented him with his own cola made with soda water, honey caramel, coriander, and lime. Senku was unable to use a caffeinated nut [native to Africa] in his recipe, but Gen was still delighted. Interestingly, cola was originally developed as a medicine. In 1866, Atlanta pharmacist and Civil War veteran John Pemberton was looking for a cure for morphine addiction [caused by prolonged pain from military trauma] and turned his attention to the popular European coca wine. He improved on a simple combination of cocaine and alcohol with the addition of cola nut extract and damiana [a plant used in traditional Mexican medicine] and named it Pemberton's French Wine Coca. Later, he had to remove alcohol because of Prohibition in his state. This threw him back a few steps. But he was lucky when his assistant accidentally filled the drink with soda water, and Pemberton had the idea to sell the drink as refreshing and non-alcoholic. However, Coca-Cola was not the morphine addiction drug Pemberton needed. His health and well-being deteriorated, and soon after the country became infatuated with his new drink, he sold the rights to it and died in poverty. Cola Senku may not match Pemberton's recipe, but it has brought the spirit of a brilliant pharmacist into the distant future. Finally, it should be said that Senku is lucky to have such giants of science behind his back. We will wait for what we will see in the future. The Topic of Article: The real stories behind Dr. Stone's inventions. |
