I remember as a teenager there was still bottles of lead additive for older gas engines in gas stations & auto part stores. Doesn’t seem that long ago.
I already knew about this guy, but it still blows my mind that 1 guy created 2 things that both enabled humankind to reach such high potentials but also were 2 of the single most destructive inventions the world has ever known. If that's not representative of the ability of both the power and responsibility that humans have over the planet then nothing is
Fritz Haber, Prussian Chemist. Invented artificial fertilizer, allowing farms the world over to immensely boost their production and thus feed a LOT more people. Also invented the first Toxic Gas and the basics of chemical Warfare in World War one.
Most destructive? Idk about that. Think that title still goes to atomic bombs. Everyone likes to blame gas and fossil fuels go destroying the atmosphere. No one ever talks about how much damage all of our and USSR’s nuclear testing did during the Cold War.
Ah, Thomas, my old friend. I wrote my undergraduate thesis in history on Midgley, years ago. One of the things that turned up in my research was that a number of Midgley's contemporaries, including members of his family, believed his death was not accidental, but a carefully engineered suicide prompted by despair over his condition. (Not, as some have speculated since, remorse over his inventions. There's no evidence he ever saw lead as anything other than a necessary evil, and no one on Earth had the slightest idea CFCs were anything but a harmless miracle until decades after his death.) As an aside, the beneficial aspects of leaded gasoline during Midgley's lifetime weren't only economic. TEL led (as it were) to the development of high-octane fuel, particularly for aviation use, by American oil companies, which gave aircraft on the Allied side of World War II enormous performance advantages over their opponents. For example, the average octane rating of the gasoline German fighters had to settle for was about 65, as opposed to 100 or more for the RAF and U.S. Army Air Forces fighters they were up against after 1941. (By comparison, even the lowliest pump gas sold in the US today is in the mid-80s.)
Left out my favorite part of the tetra ethol lead story - Charles Norris (the first medical examiner in the us) saw the harm it caused (he was brought in on the employee deaths by the state of New Jersey), and tried to lobby against it. He demonstrated the effects of lead in the bodies he received, but general motors launched their campaign anyway.
@@mr_dillus that's why nuclear power cracks me up. We're splitting atoms to heat water to turn a turbine, not directly harnessing the radiation and thermal energy. And ppl think we're going to solve fusion energy soon, laughable
@@gohawks3571 Hey, some have wondered if lead pipes and cups contributed to mental issues in ancient Rome which ultimately led to its fall. The ancient Greeks knew about lead's poisonous qualities.
This was a wild ride from start to finish! I had no idea that the same guy who put lead in gasoline and invented Freon also invented the first Hoyer lift (the lift that gets you from your wheelchair to your bed or vice versa) and not only that but died in his own invention after having testing everything on himself for years. Just wild! Thank you for the excellent content once again! I love this stuff!
@@eustab.anas-mann9510 Well, if his family was correct that he died by suicide, then he was probably creating a plausibly accidental death -- suicide is still stigmatized, but the stigma used to be much worse then.
If he hadn't died immediately from that invention and had gotten the time to patent it, potentially hundreds more could have met the same fate with his commercialized deathtrap.
@@drakkenmensch The difficulty of a hoist isn't the harness, it is all the other bits. Harnesses can be dangerous for those who might have a fit, or have mental conditions that might make them struggle, but otherwise they are safe (and hard to make them otherwise). So it is most likely that he committed suicide whilst making it look like an accident. Remember there was still a huge taboo against suicide in those days.
I often think about that, how back then the people in power listened to scientists and took action swiftly to address the issue. I fear that Social Media and weaponized ignorance will be our downfall
The difference was that only manufacturers were forced to change anything, and only a relatively small change at that. Their was no change for the public - the different propellant in their deodorant made no difference. The public did not have to change their ways or confront themselves and ask if they should adapt to the new or double down on the old and continue as normal. Much the same with switching from leaded to unleaded fuel, you just used a different pump from the same gas station. No one was asked to not use aerosols or to switch to an entirely different form of energy technology to power their new car. This made it easy for politicians to listen to the scientists and legislate new standards without it costing them votes.
In California a chemical by the name “MTMB” was added to gasoline. It was in the fuel for about four years and they never added it again. Shortly after the additive was abandoned news reports started talking about autism. This was in the early ‘90’s.
He probably didn't associate his deteriorating health to his invention testing. The fact that he experimented on himself demonstrates that he had genuine faith in the innocuous character if his inventions.
@@nozoto Regardless, he got sick after trying to prove tetra ethyl lead doesn’t get you sick. He chose not to say anything. They knew the symptoms of heavy metal poisoning. It’s hubris that made him think it wasn’t his demonstration moments prior.
@@jamesc8259 He didn't know that terta ethyl lead was making him sick. And he wasn't getting sick moments after his demonstrations. Heavy metal poisoning is a slow killer, as it takes time for them to build up to toxic levels in your system. Mercury, for example, in miniscule amounts, is perfectly harmless. But a lifetime of exposure can be fatal. It wasn't like he took a breath of TEL and minutes later went running off to Florida.
@@jfangm I’ve read his story. He did know, he was even warned about lead poisoning from TEL in 1922. He was DIAGNOSED with lead poisoning. He was fired of his position as Vice President of GMCC in April 1925.
@@jamesc8259 He was warned about the dangers. That does not mean he knew it was TEL that did it. He believed it was harmless. Stop using hindsight and actually look at the matter from HIS perspective.
"He discovered you could add lead..." Uh-oh. "...he was able to create freon..." Oh, no... "It was his own invention that killed him..." Uuuugggghhh... It was like his whole life was a slow-motion train wreck. A creative inventor, cursed to discover the most destructive in the long-term solutions to problems facing mankind at the moment. I genuinely feel bad for him.
The wild thing to me is that he somehow believed his lift was an easier way to do things than just asking for help when he needed it. Like, if that isn't a metaphor I don't know what is.
@@stevencooke6451 Justice? He believed his inventions would improve the lives of millions or even billions of people. There was no ill intent on his part.
"...seeking fuel additive that reduce or eliminate engine knocking" Me : "Oh no...He's the guy to put lead in the fuel...right? [later] "Midgley was given a new problem to work on : refirgeration." Me : "Not the CFC, right?" I certainly wasn't expecting the inventor of both to be the same person.
I remember a prof who knew Prof Rowland and grimly recounted how much groups and orgs tried to discredit not only the research but Rowland himself. It was disquieting how haunted our Prof looked and his conviction sharing how much people need to push to see data make the difference it can
I was a student living in the dorms at UC Irvine when the discovery that Freon was a problem came out. A local radio station broadcast an editorial lambasting the discovery, and suggesting that rotten tomatoes be thrown at UCI. As an English major and resident who had nothing to do with that research, I was offended by the suggestion of vandalism, even though I, too, was skeptical of the research findings at first. If it had happened these days, quite possibly a bunch of people would indeed show up and start vandalizing the campus with tomatoes and other stuff.
I think it's interesting to hear a story about a guy who wasn't making these decisions and inventing out of greed, corruption, negligence or anything like that, but genuinely trying and wanting to do good. And his creations worked to solve the problems of the time, supported by the science of the time. It doesn't seem like there was a malicious intent about any of it (though conveniently going to a clean open air environment after feeling the effects of lead poisoning was a laugh). I wonder how he'd react innuendo what we know now, and how his inventions changed humanity.
I'm not sure that going to a clean air environment would do much to reverse lead poisoning. Especially since the leaded fuel made airborne lead the problem. I didn't realize they made sure to push all the lead out the tailpipe, instead of letting it stay in the engine.
@@EXROBOWIDOW They didn't necessarily need to push it out the tailpipe, but unlike most of the other emissions, it's an element, so your only real option is to either push it out the tailpipe, or find some way of trapping it. It's not like CO, O3 or NO2 that are problematic as chemicals, but the individual elements aren't of any real consequence and they are the result of chemical reactions going on in the engine.
I knew there’d be a comment like this. He was incredibly arrogant about his inventions and how safe they were. People were getting sick from the lead in the factories and he went out of his way to try and convince people it was safe even though it made him sick as well. You think someone like that was being altruistic or just didn’t know? You’re being naive. He knew lead wasn’t safe, he just didn’t want that to interfere with his fame, praise, and money. As far as the CFCs, again the arrogance is astounding. He proclaimed it safe without actually knowing whether it was safe or not because the guy was an engineer, not a chemist. He used chemical combinations that solved the problem at hand and didn’t immediately kill people and considered his job finished.
@@Idontwantone950Since the start of the Enlightenment every generation has had more knowledge than the last. In 1920 people only knew of acute toxicity, not chronic. To label everyone who thought lead, asbestos, radium, cigarette smoke, DDT, frepn, mercury, etc. were safe 'Arrogant' is unfair. Which of your present beliefs will we learn are incorrect 20 years from now?
As a young journalist, I found data about kids' blood lead levels in a certain kindergarten in Helsinki. At that time the levels were already ok (thank you, catalytic coneverters and unleaded gas!) but the old data was really horryfying. The kindergarten was situated next to a really busy street, that's why the kids' health had been studied for many years. I really wonder how much this actually had affected the kids in earlier years.
The sheer irony of Midgely convincing the public that leaded fuel was safe *while* suffering from lead poisoning is unbelievable to me. On the other hand, without his inventions I have no doubt that we would not be where we are today technologically.
Sadly, lead poisoning sneaks up on you and is hard to catch. And I agree, without refrigeration we would have been in a very different situation today. And the lift that wound up killing him has been perfected too and is a great help to many thousands. The man genuinely tried to make the world better for everyone and largely succeeded.
@@Vicus_of_Utrecht I know several people - young and old - who have had four or five jabs. One has died, and that was because he was in his mid nineties and was ill beforehand, with zero complications from the vaccine.
Leaded fuel is dead worldwide as of 2021. It's no longer manufactured anywhere and every single country on Earth has either banned its use or are forcibly phasing it out. North Korea banned leaded fuel in 2016.
Leaded gas isn't completely gone, but its use in on-road passenger vehicles is banned, and the invention of the catalytic converter helped get that passed since catalytic converters remove the need for leaded fuel. High-octane leaded fuel is still produced for and used by certain racing cars, aircrafts, and some farming equipment.
@@queenspikes2521 Although described as leaded, the modern fuels use a compound of potassium as the antiknock ingredient. It was by changing the valve and piston ring steel hardness that allowed vehicles to run on unleaded fuel. Change to compression ratio and ignition timing were also needed.
"The first practical vapor compression refrigeration system was built by James Harrison, a Scottish Australian. His 1856 patent was for a vapor compression system using ether, alcohol or ammonia. He built a mechanical ice-making machine in 1851 on the banks of the Barwon River at Rocky Point in Geelong, Victoria, and his first commercial ice-making machine followed in 1854. Harrison also introduced commercial vapor-compression refrigeration to breweries and meat packing houses, and by 1861, a dozen of his systems were in operation."
Leas, Freon - makes me wonder how so many of us “older” people are still alive😯😯. I remember when we could buy Freon to recharge the a/c in our cars! I know I bought some and had a friend (who knew how to do it) do the recharging of my a/c in my car!
@@sandybruce9092 My dad had bought an old freezer case (1930s or 1940s-era) from a grocery store and had it stored in the basement. He was working on it one night when he nicked a coil, releasing the Freon. He got us up and ordered us out of the house (fortunately, it was summer) in our pajamas until he could ventilate the basement. CORRECTION: On second thought, the gas was probably ammonia, not Freon. My bad.
The older I get the more I believe that lawyers who try to prevent exposure of public health risks should be imprisoned when those risks are found to be true. It would make then think twice before chucking threatening letters around.
I feel the same about letting serious offenders out of prison early. If they re-offend then those who let them out should get the same sentence. That would make them think twice and care a dam.
@@mobilephil244Create a redemptive model of incarceration, instead of the retributive revenge model we as Americans now embrace, and you might see some progress. But we good, God fearing folk really love the never forgive and punishment lasts forever mindset. Cause Biblical God loved it so.
Define "massive harm". Automobiles have killed millions, yet they are essential to modern society. Imagine how many beneficial things would disappear without them. Same can be said for TEL and Freon.
It’s always interesting when we, as a people, discover that some of our most helpful inventions are harming us while they are helping us. DuPont has had a few products like that, but so have many large companies. It’s always the devil you don’t know that gets you in the end. A scientist would say it’s; “The law of unintended consequences”, and for the most part that’s true. As you said in the video “Scientists began to be able to measure our world more accurately”. It’s usually when we take a closer look that we discover what we didn’t notice all along, such as the cancer rate being 10 times higher in a town that makes the weed killer “Roundup”. Or shipbuilders having about a 300% higher chance of getting mesothelioma. Sometimes we just aren’t aware of what’s going on right under our own noses….
Discover? Even 100 years ago people understood that lead was harmful, he suffered from lead poisoning after his little experiment to prove that leaded petrol was safe. I guess advertising/PR was the social media of the era...
The same group of studies that found these chemicals where damaging the environment, also found the dangers of oil and gas refinement and burning, among many other toxins and pollutants. However the petrochem industry at the time either didn't care, or made sure to bury the information.
This is true but it gets worse. The first studies of fossil fuel emissions were commissioned by oil companies in the 1950s. The scientists were silenced by coercion, bribery, and occasionally assassination. The fossil fuel industry has known about the disaster they are causing for 70+ years and still try to minimize the perception of their impact with "clean coal" and such nonsense. They do not care and will not stop unless forced to.
Yet without petrochemical industries we'd have had no commercial aircraft, almost no private cars and haulage etc Think about it. Global shipping would be by sail - because steam also required fossil fuels, unpredictable, unreliable, and unsafe (by tonnages shipping became safer, more reliable and cheaper once fossil fuels were used). The huge economies of recent history would not exist, the or would be technologically backwards... It's also naive to think that because Europe and the USA didn't use petrochemicals, that other non European aligned countries would not adopt them too. I'll tell you this, the generations that are going to be more affected by climate change, are the ones more dependent on the contributing technologies. Older generations got used to reusing what they had or making do. It's not the elderly people replacing smartphones every six months to a year, having up to four holidays abroad a year, going abroad for stag and hen weekends, having to have a new car on finance...if technology ended today, it's not the pensioners that will be crying and unable to cope lol
The depletion of the Ozone layer was definitely an unknown side effect of Freon, but the dangers of lead were known when Midgley created leaded fuel and purposely made massive quantities of it be dumped all over cities. Soon after, he even had firsthand experience of it but didn't change course. This is why he was a villain and a warning for how science can be corrupted by selfishness.
This. The presenter makes it sound like literally no one knew while simultaneously explaining how there was backlash from both the public and scientists and who corpos used their unconstitutional power over speech to silence. Sometimes I wonder if the people who make these videos and see the same corporate lizards mass murder people for profit over and over and over and over will ever wake up as I did to the real enemy of our civilization. Put them all into rocket. Write on rocket the name of every innocent murdered in the name of profit since the industrial revolution. Rocket into sun.
@@ryszard68 Concentration makes a giant difference in toxicity level. The amount of fluoride added to municipal drinking water is usually around .7 miligrams per liter. If you are worried about your local water, please get it tested.
@@k33k32 It is nothing short of criminal how Flint's poisonous water went unaddressed for so long. And indeed a number of government officials were charged with crimes related to their failures. Absolutely tragic how many children's lives and potential have been damaged by it.
You should definitely do a story on Ray Brent Marsh who ran the Tri State crematory in Noble, Georgia U.S.A. his nefarious deeds were discovered in 2002. They found over 300 bodies on his property. Would make a great story for your channel.
I heard about that, bodies stacked in his roof spaces. If i remember rightly his ovens broke and he just never got them fixed as it was making more money not burning them. I live in England
First heard of Thomas Midgley from the show Dark Matters twisted but true. That is such a good show please bring it back and please release every season!
One technical note: the refrigerator being advertised in a very short film clip herein was a Servel gas-powered unit. The Servel had its own problems, but Freon refrigerant wasn't one of them: the absorption refrigeration cycle uses ammonia for the purpose.
Absorption fridges lasted forever. but they were not energy efficient, with a COP of less than 1. The process was originally designed for industry, providing cooling from the waste heat from steam turbines.
Lead was in widespread use in the 20th Century: the legacy of lead pipes ( still a problem in parts of the USA), lead paint & toys as well as leaded fuel ( which also boosted the octane of gasoline. There was a star rating in use 2⭐ for motorbikes & outboard engines, 4⭐ for most cars but once lead was removed 5⭐ for high performance engines was no longer produced).
Yes I remember 2 star and 4 star petrol in the UK in the late 70's/early 80's. My Dad used to mostly use 2 star in his old car, but would occasionally 'treat' it to some 4 star :)
Yup glad you mentioned the pipes and paint. Lead has been used in so many things people don’t realize. Used to be used a lot in medical tools and devices. Used to be used in internal structures not just paints. Used to be used a lot in toys too. So it’s hard to solely blame lead fuel for destroying the planet or increase in. Yes it’s a factor, but given there’s lead in so many others things like pipes where it leaks into the water supply, or old paints, toys, buildings, etc that get burned or thrown into land fills which seep down into the ground, it’s no shock there’s lead everywhere.
@@nthgth I suspect when Terminator becomes reality the robots will be making documentaries about Open AI and how it was the equivalent of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs...
"what would he have thought of next? " Probably work for a beauty company and come up with something with a scientifc name, such as bihydro pro-betazone B19 revitilising serum. Which was based on arsenic.
Midgley's name rang a bell with me, but I couldn't place it until engine knocking was mentioned. Then I remembered. I wasn't aware however that he was also the inventor of Freon, that was a revelation to me. Another wonderful video FH, cheers 👍
Here, yet again, we have corporate greed at the heart of the matter. Same is true of radium, arsenic, tobacco, fossil fuels just to name a few. Poor bloke hoist by his own petard so to speak. Way to go Henry.
I wonder, in a purely hypothetical sense, if given the chance to speak from beyond the grave, how Midgley would feel about the devastating long term effects of his inventions. His untimely demise prevented him from seeing it first hand. Would he still have pride in the advances that his inventions help foster (even if those advances were partly to quell his inventions) or would he complete denounce them for their immeasurable damages. Midgely was no despot, not a tyrant by any means, he was just a mere chemical engineer with a passion to improve the world. But he ironically did so much damage in that pursuit, that his impact could be comparable to one. I hope, wherever Midgely is, he has come to peace with his mistakes.
Easy to say after the facts, at the time they were huge technological innovations. If anyone was to blame, as usual, it's the huge companies trying to hide actual ingredients of their products to maximize profits.
He said his inventions were safe and knowingly poisoned himself on more than one occasion to convince people his breakthroughs were safe. He knew people would get sick and he did nothing about it. In fact he continued to make poisonous inventions and lie about them to his own and the world's detriment. Rather than find safer solutions, he wanted to get rich quick and to hell with other people and their health. The world operated unknowingly on his lies. Not the type of person you look up to.
Yeah, I'd like to have seen his reaction to "Freon would've made Earth uninhabitable if we kept using it". There's been some really disastrous inventions, but "makes Earth uninhabitable" is pretty next level.
We had an alternative to Ethyl. In 1932 the first *gasohol* came to market. Developed at Iowa State College, the 90/10 gasoline/ethanol blend proved nearly as effective in antiknock properties as tetraethyl-lead gas, without the danger of lead poisoning or lead pollution. Among gasohol's proponents was Earl Coryell, who operated filling stations out of Lincoln, NE. Coryell interested Nebraska state officials in the fuel, which would have opened up a new market for depression-plagued corn farmers. However, the Ethyl Corporation, co-owned by GM and Esso, quickly moved to influence state legislatures to ban the use of _any_ alcohol in motor fuels. In 1936, Earl Coryell was party to an antitrust suit filed against Ethyl in the US Supreme Court. The court ruled in Ethyl's favor in 1940, assuring that gasohol would never gain a competitive foothold. Gasohol then disappeared until the global oil crisis and environmental concerns arose in the 1970s.
He had no way of knowing that his inventions would be so disastrous for the environment. It's a bit like radioactivity, which wasn't understood to be harmful until years after it was discovered. We know more now, about ecology and how substances behave in the environment, and about the fundamental science of biology, but it's possible that some modern invention could be equally disastrous.
His health was literally wrecked as a direct result of it... God the plebes are hopeless. You are wrong about radiation as well. Scientists knew it was dangerous, some anyway. Curie worked with it knowing this for humanitarian reasons. She was a hero. Others not so much... Some people almost always know about these things, but when that openminded, intelligent minority try to warn the herd, the herd and its masters have them silenced (just like with the ozone layer). Then after you silence us, you memory hole the dissent and pretend 'no one knew.' Can't wait until I have to hear 10 years from now how 'no one knew there was a lableak', 'no one knew the NHS was funding gain of function research' and 'no one knew mRNA vaccines were dangerous.' I'm working on the sigh I'm going to emit at that point in time. It needs to be loud, prolonged and absolutely saturated with contempt for baseline humanity. As a result I need to spend at least 8 hours a day doing diaphragm exercises. Oh speak of the devil, it's time for another workout session.
You'd think that he'd realise that perhaps lead fuel was actually dangerous when he poured it all over himself and inhaled it then had to go on a holiday for several months due to lead poisoning. The cognitive dissonance was real. AND THEN HE KILLED HIMSELF WITH HIS OWN SPECIAL CHAIR! Man was suicidally confident in himself and everyone else had to pay the price.
If I have to explain to you that pouring the stuff on yourself is very different than it being used in motor fuel, then you have no business discussing this topic.
@@naomiskilling1093 You are the one who needs to be brought up to speed, kid. They didn't understand the full scope of lead issues at the time. They just knew it was toxic. Lots things are toxic when mishandle them. As just one example, pour modern gasoline all over yourself and inhale deeply. Not as bad as TEL, but not such a smart idea either? But it's fine as a fuel.
Tetraethyl lead is still used in aviation gasoline. 100 octane, low lead fuel is used because in aviation, engine failure often leads to injury or death. Cars don’t use it because environmental protection is placed higher on the priority list than vehicle longevity, and because adjustable timing has countered the knocking problem. There is currently work being done to find a safe replacement for leaded avgas, but it’s difficult to find an additive that functions as well as lead. I’m sure the concentration is lower in avgas (hence “low lead”), and small aircraft are much fewer than cars, so the effects aren’t nearly as critical as they would have been back then. However, the trend in industry these days is to switch away from hazardous chemicals to more “eco friendly” chemicals… which also don’t work as well, often requiring them to be used in higher quantities, at the expense of safety, longevity and efficiency. People don’t realize that there are trade-offs, and they will be paying more and waiting more if they want products that are “environmentally safe”.
Several other RU-vidrs have made excellent videos on this same topic, but it bears repeating. A cautionary tale that we would do well to remember today.
The cash register company in Dayton, Ohio was National Cash Register. I loved about 40 minutes from Dayton for 30 years. The Pattersons founded it and did quite a bit for the surrounding community. You should do a video on the Great Dayton Flood. I think it was around 1913. In the 1970s and 80s people renovating old houses near the river found river mud from the flood dried into the interior of their walls.
I know this is an old comment, but yes!! I'm a native Daytonian. I live in one of the neighborhoods that was built following the flood after the well-off folks that lost their downtown homes moved up the hill. (Thus the name "Dayton View" - the hill we sit on provides an amazing view of downtown) And yes, the flood was in 1913. My house was built around 1916-1917. After we bought this house I started doing a lot of research about the history of downtown and learned a lot about the flood. There's an excellent book about it called "A Time of Terror" that is available to read free online.
My parents had a booklet about names for babies, from the 1950s. The booklet was put out by the Ethyl corporation, and it insisted that Ethel is not a name for babies. I wonder how my parents would have named my brother, if instead they had a booklet put out by Stanley tools...
I feel for inventors who create something they didn't know would be horrible. But this guy... The dangers were known during his time. There are no excuses
I do have a developmental disorder which might be caused by lead poisoning. But fair play to the guy, he was prepared to consume his own poisons so I guess he really believed in his products. What's really impressive is how we were able to replace leaded petrol and CFCs so efficiently. Now if only we could do something about climate change...
it’s actually fascinating that to combat spark knock/pinging now, we use ethanol and methanol as fuel additives. (methanol does require special fuel lines and it’s mostly used for race/drag cars)
Modern engines really are excellent. The emissions are lower and cleaner than ever before - I remember reading that it would have taken 26 of the 2001 model Ford Fiesta to match the emissions of a single 1978 launch model. It is now almost impossible to kill yourself with car exhaust like people used to do, because the carbon monoxide is gone. The fuel economy is out of this world compared even to 25 years ago - a modern Bentley gets a higher mpg than some typical family cars from the late 1970s. Really amazing little engines like the Ford EcoBoost are also putting out more power while doing less work. I remember older cars from the late 1980s and into the 1990s. They stank of acrid hot oil while running and the performance was mostly absolute crap.
Let's face it, he was clearly showing signs of madness, which is one of the first symptoms of lead poisoning. (Yes, I am stealing this joke from Gary Brannan in the episode of Citation Needed based on this guy.)
We need to be careful not to blame Midgley for things outside his control... this is a lesson in consumer-driven demand, unchecked corporatisation & the importance of regulation. Because people invent solutions to problems every day... it's outside analysis & impartial oversight that's key to identifying & mitigating risks. Freon became such a destructive product because its use was unchecked & it became central to products in high consumer demand... just like we're doing with lithium & rare metals in the 2020's. It seems that this is a lesson we humans are stubbornly determined to never learn from.
Nope, Midgley heavily promoted his works and inventions and would claim on numerous public appearances that Lead was harmless, ever since his early years at General Motors. Again, in the form of hindsight-fueled poetic justice, he was hanged by his own invention. A man's ego is always his biggest physical and mental weakness. The lead he consumed made him even worse.
Kinda scary how much damage can be caused unintentionally by one man. Like who knows If something being created and popularized right now may lead to unforeseeable consequences.
Exactly. There is always someone predicting something. For every issues, there will be people that get it right in the long run and some people who get it wrong. That's just how the world works.
Leaded fuel is still being used. 100LL (100 octane low lead) is still in use for aircraft. It is allowed a max of 0.56g of lead per liter of fuel which is multiple times higher than Automotive TEL from the 70s onward. Also appearently, Midgley did find that ethanol could be used for octane booster but they couldn't (or didn't believe they could) produce it in a practical manner at the time. There are plans to start phasing it out this decade
I remember reading about him in one of the Books Of General Ignorance. A man whose good intentions had sad consequences. Even his last invention proved dangerous, if only to himself.
I really enjoy your channel, and if I could make a suggestion, the French disaster of the 1970 Cinq-Sept Club fire might be of interest for you. It is the most important fire-related accident that ever occured in France yet it is not well known because Charles de Gaulle died the following day. A lot of fire regulations derive from the trials and I find that topic very fitting for your channel.
So this is one of the guys who is responsible for the technology that lets me stay cool inside when the temperature and humidity are racing for the triple digits? Respect.
I just read an article today that in Portland, Oregon the air conditioners they were handing out to people in public housing weren't that effective in preventing deaths during heat waves. The people couldn't afford the electricity to run them, and/or lived in concrete towers that retained the heat, rendering the air conditioners less effective.
This was a great video! When I read the title I was like "Inventions? This is probably about an inventor that died or killed people with his inventions"... I was SOOOO RIGHT but in a way I NEVER EVER expected. It is so interesting and frightening how ONE person created TWO very dangerous things that REALLY TOOK OFF and can't be "uninvented"... meaning that people will keep using them, even if we try to regulate them. 😢. That's why this story is FASCINATING HORROR. Well done.
in 1786, Benjamin Franklin wrote that the dangerous effects of lead had already been known for at least 60 years, he continues 'you will observe with concern how long a useful truth may be known, and exist, before it is generally received and practised on'.
Sadly, it seems that he missed out on the asbestos fad that was sweeping the nation. But seriously, inventors are great and he was a sign of the times... no one really knew any better.
Irony here: Midgley HATED asbestos, and was convinced that it was very dangerous. So I doubt whether he'd jump on the bandwagon, seeing as he hated it so much. So, I guess a stopped clock is right twice a day....😉
Unfortunately, they did. Several scientists rose to try and stop ethyl (which is why he was so risky with those demonstrations) but it was for naught. Rather than physics and chemistry, it was the society that had to evolve for it all to be stopped. To put things into perspective, scientists knew for centuries how dangerous lead was and recorded these aftereffects. But when most of world's population is still uneducated, you can make everything look safe.
“No one knew better” is just an excuse for ignorance. Ignorance of the rules does not excuse the crime. They also knew fully that there could be environment damage done by last concentrations of chemicals in many circumstances, but in his case they chose to ignore it in order to make money .
Regardless of the content, I thoroughly appreciate your measured recounting of the incidents you feature. No rushed narratives. Also the meticulous detail you include is amazing. Such a lot of work, thank you.
Considering he had experienced the effects of lead poisoning firsthand and seen others around him die from it and yet STILL vouched for the use of leaded fuel, I can’t say I have too much sympathy for the guy.
@@ChrisCaramia Chesapeake Va, right before Brandon was inaugurated. Around $1.86 gallon(I monitor/log mileage on all my vehicles). Prices went up the week he took over.🙄
I vaguely remember reading that one of the other chemicals he'd potentially thought about for Freon (which would have worked) would have been 20x worse for the ozone layer and it's basically blind luck that CFC was the route he went for. If not then the Ozone layer would be decimated long before we had the ability to properly investigate and monitor it from space. I forget the chemical, possible something with bromide
Me - oh hey I know some folks who'll think it's neat he's from the Beaver Falls area! Then me - oh right, the channel I'm on.... Thank you for sharing these stories. I always look forward to your videos
Aw, man, cfcs too😂 glad to admit I never did the 'takes a can of aqua net hair spray' gravity defying bangs. I see that the final cfcs, in medical inhalers, are finally gone as well. 😊
I've always hated hair spray, and spray deodorant. CFCs or not, a friend told me that one can kill spiders with hair spray. No need to use pesticides that may harm beneficial insects. Though truth be told, contact spraying a spider with anything other than plain water can kill it.
When some guy in a suit tries to sell you on the next new thing, remember stories like these. Everything doesn't always go this way. But if it seems too good to be true then maybe it is.
It was CFC that almost drove many animals i.e. the bald eagle to extinction. I honestly don't blame this man. He was trying to make the world a better place. But as per human nature, we learn the hard way from mistakes.
He lied. He got lead poisoning after he poured it on himself and said it was fine. 3:55 He probably didn’t want his reputation ruined. Perhaps there wouldn’t have been a CFC problem if he was honest?
@@jamesc8259 Or at least people could have been aware of the dangers and exercise better caution. Instead the whole world thought it was safe. I think he also didn't want competitors to find a safer solution and use their safer products as an alternative. He would have made far less money if he hadn't lied about the safety. Reminds me of Edison killing an elephant to turn people against alternating current. Big spectacle to support a big lie as truth because of greed.
You know, I could ALMOST feel sorry for him... Until we get to the part where he DID get lead poisoning from his invention, meaning that he KNEW it was dangerous and went ahead anyway.
I’d you think that’s bad, look into the big oil companies knowing how bad their shit was decades ago but spending millions to generate fake reports etc to cover it up
If it makes you feel better, he died by getting hung by his own invention. If fate had a sense of humour, it would give Richard Pryor a run for his money.
@@sebclot9478 I do. Because both my response and the head comment are about Midgley himself, the person. Stop projecting your own ignorance onto others. You absolute and total tool.
While I can buy it that he did not know what effects Freon would have, he most certainly knew how dangerous leaded fuels were. In the very least, he knew that they could kill countless amounts of people. Yet, he kept fighting toe and nail to convince people that it was safe, all for the sake of money and sponsors.
@Darrell Ray Hunt It was common knowledge before Midgley was born that lead was toxic, and after his (incredibly stupid) demonstration on himself, he was diagnosed with lead poisoning. Also, as you heard in this video, many of the workers manufacturing the leaded fuel suffered terrible consequences from it, including I believe 8 who actually died from it. Just read a little about him, the information is public.
Hola de Los Estados Unitos and I don't mean of the United States of Mexico not that there is anything wrong with that or the United States of Micronesia either but so far as I know Micronesia doesn't speak Spanish to any appreciable extent
The Romans did the same thing two centuries ago with the development of water works to transport water from reservoirs and lakes to Roman cities and into residential areas, bath houses, and commercial businesses. They used lead for the pipes and sealing the water connections/drains. It's thought that lead may have contributed to the fall of the Roman empire by affecting the mental processes of those exposed to the lead in the water as well as medical issues like lower birth rates and age-related diseases. Sometimes a brilliant idea will come back and bite you long after it's in use.
You have to give the man this much: Mr. Midgley walked the walk when he talked the talk & thought his inventions were safe. Like he could have easily pulled strings and paid some schmuck to do those demonstrations, but he did it himself with his own body.
It's interesting to hear the precursor to the adventures of Dr. Clair Patterson, who fought against walls of opposition to convince everyone that putting lead in everything was a terrible idea.
Someone else has probably already mentioned this, but aviation fuel is still leaded. The stuff commonly used in single engine aircrafts. (In the United States)
