Distillations

In a building full of dead bodies, how can you tell a murder victim from an unlucky stiff?

What a bizarre psychological disorder can teach us about memory, human nature, and our sense of who we are.

Could a Soviet-era therapy offer a new defense against antibiotic-resistant superbugs?

The life of chimney sweeps was nasty, poor, brutish, filthy dirty, and usually short, thanks to a rare cancer of the genitals.

An interview with Sam Kean about his latest book, The Icepick Surgeon.

Vox’s Unexplainable podcast interviews Distillations about how Alzheimer’s research has stubbornly focused on a single theory for decades.

A scientific dispute takes a violent, absurd turn.

How early anatomists provoked some of the strangest riots in history by stealing the dead bodies of the poor.

How an early 20th-century doctor pitted one scourge (malaria) against another (syphilis).

How a weird “scientific” diet fad conquered America in the early 1900s.

Scientists created an effective male birth control pill in the 1950s, but it had one undesirable side effect.

When the global vaccine supply chain depended on children.

A crusading doctor’s stomach-churning efforts to beat back pellagra in the American South.

From Paracelsus to OSHA.

A wildlife painter who ran afoul of xenophobic authorities during World War II found refuge and renewed purpose in the lab.

In the fight against breast cancer, entrenched interests and outmoded ideas may be hurting patients.

Will stigma and cost undermine the therapy’s promise?

Tracing the immense misery wreaked by the mosquito.

The virus that made America talk about abortion.

In the late 1960s an international contingent of psychiatrists took up a monumental task: making schizophrenia mean the same thing to doctors around the world.

Thirty years of research have failed to solve the Alzheimer’s riddle. Is the problem a blind embrace of scientific dogma?

Gene editing promises to revolutionize medicine. But how safe is safe enough for the patients testing these therapies?

When the United States and Mexico resolved their beef.

The Science History Institute book club reads David M. Oshinsky’s Polio: An American Story.

This fermentation vessel comes from a short period in penicillin’s history. We had figured out that penicillin could kill bacteria, but we didn’t know how much medicine people needed or how to mass-produce it. The vessel’s car-muffler shape proved ideal for growing the mold from which penicillin is extracted.

Many of us think pumping is a new part of motherhood, but some fascinating 19th- and 20th-century objects from our collections show the practice has been around (in some form) for a long time.

One woman’s quest to end her pain. 

Part 3: Searching for Meaning in Kensington.

Part 2: Synanon and the Tunnel Back to the Human Race.

Part 1: The Narcotic Farm and the Promise of Salvation.

The strange, sometimes sickening things we’ve done to understand what goes on inside our guts.

The latest painkiller revival has left a trail of bodies, with no end in sight.

Fermentation is the key to many of the lifesaving drugs we have today.

This episode highlights a bottle of mid-20th century vitamins that are actually caffeine pills in disguise.

Warfarin, a drug that started life 70 years ago as a rat poison, remains one of the most important treatments for heart disease and stroke. But for all its success the anticoagulant remains as dangerous as its origin suggests.

Do cats mess with your brain?

Too much coffee actually can kill you, but that’s not the most important thing about the chemistry of coffee.

Candy stores in the 19th century sold sweets as deadly as they were delicious.

A globe-hopping doctor and a weird amphibian produce a fast, inexpensive pregnancy test.

Using 21st-century medicine to maintain a 300-year-old way of life.

In a time of warring empires and transoceanic voyages, sailors dreaded scurvy more than any other disease.

John Harvey Kellogg’s Battle Creek Sanitarium was at the intersection of new ideas of religion, health, and nutrition.

For more than a century ozone therapy has been a source of false hope for the sick and ill-gotten gains for the crooked.

The unnatural history of a carbonated drink.

An early dietitian set out to prove that vegetarian cooking was good for the body. Others who followed tried to show it could be tasty and even good for the soul.

When does self-experimentation cross the line?

A molecule used in antifreeze may one day heal damaged spinal cords. 

A simple invention that saved lives and led to the discovery of a hidden form of life.

Once upon a time all births were natural. A lot has happened since then.

A look back at how outsiders have influenced medicine throughout time.

The story of Louis Pasteur and the development of the rabies vaccine.

Are we overestimating artificial intelligence?

Dive into the world of nixtamalization and discover the ancient chemical practices behind your taco.

In the 1920s author Paul de Kruif turned science into an adventure story.

How one man’s youthful rebellion may unlock a cure for cancer.

Using chemistry to put a lid on unsavory practices.

Blood is powerful, but it can also be dangerous.

Rethinking the ethics of organ transplants.

Sophisticated drugs have enabled those with HIV to live long lives—as long as they take their medication.

Anthropologist Jason Pine offers an up-close view of methamphetamine culture in small-town America.

Relics from a lab hint at centuries spent trying to solve diabetes.

Health fads come and health fads go, though few were as downright odd as the 1920s’ and 1930s’ craze for yeast cakes.

Ten years later and thousands of miles away, Hurricane Katrina lives on.

For much of the 20th century the instrument of many murders, suicides, and accidental deaths could be bought at the local drugstore.

We explore how faith, a desire for easy answers, and a lack of trust in medical science shape two modern trends. 

Sophisticated drug cocktails have dramatically changed the fates of people with HIV. Yet in many ways we’re treading water.

What do ancient Egyptian mummies, early modern medicines, a 19th-century philosopher, and a 21st-century chemist have in common?

This episode of Distillations examines what is perhaps our most underrated sense, and ponders what life would be like without it.

Can a tool that helped create atomic weapons become a tool for healing?

Through war and peace doctors struggle to prevent disease. The Civil War was no exception, except in the case of one doctor who did his best to spread sickness.

Have you ever wondered how chicken nuggets are made?

Mix a 19th-century chemist with a road builder in South America. Add cows and boil.

No, not that kind of pen—this is the kind of pen that saves lives. Discover the history of the EpiPen.

During the American Civil War the North and South developed different strategies to treat malaria.

In this episode we take a look at a disease feared for millennia: cancer.

Join us for the third installment of The Stages of Life, spotlighting the chemistry found in old age.

Join us for the second installment of The Stages of Life, spotlighting the chemistry found in adulthood.

Today's episode begins the three-part series The Stages of Life. To kick things off, we spotlight the chemistry found in childhood.

Chlorpromazine, once celebrated as the “chemical lobotomy,” shifted medicine’s approach to mental illness.

Today your taste buds take center stage.

On today’s show we peel back our skin. 

We wrap up the three-part series A Day in the Life, today spotlighting the common chemistry of night. 

We continue the three-part series A Day in the Life, today spotlighting the common chemistry of noontime.

We begin the three-part series A Day in the Life, today spotlighting the common chemistry of morning.

We wrap up the three-part series Blood, Sweat, and Tears. This week: tears. 

Continuing the three-part series Blood, Sweat, and Tears. This week: sweat.

Neither medicine nor food, the vitamin pill was born in the early 20th century and came of age during World War II. Now, vitamins are here to stay—and so is the controversy that swirls around them.

No doubt, babies are adorable. But on today’s show we examine some more serious aspects of parenthood.

Sneezing, itchy eyes, runny nose? On this episode we look at allergies.

Amphetamine didn’t cure anything, but it did make you feel better. Chemist Gordon Alles faced this paradox after patenting his discovery in 1932.

On today’s episode of Distillations we go straight to the source. . .your DNA.

The controversy around animal magnetism.

Thomas R. Tritton reviews Carl Zimmer’s A Planet of Viruses.

Today’s show explores one of our favorite senses: taste. 

This week we bring you some of our favorite segments from past Distillations episodes.

John Hickman reviews Siddhartha Mukherjee’s The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.

The impact of the Civil War can still be seen politically, socially, and economically, but its influence on medicine is often obscured.

A 19th-century chemist was the first to raise the alarm about adulterated food.

This week we look at diagnostic and therapeutic applications of nuclear medicine.

Thin became “in” during the 1920s, and the calorie became a vital tool in the battle to lose weight. Yet before becoming a fashion necessity, the calorie had a decidedly less glamorous role in agriculture, laboratories, and factories.