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Bad science

In his time, Thomas Midgley Jr was considered a great scientist. In retrospect, he may have killed more people accidentally than anyone else who ever lived.

Tom Midgley Jr
(1889 - 1944)

  
Working at Delco, a subsidiary of General Motors, Midgley was tasked with solving the mystery of engine knock, a persistent ping or putt-putt sound that characterized and damaged internal-combustion engines in early automobiles.

Midgley figured out that the knocking sound was caused by an increase in pressure and temperature within the engine cylinders, which he addressed not by recommending changes to engine design, but by altering the chemical make-up of gasoline. A mix of tetraethyl lead and bromine was added in 1921, to invent "no-knock" or Ethyl gasoline.

Problem solved! 

Except... tetraethyl lead is made with lead, and lead is poisonous, and Midgley knew it. Any chemist knew it, even then. That's why Midgley's Ethel Corporation rarely mentioned lead in its promotional materials.

Midgley himself took an extended medical leave in 1924 due to lead poisoning, and he authored a paper on lead poison hazards in 1925.

Lead additives in ethyl gasoline were subsequently shown to be a major pollutant, causing brain and blood disorders, chronic illness, and elevated mortality. It hit children especially hard, causing lowered IQ and increased antisocial behavior.

There's no authoritative count of how many people were injured and killed by leaded gasoline, but certainly, it was millions.

Midgley's ethyl compounds were removed from gasoline beginning in the 1970s, as unleaded gasoline became the standard. Worldwide, the last leaded gasoline for automobiles was discontinued earlier this year.

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In 1928, Midgley was transferred to Frigidaire (another subsidiary of GM), where he was tasked with finding a safe, affordable replacement for the refrigerants then being used, all of which were either toxic, flammable, or both.

He came up with dichlorodifluoromethane, which is primarily a mixture of chlorine, fluorine and carbon. Called chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, this compound was trademarked as Freon, and became a common component in air conditioning, insect repellents, and refrigeration systems. 

Problem solved! 

Except... evidence later showed that CFCs caused large-scale destruction of the planet's ozone layer, reducing humanity's protection from skin cancers and eye damage caused by ultraviolet radiation, and causing mutations in human DNA, weakening of the immune system, and other environmental damage. Freon leaks can also cause asphyxiation and death at higher concentrations, because its molecular structure displaces oxygen.

Again, there's no definitive tally of deaths from chlorofluorocarbons and depletion of the ozone layer, but again a lowball estimate is, millions.

Most CFCs were phased out by the 1980s, but Freon is still in use. It's estimated that a few hundred people are still killed annually by huffing Freon, and CFCs continue their contributions to climate change.

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When he played baseball on his high school team, circa 1905, Midgley experimented with numerous elements that could be applied to the ball to yield an increased curving effect — the spitball, it's called.

He certainly didn’t invent the spitter, but his bio at the National Academy of Sciences suggests teenage Midgley discovered that bark from slippery elm trees, when chewed and mixed with saliva, works great for that intended effect. Slippery elm is still used by big league pitchers looking for an illegal advantage.

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Late in life, Midgley contracted polio, and as the disease progressed he was confined to his home. Always a tinkerer, he designed a series of pulley mechanisms that allowed him to get from his bed to the bathroom or his home office without assistance.

Like his more famous inventions, however, this presented an unexpected danger. On a November morning in 1944, Migley slipped and became tangled in the device's ropes, accidentally strangling himself.

10/29/2021  
Republished: 7/9/2023  

8 comments:

  1. I heard that in the mid-1930s, Midgley bought three puppies from a classified ad, kicked them all in the belly, and then put them in a bag and tossed the bag into a wood chipper.

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    Replies
    1. And those dogs were Toto, RinTinTin, and Lassie.

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  2. In high school I took an English class that was part of their CAST program (Communication Arts & Science Training) -- essentially TV English. We were supposed to write a parody of any commercial we wanted. It was 1985, so some kids went for "Where's The Beef" spoofs. All real obvious stuff. But I insisted my team work on a parody of Bob Hope's "Knock Out the Knock With New Texaco Anti-Knock." There was just something ridiculous about hearing Bob Hope repeating the word "knock" over and over that tickled me. I don't remember how the entire commercial went, but I still remember how it began.

    A voice offstage: "Knock Knock"

    Who's There?

    VO: Joe

    Joe Who?

    VO: Joe Momma

    Now that's a pretty funny joke, but what's no joke is the knocking you hear in your engine and here at Tex-See-Co we've devised a special blend of gasoline and human entrails that knocks the knock-knock out of your knocking engine without knocking you off your block.

    Thankfully, the teacher enjoyed it because the other students didn't know what the hell we were talking about.

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    Replies
    1. You made me chuckle, which is more than Bob Hope ever did for me.

      I once wrote something briefly dismissive about Hope's comedy, though, which was redlined by an astonished editor, who told me that Hope had actually been funny when he was younger. Had to take his word on that.

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    2. Me, too. Hope always looked to me like an annoyed snob who'd rather be anywhere else. I just loved how annoying it was the way he said the word "Knock" I was amused by how many kids I knew agreed.

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    3. My boss told me Hope had been a 'bad boy' when he was young, shocking audiences. I wonder what would've shocked audiences in the 1920s. Words like 'darn'?

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    4. Bob Hope was a NOTORIOUS womanizer, he fucked every woman out there, cheating on his wife often. Google the phrase Bob Hope Womanizer.

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    5. His wife seems to have been OK with it. If I was her, I'd be more put off by a lifetime of bad jokes.

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