Meet Thomas Midgley Jr., Arguably The Most Dangerous Man Of All Time
You probably have no idea who he is, but you or your parents might have used his inventions all the time.
Did you ever have to memorize the periodic table?
Hopefully not. I like science, but I was never a chemistry fanatic.
A long time ago, one kid used to carry a periodic table with him at all times.
His last name wasn’t Einstein. He was born 10 years later, and his inventions were almost as impactful as Einstein’s discoveries.
We’ll get back to this mysterious, beguiling character.
The Sordid History of Lead:
Lead poisoning has been widely known for millennia as a common cause of occupational disease. In 370 B.C., Hippocrates, the Greek physician and the man responsible for the vaunted Hippocratic oath that is still recited by aspiring medical doctors, described colic (i.e., an upset stomach) in a man who was a metal worker.
A few centuries later, another Greek physician “noticed that exposure to lead could cause paralysis and delirium in addition to intestinal problems and swelling.”
