In the 1960s, choking was a national epidemic. In the United States alone, close to 4,000 people were dying from choking every year. Lobster, ham, and hamburger were common culprits. But steak was by far the greatest offender. Coroners called for a solution to these “Cafe Coronaries,” and the medical community responded with weird and dangerous gadgets: vac ... Show More
Aug 2019
Corn Flakes | The Brothers of Battle Creek | S16-E1
For the first 150 years of American history, American citizens were plagued by gastrointestinal issues. Diarrhea, gastritis and dysentery were pretty much a way of life. Indigestion was such an immense problem, the poet Walt Whitman called it “the Great American Evil.” All these ... Show More
40m 36s
Sep 2019
Skylab: NASA’s Best-Kept Secret| Apollo’s Leftovers | S17-E1
Fifty years ago, America’s space program achieved its greatest triumph, when Apollo Eleven put the first men on the moon.The Apollo program was a remarkable success story. But as NASA was sending men to the moon, they were engaged in another, less celebrated project — one even mo ... Show More
39m 2s
Oct 2019
Electric Chair | War of the Currents | S18-E1
On August 6, 1890, a prisoner named William Kemmler became the first man executed in the electric chair. It was designed to be a more humane form of execution, but the gruesome scene in the death chamber that day revealed the device to be anything but. Still, the chair stuck arou ... Show More
44m 52s
Oct 2023
How to save a life with CPR
Every year, more than 350,000 people go into cardiac arrest outside of a hospital setting in the United States. CPR, or cardiopulmonary resuscitation, can help double or triple survival rates. In this episode, we'll explain the basics of this emergency procedure so you can feel e ... Show More
19m 20s
Dec 2021
EP139: Trapped Inside a Tube: The Iron Lung Story and H.P. Rama, The Accidental Hotelier
On this episode of Our American Stories, Daryn Glassbrook of the Mobile Medical Museum tells the story of the iron lung, a device used to keep people with advanced polio alive in the first half of the 20th century. Indian American hotelier H.P. Rama the story of the ethical dilem ... Show More
38m 16s
Apr 2023
EM Quick Hits 48 – FAST in Pediatric Trauma, Multiple Myeloma, Drowning, AKA, Global EM
In this month's EM Quick Hits: Heather Cary on the use and misuse of abdominal FAST in pediatric trauma, Hans Rosenberg and Arleigh McCurdy on the diagnosis and management of Multiple Myeloma in the ED, David Jerome on practice tips for managing the drowning patient, Brit Long an ... Show More
1 h
Oct 2023
How to save a life with CPR
Every year, more than 350,000 people go into cardiac arrest outside of a hospital setting in the United States. CPR, or cardiopulmonary resuscitation, can help double or triple survival rates. In this episode, we'll explain the basics of this emergency procedure so you can feel e ... Show More
19m 20s