Long before hand sanitizer became a staple in every bathroom and disposable packaging sparked heated environmental debates, a handful of oddly specific—yet surprisingly effective—food‑safety regulations quietly rewrote the rules of what landed on our plates (and in our hands). From Victorian London’s shared ice‑cream tumblers that helped spread typhoid to post‑war Japan’s meticulous sealing of juice jars, each strange edict sprang from a moment of panic, a flash of chemistry, or plain‑spoken practicality, leaving us with the everyday habits we now consider normal.

Why These 10 Quirky Necessary Rules Still Matter

10 You Couldn’t Lick Your Ice Cream Glass

In the bustling avenues of 1890s London, penny‑lick stalls hawked scoops of ice‑cream in tiny, thick glass “taster” cups for a farthing—a quarter of a penny. These squat, clear vessels perched on grimy counters and passed from one eager customer to the next, sometimes changing hands dozens of times on a scorching afternoon.

Patrons would press their lips to the rim, scoop the frozen treat with their tongues, and then hand the glass to the next buyer. While it maximized profit on what was still a luxury for most, it also created a perfect breeding ground for disease. Contemporary cartoons depicted armies of germs marching across filthy rims, stoking a wave of middle‑class moral panic.

When a string of typhoid and cholera outbreaks swept East End London in 1897‑98, investigators from the Metropolitan Sanitary Committee traced a sizable chunk of the infections back to these shared glasses. Dr. William Farr’s team conducted door‑to‑door interviews and water‑sample analyses, estimating that up to 15 % of Whitechapel cases could be linked to penny‑lick consumption.

In response, the Committee issued a citywide prohibition on penny‑lick glasses in October 1898, officially labeling them “likely vehicles of infection.” Vendors scrambled for alternatives, testing paper cups and early ice‑cream spoons, but the disposable waffle cone—popularized at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair by Carlo and Italo Marchioni—quickly rose as the hygienic, single‑use successor that endures to this day.

Health inspectors kept meticulous logs of vendor compliance, noting daily fines that could reach a shilling for repeat offenders and awarding ornate “Certificate of Cleanness” badges to those who switched to cones. By 1902, sales of glass tasters had plunged by over 90 %, while ice‑cream parlors began promoting “clean‑cone” campaigns, hand‑written recipe cards, and brightly printed napkins to catch drips—early forerunners of today’s branded packaging and social‑media‑ready product launches.

9 Gloves for Chefs? Mandatory—In 1840s Vienna

Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis’s groundbreaking work in Vienna’s Allgemeines Krankenhaus—where he slashed puerperal‑fever mortality from 18 % to under 2 % by enforcing hand‑washing—soon echoed beyond maternity wards. By the late 1840s, the city council extended his mandate into the bustling Naschmarkt and Graben bazaar.

Any artisan or servant handling food in public was required to scrub hands in a chlorine solution and don starched white cotton gloves before commencing work. These early “food‑grade” gloves often bore embroidered maker’s marks (e.g., “Mayer & Sohn, Wien”) and were shipped in small leather pouches, turning them into both a badge of sanitary compliance and a curious fashion accessory among well‑to‑do chefs.

The rule covered sausage‑makers, bakers, ale‑house servers, and even street‑cart vendors grilling bratwurst in copper cauldrons. Municipal inspectors, themselves gloved, wielded metal‑tipped canes to prod glove surfaces for hidden grime; random spot‑checks could levy fines up to 10 gulden (equivalent to several days’ wages). Contemporary medical journals celebrated a reported 40 % drop in gastrointestinal complaints among market patrons within two years, with physicians hailing gloves as “the silent guardians of public health.”

A thriving cottage industry sprang up around the decree. Traveling glove‑makers toured village fairs, offering custom fittings, rapid laundering, and quick‑starch kits—tiny linen sachets of bleaching powder and lavender oil—to keep gloves bright and odor‑free between washes.

Chefs and bakers proudly displayed gilt‑edged “Semmelweis‑Approved” certificates in shop windows alongside their menus, touting their devotion to “Viennese hygiene” as a mark of culinary excellence.

8 Raw Oyster Sales Banned—Unless You Shuck Privately

At the turn of the 20th century, New Yorkers flocked to the famed oyster bars along Front Street and Fulton Market, inhaling briny mist as expert shuckers wrestled open mollusks on communal platters. After a severe cholera scare in 1906 that claimed dozens of lives, hospital records pointed to Vibrio‑infested shellfish as the culprit.

The Board of Health issued an emergency decree: public oyster bars had to cease on‑premises shucking unless each patron received a personal cracker, individual spittoon, sanitized shell‑holder, and a porcelain tasting spoon. Any establishment caught violating the rule faced immediate closure and hefty forfeiture of its licence fee.

By 1908, Manhattan had lost over 60 % of its licensed oyster bars. High‑end venues survived by converting to table‑service models. Waiters in starched uniforms cracked oysters tableside, presenting each mollusk on a shaved‑ice towel and a monogrammed mother‑of‑pearl spoon. Critics in The New York Times praised the newfound “elegance and safety,” while health bulletins credited the measure with halting the cholera outbreak.

Adaptable vendors installed tiled counters, built‑in shell‑drain troughs, and copper‑lined tubs for daily cart scrubbings; some even imported crushed glacier ice from New England to keep oysters at a steady 39.2 °F (4 °C), a precursor to modern HACCP cold‑chain controls.

By 1915, advances in in‑house refrigeration and chlorinated wash systems allowed bars to pre‑shuck oysters under sterile conditions, meeting hygiene standards without individual spittoons—leading the Board to repeal the private‑shuck edict in 1922.

7 Cows Got a Bath Before Milking

In the late 1800s, Parisian public‑health crusaders, galvanized by Louis Pasteur’s pioneering germ‑theory work, turned their attention to dairy farms on the outskirts of Île‑de‑la‑Cité. They discovered that unwashed cow hides harbored Mycobacterium bovis (the agent of bovine tuberculosis), Streptococcus agalactiae, and other pathogens.

In 1894, the Préfecture de Police issued an ordinance compelling dairy farmers to hose down each cow’s flanks, udders, and teats with a mild carbolic‑acid disinfectant solution before the first morning milking. Though farmhands initially grumbled—wooden pails splintered under the disinfectant and ragged brushes froze in winter—the “cow wash” cut bovine‑derived tuberculosis cases linked to milk by nearly half within three years, according to annual health‑board reports.

Inspectors handed out ornate “Sanitized Herd” certificates, and dairies proudly painted “Certifié Sans Germes” on their delivery carts. The visible clean‑cow process became a marketing boon: cafés advertised “Lait Pur de Paris” sourced from washed herds, charging a 10 % premium.

The success of the cow wash directly inspired U.S. milk pasteurisation mandates in the early 20th century and lent momentum to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

6 Your Spoon Could Get You Fined

In 1911, the town council of Redfield, New York, passed an ordinance banning the reuse of wooden utensils at all public gatherings—church suppers, political rallies, and town‑hall pot‑luck feasts—convinced that coarse‑grained wood trapped bacteria deep within its fibers.

Visitors were forbidden from bringing their own spoons; anyone caught stirring communal stew with a personal utensil faced fines of up to $5 (equivalent to over $150 today). The law’s backers circulated sanitisation pamphlets bristling with microscopic engravings of wood‑borne microbes “invading your intestines.”

Local entrepreneurs seized the moment, manufacturing disposable tin spoons stamped in red with the slogan “Sanitary Use Only.” Although heavier and prone to bending under thick soups, these spoons were touted in periodicals as “the spoon of the future,” and train‑station vendors sold them in rolls of fifty for a dollar.

The craze collapsed by World War I when wartime metal shortages and the advent of inexpensive stainless‑steel utensils restored confidence in reusable tableware. Yet the Redfield spoon saga presaged modern debates over disposable versus sustainable dining ware, echoing today’s struggles between convenience and environmental stewardship.

5 “Sunshine Vitamin” Lamps in Grape Cellars

In 1913, a mysterious bout of botulism in California’s Lodi and Napa wine regions alarmed researchers at the St. Louis Chemical Institute. Several cellar workers fell gravely ill after inhaling aerosolised toxins from fermenting grapes stored in pitch‑black underground caverns.

In response, the California State Board of Health mandated that new wine‑aging facilities install ultraviolet “sun‑lamps” along vaulted ceilings and tunnel walls to sterilise cellar air and irradiate grape skins before pressing. These carbon‑arc UV fixtures emitted germicidal wavelengths believed to mimic natural sunlight’s disinfecting power, casting a bluish glow in otherwise dark cellars.

Winemakers reported up to a 70 % drop in spoilage and zero new botulism cases over the next five years. Equipment suppliers marketed combined oxygen and UV treatment chambers, precursors to modern aseptic processing. Although later supplanted by precise temperature control and sulfite‑based preservatives, those early “sunshine” lamps represent one of the first industrial‑scale ultraviolet sterilisation efforts—direct ancestors of today’s food‑processing sanitation tunnels and hospital UV‑disinfection robots.

4 Edible Spoons Invented for Housewives

World War I wrought severe flour shortages across Britain, prompting the Ministry of Food in 1917 to sponsor bold experiments in edible tableware. As the brainchild of chemist Margaret Hirst at the London School of Hygiene, “Porri‑plates” and “sporklets” were crafted from a blend of oat, barley, and chickpea flours, subtly flavored with rosemary, thyme, or caraway.

Housewives collected free samples at ration‑card distribution centres, and the Daily Mail ran full‑page recipes extolling: “Save Precious Grain—Eat the Spoon That Stirs Your Stew!” Despite initial enthusiasm, many found the utensils too crumbly—disintegrating mid‑stir and leaving stray crumbs in meat pies—and their herbal flavour clashed with hearty wartime dishes.

Small‑scale bakers in Yorkshire and Kent offered mail‑order sporklet subscriptions until grain imports resumed in 1920. Surviving 1920s cookbooks still contain instructions for homemade edible spoons, complete with hand‑drawn diagrams. The sporklet episode foreshadows today’s push for edible straws, cups, and cutlery in zero‑waste movements—proof that necessity truly is the mother of invention.

3 Slaughterhouses Required “Sanity Gates”

In 1935, Chicago’s Department of Health issued a landmark ordinance requiring all new stockyards and slaughterhouses to incorporate “sanity gates”—angled chutes designed to guide cattle calmly into holding pens and minimise stress. Research from the University of Illinois showed that frightened cattle produce adrenaline surges, which can elevate bacterial counts in meat during slaughter.

Architecture and agricultural journals of the era praised the design. Each gate was flanked by smooth, washable concrete walls painted in pastel greens and blues to soothe livestock, with strategically placed windows to let in natural light. USDA inspectors soon endorsed the use of sanity gates across federal meat‑packing plants, leading to their nationwide adoption by 1940.

Today’s humane handling guidelines and HACCP principles continue to echo those 1930s innovations, directly linking animal welfare to food safety and setting the stage for modern regulatory frameworks in meat processing.

2 Lead‑Glazed Pottery Stamped “Poisonous”

During World War II, material shortages in France led many rural potteries to experiment with untested lead‑based glazes for dishes and storage crocks. By 1943, regional hospitals reported a 200 % spike in lead‑poisoning cases—symptoms ranged from gastrointestinal distress to neurological impairment—as acidic foods leached toxins from homemade earthenware.

In a sensational 1944 decree, the French Ministry of Public Health ordered all non‑certified dishware to bear a skull‑and‑crossbones stamp reading “Glaze Non‑Conforme,” effectively warning households against lead‑tainted ceramics.

The scandal prompted the French to accelerate modern EU‑style regulations on food‑contact materials, mandating rigorous lab testing and permanently banning lead in glazes. What began as a makeshift response to wartime scarcity ultimately safeguarded generations from chronic heavy‑metal exposure—and laid the groundwork for today’s global standards for food‑safe containers.

1 Watermelon Juice Jars Got Sealed

In the early 1960s, rural communities across Japan experienced a troubling surge in botulism cases linked to homemade fruit juices—especially watermelon and peach nectars. Investigators from the Ministry of Health discovered that anaerobic conditions inside improperly sealed screw‑top glass jars fostered Clostridium botulinum growth.

In 1965, an urgent nationwide law mandated that all home‑canning and commercial juice jars feature tamper‑evident seals, pressure‑tested lids, and clear “Vacuum‑Check” rings that snapped down when a proper seal formed. Canning demonstrations at community centres taught housewives the reassuring technique of listening for the “pop” of a vacuum seal, while school home‑economics programs incorporated botulism awareness modules.

Beverage manufacturers embraced the new standard, rolling out peel‑back lids and ring‑pull caps across soda and juice lines by the late 1960s. This pioneering tamper‑proof regulation predated the U.S. FDA’s blanket “safe canning” guidelines by a decade, and today’s ubiquitous plastic‑ring seals on bottles and peel‑back lids trace their lineage back to those forward‑thinking Japanese reforms.

School buses ferry thousands of youngsters each day, and according to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) they rank among the safest vehicles on America’s roads. That stellar record is no accident – it’s the result of a century‑long series of safety advancements that emerged after heartbreaking school‑bus tragedies. Collectively, these hard‑won lessons have saved countless lives and continue to protect students nationwide. Below, we count down the ten most pivotal tragedies that forced the industry to evolve.

10 Safety Advancements Overview

10 Railroad Crossings

Utah may be famous for its deserts and ski slopes, but it also holds a grim place in transportation history. On December 1, 1938, a ferocious blizzard hammered the Salt Lake Valley. Farrold Silcox, a three‑year veteran bus driver, was hauling 39 children to Jordan High School in Sandy. When he reached a railroad crossing, he stopped, glanced both ways, and rolled onto the tracks.

Mid‑way across, a freight train barreled into the bus, dragging it roughly half a mile (0.8 km) north before finally stopping. The collision claimed the lives of 24 children and the driver. Investigators concluded that the blizzard had severely limited visibility, preventing Silcox from spotting the oncoming train. In response, regulations now require any passenger‑carrying commercial vehicle to stop at a crossing, open the doors and windows, and listen for an approaching train before proceeding.

9 Manufacturing

School buses have come a long way since their late‑19th‑century origins, each generation improving on the safety of its predecessor. A tragic illustration of why construction matters occurred on May 21, 1976. Evan Prothero was behind the wheel of a 1950 Crown carrying 53 youngsters. After an hour of travel, a warning buzzer sounded in the driver’s compartment, prompting him to exit the highway.

As he attempted to slow down, the bus refused to decelerate, slamming into a guardrail before careening over the side of an embankment and crashing into a field. The roof collapsed, killing 28 passengers and injuring many more. The NTSB identified the bus’s structural weaknesses as a primary cause. Subsequent regulations forced manufacturers to produce sturdier frames capable of withstanding rollovers and other severe impacts.

8 Emergency Exits

Even when a bus isn’t on a school‑field trip, a crash can expose fatal design flaws. On the evening of May 14, 1988, a group of children and chaperones were returning from King’s Island when a northbound pickup slammed head‑on into their bus. The impact pierced the fuel tank, igniting gasoline and setting the vehicle ablaze in an instant.

Panicked students rushed to the rear—the bus’s sole emergency exit—and many perished. The driver of the pickup was later found intoxicated and sentenced to 16 years in prison. In the wake of the fire, Kentucky legislators, followed by the rest of the nation, mandated additional emergency exits on school buses, recognizing that more egress points could dramatically improve survivability in fires.

7 Brake Training

Another lesson emerged from a seemingly routine mountain route. On July 31, 1991, Richard A. Gonzalez Jr. piloted a 1989 Thomas school bus down a steep, winding road. The vehicle began to gain speed, and Gonzalez struggled to apply the brakes effectively. He honked at the car ahead, hoping to signal distress, but the bus continued accelerating.

Eventually, the bus veered into the opposite lane, careened around a curve, and skidded off the road, tumbling down an embankment. Seven passengers lost their lives and 53 were injured. The investigation pinpointed inadequate driver training for steep grades as a key factor, prompting transportation agencies to overhaul brake‑and‑grade training programs for all school‑bus operators.

6 Child Check System

Sometimes a tragedy stems from a simple procedural slip. On September 11, 2015, Armando Ramirez, a driver for Public Transportation Cooperative in Whittier, California, completed his morning route, dropping off three students before heading back to the yard and then home. Hours later, the body of Paul Lee was discovered inside Ramirez’s bus, lying in his own vomit.

It turned out Lee had never disembarked that morning, and Ramirez failed to perform the mandatory post‑route check that would have revealed the child’s presence. The negligence led to Lee’s untimely death. In response, California enacted a law requiring every school bus to install a child‑check system, forcing drivers to verify that no passengers remain on board before the bus is taken out of service.

5 Training for Hijacking

A harrowing kidnapping in July 1976 reshaped security protocols for school transportation. Ed Ray, a 55‑year‑old driver, stopped his bus after confronting an armed man who seized the vehicle and held 26 children and Ray hostage. The kidnappers ferried the group for 11 hours in two cargo vans, eventually dumping the children in a rock quarry near Livermore, California, 100 miles (161 km) away.

Fortunately, the driver and an older student escaped the buried van and raised the alarm. The perpetrators were soon captured. Today, many districts train drivers on how to react during hijackings, and most buses are equipped with GPS trackers and video cameras, tools that have proved invaluable in resolving such incidents.

4 Emergency Response Teams

Not every fatality results directly from the crash itself; sometimes the aftermath proves deadly. On February 28, 1958, John Alex DeRossett was driving a bus loaded with students along U.S. Route 23 near Prestonsburg, Kentucky. While navigating a tow‑truck blockage, the bus clipped the tow vehicle, careened left, and plunged down an embankment into the Big Sandy River.

Twenty‑two children escaped through the single rear emergency exit as the bus sank, but the remaining 26 students and the driver were dragged beneath the water and vanished. The National Guard was finally deployed on March 5, 1958, but the delayed response sparked public outcry. The incident spurred the creation of the county’s first dedicated disaster‑response team, a model that other jurisdictions quickly emulated.

3 School Bus Yellow and Two‑Way Radios

Early school‑bus operations were fraught with challenges, especially during severe weather. In March 1931, Carl Miller set out to transport his pupils, only to be caught in a sudden blizzard. After delivering the children, Miller decided to turn the bus around and head home, but a wrong turn led the vehicle into a ditch, stalling the engine and stranding 22 occupants.

Leaving two older children in charge, Miller trekked on foot for help. Two men eventually discovered the bus and rescued the youngsters, but six lives—including Miller’s—were lost. The tragedy prompted officials to standardize a highly visible uniform color for school buses, birthing the iconic “school‑bus yellow.” Simultaneously, two‑way radios were installed in every school‑transport vehicle, ensuring rapid communication in emergencies.

2 Fire Suppression System

Even the most modern buses can fall victim to unforeseen hazards. On December 12, 2017, 16‑year‑old Megan Klindt waited for her Riverside Community High School bus. Driver Donald Hendricks, 74, attempted a tight turnaround on a narrow street, backing too far and sending the rear of the bus into a ditch.

While trying to free the vehicle, the engine’s turbocharger overheated, igniting fuel and engulfing the bus in flames. Megan and Hendricks perished before firefighters could intervene. The NTSB’s investigation concluded that the fire resulted from an overheated turbocharger and recommended that all school buses be equipped with fire‑suppression systems to automatically extinguish such infernos.

1 Responsibility of Operator

Sometimes sheer bad luck, compounded by poor judgment, leads to disaster. On November 26, 1945, 24‑year‑old World War II veteran Royal J. Randle drove his Lake Chelan district bus through a light snowfall. He chose not to attach snow chains, assuming the thin layer of snow wouldn’t affect traction.

Snow quickly accumulated on the windshield, disabling the wipers and severely limiting visibility. Randle pulled over to clear the obstruction, but in doing so, he struck a hidden rock, sending the bus into a 30‑foot (9‑meter) embankment where it rolled twice and came to rest with the front submerged five feet (1.5 meters) underwater.

Five students and an adult escaped before the bus’s weight caused it to sink completely, trapping the remaining seven children and the driver. Divers recovered seven bodies within six days, while nine children remained missing and the search was eventually called off. The Washington State Patrol concluded that the accident resulted from poor visibility and that the school district bore responsibility for halting operations in unsafe weather. Today, both districts and drivers share the duty to assess road conditions and suspend service when hazards threaten pupil safety.

Two of the names on this list are well-known. However, the others are lesser-known but no less as important. All these inventions, potentially dangerous in themselves, have saved lives, often many, and attracted great attention thanks to the extreme, perilous tests the inventors themselves undertook to prove the safety of their inventions.

10 Elisha Otis

Despite a series of jobs in various businesses, Elisha Otis (1811–1861) never met with much success until 1853, when he thrilled onlookers during an event described as “a dramatic demonstration.”

Riding an open platform up a scaffold resembling the framework of a gigantic guillotine, Otis stood, among barrels and crates, gazing down at the crowd that had assembled to watch the show. People were suspicious of the safety of elevators, fearing that such contraptions might fall, injuring or killing their occupants. Otis’s demonstration would dispel such worries—if he survived.

As the assembly looked on, Otis struck the rope attached to the elevator with an ax, severing it. Surely, in the resulting fall, he would be severely injured, if not killed, the horrified crowd must have thought.

Instead, Otis proved the efficacy of his brake: his safety system worked. Even with the rope severed, the brake prevented the lift from plunging to its destruction and Otis’s injury or death. The public was persuaded that elevators equipped with his invention were safe, and Otis installed his first passenger-carrying safety elevator in a New York department store four years later.

According to Big Ideas That Changed the World, 1.7 million Otis elevators are in service worldwide, not only in skyscrapers but also in such famous landmarks as the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty.^[1]

9 Jonas Salk

“History of Salk: About Jonas Salk,” a 2002 article on the Salk Institute for Biological Studies website, recounts how Dr. Salk (1914–1995) developed and tested the vaccine that has virtually eradicated polio.

As an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan, Salk learned from his mentor, Dr. Thomas Francis, Jr., about the process of developing vaccines. Then, as the director of the Virus Research Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Salk put his knowledge to use, developing a vaccine against the polio virus.

His approach, using an inactivated polio virus to stimulate vaccine recipients’ immunity systems, was “contrary to the era’s prevailing scientific opinion.” There was also concern that such an approach might infect those who received immunizations, causing severe illness or even death. To test his vaccine and to allay the public’s fears, Salk vaccinated himself, his wife, their children, his lab assistant, and “volunteers who had not had polio.”

His test was a success, as were those conducted in 1954 on “one million children, ages six to nine,.. .known as the Polio Pioneers.” Salk refused to patent the vaccine or accept money for it, “preferring it [to] be distributed as widely as possible.” In 1963, he founded the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California.^[2]

8 Garrett Morgan

Among other devices, Garrett Morgan (1877–1963), the son of former slaves, not only invented the “three-way traffic signal” but also a fireproof “safety hood.” According to an article on the America Comes Alive website, Morgan was aware that firefighters could fight fires inside buildings only until they were nearly overcome by smoke. After that, they would have to go outside for fresh air, unable to continue their fight against the fire until they recovered.

In a fire, Morgan knew that breathable air was close to the floor since air warmed by the fire would rise. He reasoned that if he could find a way to draw this air into a “breathing mask” worn by a firefighter, the firefighter could remain inside the burning building longer. As the website article explains, “the safety hood he created had two tubes. One sent fresher air from the floor level up into the breathing mask. The second used a valve to prevent the exhaled air from being inhaled again.”

In 1914. aided by investors, Morgan founded the National Safety Device Company to make and sell the fire safety hoods. A gold medal awarded at the Second International Exposition of Safety and Sanitation boosted sales, with New York City’s fire department and others purchasing the device. The hoods proved safe to use during a subway fire rescue.

In 1916, a much more impressive test of the hoods occurred involving the inventor himself and his brother. Cleveland Waterworks laborers were working in a tunnel when an explosion occurred, trapping some and killing others. Two attempts to rescue them failed when overcome by dense smoke and gases, four members of the initial seven-member rescue team died, and the second, eleven-member team was trapped inside the tunnel.

Morgan and his brother Frank tested the mettle of his invention when they joined the rescue effort, donning Morgan’s safety hoods. Among the dead men, the brothers located and rescued the earlier “rescue squad members who were still living.” As a result of their participation, “the Morgan brothers, aided by several volunteers, made additional multiple trips into the mine, rescuing workers one by one. Unfortunately, none of the original 11 workers could have survived as the tunnel had collapsed on them. It was several weeks before those bodies could be retrieved.”

As the website article notes, “the gas masks that were made for use in World War I were modeled after Morgan’s safety hood.”^[3]

7 Steve Gass

Steve Gass bet one of his own fingers that his invention, SawStop, would really work. A U.S. patent lawyer, inventor, and a woodworker with a Ph.D. in physics, Gass was aware that table saws cut off operators’ fingers up to ten times a day. He wanted to create a safety feature to prevent more people from undergoing this horrific, traumatic experience.

Gass’s SawStop differentiates between flesh and wood because the former conducts electricity while the latter does not. Gass’s SawStop “induces a high-frequency electrical signal on the blade of a table saw and monitors this signal for changes caused by contact between the blade and a user’s body.” When a change in the electrical signal is detected, SawStop can halt the saw blade “in 1/1000th of a second or less” by forcing “a brake into the teeth of the blade.”

Gass’s video demonstration of SawStop at work proves his invention’s effectiveness. He stuck his own finger into the saw, and he came away unscathed, his finger undamaged and intact. With neither blood nor pain to show for his trouble, Gass succeeded in demonstrating that, as the video’s narrator comments, he is, indeed, “a man who has faith in his creation.” ^[4]

6 Troy Hurtubise

AIR staff writer Alice Shirrell Kaswell reported that Troy Hurtubise (1963–2001), dressed in the Ursus Mark VI suit of armor, went head-to-head, or “mano a ursus,” with a reluctant 585-kilogram (1,290-pound) adult Kodiak bear. The predator (the bear, not Hurtubise) was leery of his adversary because “Troy Hurtubise looked so scary in his suit.” Only after ten minutes did the Kodiak bear approach him, Kaswell says, while a 157-kilogram (346-pound) grizzly showed no inclination whatsoever to fight the inventor.

When the Kodiak bear finally mustered enough courage to come after Hurtubise, and he “could smell [the animal’s] breath through [his] helmet,” the inventor of the virtually indestructible body shell admitted that he felt terrified and his heart began pounding. The bear’s trainer intervened, refusing to allow a fight between the inventor and the Kodiak bear.

However, the trainer did let Hurtubise enter the grizzly bear’s cage, confident, Hurtubise said, “that even if he took me down, she wouldn’t be able to penetrate the suit, even if she tried all day.” The grizzly was too scared to do anything more but stand “on his hind legs and [bare his] bicuspids.” Since Hurtubise had invented his suit “specifically for grizzly bears, and not Kodiaks, a behemoth subspecies,” he felt vindicated.

An episode of the American TV series Extra, demonstrating the near-invincibility of his suit, made of titanium plastic, rubber, and chain mail, is certainly impressive. Looking something like an oversize robot in his armor, Hurtubise is struck repeatedly in the head with a large stick until it breaks against his helmet.

The results of some of the challenges of his suit were equally impressive. The blast of a 12-gauge shotgun bounces harmlessly off his midriff. A three-hundred-pound log attached to chains and “launched dead center at his chest” merely knocks him down. A three-ton truck traveling at thirty miles per hour runs into him and knocks him down, causing him to roll over the ground. Finally, he throws himself down a ravine, tumbling to the bottom without a scratch.

It seemed doubtful that a grizzly could have put the preservationist to any more of a test than those he’d already passed with flying colors.^[5]

5 George Stephenson

On May 25, 1812, a massive explosion occurred inside the Low Main seam at the Felling Colliery between Gateshead and Jarrow in County Durham, UK, when an “ignition of fire-damp” triggered a coal dust explosion so devastating that it “was heard up to 4 miles away.” Ninety-two lives were lost. As a result, George Stephenson (1781–1848), a mechanic who had worked as a firefighter and a brakeman, started experimenting with a safety lamp that could employ a naked flame without igniting an explosion.

The result was his Gordie Lamp. Based on the containment of “burnt air above the flame, and [the permitting of] the firedamp to come in below in a small quantity to be burnt as it came in,” the lamp proved successful. This was especially true after a flaw (“glass breakage”) was overcome when safety glass was later invented.

As his biography reveals, George Stephenson, the inventor himself, in the company of two witnesses, Nicholas Wood and John Moodie, descended into the Killingworth mine shaft, carrying Stephenson’s lamp “to one of the galleries.” These structures were built to contain and isolate highly explosive carbureted hydrogen, so it would not spread into other areas of the mine. There, he found, hissing gas was issuing into the gallery from a fissure in the roof. Despite the presence of the dense gas, the lamp had not caused an explosion.

To test the lamp further, the gas was “collected” inside a “partition” so that it would be even more “liable to ignition.” Both Wood and Moodie, judging the demonstration to be extremely dangerous, retreated to safety, where they watched Stephenson advance, his lamp lit, to “within a few inches of the fissure,” where the current of gas extinguished the lamp’s flame “without exploding the foul air which surrounded the lamp.”

Stephenson had proved, beyond a doubt, that he had invented a safety lamp that was, indeed, safe to use, even in a mine shaft polluted with flammable gas.^[6]

4 Sir Humphry Davy

Sir Humphry Davy (1778–1828) invented several products, including a safety lamp, but he personally tested an early anesthetic procedure that he recommended. As an article on The Public Domain Review website explains, “the young English chemist and inventor and future president of the Royal Society began a very radical bout of self-experimentation to determine the effects of inhaling nitrous oxide, more commonly known as ‘Laughing Gas.’”

His assistant, Dr. Kinglake, and Davy collected gas from heated ammonium nitrate crystals in “a green oiled-silk bag.” After passing the bag through steam to remove impurities, Davy inhaled the purified gas through a mouthpiece. He seemed delighted by the results, describing the effects of the gas as exciting “giddiness, flushed cheeks, intense pleasure,” and, in the inventor’s own words, “sublime emotion connected with highly vivid ideas.”

He so enjoyed the experiment that he repeated it numerous times, even going as far as constructing what he called an “air-tight breathing box’” in which he would sit for hours inhaling enormous quantities of gas, having even more intense experiences. One of these sessions nearly cost him his life, but the danger associated with breathing the gas didn’t prevent him from sharing it with such friends as the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey. The poets, likewise, recorded their experiences, which Davy collected, along with his own, and published in 1800 as Researches, Chemical and Philosophical.

In 1800, Davy recognized the gas’s “analgesic properties, named it nitrous oxide,” and, despite his near-death from having abused the gas, recommended its medical use to relieve the pain of surgery.^[7]

3 Richard Davis

A Detroit mugging led Richard Davis to invent a new “concealable lightweight body armor.” At the time, only flack jackets were available, and criminals could tell, from the bulky appearance of the jackets, that a police officer was wearing the protective gear. Instead of firing at the officer’s chest, the criminal would shoot the officer in the head.

After inventing his thin, lightweight, concealable, metal-free body armor, Davis demonstrated its effectiveness. First, he laid the vest on the ground and shot it with a handgun. Then, he mounted the vest on a post and shot it with a rifle. The body armor passed both tests, but Davis had a third, potentially fatal, test in mind as well.

Donning the gear, he held a handgun toward his abdomen, only inches away, and shot himself before spinning around and firing the weapon at bowling pins lined up on a table to his left. The gunshot, he said, stung “enough to make you mad” and broke the skin, but he was otherwise unharmed.

His invention’s tightly layered nylon with multiple interlaced fibers proved effective, creating “a mesh so dense it dissipates the explosive energy,” preventing the bullet from penetrating the weave. He repeated his demonstration 200 times. The first time, he said, was for science, but “the next two hundred [were] for show business.”

As Professor David Eisenbach, Columbia University historian, noted, Davis had not put his “money where [his] mouth is, but “his life where [his] mouth is.”^[8]

2 Jeremiah Raber

While Davis protected the heart (and other vital organs), Jeremiah Raber protected the family jewels. As Ben Hooper observes, Raber took “a bullet to the groin to prove [his] athletic cup’s strength.” His product, the aptly named Nutzshell groin protector, was originally designed for Ultimate Fighting Championship combatants.”

It seems that, like Davis, the Missouri inventor knew the need for publicity and, to promote his Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of his product, he was prepared to put his cup and his own good name to the test by participating in a live, filmed demonstration in which his business partner—an avid hunter—Matt Heck shot a .22-caliber rifle at his groin while Raber sported one of their products. “Don’t try this at home,” Raber warns viewers.

With Raber’s blue jeans and fly unbuttoned and Raber holding the front of the waist apart, Heck, using transparent tape, forms an “X” over the athletic cup. Then, lying on the ground, behind a tripod-mounted rifle set atop a flat stone, Heck aims at his target. Then, Raber, wearing protective goggles, a bulletproof vest, and protective headgear gives him a two-thumbs-up gesture. Finally, the crack of the rifle shot is heard, and the screen goes dark.

As filming resumes, Raber is shown, jeans halfway down his thighs, adjusting the undamaged cup made of ballistic Kevlar. The video then shows the actual shot, as a bullet flicks harmlessly off the surface of the cup, which bounces slightly upon the bullet’s impact. As might be expected, puns abound in the narrator’s account of the demonstration.^[9]

1 Nicolas Senn

As James E. Pilcher notes in his peer-reviewed September 1888 article in Annals of Surgery, “The fertile mind of Professor Senn is notable for the originality of its conceptions.” One of these conceptions was Nicolas Senn’s (1844–1908) invention of a procedure to diagnose intestinal perforation. The idea occurred to him when Senn realized that a stomach or intestine wound could be discovered using a process similar to that by which “a plumber locates a leak in a gas pipe.”

Senn hit on the idea of inflating the intestines with a harmless “gas which would escape from the intestinal wound into the peritoneal cavity,” thus making its presence known to the surgeon using “some infallible test.” As a result of several experiments, Senn determined that a rubber balloon holding from 10 to 20 liters (2 to 4 gallons) would be the most efficient and safest instrument for “blowing the gas throughout the bowels for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes.”

One test subject was Senn himself, who discovered, personally, the physical sensations associated with having the gas blown throughout his intestines. He makes careful, detailed notes concerning his perceptions: “The distention of the colon caused simply a feeling of distention along its course. But as soon as the gas escaped into the ileum, colicky pains were experienced, which increased as insufflation advanced, and only ceased after all the gas had escaped, which was the case only after an hour and a half.” The experience, he observed, was distressing. However, his experiments, both on dogs and humans, himself included, “fully demonstrated the safety of pure hydrogen gas when employed in this manner.”

The infallible test by which the location of the perforation of the intestine was made known was provided by the escape of gas through the wound, which produced bubbles. To tell whether the escaping gas was hydrogen, it was ignited, after which the gas would produce “a slight explosive report, and burn with a characteristic blue flame.” The application of a match or lit candle to the escaping gas—a sure sign of the presence of a perforation in the intestine—has the added advantage of sterilizing the wound, making the process both “diagnostic and therapeutic.”^[10]

We laugh at urban myths and legends, often to joke about how stupid or ridiculous people are. It can be amusing to think about what insane things people can be led to believe, but sometimes it really isn’t a joke, and it isn’t funny at all. Many urban legends or conspiracies that are spread around cause people to try to self treat problems for which they should really see a doctor, distrust medicine in general, or take part in dangerous activities or practices that they have been led to believe are safe. It is important to always research what you are being told, especially when it comes to matters of health or safety, and inform others you know when they believe something false that could put them in a dangerous situation or endanger their health.

10. A Conspiracy Theory About AIDS Has Helped It Spread Further

For many years a conspiracy theory has proliferated among the black community: that the government actually created HIV and AIDS, and distributed it among those in the inner city to kill people of color. President Obama, then a Senator, actually went on television telling of the theories of his pastor Jeremiah Wright, who believed in such nonsense. The belief is so widespread that many black people today, and plenty of non-black people as well, believe this theory.

Of course, we know that AIDS was not a man made creation, but this hasn’t stopped the belief from causing great harm. The best way to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS is to catch it early and give people the right drugs for treatment and control of the condition, and for them to be informed of what they have. However, people are unlikely to go get treatment if they believe that the government caused it on purpose and wants them to suffer and die. This means people distrust the government and don’t go get checked when they suspect they may have it, causing it to spread further and further still. The best way to counter this kind of theory is with education – the government did not create such a deadly disease, and treatment options today are actually very good, especially if it is caught early.

9. The Myth About “Safety Belts Costing More Lives Than They Save”

Some people will go on about how they heard some cop somewhere claim that seat belts actually cost more lives than they save. Their theory generally goes that the seat belt could trap you in the car when it is on fire or something similar, with no way for you to get out. Experts in law enforcement who tend to deal with a lot of accidents have pointed out, though, that while you could have a rare situation where a seat belt makes it harder for someone to get out, that unconcscious people don’t even have a chance to try, and people without seat belts invariably end up unconcsious after a major accident. One policeman who dealt with a lot of accidents was once quoted as saying that he “never unbuckled a dead man.”

In other words, while someone may be able to find a strange, occasional case where a seatbelt caused someone to die in an accident, the vast majority of the time, the seat belt will greatly decrease your risk of fatalities. Sadly, many people get thrown from their vehicles and die in accidents because they believed this ludicrous rumor, and wanted to ensure they didn’t get trapped in their car. The issue is that the whole point of a seatbelt is basically to trap you in your car in the event of an accident, so you don’t get thrown clear of the vehicle.

8. People Held Chickenpox Parties Because They Thought It Had Immunization Benefits

Not that long ago, it was a much more commonly held belief among many people that if a child became infected with chicken pox as a child, it was now impossible for them to get shingles – a version of the disease that can come back as an adult and be much more painful and often life threatening. It would also be impossible for chicken pox to return, as it can only affect you once, ever. To this end, when it was found out that a nearby child had chicken pox, people would have parties where they made sure their kids got into contact with the infected child, so that they could quickly get their kids the pox and get it over with.

Unfortunately, this was founded on complete bunk. Chicken pox actually comes from a similar family of disease as herpes, and as you know, herpes keeps coming back. What this actually means is that giving a kid chicken pox when they are young, instead of immunizing them against shingles later in life, actually increases the chances of it happening to them. The good news is that with modern media, this myth has been busted more and more commonly, and the amount of people setting up these insane parties has dwindled to a much smaller number.

7. Drinking Alcohol To Cure A Hangover Is Only Going To Worsen Your Overall Health

One of the most common ideas in the culture of drinking booze, is that if you get a hangover, you can speed up your recovery process by adding a bit more booze to your morning the next day. Now, this is so common in popular culture and in real life that there are common drinks designed pretty much just for this “hair of the dog” cure. The most popular, of course, are the many variations of the Bloody Mary, which is basically a mix of some form of tomato juice, vodka, various spices, and a bunch of unecessary garnishes that will probably be discarded, but make the drinker look temporarily like a healthy person who likes to enjoy their vegetables – after a night of destroying one’s liver, this is probably psychologically comforting.

Unfortunately, there is absolutely nothing to the idea that drinking will make your hangover go away quicker. The reason you sometimes feel better by drinking is because drinking alcohol dulls your senses in general, but this isn’t actually making you feel properly better or ending your hangover. At some point your body still has to finish processing out the toxins to get you better, and by using the hair of the dog method, you are actually just adding more toxins for your body to process.

6. Vaccine Deniers Really Are Bringing Back Deadly Diseases And We Should Be Worried

The MMR vaccine, which staves off measles, mumps, and rubella, and other vaccines, have been the source of controversy for a long time. However, in more modern times, a man named Andrew Wakefield is the biggest source of ill for the world of medicine in terms of vaccines. He published a paper back in the ’90s that was quickly discredited for awful methodologies and he had his medical license taken away. Unfortunately since then he has still given lectures and talks and done his best to stoke fear of vaccines all over the world.

In the United States, Measles has started to crop up seriously in Minnesota – an area Wakefield and his people have been laying their propaganda heavily. To make matters worse, we are seeing outbreaks of diseases we once thought we had beat all over the country, and they are all linked to vaccine deniers. These people spread ridiculous urban myths, some of which have been around since before Wakefield, that vaccines cause all kinds of crippling conditions for young children, including various forms of autism. Of course this has been entirely disproven, but many people still cling to the belief. Unfortunately many people find it easier to accept this idea that their child’s health problems are caused by vaccines, because life is easier when you have an obvious villain to blame for your problems, instead of trying to accept the sad truth that sometimes life just isn’t fair.

5. The Five Second Rule Has Probably Given Countless People Food Poisoning

Probably the most common health myth is the “five second rule.” Nearly everyone believes it, or some variation of it – some people believe in a one second or even ten second rule. However, while many people will chuckle about it as they say it, as if they sort of know it’s silly, many of us have seen people pick stuff up off the floor and then eat it citing the famous ‘rule’. The truth is that this rule did not come from anywhere official, and is purely an urban myth concocted perhaps by mothers with very clean floors who were trying not to waste food and convince their children it was alright.

However, the truth is that most floors, even those that look relatively clean, have a lot of germs and other bacteria. And the problem with this myth is that it really only takes a moment of exposure for those germs and bacteria to stick to whatever food item you dropped on the floor. It really doesn’t matter how long; if it touched the floor and you don’t know how clean it is, it would be smarter to simply throw the food away.

4. “Cough CPR” Has Possibly Caused The Deaths Of Heart Attack Sufferers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTdamYYqKxk

Cough CPR is a legend that has been spread around by pseudo-medical experts, which are a dime a dozen these days. Most of them have some random website that looks sort of official, and will talk about how evil big pharma is, while trying to sell you overpriced products that are basically placebo. This strange idea spread by the misinformed is very dangerous and could potentially be causing people who are suffering from a heart attack to think they can handle things on their own and not take the proper steps. The idea given by the people spreading this idea is that if the heartbeat is out of rhythm, you can cough forcefully to get it back to beating properly. The truth is that if you think you are having a heart attack, experts recommend taking some aspirin by chewing it and calling 911.

Now, this doesn’t mean that cough CPR is a completely useless idea; it actually does come from somewhere legitimate. It has just been horrifically misinterpreted by urban myth and medical fraudsters. Experts have said that theoretically a person who is experiencing certain issues where the heart is out of rhythm could keep themselves conscious for a short time by coughing, but it wouldn’t be much help and they would quickly pass out. However, after the emergency and the patient is stabilized for the most part, there are certain situations with cough CPR where, when the patient is guided by a medical expert telling them how and when to cough, it can help stabilize them further.

Remember though, cough CPR is only done guided by medical experts after the initial emergency and only in some situations. If you think you are having a heart attack, get 911 on the line and if you can, get the equivalent of some Advil. If there is anyone nearby, signal to them that you need help so they can assist you however they can. Do not just cough and try to get yourself through the emergency on your own.

3. Doctors Very Rarely Use The Defibrillator, And Never When A Patient Is Flatlining

This one may not cause a lot of harm, as most actual medical professionals know better than to think that what is on TV is real. However, some lay people are trained to be first aid, CPR, and AED (defibrillator) certified, and could potentially misuse this equipment. After all, first aid training is relatievely short and doesn’t have a lot of time to make an impression, but TV is constantly around us and it is difficult to escape the thrall of popular media and culture. And the issue here is that popular media has given us a completely incorrect idea of how defibrillator’s work.

Most people have this romantic notion in their head of a patient flatlining – all other hope is lost. There is only one, last, desperate option to bring the hero back to life. The doctor – or perhaps a random citizen who knows what they are doing – will grab some nearby defibrillator paddles, yell “CLEAR!” and then slam them down on the afflicted person’s chest like there is no tomorrow. After a few slams, a few more “CLEARS!” and often a couple shouts of “Don’t you die on me!” the person will gasp and the heart monitor will start pulsing in a nice steady rhythm again – the dead has been brought back to life.

Of course, anyone who knows how absurd this is, especially those who work in the medical field, are likely rolling their eyes to the back of their skulls every time they see a scene like this in a movie or television program. A defibrillator is actually used to shock a person’s heart rhythm back to where they are supposed to be when it is irregular, but it will do absolutely nothing for someone who is already flatlining and has no pulse – if a person is flatlining and the doctors believe they still have a chance they would continue to perform CPR and possibly use epinephrine; they would not shock them with the paddles.

2. Urban Legends About Organ Harvesting And Vaccinations Have Led To Killings Of Medical Volunteers

In some parts of the world, medical myths fly around even thicker and faster than they do in places like the United States or the UK. This is mainly because in many countries, they don’t have as much access to information, or as much education, so it is easier for paranoia and fear to take hold. In Pakistan a few years back, over a dozen Western medical volunteers were killed in about a year, and authorities believe it was because people were paranoid that they were actually trying to do harm under the guise of medicine. In Brazil, many people in the poorer slums will not go to the hospitals because they fear their organs will be stolen there, and fear of organ theft abounds in many third world countries.

Foreign medical volunteers will even become capable of speaking the local languages, and will act kind, but are often distrusted anyway. They will have tools the locals are not used to, and methods that they may not have seen before. Constant rumors make things worse and create further resistance and put the lives of those volunteering medical services at great risk. Unfortunately, trust in Western doctors was set back not long ago when it was discovered that the CIA had someone offering to give Hepatitis B vaccinations in Pakistan, in order to find DNA to locate and take out Bin Laden. While the vaccines were not harmful, they were also not proper medical treatment, and people are understandably now more leery of Western doctors coming to help them out.

1. The Rumor That Gum Stays In Your Digestive Tract For Years Has Caused A LOT Of Trash

To end on a lighter note, one of the most prolific urban legends you will ever hear is that if you swallow your chewing gum, it will stay in your digestive tract for seven years – and in some versions of the legend, even longer. For this reason, people tend to spit out their gum and just stick it anywhere – a wall, under a chair, under a table, the ground, the floor, a corner it will never come out of without industrial solvent, etc. This has led to a horrible mass of filthy, saliva encrusted, germ laden gum being stuck on surfaces all over the world, and providing a constant nightmare to cleaning people.

And it never needed to be this way in the first place. People can swallow their gum safely and without any real worry. While a small child could potentially choke on a larger piece, that is really just an argument for why a small child really shouldn’t be chewing gum in the first place. For anyone else, it doesn’t stay in your digestive tract, but actually just passes right through it when you excrete – this is what your body tends to do with anything it can’t properly digest. Now, if you ate a lot of gum over a short period of time you could get a little constipated, but that is really the worst you are going to go through. If you cannot find anywhere polite and proper to dispose of your gum, it won’t hurt you to swallow it once in a while and keep the world a little bit cleaner.