0:00:04.500,0:00:08.984
The kind of air that comes off rotting vegetation,[br]heat and stagnant water.

0:00:08.984,0:00:11.625
Pretty fashionable at the time, this rot.

0:00:11.625,0:00:15.203
Everybody thought all disease was due to it,[br]which is why our story

0:00:15.203,0:00:17.469
brings us to this pleasant little holidy spot.

0:00:17.469,0:00:21.156
Beause if you ever wanted to see miles-and-miles[br]of "hot rot"

0:00:21.156,0:00:22.250
come here.

0:00:22.250,0:00:24.875
To the Florida swamps.

0:00:24.875,0:00:33.547
[♪ lurking, danger ♪]

0:00:33.547,0:00:37.891
At the same time the meat-packers in London[br]were going bananas about what bad air

0:00:37.891,0:00:40.016
was doing to their success rate,

0:00:40.016,0:00:42.562
somebody else, here in Florida,

0:00:42.562,0:00:44.781
was doing just the same thing[br]for just the same reason.

0:00:44.781,0:00:48.641
Only his success rate depended on keeping[br]<i>people</i> healthy.

0:00:48.641,0:00:51.687
He was a doctor, fellow called "John Gorrie"

0:00:51.687,0:00:58.531
And in 1833 he had come to a small cotton port[br]on the Gulf of Mexico called "Apalachicola"

0:00:58.531,0:01:00.219
Surrounded on 3 sides

0:01:00.219,0:01:02.547
by this creepy stuff.... full of alligators,

0:01:02.547,0:01:05.172
and snakes that drop from the trees[br]and other goodies

0:01:05.172,0:01:07.468
<i>including</i> malaria

0:01:07.468,0:01:10.062
Which was John Gorrie's problem.

0:01:10.062,0:01:14.640
You see, every year people went down with it[br]by the hundreds.

0:01:14.640,0:01:17.187
And Gorrie reckoned, well just like everybody else,

0:01:17.187,0:01:20.328
that malaria was caused by and invisible -

0:01:20.328,0:01:23.640
disease-ridden gas, seeping in from these swamps

0:01:23.640,0:01:27.572
and made,[br]just like the air in the London cans,

0:01:27.572,0:01:29.197
from a mixture of:

0:01:29.197,0:01:30.572
1. rotting vegetation

0:01:30.572,0:01:31.884
2. stagnant water

0:01:31.884,0:01:35.884
3. and heat.

0:01:35.884,0:01:36.696


0:01:36.696,0:01:40.696
So when, not long after he got back to Apalachicola,

0:01:40.696,0:01:42.196
Gorrie became:

0:01:42.196,0:01:43.993
• Bank manager

0:01:43.993,0:01:45.243
• Post master

0:01:45.243,0:01:46.602
• Chief of the Masonic Lodge

0:01:46.602,0:01:49.009
• City treasurer and Mayor,

0:01:49.009,0:01:54.227
he thought he'd try to stamp the disease out by[br]draining wetlands, filling in ponds, building in <i>brick</i>

0:01:54.227,0:01:56.509
instead of wood, that would rot.

0:01:56.509,0:01:57.915
Great...

0:01:57.915,0:01:59.868
everybody still got malaria.

0:01:59.868,0:02:03.477
So, defeated by the rotting muck and the stagnant water,

0:02:03.477,0:02:07.649
Gorrie turned to the one ingredient that he reckoned[br]<i>could</i> control:

0:02:07.649,0:02:08.743
The heat.

0:02:08.743,0:02:11.271
You see, back in those days

0:02:11.271,0:02:13.024
there were regular shipments of ice

0:02:13.024,0:02:14.896
down here to the southern states from Boston,

0:02:14.896,0:02:18.662
where they used to hack it out of the[br]frozen rivers and ponds during the winter

0:02:18.662,0:02:20.974
and store it for shipment right through the summer.

0:02:20.974,0:02:23.000
Went as far as "Calcutta"

0:02:23.000,0:02:27.393
Now Gorrie reckoned that since people didn't get malaria[br]in the winter,

0:02:27.393,0:02:32.252
he'd crack the problem if he could use the ice[br]to help his patients "keep their cool"

0:02:32.252,0:02:34.439
right through the summer.

0:02:34.439,0:02:35.705
What he didn't know

0:02:35.705,0:02:40.830
and what he couldn't have known in 1837 because nobody[br]had discovered that malaria was caused by an insect

0:02:40.830,0:02:42.252
was that here

0:02:42.252,0:02:47.236
he was surrounded by a giant "Mosquito Menagerie"

0:02:47.236,0:02:50.689
[♪ jazz, notes rolling up and down quickly ♪]

0:02:50.689,0:02:56.002
[♫ ♫ ...]

0:02:56.002,0:02:59.002
As far as Gorrie was concerned,[br]the billions of mosquitos here

0:02:59.002,0:03:01.408
were... just an annoyance.[br][♫ ♫ ...]

0:03:01.408,0:03:03.408
[♫ ♫ ...]

0:03:03.408,0:03:05.345
[♫ ♫ faster ...]

0:03:05.345,0:03:07.955
So Gorrie set up a <i>chilly</i> fever-room[br][♫ ♫ ...]

0:03:07.955,0:03:12.705
where you could very easily have caught yourself a cold![br][♫ ♫ ...]

0:03:12.705,0:03:14.705
[♪ stops ♪]

0:03:14.705,0:03:16.752


0:03:16.752,0:03:21.970
And for a few years Apalachicola murmured to the[br]chattering teeth of Gorrie's victims... ☺I mean patients!☺,

0:03:21.970,0:03:26.000
as he proceeded his grand design.

0:03:26.000,0:03:28.595


0:03:28.595,0:03:30.330
His idea was quite brilliant,

0:03:30.330,0:03:32.033
and of course, totally wrong.

0:03:32.033,0:03:36.252
But Gorrie was indefatigable[br]in bending the ear of any visitors on the subject.

0:03:36.252,0:03:37.799
Me too so:

0:03:37.799,0:03:40.252
The hanging bucket is filled with ice.

0:03:40.252,0:03:43.299
Above, a pipe bringing in air from outside.

0:03:43.299,0:03:46.611
The ice chills the air,[br]and if you block up the fire place,

0:03:46.611,0:03:49.564
the only place the air can get out is <i>down</i>,

0:03:49.564,0:03:50.877
through a pipe

0:03:50.877,0:03:54.877
in the skirting board.

0:03:54.877,0:03:56.455


0:03:56.455,0:03:59.486
Alas, poor Gorrie, he <i>so-nearly</i> got it right.

0:03:59.486,0:04:01.033
Gauze curtains help, he said,

0:04:01.033,0:04:05.033
'cause they keep out the vapours[br]that bring in the disease.

0:04:05.033,0:04:05.892


0:04:05.892,0:04:09.611
His only problem, he thought, was[br]a way of getting cheap ice!

0:04:09.611,0:04:12.299
Sometime after 1845, he found it:

0:04:12.299,0:04:13.611
With this machine.

0:04:13.611,0:04:14.564
May not look much,

0:04:14.564,0:04:17.939
but if you've got a cool house on a hot day,[br]thank that.

0:04:17.939,0:04:19.205
Gorrie built it,

0:04:19.205,0:04:23.424
using an idea that had been around for some time,[br]but that nobody had put into practice.

0:04:23.424,0:04:27.064
The idea was that, if you compress air, it gets hot.

0:04:27.064,0:04:29.767
If you then let it expand, it gets cold

0:04:29.767,0:04:32.314
and it draws heat from it's surroundings.

0:04:32.314,0:04:33.267
Look:

0:04:33.267,0:04:37.439
Here's a steam-driven wheel,[br]driving a force-pump that compresses the air.

0:04:37.439,0:04:41.392
Here comes the compressed air,[br]through that coil, in a bath of cold water,

0:04:41.392,0:04:44.158
into this chamber, where it expands.

0:04:44.158,0:04:46.970
And as it expands, it gets very cold.

0:04:46.970,0:04:51.704
Ok, the cold air then comes up through tubes[br]in this container, which is full of brine,

0:04:51.704,0:04:54.783
and the cold air draws heat from the brine.

0:04:54.783,0:04:56.329
Now on every cycle,

0:04:56.329,0:05:01.095
the air draws heat from the brine until the brine[br]is the same temperature as the cold air.

0:05:01.095,0:05:02.408
And from then on,

0:05:02.408,0:05:04.408
as the air comes out of the top here,

0:05:04.408,0:05:06.236
it's cold.

0:05:06.236,0:05:07.642
"Air conditioning"

0:05:07.642,0:05:10.814
Invented by a man[br]*very few* people have ever heard of.

0:05:10.814,0:05:12.689
I mean had you?

0:05:12.689,0:05:14.314
One more trick:

0:05:14.314,0:05:17.579
If you run the cold air tube up here

0:05:17.579,0:05:20.673
through a resevoir of water, the cold air[br]chills the water down.

0:05:20.673,0:05:25.486
And the chilled water drips down into a container[br]which is immersed

0:05:25.486,0:05:27.892
in the super-cooled brine,

0:05:27.892,0:05:32.845
and that causes it to make something that looked as if[br]it was gonna make John Gorrie a very rich man,

0:05:32.845,0:05:35.611
in a very hot climate:

0:05:35.611,0:05:36.751
Ice.

0:05:36.751,0:05:52.814
[♪ La Marseillaise ♪]

0:05:52.814,0:05:55.126
On Bastille day, 1850,

0:05:55.126,0:05:57.532
Gorrie made his invention public.

0:05:57.532,0:06:02.767
The occasion was a boozie get-together[br]in the home of Apalachicola's French consort

0:06:02.767,0:06:07.251
who was hold a little "soirée"[br]in honor of the anniversary of the French revolution

0:06:07.251,0:06:11.798
with more French red wine and French champain[br]than you could shake a stick at!

0:06:11.798,0:06:16.111
Now, unfortunately the iceboat from Boston[br]hadn't come.

0:06:16.111,0:06:20.001
And snide remarks were passed about[br]what a social gaff it was

0:06:20.001,0:06:23.767
for a <i>Frenchman</i> to offer warm champain!

0:06:23.767,0:06:27.220
[snide remarks being made]

0:06:27.220,0:06:30.814
In spite of the snickering however,[br]the host displayed the symptoms of a man

0:06:30.814,0:06:35.814
<i>utterly</i> confident of his savoir faire.

0:06:35.814,0:06:38.361


0:06:38.361,0:06:42.221
You see, our hero had previously shown him[br]his magic machine.

0:06:42.221,0:06:46.299
And both men were looking forward[br]to their little moment of triumph.

0:06:46.299,0:06:50.252
It was, sad to say,[br]to be Gorrie's <i>only</i> moment of triumph.

0:06:50.252,0:06:52.564
[clapping]

0:06:52.564,0:06:59.736
[♪ fairground ♪]

0:06:59.736,0:07:03.283
It was at the port of New Orleans in 1869,

0:07:03.283,0:07:05.408
14 years after Gorrie had died,

0:07:05.408,0:07:08.408
broken by his failure to get any backing[br]for his machine,

0:07:08.408,0:07:11.596
that is idea suddenly turned up again.

0:07:11.596,0:07:15.502
It was the end of a steamboat race,[br]along the coast from Texas.

0:07:15.502,0:07:16.705
The winner,

0:07:16.705,0:07:18.299
the good ship "Agnes",

0:07:18.299,0:07:21.971
had beaten the other boat[br]with a cargo of chilled beef.

0:07:21.971,0:07:26.471
The first in history, and long-since forgotten.

0:07:26.471,0:07:31.455
[♫ ♫ ...]

0:07:31.455,0:07:35.408
So here we are on the New Orleans waterfront[br]in the summer of 1869

0:07:35.408,0:07:36.549
because:

0:07:36.549,0:07:39.955
Charles of Burgundy got clobbered by Swiss pikemen[br]who then made infantry fashionable

0:07:39.955,0:07:43.221
and because the armies got so big,[br]Napolean desperately needed provisions for them,

0:07:43.221,0:07:44.908
Appert invented preserved food

0:07:44.908,0:07:47.658
which Donkin put in cans[br]because his paper-making venture failed.

0:07:47.658,0:07:50.752
And the rot that spoiled the meat and also[br]maybe gave people malaria

0:07:50.752,0:07:52.877
which Gorrie tried curing with cold air[br]that chilled the beef

0:07:52.877,0:07:55.158
that the Agnes bought[br]for the great New Orleans Beef race.

0:07:55.158,0:07:58.158
Uhh, remember?

0:07:58.158,0:08:02.158
[♪ triumphant, cowboy ♪]

0:08:02.158,0:08:12.158
[♫ ♫ ...]

0:08:12.158,0:08:20.158
[♫ ♫ ...]

0:08:20.158,0:08:23.158
[crowd cheering]

0:08:23.158,0:08:26.158
[bravo! bravo!][br][crowd cheering]

0:08:26.158,0:08:30.158
[crowd cheering]

0:08:30.158,0:08:36.500
[clapping]

0:08:36.500,0:08:37.906
[Man: Ladies and gentlemen -]

0:08:37.906,0:08:40.000
[to the chilled beef!]

0:08:40.000,0:08:42.953
[Crowd: to the chilled beef!]

0:08:42.953,0:08:45.359
Now, by an extraordinary coincidence,

0:08:45.359,0:08:49.265
as the flower of New Orleans' upper-crust were[br]tucking into their beef,

0:08:49.265,0:08:53.172
a fellow called "Mr. J. D. Postle"[br]was chilling <i>his</i> first beef,

0:08:53.172,0:08:54.406
also with cold air.

0:08:54.406,0:08:58.625
Only he was doing it in a place[br]where interest in the idea ran very high.

0:08:58.625,0:09:01.218
Because Postle lived in Australia.

0:09:01.218,0:09:03.625
See, unlike here in New Orleans,

0:09:03.625,0:09:07.390
these were the years[br]of the great British starvation scare.

0:09:07.390,0:09:10.609
As the country became more industrialized[br]and the population shot up,

0:09:10.609,0:09:11.703
the government decided

0:09:11.703,0:09:16.703
that if some new way of getting lots of fresh meat[br]from Australia and New Zealand wasn't found,

0:09:16.703,0:09:19.156
well then the old country was finished!

0:09:19.156,0:09:21.156
Spurred on by patriotism,

0:09:21.156,0:09:22.422
☺and profit☺

0:09:22.422,0:09:26.422
the Australians did it.

0:09:26.422,0:09:29.253


0:09:29.253,0:09:32.500
They had a few horrendous goes at it first though.

0:09:32.500,0:09:37.453
In 1873 a ship left Melbourne with a cargo of meat[br]covered in ice and salt.

0:09:37.453,0:09:38.593
uh... It leaked.

0:09:38.593,0:09:41.953
In London the smell was described as:[br]"Indescribable"

0:09:41.953,0:09:47.437
They had another go in 1876 with a load of mutton[br]and a rather more sophisticated cooling system.

0:09:47.437,0:09:49.343
It leaked... before it left!

0:09:49.343,0:09:51.078
ended up in Sidney Harbour.

0:09:51.078,0:09:52.937
Finally, in 1880

0:09:52.937,0:09:57.031
the "SS Strathleven" docked in London[br]with a cargo frozen solid

0:09:57.031,0:09:59.125
to be sold here at Smithfield.

0:09:59.125,9:59:59.000
Britain was saved! ...