The Disappearing Spoon: a science history podcast with Sam Kean
The Angel of the Concentration Camp
May 26, 202617 min · 3,427 words
Show notes
Nurse Laura Cobb saved more lives than Clara Barton or Florence Nightingale, and under far worse conditions—in a brutal World War II concentration camp. So why did the world forget her? Advertising Inquiries: Privacy & Opt-Out:
Highlighted moments
Cobb took the infirmary's bottle of quinine and switched the label with a bottle of baking soda. The two compounds look vaguely alike, but quinine tastes quite different. It's far more bitter.
“She taught her fellow nurses to use the sap from rubber trees as adhesive for bandages. She brewed guava leaf tea to fight dysentery. And she whipped out batches of sugar and onion juice for patients.”
“Symptoms include heart trouble, twitching eyes, and legs so swollen that the skin can burst. Strangely, another symptom includes telling lies. Patients just make things up and lie, lie, lie their heads off.”
“The guns were not intended to repel an assault, but to murder the inmates. And those were not defensive trenches being dug. Those were mass graves.”
Transcript
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