# Heart of the Matter

An episode of [Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1396546917), 20 Oct 2026, 11 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/arttrk.com/p/D5CA5/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/e062c374-9a39-42fa-888f-ae2c007b3c85/997988b1-61e9-4b2c-83cc-b4e8012fcbb0/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=f0f95fe5-d5de-4abe-ada4-ae2c007b3c8e

Life and death can be curious challenges for us. These two predicaments led to some truthly revolutionary ideas. Order the official Cabinet of Curiosities book by clicking here today, and get ready to enjoy some curious reading! Join our Patreon for ad-free episodes!: https://www.patreon.com/grimandmild See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:04] Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
[0:07] Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grim & Mild.
[0:12] Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable. And if history
[0:17] Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
[0:20] Speaker 2: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
[0:25] Speaker 2: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. In 1842, an assistant
[0:38] Speaker 2: gravedigger at St. Clement's Church in London was shoveling dirt
[0:42] Speaker 2: to make a new grave. As he dug along the
[0:45] Speaker 2: edges of the hole he created to make sure it
[0:47] Speaker 2: was long and wide enough, the ground gave way. He
[0:50] Speaker 2: found himself tumbling over as a mound of dirt landed
[0:53] Speaker 2: on top of him. But that wasn't the worst part.
[0:57] Speaker 2: His eyes went wide when he saw what was in
[0:59] Speaker 2: the dirt. A corpse had fallen out of its grave,
[1:03] Speaker 2: and its arms were now wrapped around him. This was
[1:06] Speaker 2: just one chapter in a deepening problem in London. They
[1:10] Speaker 2: had run out of space for graves. Not only were
[1:13] Speaker 2: gravediggers accidentally disturbing pre-existing graves, they were sometimes ordered to
[1:18] Speaker 2: do it deliberately. As one gravedigger later testified to a
[1:22] Speaker 2: House of Commons committee, he and his co-workers were ordered
[1:26] Speaker 2: to start digging up graves, chop up the bodies, and
[1:29] Speaker 2: burn the coffins. They would then smush the chopped up
[1:32] Speaker 2: body parts together and rebury them, hoping that this would
[1:35] Speaker 2: take up less space. Clearly, something had to be done.
[1:40] Speaker 1: It was decided that a new cemetery would be constructed
[1:43] Speaker 1: far outside of the city, to the southwest in a
[1:45] Speaker 1: place called Brookwood. But this was an era when most
[1:48] Speaker 1: people still got around by horse and buggy, and that
[1:51] Speaker 1: wouldn't be sufficient to transport the thousands of dead people
[1:55] Speaker 1: and their living loved ones for funerals. And so, the
[1:58] Speaker 1: London Necropolis Railway was born. A company was formed to
[2:03] Speaker 1: oversee the construction of operation of a railway for the
[2:06] Speaker 1: dead bodies and their family members, all to be transported
[2:09] Speaker 1: by rail across the city and outside to Brookwood Cemetery,
[2:13] Speaker 1: the largest in England. Not surprising, the divisions over religion
[2:18] Speaker 1: and class that plagued Britain at the time became an
[2:21] Speaker 1: issue when developing the railway. Various citizens and religious leaders
[2:25] Speaker 1: complained to a committee in the House of Commons. Some
[2:28] Speaker 1: felt that the hustle and bustle of a railroad was
[2:31] Speaker 1: far too undignified for the burial of the dead. They
[2:35] Speaker 1: deserved peace and quiet. Others were freaking out over the
[2:39] Speaker 1: idea that the bodies of the rich might be sorted
[2:42] Speaker 1: next to the bodies of the poor, or that those
[2:45] Speaker 1: who lived virtuous lives might be stored on the train
[2:48] Speaker 1: next to sinners, or even, God forbid, that dead Christians
[2:52] Speaker 1: were might be piled up next to non-Christians. Now, the
[2:56] Speaker 1: House of Commons couldn't do anything over concerns about the
[2:59] Speaker 1: perceived dignity of railroads. They were still a fairly new invention,
[3:03] Speaker 1: and they thought that people would eventually get used to them.
[3:06] Speaker 1: But the company could address the concerns over class and religion.
[3:10] Speaker 1: They soon developed six different ticket categories for the dead. Yes,
[3:14] Speaker 1: even the dead needed a ticket for this train. Bodies
[3:18] Speaker 1: were segregated by first, second, and third class— as well
[3:21] Speaker 1: as by Anglicans, those belonging to the Christian church that
[3:24] Speaker 1: had been started in England, and non-Anglicans. Realistically, this just
[3:29] Speaker 1: meant that the bodies were kept in separate cars. It's
[3:31] Speaker 1: not like the first-class car was somehow more luxurious for
[3:35] Speaker 1: all the bodies that were stored there, though. Mourners traveled
[3:38] Speaker 1: in passenger cars, joining their deceased loved ones on a
[3:41] Speaker 1: trip to the cemetery. Once the train arrived, it pulled
[3:45] Speaker 1: into either an Anglican or a non-Anglican station. These were
[3:49] Speaker 1: newly constructed and even included licensed bars where mourners could
[3:53] Speaker 1: drown their sorrows. And for those who are curious, first-class
[3:57] Speaker 1: passengers got to pick exactly where their loved ones would
[4:00] Speaker 1: be reburied, and of course, they were offered more picturesque spots.
[4:04] Speaker 1: They could also erect unique gravestones if they wanted to.
[4:08] Speaker 1: Second-class had more limited gravesite options, and third-class was really
[4:12] Speaker 1: just for those who couldn't afford a proper funeral, so
[4:15] Speaker 1: they were placed in predetermined areas. Anyone who was offended
[4:19] Speaker 1: by the use of a railroad for transporting bodies soon
[4:23] Speaker 1: got over it. It was clearly better than having a
[4:25] Speaker 1: bunch of chopped-up bodies mixed together in the cemeteries of London.
[4:29] Speaker 1: The Necropolis Railway operated every week for decades. However, it
[4:34] Speaker 1: would eventually meet a dramatic end. In April of 1941,
[4:38] Speaker 1: Nazi planes flew over London, dropping explosive ordnance on the
[4:43] Speaker 1: terrified citizens below. This was the tail end of the
[4:46] Speaker 1: infamous air raids. Toward the end of this campaign, bombs
[4:50] Speaker 1: actually hit the Necropolis railway station in London. The station
[4:54] Speaker 1: was obliterated, as was the beginning of the track. There's
[4:57] Speaker 1: still an old black-and-white photo showing a train dangling off
[5:01] Speaker 1: of what was left of it. And it was decided
[5:04] Speaker 1: that it wasn't worth rebuilding it. As cars became more popular,
[5:07] Speaker 1: bodies were transported to the cemetery in hearses, which were
[5:11] Speaker 1: more private and, yes, also quieter. The Necropolis Railway was
[5:16] Speaker 1: now a curious footnote in history, a final trip for
[5:19] Speaker 1: people who were headed to their final destination. Werner was
[5:36] Speaker 1: born in Berlin in 1904, and his father died just
[5:40] Speaker 1: 12 years later in World War I. This perhaps instilled
[5:44] Speaker 1: in young Werner the realization that life is short and
[5:47] Speaker 1: one needs to be brave if they're going to make
[5:49] Speaker 1: the most of it. He would spend the rest of
[5:51] Speaker 1: his life pushing himself to the limit, including developing an
[5:55] Speaker 1: innovative medical procedure that would make even the least squeamish
[5:59] Speaker 1: person twist in their seat. Werner had an uncle who
[6:03] Speaker 1: was a doctor, and that man took him under his wing.
[6:06] Speaker 1: Once Werner was old enough, he helped to enroll him
[6:09] Speaker 1: in medical school. He graduated and was soon working at
[6:12] Speaker 1: a nearby hospital. And honestly, it was much like it
[6:15] Speaker 1: is today, where the hours could sometimes become inhumanly long
[6:18] Speaker 1: depending on the needs of the patients. Of the many
[6:21] Speaker 1: things that Werner learned at this time, one thing stuck
[6:24] Speaker 1: out at him. There weren't a lot of good ways
[6:27] Speaker 1: to diagnose the heart. If a patient was suffering from
[6:30] Speaker 1: heart disease, all doctors could really do was listen to
[6:33] Speaker 1: the heart, tap on it, or use an early version
[6:36] Speaker 1: of an EKG, and these were all limited in diagnosing
[6:40] Speaker 1: exactly what kind of shape the heart was in and
[6:43] Speaker 1: what atria or ventricles might be in trouble. It occurred
[6:46] Speaker 1: to Werner that a better treatment would be to pass
[6:49] Speaker 1: a catheter, a small tube, into the heart so that
[6:53] Speaker 1: medicines or x-ray materials could be injected. Werner began testing
[6:58] Speaker 1: his theories on cadavers. He made a small incision into
[7:01] Speaker 1: the vein at the crook of the elbow, similar to
[7:04] Speaker 1: where drawing blood But he was putting something in, not
[7:07] Speaker 1: taking it out. He slid the catheter along the vein,
[7:11] Speaker 1: following it all the way up the arm, through the chest,
[7:13] Speaker 1: and to the heart. The vein could support the tube,
[7:17] Speaker 1: and his method worked. Now it was time to test
[7:20] Speaker 1: it on the living. But when he took his findings
[7:23] Speaker 1: to the hospital director, the man refused to let him
[7:26] Speaker 1: try this on living patients. It was too dangerous, he
[7:29] Speaker 1: told Werner. So Werner was encouraged to experiment on animals instead.
[7:34] Speaker 1: But to Werner, this was a waste of time. An
[7:36] Speaker 1: animal couldn't tell you how it felt to have a
[7:38] Speaker 1: tube travel through your arm and into your heart. He
[7:42] Speaker 1: needed that human feedback. And so he made a decision
[7:45] Speaker 1: that almost no one else would. He decided to try
[7:48] Speaker 1: it on himself. The experiment happened during his lunch break, which,
[7:54] Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but that's not usually the
[7:56] Speaker 1: time that I would set aside for self-experimentation. Finding a
[7:59] Speaker 1: quiet surgery room, he anesthetized the area around his elbow...
[8:04] Speaker 1: and made an incision into a vein. He then inserted
[8:07] Speaker 1: a catheter and slowly began pushing it up his arm,
[8:10] Speaker 1: further through the vein. Now, he claims that it wasn't
[8:13] Speaker 1: painful at all. He kept pushing the catheter until it
[8:16] Speaker 1: reached his clavicle, and at that point, he says he
[8:19] Speaker 1: felt a warm sensation in this area, but still no pain.
[8:23] Speaker 1: The only symptom he experienced at that point was that
[8:25] Speaker 1: it gave him a bit of a cough. He kept pushing,
[8:28] Speaker 1: which meant that the catheter now bent downward toward his heart,
[8:31] Speaker 1: and as he continued to push and push... he was
[8:34] Speaker 1: finally able to feel the tube fully inserted. Based on
[8:37] Speaker 1: the distance that he had measured on his torso, he
[8:40] Speaker 1: was pretty sure that he had reached his heart. Now,
[8:44] Speaker 1: most of us would want to immediately remove the catheter,
[8:47] Speaker 1: but Warner actually got up and began to move across
[8:49] Speaker 1: the hospital. He made his way up a staircase, still
[8:52] Speaker 1: not feeling any negative effects, and arrived in the x-ray unit.
[8:56] Speaker 1: He had x-rays taken of his chest, and sure enough,
[8:59] Speaker 1: they showed that the catheter had successfully arrived at his
[9:02] Speaker 1: right atrium. Now, this was in 1929, and at first,
[9:07] Speaker 1: no one took him seriously, saying that the experiment better
[9:10] Speaker 1: resembled something done at a circus. By 1932, the Nazi
[9:14] Speaker 1: Party had become increasingly powerful in Germany. Werner joined not
[9:19] Speaker 1: only the party, but also the Brownshirts and the Nazi
[9:22] Speaker 1: Doctors League, all before Hitler took power. His wartime letters
[9:27] Speaker 1: suggest that this was more than just an empty membership,
[9:30] Speaker 1: although he later distanced himself from the regime. According to
[9:34] Speaker 1: a biography written by his daughter, he refused an offer
[9:37] Speaker 1: of human research subjects from one of Himmler's physicians and
[9:41] Speaker 1: continued treating Jewish patients despite hospital restrictions. During World War II,
[9:46] Speaker 1: he served as a medic and was eventually captured and
[9:48] Speaker 1: held prisoner in a U.S. camp. After the war, he
[9:52] Speaker 1: wasn't allowed to work as a physician at first, given
[9:55] Speaker 1: his party membership, but that eventually changed. And then throughout
[9:58] Speaker 1: the late 1940s, and early 50s, other physicians developed his
[10:02] Speaker 1: technique further, to where he was eventually awarded the Nobel
[10:06] Speaker 1: Prize in 1956. Werner Forsman went on to a long
[10:11] Speaker 1: career in medicine, eventually passing away in 1979. Curiously, or
[10:16] Speaker 1: perhaps appropriately, Werner actually died of a heart attack. The
[10:20] Speaker 1: procedure he pioneered helped countless hearts to beat longer. But
[10:25] Speaker 1: no one's heart beats forever.
[10:31] Speaker 2: I hope you.
[10:31] Speaker 1: Enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. This
[10:35] Speaker 1: show was created by me, Aaron Manke, in partnership with
[10:39] Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grim & Mild team,
[10:42] Speaker 1: and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about the show
[10:45] Speaker 1: and the people who make it over at grimandmild.com slash curiosities.
[10:50] Speaker 1: You'll also find a link to the official Cabinet of
[10:52] Speaker 1: Curiosity's hardcover book, available in bookstores and online, as well
[10:57] Speaker 1: as e-book and audiobook. And if you're looking for an
[10:59] Speaker 1: ad-free option, consider joining our Patreon. It's all the same stories,
[11:03] Speaker 1: but without the interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn
[11:07] Speaker 1: more and sign up over at patreon.com slash grimandmild. And
[11:12] Speaker 1: until next time... Stay curious.

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