My Personal Hero: Robert Sapolsky on Rudolf Virchow
Germany, 1865. A man, wealthy and powerful, gets into an argument with a colleague who calls him out for being the habitual liar that he is. Enraged, he challenges his accuser to a duel. The challenger has a military background and is no stranger to weapons and dueling. The challenged, a meek physician scientist, has probably never been around anything more menacing than a Bunsen burner. This is no match; the blowhard military man is virtually guaranteed to kill the scientist.
As per custom, the challenged gets to choose weapons. Pistols? Swords? Fencing foils? No, the challenged had a better idea: sausages. In his laboratory, the scientist studies the parasitic. His response shifts the odds from 1,000-to-1 to 50-50. One sausage will be injected with saline, the other with a hefty dose of a live culture of , and the challenger chooses which one to eat, while the other eats the remaining sausage. Bummer if you get the one filled with the parasite. With that dose, you’ll have massive inflammation of your muscles, lungs, heart, and brain, probably followed by multi-organ system failure and a horrible death. Faced with even chances, instead of a bully’s advantage, the challenger quickly withdraws his challenge.
