Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing as a Fish,
a weekly podcast coming to you from four undisclosed locations in the UK.
My name is Dan Schreiber, I am sitting here with Anna Tyshinski,
Andrew Hunter Murray and James Harkin and once again we have gathered round the microphones with our four favourite facts from the last seven days and in no particular order here we go.
Starting with you, Andy.
My fact is that the doctor who invented the first decent thermometer suitable for rectal use was named Thomas Orbutt.
It's the ultimate in nominative determinism isn't it?
It is.
Yeah,
it's just a cheap joke at the expense of a brilliant doctor who has done a lot more for the world than I ever will.
Do you think I was trying to look into whether or not he got any sort of shtick for it at the time,
you know, if anyone made any jokes about it, couldn't see anything.
It was just pure respect for the man.
Wow, missing a trick in those days, weren't they?
Idiots.
When was this?
It was like...
It was the 1860s, he invented it in 1866 I think.
He worked with the manufacturers on the design and then he wrote an essay about it in 1868 in which he sort of described his making a bit.
It's important to say he himself was an armpit man.