› added 1 year ago

71

TIL we don't actually know how or why general anesthesia works

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OG8xY TIL Ekiben are bento (Japanese box meals) made specifically for train travel. The meals vary by train station and are typically a local speciality. At their peak in the 1980s an estimated 12 million ekiben were consumed daily in Japan.
Wkv74 TIL of the "Tumi" scalpel, believed to be the oldest surgical instrument to exist (8000 BC). It was used for trepanation, the art of drilling a hole into the skull. By opening the skull, tribes believed that it would allow the demons that caused headaches, melancholy or epilepsy to escape the body.
naNd TIL : When Voltaire (on his deathbed) was asked by priests to renounce the devil, he sarcastically replied, “This is no time to be making new enemies.”
YpGMG TIL: From AD 755-766, the An Lushan Rebellion consumed the Tang Dynasty in China. Modern estimates suggest ~13 million died (5% of the world's population at the time) from the conflict and subsequent societal collapse
Z8vPD TIL the adapted trucks to be used as mobile gas chambers by the fascist regime in Germany to kill 300,000 were supplied by a Swiss firm which is still in business