Pod Insights Stuff You Missed in History Class Behind the Scenes Minis: Friends and Bubble Guns About this episode Holly talks about how small the circle of London intellectuals was in John Graunt's time. Then there is discussion of disco balls in bathrooms.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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2:09 Holly Frey? Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.
2:20 Holly Frey? Hello and happy Friday. I'm Holly Frey.
2:23 Tracy V. Wilson? And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
2:25 Holly Frey? We talked about John Graunt this week.
2:27 Tracy V. Wilson? I kept wanting to call him John Graunt, which is not, that's not right.
2:31 Holly Frey? I didn't tell you this while we were recording, because you had said that during recording, that I had to, I typed it that way a lot of times, too, and I didn't want to say it and cement it in your head as that way, because I was like, that won't help the problem. Here's what I want to talk about first.
2:46 Tracy V. Wilson? Okay.
2:46 Holly Frey? James the First's Book of Orders regarding how they were all going to get through the plague together, because there's a bit of advice that was no good, but that I love.
2:57 Tracy V. Wilson? Okay.
2:57 Holly Frey? He wanted people to eat more butter.
3:00 Tracy V. Wilson? Oh, I'm good with that.
3:02 Holly Frey? Because he thought that butter was somehow protective against the plague.
3:06 Tracy V. Wilson? Okay.
3:07 Holly Frey? Like specifically just eating a lot of buttered bread. I don't know what the logic was exactly. Did he think like germs would stick to the butter and not get in on your body, but it's going in your body? I don't know. He just thought that butter laminated your insides in some sort of way.
3:29 Holly Frey? I'm like, cool. I don't think I'm going to get to plague then. We love a little butter. It just made me giggle to no end. The other thing that made me giggle a lot while I was working on this, aside from John Aubrey's kooky versions of people's lives, was that John Graunt, and some of this is simply because London was so much smaller at this time than it is today, that like every intellectual knew each other, but the way they all know each other, it just, I was like, this is like an episode of like Friends 1650, like Peeps is talking to all of them, visiting everybody, everybody's up in everybody's
4:08 Holly Frey? business, all of the dudes at the Royal Society know each other. It just cracked me up a little bit in terms of like, thinking about a city that we know today as being that large.
4:23 Holly Frey? I mean, it's hard to imagine people even knowing everybody in their neighborhood. When you're in London, it's so populous that like the idea that all of these guys were just buds. The peeps was at their houses all the time, looking at their stuff. It just cracks me up somehow. I don't know. It's like, oh, this little band of friends. Cute. And I kept, when I was working on the episode, because of the timeline of his life, I kept being like, wait, did he become friends with these people after he got, you know, famous for writing this thing? But he knew Petty before that and Petty was already kind of in with a lot of those people. So that's, I think he at least had acquaintanceship with most of them.
5:07 Holly Frey? The other thing that's interesting and a little sad, we mentioned specifically in the episode that he was friends with a number of artists.
5:15 Tracy V. Wilson? Right.
5:16 Holly Frey? Two of whom were famous for their portraiture. Do you know how many images of John Graunt we have?
5:22 Tracy V. Wilson? Is it none?
5:23 Holly Frey? It's zero. It's a goose egg. We don't have any. He may have known a lot of portrists, but either they never painted him or if they did, it got lost and nobody even knows it happened.
5:33 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
5:34 Holly Frey? Which is a pity.
5:35 Tracy V. Wilson? Maybe it's one of those things where it's still somewhere, but it's been handed down in the family and nobody knows.
5:41 Holly Frey? Maybe, or maybe he was just like a person like today that don't like to have their picture taken. He was like, no, not me. Let's look at numbers instead. Numbers are good. I want to write a TV series about the searchers. Because every time I read more about them, I'm like, this would be excellent. And you could go a number of ways. It could be a drama. It could be a comedy. It could be.
6:08 Tracy V. Wilson? It could be a murder mystery.
6:10 Holly Frey? Sure, sure. I just love the idea that, you know, there's a story, there is a story to be examined there. Because they were picking primarily elderly women, because if they did get exposed to plague and consequently died, it would feel like less of a loss because they had lived their lives. They were also more capable at that point, because most of them had outlived their families.
6:34 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
6:34 Holly Frey? Of living in quarantine without that causing as much distress. But it also just like, it's just fascinating to me, that idea.
6:43 Tracy V. Wilson? They also, a lot of the time, were already the people that were also taking care of the sick. So there was like a perception of like, you probably were. You probably have already been exposed to everything and you're still all right. So it's okay for you to go into this house where somebody might have died of plague.
6:59 Holly Frey? I think of the Eddie Izzard bit about how grandmas live forever. I'm a grand, I live to a million.
7:07 Holly Frey? They're just indestructible at that point.
7:09 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
7:12 Holly Frey? It's very fascinating, very fascinating. All of this sort of not William Petty, but petty things amongst all of these accounts and letters and whatnot are quite interesting. There is an aspect, we didn't go into it regarding the money arguments that Petty and Grant were getting into towards the end of Grant's life that are probably not what you think they were. They were not about how Grant was spending money. Remember Grant had power of attorney and he had some say in Petty's finances and he kind of like would withhold money when he was handling his accounts because he thought Petty was spending it irresponsibly. And Petty was basically like, it's my money, it's my problem.
7:58 Holly Frey? Get out of my business. And that was a big part of their rift, although they clearly loved each other very much right to the end, even though they were having those issues, but it's just fascinating.
8:11 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
8:13 Holly Frey? Also, man, that whole plague plus fire in just a couple of years, London went through it, man.
8:21 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
8:22 Holly Frey? Which also did enable the city to rebuild in ways that were more prepared for its growth up to that point, but that's kind of bright siding, something that's really yucky. So.
8:32 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
8:34 Holly Frey? Anyway, John Graunt, thanks for demography, sir.
8:38 Tracy V. Wilson? Hooray.
8:40 Holly Frey? Hooray. Yeah, I wanted to talk about him since we did the episode on actuary science.
8:47 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
8:48 Holly Frey? Cause he's just interesting to me. The fact that he was like not, I mean, it's literally like if I just tomorrow was like, you know what? I'm going to do some analysis of these government reports that we have and that I became famous for it and that's the work that I'm.
9:02 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
9:04 Holly Frey? Except it's even weirder because I at least look at things like that as part of my job.
9:09 Tracy V. Wilson? Right, right.
9:10 Holly Frey? Was just like, nobody's doing anything with this. Maybe I can do something with this.
9:15 Tracy V. Wilson? Other than deciding whether to leave town.
9:17 Holly Frey? Right. Or to have a chit chat and be like, oh. Ah, two people died of purples this week.
9:26 Tracy V. Wilson? I still do that. Like, I look at the, I look at like the flu report.
9:30 Holly Frey? Yeah.
9:31 Tracy V. Wilson? To determine what precautionary steps I want to take regarding the flu, that kind of stuff.
9:37 Holly Frey? Oh, yeah. I mean, I, I think that's perfectly normal. It is really interesting, too, that nobody had been using any of this available information to actually establish at least baseline numbers of what was going on in London while they were repeating complete falsehoods based on assumption and like, just
9:57 Tracy V. Wilson? Right.
9:58 Holly Frey? the accepted wisdom of the day was not that wise.
10:01 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah. The part about people assuming there were way more women than men.
10:06 Holly Frey? Uh huh.
10:07 Tracy V. Wilson? Reminded me of the little tidbit that you will see circulating sometimes about how people perceive women as talking a lot more than we talk in a group. It reminded me of that a lot.
10:19 Holly Frey? Me too. And I was like, is it that perception? Is it that the men of London were like, oh, women everywhere? Or, I don't know, was there some other thing? Was it that women were doing so much of the various kinds of like day to day labor that people saw women everywhere? Even though they were not, they were just busy and constantly about, I don't know. We don't know what flavor of bias may have led them to that incorrect assumption. Cause especially when you consider the fact that they thought a lot of people believed there were 2 million people in London. So at that point, they thought there were 1.5 million women.
10:58 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
10:59 Holly Frey? And half a million men.
11:01 Tracy V. Wilson? So many.
11:01 Holly Frey? It's like, so many. You guys, this should have been so much more obvious than what you're dealing with.
11:10 Holly Frey? Fascinating, fascinating. Um, thanks, John Graunt, for all your work.
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14:54 Holly Frey? We talked about old inventions that most people probably think are newer inventions this week.
14:59 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
15:00 Holly Frey? Which I loved. And I will say this, I could read Heron's books all day long. Because a lot of his little inventions, which like he wasn't inventing things to be like, I've invented a thing, it's the new thing, this is going to change things. It was all kind of like theoretical expressions of mechanical concepts. But some of them were. Wild.
15:24 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
15:25 Holly Frey? And potentially manipulative.
15:27 Tracy V. Wilson? No.
15:28 Holly Frey? There was one invention in the pneumatics that is called temple doors opened by fire on an altar. And it is basically a way for temple priests to trick whoever is there into believing that a god has opened the doors.
15:44 Tracy V. Wilson? Well, okay.
15:45 Holly Frey? And I'm like, Heron.
15:48 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
15:49 Holly Frey? What are you doing, man?
15:51 Tracy V. Wilson? Did we talk about him at all? This is so long ago. You may not remember either. But did we talk about him at all in the automata episode?
15:59 Holly Frey? I don't think so. And I went looking. I don't have my outline for that episode because it was so long ago. And I looked, I don't remember where I looked for it. But anyway, I lost the thread of it. So I don't think so, but I'm not positive. But he has a lot of really interesting stuff in there.
16:16 Tracy V. Wilson? Mm hmm.
16:17 Holly Frey? And I really love his little vending machine. It's quite cute.
16:20 Tracy V. Wilson? Mm hmm.
16:21 Holly Frey? Although I will say this, when we were discussing it and you, I had put in the outline that it looked like a samovar.
16:27 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
16:28 Holly Frey? And you said, just like a cylinder for making tea. And I was like, what? I've only had coffee out of a samovar. But I think I'm a coffee girl is all that it is.
16:37 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah. Well, and when I saw the word samovar, I was like, what is that? And then when I Googled it and saw a picture, I was like, I know exactly what that is. But I thought other people might also have just not heard it called that. I feel like I always heard it be a tea urn.
16:57 Holly Frey? This is like one of those fascinating things where it's like your life experience is different from someone else's.
17:01 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
17:02 Holly Frey? Because I have never heard it called a tea urn.
17:04 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
17:04 Holly Frey? Not doubting you, just I clearly moved in a different circle where it was always full of coffee.
17:09 Tracy V. Wilson? This has reminded me of a, like, one of the first, or I guess the first actual writing job that I had after getting out of college. And I was writing catalog copy. And the copy in the catalog already.
17:25 Tracy V. Wilson? Referenced Bruins. And I am not a sports person and at that point had only ever lived in North Carolina. And so I was like, do people know what Bruin means? And now, obviously, now that I know about things like sports teams named the Bruins, it made it made a lot, make a lot more sense when the marketing manager looked at me like she could not believe I was asking this question. And I was like, I, in hindsight, I'm like, yes, because I lived in North Carolina and did not watch any variety of sports.
18:08 Holly Frey? And now you live in the greater Boston area.
18:11 Tracy V. Wilson? Where everything is Bruins.
18:14 Holly Frey? Hockey, baby. I love it. Love it. Although that was never my team.
18:19 Tracy V. Wilson? No.
18:19 Holly Frey? I wish every room had a disco ball in it. Oh, I was gonna share how we got to this show.
18:23 Tracy V. Wilson? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
18:24 Holly Frey? So my husband, who I love very much because he is precious and who knows me, sent me this very funny Instagram reel by someone who was saying she was in a public bathroom. And there's a button on the wall. And if you push it, the lighting goes out in the bathroom for a second and then a disco ball starts spinning and lights come on. And this is like, I don't remember where they said it was, because in a different, in a different post, they mentioned where that was. And I, we are in the middle of a multi-year prepping to redo my bathroom. And I'm like, thank you for this information, love of my life.
19:06 Holly Frey? Because he's, of course, like, you, you want a disco ball in the bathroom, right?
19:10 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
19:10 Holly Frey? Had not thought of it, but it's gonna happen now.
19:14 Tracy V. Wilson? Well, and I can, I can think of specific locations where I would be unsurprised to find a disco ball in the bathroom.
19:21 Holly Frey? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
19:23 Tracy V. Wilson? I would be unsurprised at a gay bar for there to be a disco ball in the bathroom.
19:29 Holly Frey? Remember if Lips Atlanta, which is a drag, a drag venue here in Atlanta, has disco balls in the bathroom. Their whole decor is adorable.
19:39 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
19:39 Holly Frey? We have a Death Star disco ball in our tiki lounge.
19:43 Tracy V. Wilson? Sure, sure.
19:45 Holly Frey? It doesn't go in the cantina because you've never seen a disco ball in Star Wars. So it does not go in our immersive cantina space.
19:50 Tracy V. Wilson? No, right.
19:51 Holly Frey? I have such rules. I'm so rigid about what can and can't go in the cantina.
19:56 Holly Frey? No disco balls. If ever they show one in Star Wars.
20:00 Tracy V. Wilson? It's gonna go right in there immediately, I'm sure.
20:02 Holly Frey? I honestly don't know because the whole premise of the cantina is that it's a dive bar on Tatooine.
20:08 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
20:08 Holly Frey? You know.
20:09 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah. Well, when the dive bar on Tatooine comes under new management and they turn it into a drag cantina.
20:18 Holly Frey? Which would be pretty funny.
20:19 Tracy V. Wilson? I would like that. I would find that hilarious.
20:21 Holly Frey? I'm thinking about various Star Wars characters that would make,
20:25 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
20:25 Holly Frey? make great drag kings or queens.
20:27 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah. So of course I associate mirror balls with disco balls.
20:34 Holly Frey? Yeah.
20:34 Tracy V. Wilson? Of course. So when I initially saw that there was this like description of one from the late 19th century, I had a moment where I was like, whoa. But then I thought about it and I was like, Self, you have for sure seen pictures of performance spaces and dance halls and stuff like that with disco balls in them.
20:54 Holly Frey? Yeah.
20:55 Tracy V. Wilson? From way before the disco era. It just hadn't really clocked.
20:59 Holly Frey? Yeah. I mean, it is one of those things. A lot of times there are pictures like that. Now all I can picture is that photograph from The Shining of the Overlook Hotel, where they sort of are dappled with light and you, I don't know that you see the disco ball in it.
21:13 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah, yeah.
21:14 Holly Frey? But you see the effect that is very obviously from a mirrored ball of some type. Yeah, I think that's the thing is a lot of times you're seeing the dappled lighting effect and not necessarily the ball in the picture too.
21:27 Holly Frey? It's fascinating.
21:28 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
21:28 Holly Frey? Fascinating.
21:29 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
21:30 Holly Frey? I'm sure glad somebody thought to do that because I love it heaps.
21:34 Tracy V. Wilson? It's very sparkly.
21:35 Holly Frey? So sparkly. It's so good. It's so good. It's unconscionably good how much a simple device can bring joy.
21:42 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
21:43 Holly Frey? Just, I'm like a kitty chasing it around the room. Love it. Love it. The best.
21:49 Tracy V. Wilson? I'm thinking about the machines that blow bubbles, which like the first time I ever experienced one of those, I'm pretty sure I was in Boone, North Carolina, when I was in high school or maybe early college age. And I was just like walking around downtown Boone. And there was some kind of store that had a bubble blowing machine in the window that was just blowing the bubbles out into the street. And I was like, this is the best thing I have ever seen.
22:17 Holly Frey? Yes.
22:18 Tracy V. Wilson? Because it also, it also paired very well with one of my favorite things to do, which is just to like walk around a little town and see what all the shops are.
22:27 Holly Frey? Yes.
22:32 Speaker 01 In military families, service is more than a job. It's a legacy. At American Military University, that legacy can help open new doors through education. If someone in your family served in the military, you could be eligible for reduced tuition. Take the next step with flexible online programs built for real life. Learn more at amu.apus.edu/military.
22:56 Holly Frey? We've all done it. Tumble down an internet rabbit hole trying to self diagnose. And sometimes doing our own research can leave us more anxious than informed. Your feed is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to doctors, influencers, and real people.
23:36 Tracy V. Wilson? People trying these trends, not to cancel them, not to hype them more, but to actually understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Start asking better questions and listen to Help Versus Hype on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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25:10 Tracy V. Wilson? Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jessa have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane, navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So listen to your elders, honey. Discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends proving that queer joy only
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26:11 Holly Frey? One of my favorite developments in handheld technology, if you can call it that, in the last, I don't know, 15 years, has been bubble guns that people can carry, because they sell them in Disney parks.
26:26 Tracy V. Wilson? Okay.
26:26 Holly Frey? And so there will be, and kids, of course, go bananas for them. Like, you hand one of those to a kid and they're just bubble gun in it left and right. So they're kind of like populating the parks with bubbles without having to do any effort on their own. Like, they're just little kids running around making magical things happen all the time, which I love. There's nothing better than just walking through a surprise cloud of bubbles. To me, I'm sure there are people that don't like it.
26:49 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
26:51 Holly Frey? But I love it. I love it.
26:53 Tracy V. Wilson? I have a Prism that was a present from my mom many years ago, hanging in the window in this office. And there are certain times of year when the sun hits it at the right angle and makes rainbows on the wall, and I love it.
27:09 Holly Frey? I have a Stitch of Lilo and Stitch bubble machine, where he's actually blowing the bubbles. It's like its own little automata.
27:17 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
27:18 Holly Frey? It's the best. It's the best. It's the best. But the problem is, have you ever messed with speaking of kitties, the catnip bubbles?
27:25 Tracy V. Wilson? So our cats don't really care about catnip.
27:28 Holly Frey? Yeah, but they might care about bubbles, and that way you know they're cat safe.
27:31 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah. Okay. That's a good point. That's a good point.
27:34 Holly Frey? Because we used to have a kitty named Zissu, who she loved a bubble. And I, we discovered this because of that Stitch bubble machine.
27:46 Holly Frey? Like I just reminded myself of it, thinking about it. And she would go after them, but I was always worried about all the soap getting on her paws because she would bat them closed. And I, I started buying the catnip one. She didn't seem to care much about the catnip of it. But she really loved to jump after a bubble and it made her very happy. So I would fill the machine with the catnip bubbles and she'd be occupied for hours.
28:06 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah, I feel like Opal might particular. So we have various small toys that Opal will knock out of the air if you throw them past her. And so I feel like bubbles. I, I sort of think we tried some kind of bubble something many years ago. Didn't really work, but let's try again.
28:26 Holly Frey? I know I haven't tried it with any of our newer girls. I wonder if they'd be into it. I'm gonna have to get some and find out. We, any excuse to make a bubble.
28:36 Tracy V. Wilson? What Onyx is really into is pressing the one button she has figured out, which is the button that says treat.
28:44 Tracy V. Wilson? And we throw a piece of her regular kibble and she chases it and eats it.
28:48 Holly Frey? I also think disco balls. I've seen some cats get pretty excited about disco balls also.
28:53 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah, they like laser pointers, so they'd probably like disco ball.
28:55 Holly Frey? Yeah, I know there is some debate among cat behaviorists about laser pointers and similar things because they don't get the satisfaction of like catching prey and that it can make some cats kind of neurotic. So one, this isn't veterinary advice, but yeah.
29:13 Tracy V. Wilson? I have had a cat before that I could not play with laser pointer because, because of that, like it was clear that she needed to catch it and that was never going to happen. But these two will chase it for a while and then they'll just wander and do something else.
29:27 Holly Frey? Yeah.
29:29 Holly Frey? Kitties, breath mints, vending machines.
29:33 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah.
29:34 Holly Frey? And disco balls. This is where my brain's at right now. This is what my brain can handle.
29:39 Tracy V. Wilson? Uh huh.
29:40 Holly Frey? Silly amusements.
29:42 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah. Yeah. My episode that we recorded in this session, session, session, I couldn't say, was, was not silly amusement. So, thank you for bringing some levity.
29:53 Holly Frey? Great. Happy to do it. Listen, it's all because my husband sent me a disco ball reel and I went, where did disco balls come from? Who invented this magic that can make happiness so easily?
30:05 Tracy V. Wilson? Yeah, yeah.
30:07 Holly Frey? That's really all it takes.
30:08 Tracy V. Wilson? What a good question.
30:10 Holly Frey? Ah, thanks, Mr. Weasty. Again, I wish I knew what the like, motivation was there, where he was like, you know what I'm gonna do? Make something very sparkly. We'll stick them on a ball. Gonna make it. His first patent drawing, anyway, his are not the way we see them today where they're all little flat mirror pieces. They were like little, almost like tiny contact lens sized mirrors that had that same kind of dome shape to them, at least in the illustration. So, interesting, interesting. And I think it was Omega, when they picked it up and started making them, they started doing the flat ones because they had developed
30:54 Holly Frey? a material that could go on the balls more easily. Thanks to them. Anyway,
31:02 Holly Frey? if this is your weekend coming up, I hope you look at sparkly stuff as long as it makes you happy. Have a party. Spin your disco ball, be it Death Star, Kitty Cat, or Pumpkin Shaped, or just a classic. All of them are good. There's no shame in the disco ball game. Seriously, find whatever brings you a little bit of joy in these trying times that we are all living in. If you do have to work this weekend, I hope that you also find some joy. Maybe you could bring your own tiny disco ball with you places just to look at, make your happiness happen. Whatever it takes. I want everybody to take care of themselves and each other and find joy and delight. We are gonna be right back here on Monday with a brand new episode. We will also have a classic tomorrow.
31:50 Tracy V. Wilson? Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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33:02 Holly Frey? A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Previous Modern Inventions That Are Actually Old Next SYMHC Classics: Insular Cases Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated