Matt Kaplan

at discrediting people who could get in his way.

And he was also very good at telling positive stories without mentioning any places where he had faltered.

And that was pivotal to him getting money.

It's all right.

Oh, come on.

There were nice French people.

There were nice French scientists.

I mean, Pierre-Alexandre Louis was a really good guy, and he ended up being a mentor to a very important American scientist, Oliver Wendell Holmes, who had also tried to defeat preparal fever.

I mean, there are good French doctors.

It is and it isn't.

So think about chicken pox.

Chickenpox has a season, right?

It's spring.

Influenza has a season, right?

It's the winter.

Certain diseases, and it was more so back then before we vaccinated people so effectively, certain diseases had certain times.

And you could measure that with the stars.

You knew where you were, not just based upon whether the leaves were falling, but based upon what you could see with your telescope or even with the naked eye.

And so there was this, I mean, it was, and also you have the power of narrative.

Once people believe something and you've had the story for a long time and