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It's 1945.

The Nazis have blockaded the Netherlands by land and sea.

No food imports can get in,

and extreme hunger is starting to claim lives.

In The Hague, the Juliana Children's Hospital is struggling to feed its young patients,

so much so that the director, Dr Wilhelm Dicca, has even allowed chulet bulbs to be given as food.

It is a desperate move.

Chulet bulbs can sometimes be poisonous,

but the alternative is death from starvation.

Amidst this suffering and questionable medical choices, however,

something odd is happening.

Some of the children are thriving.

In particular, a group with a debilitating condition called G-Hurter's syndrome. Bizarrely, they seem to be getting better.

What was going on? How did tulip bulbs help to free thousands of people from suffering?

And what did all of this have to do with bananas? tulip bulbs helped to free thousands of people from suffering.

And what did all of this have to do with bananas?

I'm Hannah Fry, a mathematician who studies patterns in human behaviour.

And from BBC Radio 4, this is Uncharted, Tales of Data and Discovery.

Our story begins a few decades earlier in New York in the late 1800s, long before the children in the Julianne Hospital were even a twinkle in their parents' eye.

This was a time when, for medical purposes, children were regarded as little more than small adults.

But a few notable doctors disagreed and fought to get paediatrics established as a distinct discipline.

...