I'm looking at a photo of an old-fashioned operating theater, and theater is the appropriate word

because as a patient lay on the table surrounded by doctors and nurses and medical equipment,

tears of amphitheater-style seating surrounded the scene, filled with medical students watching and learning.

It's about the year 1850.

No one's wearing masks or gloves.

There's no sterilization of environment or equipment.

Wide acceptance of the so-called germ theory of disease was still a few years away,

so a surgical room packed with onlookers was perfectly normal at the time.

And if that sounds antiquated,

wait till you hear about the lighting. Operating rooms in those days were built facing the southeast with windows in the ceilings to make use of sunlight. Edison's light bulbs were still 30-odd years

into the future. Operations could only happen at certain times of day, and only if

it wasn't cloudy. Not only that, but it was all too easy for the surgeons to block their own light

while they were working. Let's pause for a moment and be grateful that we all live in the year 2020.

There were some attempts to use mirrors to reflect light, but it was unreliable and besides

it created a lot of heat. Some rooms were lit by gas lamps, which again caused a lot of heat

and made the air dirty. And even when light bulbs came on the market, those early ones weren't

powerful enough to meet the needs of an operating room. So, the next thing you know, we had snow globes.

Well, I've left out a few details, but yes, those are indeed points A and B of our story.

And in between, there are shoemakers, World War II, Austrian souvenir shops, baby food,

and a super top-secret process for creating fake snow, one that literally only

one person on earth knows. And luckily, I know where to find him.

Yeah, so my name is Evan Piersi.

...