In the early 16th century, Michael made a breakthrough.

He was the first to discover the function of pulmonary circulation.

Put another way, he had figured out how the human heart worked. Naturally, this should have catapulted the field of medicine to new heights. Finally, after years of guesswork, he knew how blood and oxygen traveled through the body. But there was just one problem. Michael had a mortal enemy.

And unfortunately, this man was significantly more powerful than he was. You see, John Calvin

hated Michael. Today, he might be best known for his buttoned up take on religion, but

back then it seemed that one of his major goals was to destroy both Michael and his legacy.

And it worked. Because of Calvin's campaign against him, Michael Servitas was executed in 1553.

His papers were destroyed and the church declared his publications to be heresy.

It would be another century before William Harvey would propose his

own theories about pulmonary circulation, and yet another century after that before the wider

medical world finally accepted them, 200 years of delay that must have cost countless lives,

all because the papers of Michael Servetus had been lost. There's a reason

that we hold on to things, memories and emotions for sure, but more importantly, the books that

gather up our discoveries and experiences. When we call it record-keeping, it sounds kind of boring,

but without our precious collections of knowledge, we run the risk of learning a terrible lesson.

If we never go into the stacks to confront our ghosts, then we might just join them.

I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is lore legends.

Music lore legends. We have always been storytellers, and for most of human history, those stories were

passed on orally.

Of course, many of those tales were eventually written down.

And over time, that physical collection grew.

And when you have a pile of stories, you need somewhere to put them.

...