Welcome to Sleep Whispers.

I'm Harris, and I created this podcast to help you too de-stress, relax, and sleep.

So go ahead, lean back, put up your feet, and settle into my world of whispers.

I hope this episode distracts and relaxes your overactive brain squirrels.

Why did I choose a sled dog story for the Night's Whisperpedia?

There's this story about diphtheria.

And it's pretty uplifting and very interesting.

It's also spelled and pronounced diphtheria.

But it's most commonly pronounced as diphtheria.

It is a bacterial infection that can damage the lungs, many other organs, and cause death. Luckily today, there's a vaccine

that helps you produce antibodies against the bacteria.

So very few people get diphtheria today.

That vaccine was developed in 1923, which means in 1924, although it was available,

not every person in town had the vaccine yet.

And one of those places in 1924, which didn't have the vaccine yet, and was also having

an outbreak of diphtheria was gnome alaska now although there wasn't a vaccine available

there was an antitoxin which is also called an antiserum, or just serum, which also contains the antibodies

against the bacteria and can be given to patients with diphtheria. So in 1924,

Nome, Alaska was having an outbreak of diphtheria,

but they didn't have enough anti-serum.

So early, in 1925, there was basically this big event, or sometimes called a race,

but just the challenge of using sled dogs to get the anti-serum to the town before everyone died.

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