Episode Transcript Arpita: 0:09 Hi everyone! And welcome back to the Smart Tea podcast, where we talk about the lives of scientists and innovators who shape our world. How are you, Aarati? Aarati: 0:17 I'm doing pretty well, Arpita. How are you? You're back from your amazing trip to Italy, Arpita: 0:22 it was so amazing. Um, I was at a wedding for my partner's best friend. It was such an amazing, elaborate over the top wedding. I had the best time. And then after that we headed to Switzerland and we spent some time in the Italian Alps, which was just such a great come down from such a fun wedding. We, you know, like had, we're like so up high for the wedding. And then we got to like spend some time in nature, do some hikes, do some bike rides. Aarati: 0:53 I nice. Just you and your partner Logan, right? Arpita: 0:56 Yeah, exactly. Um, and we met up with some friends for the Alps adventure, which was really just like such a great way to end the trip. Like truly no notes. I had such a great time. That being said, Italy in the summer, at least that part of Italy was so hot. I don't think I stopped sweating. So like being in the mountains was like such a really nice reprieve after that. Um, but it's very nice to be back. I feel like by the end of the trip, I was ready to come back to my routine, see the cats. Um, so it was like the perfect amount of time to be gone. So yeah, happy to be back. Aarati: 1:32 And you're back amongst now all the political craziness that we have going on. You kind of missed the, turning point, I think, in Italy, although you probably were keeping up with the news. Arpita: 1:43 I think it was hard to miss. I think it was hard miss. We were all, I think, like glued to our phones just being like, what is going to happen next? I like, yeah, it was, it was hard to miss. Um, I know such a crazy turning point. There was a big part of me that was having a ton of election anxiety and not really knowing how I wanted to feel or how I wanted to proceed. Um, I still do. I still do a lot of election anxiety, but this is a very exciting turning point. And it does give me a little bit more hope moving forward. Are you, how are you feeling about it? Aarati: 2:15 Yeah, no, it's exactly the same in our household. Like, I know I said last time that I'm one of those people that when it comes to politics, at least I kind of buried my head in the sand and like, I don't want to think about it. It stresses me out too much. Um, but now With Biden dropping out and Kamala Harris coming in, it's like inescapable in my household. It's just constantly like, yeah. Um, it's just like, did you hear what he said? Did you hear what she said? What do you think about it? What do you think is going to happen? Is this going to be 2016 all over again with Hillary Clinton and just speculating and like, how do we make sure that, you know, this doesn't happen so it's, yeah, it's, it's just constant conversation. I, I can't escape it anymore. Um, you know, it's just crazy. Arpita: 3:06 Totally, totally agree. And then there's like, you know, all the, all the side Googling that you're doing, all the, you know, thought pieces that you're reading just to try to understand a little bit more of this. So yeah, I think it's totally inescapable, but it is giving me a little bit more hope for the future. Aarati: 3:19 And it's also so crazy just to see, like, how many different perspectives there are, you know, you have, like, the far right people, then you have the left people, and then you have the far left people, and it's just, like... Arpita: 3:32 The spectrum gets bigger and bigger. Aarati: 3:34 Yeah, it really does. Oh, but I did I did want to tell you something, though, that I discovered. related to the podcast. So basically I found another cultural Easter egg type thing. Um, did you know that Johnny Depp has a band? He and this guitarist named Jeff Beck who, was part of a band called the Yardbirds back in like the 60s and 70s. They released a song in 2022 called,"This is a Song for Miss Hedy Lamarr." Arpita: 4:08 Oh my gosh. Aarati: 4:09 Yeah I had no idea. I think I saw it on Twitter and I was like, Wait, is this real? And then I went and I looked it up and yeah, there's like a YouTube video of them, everything. They're singing this like, rock ode to Hedy Lamarr. It's kind of great. Arpita: 4:24 Love it. Is it a good song? Aarati: 4:27 I mean, it's not my genre of music that I usually listen to. I'm gonna link it on the, webpage that we have on our website for Hedy Lamarr. Like I'll link the, um, music video or like the recording that they have of it. Yeah, but the lyrics are like,"This is a song for Miss Hedy Lamarr/ erased by the same world that made her a star./ Spun out of beauty, trapped by its web/ she's a perfect cocoon entwined in gold thread." So that's just like the first couple lyrics of it. Arpita: 4:58 Interesting. Okay. Does it talk about her being an inventor? Aarati: 5:02 Not really. It's very much more kind of this kind of sad ode. I guess I kind of got the feeling that it was like people missed out on her brilliance more than actually talking about what she actually did. It was just like, you know, people tried to fit her into a box even though she wanted to get out of that. So I think it was talking a bit more about that kind of struggle and how people kind of held her down a bit. So it was kind of sad. Arpita: 5:33 That makes sense. Aarati: 5:34 I love finding these little, Easter eggs in pop culture that, you know, now, now I get it because we've done that episode and I'm like, Oh, I know who this person is. I know what he's talking about. I totally understand this kind of melancholy, dramatic rock song, you know? So yeah, it's part of the reason I love this, love doing this podcast. Alright, so I'm doing the story today. Arpita: 6:05 Yeah. Who are we talking about today? Aarati: 6:07 So I was doing a lot of research to figure out who I wanted to do today. I think I started like three different people's stories and then finally landed on Charles Drew and he is a surgeon. Kind of like, you know, following up on my interest in surgeons, like Joseph Lister was my second episode on the podcast. And so now here we are again. But Charles Drew is the father of blood banking. So I thought that was a very interesting concept. Arpita: 6:37 Super interesting! Aarati: 6:39 Yeah, he was also, one of the first black surgeons in America. So he pushed down a lot of hurdles. So I thought it was also kind of fitting with Kamala Harris running and breaking through these kinds of racial barriers Arpita: 6:52 Definitely. Yeah. I'm super to hear. Aarati: 6:55 All right. So, Charles Richard Drew, who went by Charlie, was born on June 3, 1904 in Washington, D. C. At this time, Jim Crow laws were widespread, and most of the area was heavily segregated, but Charlie's family lived in a pretty interracial neighborhood called Foggy Bottom, which I love. Love that name. Arpita: 7:19 Yeah. Aarati: 7:20 Both of his parents were very light skinned, but socially and culturally, they were all firmly part of the Black community. But I thought this was, um, an important bit to note because Charlie's light skin may have kind of helped him be a little bit more easily accepted by white people around him as he got older. Um, kind of given him that edge, you know, but yeah. His father Richard was a carpet layer and the financial secretary of the Carpet, Linoleum, and Soft Tile Layers Union. He was also the only black member of this union. And his mother, Nora, graduated from Howard University with a degree in teaching, but she never actually got a job as a teacher. Instead, she chose to stay at home and raise Charlie and his three siblings, Joseph, Elsie, and Nora. Arpita: 8:09 Those are really cute names. Aarati: 8:10 Yeah, Arpita: 8:11 Like all really cute names. Aarati: 8:13 Yeah. And I think, like, they were also, to some extent, named after their parents as well. So, cause Nora was also the mom's name. You know, uh, Charlie's middle name was Richard, which is the same as his father's name. So yeah. Arpita: 8:27 Very cute. Aarati: 8:28 They were a typical middle class family, not super wealthy, but also not poor. They placed a lot of importance on academic education. They attended the 19th Street Baptist Church and generally just placed a lot of importance on helping out and being part of the community. Charlie was a very active kid. He loved going to the local YMCA, which was one of the first in the nation to open a swimming pool for black children. Arpita: 8:55 I did know that. Aarati: 8:56 Yeah, so he took full advantage of that and he would compete in races and won medals in swimming. Arpita: 9:03 Yeah. The pools were a really big, a big thing that we're because, you know, It was like, you didn't want to like mix in this big pool as opposed to, you know, being in a public space together. And so like the pools were a really big deal. And I remember that the YMCA was a really big part of this. Aarati: 9:19 Yeah, I can totally see that, um, and we're kind of going to get into that a little bit, Charlie was also very smart and he had a bit of an entrepreneurial streak. For example, when he was 12 years old, he got a job as a paper boy selling newspapers and he quickly figured out where his best customers were and within a year he had hired 6 other boys to help him delivering papers to those areas and Charlie would take a small percentage of their profits. Yeah, the really smart kid. Arpita: 9:50 That's really funny. Aarati: 9:51 Yeah. When he got older, he had a number of other jobs to help bring in extra money for the family, including being a lifeguard at the local swimming pool, supervising city playgrounds and working in construction. So just all around hardworking kid. Arpita: 10:07 Yeah. Aarati: 10:08 He attended Dunbar High School, which was one of the best public schools for Black children in the nation. But when he was partway through high school, tragedy struck his family. An epidemic of influenza swept through Washington, D. C., and Charlie's younger sister, Elsie, caught it. She had already been struggling with tuberculosis, but then when she caught influenza on top of that, she ended up passing away from complications due to both diseases. So this had quite a profound effect on Charlie and his family because they were really close, um, very tightly knit family. And after her death, Charlie's parents moved the family to Arlington, Virginia, kind of to get away from it all, I think. And here they had one more child, another daughter named Ava. Charlie still completed his education at Dunbar High School. He was smart and he got pretty good grades, but what people really knew him for was his athleticism. He was just amazing at sports. He was part of four teams in high school. Football, yeah, football, basketball, track, and swimming. Arpita: 11:21 So then that means he was on playing sports year round because football's in the fall and then track is in the spring and basketball's in the winter. Wow. Aarati: 11:28 Oh yeah, I didn't even think about that. Yeah, you're totally right. Arpita: 11:31 That's a lot. Like season and like, yeah, that's, that's tough. Aarati: 11:36 Yeah. He won the James E. Walker medal for all around athletic performance in both his junior and senior year. He was also a captain in the high school Cadet Corps. Arpita: 11:48 How did this kid have time for all of this? Like, I'm tired thinking about it. Aarati: 11:52 I know. When he graduated, he was voted best athlete, most popular student, and the student who has done the most for the school. Arpita: 12:00 It's very sweet. I feel like this is like very much like giving homecoming king status, like, you know, Aarati: 12:05 Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Arpita: 12:06 Star of the school, like star of the, like, captain of the football team, you know, like that kind of vibe. Like I'm getting... Aarati: 12:10 Yeah, and he's also very charismatic, very friendly, like, you know, easy to get along with very helpful. Arpita: 12:17 Totally. I'm getting like high school star homecoming King. Aarati: 12:21 Yeah, absolutely. So he was such a remarkable all around athlete that Amherst College, which was a predominantly white school, offered him an athletic scholarship to do his undergraduate studies there. Arpita: 12:35 Wow. Which sport did they end up being for? Aarati: 12:38 It's actually two sports for football and track. Arpita: 12:42 That is crazy. You don't get a scholarship for two sports. That's crazy. Aarati: 12:46 Yeah. I think it was just like an all round athletic, like you're an all round great athlete, we want you here in this school. But he did end up joining the track team and football. Arpita: 12:56 Yeah. That's crazy. Aarati: 12:58 Yeah, Amherst, though, was quite a change for him, because once he enrolled, he suddenly became one of only 13 Black students in a school of 600. So, going from an all Black school to this, like, very largely white school. And he faced aa lot of discrimination there that he had never really had to deal with before. So, for example, there was only one fraternity that Charlie was allowed to join, and it was the Black Fraternity Omega Psi Phi. He did join that. And when they went on away games, the black players were often left out of team events. Like, they couldn't go to dinners at fancy restaurants because the restaurants wouldn't allow black people in the restaurants. And so the team just went without them. And then they were often targets of bullying by the opposing team's white players, which I'm sure their team did not stand up for them at all. So, Arpita: 13:56 What year is this? Aarati: 13:59 yeah, I think 1920s at some point. Arpita: 14:03 Okay. Aarati: 14:04 One of the biggest injustices, though, was in his third year, when they were picking new football, a new football captain. Charlie was clearly the best player on the team. And so he should have been chosen, but he wasn't, he was passed over just because of his race. Arpita: 14:20 It's crazy to think there's only like a hundred years ago, like exactly a hundred years ago. It's not very long. Aarati: 14:26 And I would argue that we still haven't really moved that far or as far as I would have expected in hundred years. We're still fighting kind of the same battles. Arpita: 14:36 Definitely. Aarati: 14:37 So he did receive the Thomas W. Ashley Memorial Trophy as the class member who made the greatest contribution to Amherst sports. But I found that kind of, rang hollow. If you're not gonna give him, the captainship, then, I don't know, like, why are you giving him a trophy but not making him captain? That's so weird. Arpita: 14:57 Yeah. Yeah. It's like a consolation prize, but not really a consolation prize. Like it's almost more insulting. Aarati: 15:03 Exactly. It's like you made the greatest contribution to our sports teams, but also we're not going to make you captain. But interestingly, even though he was a great athlete, it seems like he never seriously considered going pro in any sport. He found sports extremely valuable because they taught him life lessons, like how to be part of a team, and how to prepare for the challenges and competitions in life and how to lose with grace. But the time he started college at Amherst, he had pretty much made up his mind to go into medicine as a career. Arpita: 15:35 Was he already interested in science in college? Aarati: 15:39 Yeah, he really liked, apparently he really liked his biology professor, so that was one thing. Um, but part of it was actually due to the impact of his sister Elsie's death. Um, so he had been really upset that the current state of medicine at the time hadn't been able to save her. And then after her death, he did a bunch of, research studying influenza and tuberculosis and stuff. Um, but then another reason was actually thanks to his sports career, because during his junior year he was injured playing football and the injury got infected. So he had to spend quite a bit of time in the hospital. And he was talking to all the doctors and nurses and learned firsthand about how his body was working to heal itself. And so he found that really interesting. Arpita: 16:26 Yeah. This feels like a pretty common story for, I feel like a lot of people I know who go into medicine. It's like someone close to them or like something happened to them specifically to get amalgamation of things. But it's like interesting to hear that that story has gone on for, you know, decades. Aarati: 16:40 Yeah, definitely. And I think that's why a lot of people get into science and medicine in general is because they want to... Arpita: 16:46 Right. Aarati: 16:46 help. You know. Arpita: 16:48 Help people. Yeah. Aarati: 16:51 But after graduating in order to pursue a medical career, Charlie needed money for med school. So he got jobs, plural, at Morgan College in Baltimore as the director of athletics, coaching football and basketball, a biology instructor and a chemistry instructor. Again, I don't know how he has time. Arpita: 17:12 Yeah. I'm, this is exhausting. Aarati: 17:15 Yeah. After two years, he had saved up enough money and applied to several med schools. Um, at least the ones that were accepting black students at the time. He had really wanted to go to Howard University Medical School, but was rejected because he was short two English credits from Amherst. Arpita: 17:35 Isn't it crazy that he took two years and he saved up enough money for med school? Yeah. Yeah. Aarati: 17:39 Yeah, that's pretty amazing. I mean, yeah, he did work four jobs, But still, like, it's, yeah, the fact that he was able to save enough money for med school, I think, like, today, what would you save? Like, enough for, like, half a year, maybe? something? Arpita: 17:55 At least half a million you would need for all of med school. That's crazy. Aarati: 18:00 Yeah, so yeah, he was rejected from Howard University Medical School, and this upset him quite a bit, and he, quote,"vowed he would one day return to Howard and run the place," end quote. So, he was pissed, but... Arpita: 18:16 We love a little vengeance. Aarati: 18:18 Yes. but for the time being, Charlie ended up deciding to go to McGill University in Montreal, Canada. So at McGill, Charlie continued to participate and excel in sports, but he was also an excellent student. There was also much less racial segregation here, and so Charlie was able to socialize and participate in events much more easily. At McGill, he did an internship under Dr. John Beattie, who was a bacteriology professor. And Dr. Beattie was studying how to treat patients that go into shock. So, people go into shock when their body doesn't have enough blood flowing to the vital organs, usually because they've lost a lot of blood due to an injury, or they're super dehydrated, and so they've lost a lot of fluids. Arpita: 19:05 Yeah. Aarati: 19:06 And so Dr. Beattie very logically figured that a blood transfusion would help prevent a patient from dying from shock because you're adding back the blood that the body needs. But the actual practice of giving a patient a blood transfusion was very challenging at this time. We had not figured out, like, what you needed to do in order to do a proper blood transfusion. So, for reference, right around this time, it's 1930, and an Austrian American scientist named Karl Landsteiner won the Nobel Prize for figuring out that there are four blood groups, A, B, AB, and O. Arpita: 19:45 I was just going to ask where we were with knowing what blood types are. Okay. Aarati: 19:49 Yeah, so we've just figured out that there are four blood groups and that you need to match the person's blood type before giving them a blood transfusion or organ donation, otherwise it's not going to end well. And this is where Charlie is entering into the field and starting to understand, like, the practical challenges around giving blood transfusions. Arpita: 20:11 Got it. Okay. That's where we are. But where does the blood come from at this stage? Aarati: 20:15 Oh, we'll get to that Arpita: 20:16 Okay. Aarati: 20:17 Okay, so in 1933, Charlie graduated second from the top of his class of 137 students and was awarded the Williams Prize for Academic Excellence. After completing his residency at the Royal Victoria Hospital and Montreal General Hospital, Charlie stayed true to his word and applied once again for a job at Howard University Medical School. And this time, he was accepted as an instructor in pathology. So he's back. Arpita: 20:45 to run place. Aarati: 20:47 Yeah. So when Charlie joined Howard, there was a new dean called Numa P. G. Adams, and he had just been appointed to the medical school and was on a mission to enhance the reputation of the physicians at Howard and black doctors in general. So there was really this kind of like, general feeling that black doctors were not as good as white doctors, and so, yeah, he wanted to try to elevate black doctors' status in general. So he recommended Charlie for a Rockefeller fellowship so that he could get a doctor of science degree at Columbia University under Dr. Alan O. Whipple, who was a surgeon, and Dr. John Scrudder, who was an assistant professor of clinical surgery. Arpita: 21:35 Is the Dr. Whipple who the Whipple Procedure is named after? Aarati: 21:39 Oh, I didn't know there was a Whipple procedure. Arpita: 21:42 I feel like I only know this because of Grey's Anatomy. Hold on. Let me look it up. Aarati: 21:45 I have not watched that show, so I don't know. Arpita: 21:47 Whipple Procedure. Oh, yep. Dr. Alan Whipple. Aarati: 21:51 Yep. Arpita: 21:52 Yeah, that's him. At Columbia Presbyterian? Aarati: 21:55 Yeah, exactly. Columbia and Presbyterian. Arpita: 21:57 Yeah, it's him. Aarati: 21:59 What is...? Arpita: 22:00 That's crazy. Aarati: 22:01 I don't know. I don't know about this. What is the Whipple procedure? Arpita: 22:04 It is a pancreatic oduodenectomy also known as a Whipple procedure is a major surgical operation most often performed to remove cancerous tumors from the head of the pancreas. And so the pancreas, stomach and intestine are all joined together. Aarati: 22:24 Oh my goodness. Oh, whoa, that's crazy. I had no idea. Arpita: 22:28 I only know that because they talk about it in Grey's Anatomy and they're like, are you going to do Whipple? Yeah. Like Aarati: 22:33 Nice. Okay. Good to know. So yeah, it's the same guy very interesting. So Charlie goes to study under Dr. Whipple. both Dr. Whipple and Dr. Scrudder were very interested in the problem of blood transfusion and maintaining fluid balance in the body during an operation. So Charlie got to work with them and got to continue his work in this area. He also got a lot of experience looking after surgical patients, which he technically wasn't supposed to be able to do because Black people weren't allowed in the patient wards at the Presbyterian hospitals. Arpita: 23:08 I see. Were there specific hospitals where he was allowed to practice and then that one he wasn't. Aarati: 23:14 Yeah, like, I think there was a hospital nearby Howard University called Freedman's Hospital, I think, that a lot of the Black doctors went to, but since this dean was trying to, like, increase the reputation of physicians, he specifically recommended Charlie to go study with Dr. Whipple and Dr. Scrudder at Columbia University in the Presbyterian Hospital, and so, you because of that, Charlie was at, you know, the Presbyterian Hospital. And there was apparently this rule there that Black people aren't allowed in the patient wards. But Charlie was so charismatic and friendly that Dr. Whipple just let him come along on his rounds, and people were fine with it. Because, you know, he's this really charismatic guy. He's, like, amazing. Arpita: 23:58 Right. Like charismatic, probably really smart. Also helps that he's probably white passing to a certain extent. Like, yeah, like all of these things together, like definitely. Aarati: 24:07 Yeah, exactly. So he also started participating in the annual medical clinics at the John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama, to help the poor rural black communities there. This reminded me a lot of, um, your other episode, Patricia Bath, by the way. Arpita: 24:27 Yeah. Yeah. A lot of similarities, for sure. Aarati: 24:30 Yeah. So he would take these trips from New York to Alabama. And these trips ended up being monumentally important to Charlie's story, which you will soon see. So on one of these trips, he was driving down to Tuskegee and stopped over in Atlanta to visit some friends at Spelman College. They went into the dining hall to eat and- kind of like in this romantic movie scene across a crowded room- he laid eyes on a woman named Minnie Lenore Robbins Arpita: 25:02 Minnie! That's so cute! Aarati: 25:05 Charlie was immediately smitten and asked his friends about her, and they told him she was the home economics teacher. And they played wingman, they went over, they invited Minnie to a party that they were all going to later that night, so that Charlie could, like, get an introduction. Arpita: 25:22 Right. I'm just imagining this, like, group of bros being like, Hey man, like, we could set you up and like, that's so cute and wholesome. Aarati: 25:28 Yeah. At the party, Charlie and Minnie had a friendly chat and they danced, but then the next day, Charlie had to continue going on his way down to Tuskegee for the clinic. But he can't stop thinking about her. So once he's done with the clinic, three days later, he goes back to Atlanta, which I don't think he was supposed to do. He was supposed to just go back to New York. Um, but he's headed straight to the Spelman College dorms where Minnie was staying. He arrived at the college dorms at one in the morning. Arpita: 26:00 Oh dear. Aarati: 26:01 He found the head of the dorm and convinced her to wake up Minnie so that he could talk to her. Arpita: 26:07 At one in the morning? Aarati: 26:09 Yeah. Arpita: 26:10 Dear. And she's danced with him one time. Aarati: 26:12 Right. Three days earlier. Arpita: 26:14 is it cute or creepy this point? Question mark. Aarati: 26:16 A little bit. I don't know. Like, Arpita: 26:19 is creepy. Aarati: 26:20 yeah. Oh, just, I would be like one in the morning. You've lost me. Arpita: 26:24 I would be alarmed for sure. Aarati: 26:27 Yeah. But apparently Minnie was open to it. She came down. They talked for a long time, and then after a few hours, Charlie proposed to her, like, Arpita: 26:38 What? Aarati: 26:39 Literally three days after having met her. Arpita: 26:42 Okay, you definitely lost me. It was cute. This is now unhinged. Aarati: 26:46 He's, like, head over heels, like, absolutely head over heels in love with her. But... Arpita: 26:52 Okay. I guess as long as they're into it. Aarati: 26:55 No, Minnie wasn't. Minnie was like, yeah, you're going too fast. You need to slow down. She liked him though. So she was like, we can date for a bit and see how things go. Arpita: 27:07 Okay. She's rational. Aarati: 27:08 Yeah. So I think, you know, he's again, like super friendly, very charismatic. So I think she got good vibes, but she was also like, dude, it's been three days, you know, you're nice... but... Arpita: 27:21 Also, not like they were texting while he was gone. You know, like, they haven't had any contact. Aarati: 27:25 Yeah. Arpita: 27:25 You danced with her and then you haven't talked to her or seen her in 3 days. Aarati: 27:28 Yeah, and then you show up at one in the morning and propose, like, that's Yeah Arpita: 27:33 Unhinged behavior. Aarati: 27:34 Yeah. But she was willing to give him a chance, so she was like, let's date, let's see how things go. So, Charlie went back to New York to continue his work, um, but he started writing letters to her pretty much in every spare moment that he got, basically trying to win her over with romantic words and poetry and just, like, Absolute like schoolboy type of romancing, you know, but Minnie, I think, found it charming. She wrote back, and then after a few months, she came to visit him in New York and met his family. And then, after what must have seemed like an eternity to Charlie, five months after he met Minnie, they were married. Arpita: 28:15 Okay, that's like a little bit more reasonable timeline. By my standards, still pretty aggressively fast, but I mean, 5 months is like reasonable to me. Aarati: 28:24 Yes. Five months, at least you've got to know each other. You've talked a bit. Arpita: 28:28 Yeah. Resonable. Aarati: 28:29 So she moved to New York to live with him and soon they had a daughter named Roberta who they nicknamed Bebe which was a reference to Charlie's other quote unquote"child" which was the blood bank that he was starting to build Arpita: 28:46 Again. You've lost me. Started out cute. I was like, my partner and I call each other BB and like, that is our nickname. That's very cute. Yeah. Very cute. And then you said that it was blood bank and I'm like, Jesus Christ, this man has lost me again. Starts out cute.... Aarati: 29:03 You call each other Bebe? Arpita: 29:04 Bebe. Aarati: 29:05 Bebe. Why Bebe? Arpita: 29:06 I don't know. Aarati: 29:09 Just something that stuck? Arpita: 29:10 It's stuck. It stuck a long time ago. Aarati: 29:13 like, Charlie was just spending so much time building this blood bank that it was like, oh, are you going to hang out with your actual daughter, Roberta, or your other the blood bank that you're building? Arpita: 29:25 Christ. Aarati: 29:27 Yeah. So, yeah. So this is a great way to transition back to Charlie's work on blood transfusion. The biggest problem physicians had was that there was no known way to store blood outside of the human body for a long time. So this is kind of starting to get back to your question of where's the blood coming from? Arpita: 29:48 Right, if there's no way to store it, then how are they getting it to even try a transfusion? Aarati: 29:54 Right. So, The problem is, if you took blood from a donor and tried to store it, within two days, the blood cells would start to break down. So if a patient came in with a traumatic injury, or if they started to go into shock on the operating table and needed an immediate blood transfusion, the doctors had to run around trying to find a donor with the same blood type before the patient died. And sometimes it worked out if there was a family member that was present with patient, but obviously that wasn't always the case. So oftentimes doctors would end up literally just finding some random person off the street who is usually a vagrant who is desperate for money. And they were like, will pay you for your blood. Get in here. Arpita: 30:41 But how do they know what blood type they are? Aarati: 30:43 Well, I think they could figure it out pretty quickly. I'm not sure exactly how they did the tests back then, but think they could figure out what your blood type was fairly quickly. Um, but the people that they're picking off the street aren't like the greatest people, you know, they're... Arpita: 31:00 They're not model citizens. Aarati: 31:01 Yeah, exactly. And so the probability of getting blood that was contaminated with some disease or drugs was pretty high. So even if you save the patient now, you've just given them a whole host of new problems. So good. Arpita: 31:18 Yeah fair. Aarati: 31:19 So there was this real need to be able to collect, transport, and store blood safely so that it could be used whenever it was needed. Arpita: 31:26 Mm hmm. Aarati: 31:27 So scientists around the world were just starting to get into the idea of blood banks and were experimenting with different ways of collecting, donating blood and storing it. In 1925, a group of doctors in New York started the Blood Transfusion Betterment Association to figure out ways to get better quality donated blood. In 1939, Charlie and John Scrudder started their own experimental blood bank at the Presbyterian Hospital where they treated patients. And one year later, Charlie published his thesis called"Banked Blood: A Study in Blood Preservation." Arpita: 32:04 wait, so how are they storing it? Aarati: 32:06 So we're going to get into that right now. So that's what his, that's what his thesis was about. Yeah. So his thesis went over all of the previous blood and transfusion research that existed and evaluated the best way to collect and store blood. Arpita: 32:23 Okay.. Aarati: 32:24 I just want to be clear, like, most of his thesis wasn't stuff he discovered on his own, like, other scientists had theorized about a lot of these different techniques, and he was more like going methodically through all of this research and testing it and figuring out, like, what the best practices were, Arpita: 32:40 Right. Like a systematic review and like really doing like a meta analysis almost. Aarati: 32:45 Yeah, exactly, like, what's the best way collect and store blood? Let's test everything and figure it out Um, so one of the most important things that he figured out was that if you separate the blood plasma, which is the liquid portion of the blood that contains proteins and electrolytes from the blood cells- which are, you know, red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets- you could store the plasma and the cells separately for up to a week until you needed to do a transfusion. Arpita: 33:15 Mm hmm. Aarati: 33:16 And then even better, blood plasma doesn't have a blood type because blood type is determined by your red blood cells and like proteins that are on the surface of your red blood cells. So if you needed to, you could just give a patient plasma to help rebalance their body fluids and you didn't have to worry about what blood type they were. Arpita: 33:36 That makes sense. Are they, are they giving just like saline in fluids? Like when they need to, um, help people with fluid loss? Like, it's not the same as blood plasma, but just to get them rehydrated really quickly, if they've had a lot of fluid loss, is that something that's an option? Aarati: 33:53 I think so. I didn't read too much about just saline transfusions. I know that like to store the blood, they would mix it with saline. Arpita: 34:03 Like it's not necessarily the same, but if you're anticipating someone being really dehydrated, you could just give them saline and an IV. Aarati: 34:11 True. I don't know about that. Like I know scientists had thought about blood plasma as being really great at that because it also contains like electrolytes and proteins that you need. Um, and so that's why like scientists were like, if we could somehow. freeze and thaw blood plasma that would already go such a long way into helping rebalance body fluids. So yeah. So John Scrudder, who was working with Charlie to set up the blood Bank said that his thesis was quote,"one of the most distinguished essays ever written, both in form and content" unquote. The timing was also really great because we are just at the start of World War II now and Great Britain was under attack by Germany. And so thousands of injured soldiers were desperate for blood and Great Britain started the Blood for Britain project and contacted the Blood Transfusion Betterment Association in New York for help doing this. So they roped in John Scrudder and Charlie and they experimented with ways to send large volumes of contamination- free blood plasma overseas. Arpita: 35:21 When they're doing the contamination- free part, is it just centrifuging it down and then... Aarati: 35:25 Yeah. So here's what they're actually doing. So they're centrifuging the blood to separate the plasma from the blood cells. Arpita: 35:32 Yeah. Aarati: 35:32 Uh, they bottle it in sterile air and ultraviolet conditions. Then they add antibacterial to it. They transfer it to a shipping container, seal it, and pack it. And along the way, I read also they were like testing for contamination, like at every single step of this. Arpita: 35:50 Okay. Aarati: 35:51 So this effort was super successful. By the end of the program, Great Britain received over 14, 500 blood donations and shipped over 5, 000 liters of plasma solution and saved countless soldiers lives. Arpita: 36:05 Wow. How is their process for, I guess, um, processing blood different than the way it is today, Aarati: 36:12 I don't know how the process is different. I do know that back then they could only freeze and thaw blood plasma for, like, a week, um, which was still, like, a huge achievement for them. But now, I mean, technology's moved on. I'm not exactly sure exactly what the differences are. But I know today we can freeze blood plasma for up to a year. Um, but cells still have a much shorter shelf life. So red blood cells now can only be stored for 42 days, which is much better than two days. And platelets can only be stored for a week. Arpita: 36:49 Ok Wow I didn't realize it was that short for platelets. Interesting. Aarati: 36:53 Yeah, but people are like not too worried about that because platelets come through with every blood donation and I'm sure now we know how to separate platelets from red blood cells and things which they couldn't do before. So... Arpita: 37:04 Right. Aarati: 37:04 So Charlie was a appointed assistant director of the Blood for Britain program and also spent three months working with the Red Cross on setting up mobile refrigerated trucks to collect and transport donations for when America got involved in the war. By 1941, the Red Cross's program was running smoothly. And at this point, Charlie had been away from his wife and Howard University for a long time because he was like running around setting up these mobile Yeah, much. I think he kind of forgot about her too. She was not happy. Arpita: 37:37 After he was so obsessed with her, he was like, yeah I'm good now. Aarati: 37:40 Yeah, Yeah. He's like, okay, I got you. You're going to be at home with our baby Bebe and, going to go. So he had been running around setting up this mobile blood collection program. Um, he had been away from home for a really long time. His wife was not happy about that. Arpita: 37:57 I wouldn't be either. the, I would be so mad. I'm not going to lie. I would be like, are you kidding me? You propose to me 3 days later and you claim to be obsessed with me. And then now you just dip. I would be so angry. Aarati: 38:09 Yeah, you got me pregnant, I have a child, and now gone. Arpita: 38:12 I would be like, yeah, divorce immediately. Aarati: 38:14 Yeah, so she probably was very strongly expressing her anger, and so he resigned from the Red Cross and returned home. At home, he took the American Board of Surgery exam. And for the oral part of the exam, the examiners asked him about fluid balance in the human body. And apparently, Charlie gave such a long and complicated answer that the examiner needed to go find someone who was more qualified to actually understand what Charlie was saying. Arpita: 38:44 That's funny. Aarati: 38:45 Yeah. So, needless to say, he passed. And six months later, he was chosen to be an examiner himself. Making him the first black surgeon to ever be in that position. So his wife, Minnie, was also very happy to have him home. And in July, she gave birth to their second child, Charlene, Charlene? Charlene Rosella. Arpita: 39:08 That's cute. I can't believe she agreed to have another baby, but carry on. Aarati: 39:13 So, to that point, although he was physically back at home, life was tough because Charlie was very passionate about his work and he didn't spare a lot of time for his family. At Howard university, he was appointed professor of surgery and chief surgeon at the nearby Freedman's hospital, which we talked about earlier. And he started training black doctors. He was constantly in this battle to make people see that black doctors were just as good as white ones. Arpita: 39:40 No, listen, I'm fully on board with this guy like championing black doctors, but also if that was me, his wife. I would have lost it like 18 separate times. I need to go back to the cutie. year long science honeymoons. Aarati: 39:57 Oh, yeah. I think he just like didn't, he was so interested in his work and he didn't understand why she didn't realize how important his work was. Like she, Arpita: 40:08 It's giving neurodivergence. Aarati: 40:10 Yeah, he's like, but my work is so important, why don't you get that? And she's like, I need you home with my two kids at least once in a while. Arpita: 40:18 It's giving touch of tism. Aarati: 40:23 Yeah it is. So he's constantly in this battle to make people see that black doctors were just as good as white ones. He and other black doctors were not permitted to be members of the American Medical Association, where doctors could network with one another and discuss new advancements in medicine. He also had to spend a lot of time and effort denouncing the idea that blood donations that came from Black people were somehow inferior in quality. So, kind of back to that, like, swimming pool idea, like, people did not want to mix for some reason. Yeah. Arpita: 40:55 Yeah. I mean this went on for a long time. Like gay men were not allowed to donate blood because engaging in high risk sexual behavior, which is Like, no longer a thing, but like, quotes, high risk sexual behavior, and so for a long time, they were not permitted from donating blood. Actually, let me fact check myself. I feel like it's also, I think there's like, still something about it. Yes, they can now. In May 2023, the FDA removed restrictions on gay and bisexual men donating blood. Aarati: 41:27 Oh my God. Like last year? That's, That's, insane. I had no idea it was that recent. I would have guessed like the 90s maybe or 2000s at the latest. Oh, that's crazy. Arpita: 41:43 Yeah, there used to be a period of, abstinence. So you had to say that you hadn't engaged in any sexual behavior and the like window of time decrease, but only in 2023 did they remove that blanket ban. Aarati: 41:59 Oh, wow. That's insane. Arpita: 42:02 Yeah. Aarati: 42:04 Like I said, in a hundred years, I feel like we haven't moved as far as I would have hoped or I would have liked. Arpita: 42:10 Yeah. Agree. Aarati: 42:12 So some people thought that Charlie partly resigned from the Red Cross because he saw how patriotic Black citizens would try to donate their blood for the war effort and be turned away. Um, they wouldn't even collect blood from Black donors to give to Black soldiers who were wounded, which, you kind of would be, like, the obvious thing. Arpita: 42:31 Yeah. Aarati: 42:31 Everyone just got blood from white donors. Arpita: 42:34 Interesting. Aarati: 42:36 And so, ironically, even Charlie himself, who, like, set up this program and was integral to running it for a while, couldn't donate his own blood because no one would take it. Arpita: 42:45 Right. Yeah. That is very ironic. Aarati: 42:48 Yeah. Okay. I'm kind of bouncing around here, I'm sorry. But, now he's We're back to Minnie and Charlie. So, Arpita: 42:59 This train wreck of a love story. Okay. Yeah. What happens now? Aarati: 43:02 They have, they have two more children. Arpita: 43:05 Shut up. No, she didn't. Aarati: 43:07 Yeah. Yeah. Arpita: 43:08 God damn. Aarati: 43:10 Yeah. Rhea Sylvia and Charles Richard Jr. Arpita: 43:14 And she named it fully after him. Aarati: 43:16 Yeah. Yeah. But does that stop him or like bring him back to the family at all? No, it does not. Arpita: 43:24 I'm surprised he was at home long enough to even make the Aarati: 43:28 Right? Arpita: 43:29 Yeah. Aarati: 43:29 Yeah, but that still didn't stop him from continuing to work. He kept on teaching students at Howard University and fighting for Black doctors to be recognized and included in medical associations. Arpita: 43:43 And now she has four kids? Aarati: 43:45 Yeah, she has four kids and he's like, Great, I'm off to work again. Bye, honey. In 1948, the first residents that he trained took their certification exams, in which they would be competing against other white students for the best scores. So there was a lot riding on it for the students, but also Charlie as their teacher. When the results came in, the president of Howard University called Charlie to tell him that one of his students placed second overall in the exam. Arpita: 44:12 Wow. Aarati: 44:13 Yeah, so Charlie was thrilled, but then the president told him that another of his students placed first, which I was like Arpita: 44:21 What was the order of news? Aarati: 44:23 Right? Tricky. Arpita: 44:25 Who does that? That's so annoying. Aarati: 44:28 But this gave Charlie a huge confidence boost to continue training students and many of the doctors who trained under him went on to make great strides for black doctors and medicine in general And I read somewhere that almost every Black doctor who was trained in the 1940s at Howard was taught by Charlie at some point. Which makes sense. Arpita: 44:46 Makes sense. Aarati: 44:46 Yeah. Arpita: 44:46 Makes Makes sense he hasn't left the building in decades. yeah, I'm sure they ran into him at some point. Aarati: 44:53 yeah. Alright, so, remember I told you about the annual free medical clinic in Tuskegee that Charlie was helping out with Arpita: 45:01 Yes. Aarati: 45:02 Alabama? That's how he met Minnie in the first place. Now we get to a much worse reason why that trip is important. So, in April 1950, he was headed down to Tuskegee, as he did every year. He was traveling with three other Black physicians, Dr. Samuel Bullock, and two surgical interns, Walter R. Johnson and John R. Ford. They set out together from Washington, D. C., and they were taking shifts driving down to Tuskegee. At 5: 30 a. m., they stopped for coffee and donuts at the Virginia- North Carolina State Line, and then they continued on with Charlie driving. Everyone at this point was quite tired. I mean, they had been, like, driving all night, I think, from Washington, D. C., and they hadn't really taken a break, um, and that was partly It was really hard to find hotels or motels that would cater to Black people, so they're just, like, driving constantly. So everyone's quite tired. The road was very quiet, and everyone kind of dozed off, including Charlie. Not good. The car drifted off the road and Dr. Bullock yelled,"Hey Charlie!" Charlie snapped awake and yanked the wheel back, but overcorrected and flipped the car. The driver's side car door flew open and Charlie was partially thrown out and severely injured when the car was rolling. Arpita: 46:26 Oh yikes. Aarati: 46:27 Yeah. The other physicians were mostly okay. Dr. Ford broke his arm and Dr. Bullock cut his hand, but Charlie was in really, really bad shape. They rushed him to the Alamance General Hospital and tried everything to save him, but he didn't make it. He died when he was only 45 years old. Arpita: 46:47 Oh my gosh. Such a tragic death. Aarati: 46:51 Yeah. And kind of ironic too, because You know, he's working on all these, like, blood transfusion things, and then he dies from traumatic injury, basically. So when news got out about his death, rumors circulated that he was not given proper care because he was Black, but the three doctors who had been in the car with him refuted this. They said that even giving a blood transfusion was impossible because of the extent of his injuries. Major blood vessels to the heart had been ruptured, and Dr. Ford said, quote,"all the blood in the world could not have saved him." Arpita: 47:25 Yeah. Yeah. Aarati: 47:27 So his body was brought back to Howard University and on April 5th his funeral was held at the 19th Street Baptist Church where his family had worshipped when he was a kid. The funeral procession spanned three blocks and police had to be called in to direct traffic. That's how popular he was. Arpita: 47:46 Like how many people he reached. Aarati: 47:48 Yeah He was buried in Lincoln Cemetery in Suit Suitland, Maryland I think that's how you say it, Suitland, Maryland. He received words of praise from Eleanor Roosevelt, historian, John Hope Franklin, and the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, Pearl Buck. Hubert Humphrey, who was then a congressman in Minnesota and later became vice president of the United States, entered Charlie's obituary into the congressional record because of his contributions to science. The community came together and started the Charles R. Drew Memorial Foundation, which raised enough money for Minnie to buy herself and her four children, now, a new house because they could no longer live in Howard's faculty housing. Arpita: 48:37 I didn't think about that. Aarati: 48:39 Yeah, um, but Howard University did give Minnie an income from an endowment that Charlie had set up, and three fourths of what Charlie's salary would have been every year to live on because Charlie died doing work related to the university. Arpita: 48:54 That's a lot. Aarati: 48:55 Yeah, I felt so sorry for her though, just in general. Arpita: 48:59 Completely. That's so Aarati: 49:00 he was alive. Arpita: 49:01 That is question up and down. My god. Aarati: 49:05 So Amherst College set up the Drew Memorial Scholarship to give financial aid to students who needed it. The Charles R. Drew Postgraduate Medical School was created in affiliation with the University of Southern California. And in 1976, the Clinical Center at the NIH hung a portrait of Charlie in the gallery, which was the first portrait of a black person to be hung there. Arpita: 49:29 Whoa. Aarati: 49:30 Yeah. Arpita: 49:30 What year? Aarati: 49:31 1976. Arpita: 49:33 That's way too recent. Aarati: 49:35 Yes, it's much after his death, also. He died in 1950 and like 26 years later, they're like, okay, we'll hang a portrait of you. Arpita: 49:46 What was the School of Medicine Aarati: 49:48 The Charles R. Drew Postgraduate Medical School In 1977, the Red Cross also dedicated the Charles R. Drew Blood Center in Washington, D. C., and he even had a postage stamp made in his honor as part of the Great American Series in 1984. And yeah, that's about it. That's the life of Charles Drew, the athletic and charismatic Black surgeon who helped us with blood transfusion. Arpita: 50:19 Yeah, that's quite, quite the up and down, for sure. Super tragic ending to his life. I feel like these, like, really truncated lives are always, like, this question mark of, like, even, like, Ettore Majorana, like, last time was, like, you know, he, like, died slash not died so young, and it's, like, unclear what he would have done. Otherwise, you know, if you keep wondering what if, which Aarati: 50:43 yeah, like, Arpita: 50:44 I don't Aarati: 50:45 And it seems like such a, it's just like a split moment, too. Like, he just dozed off and overcorrected the car and he was gone. Arpita: 50:55 Right. Yeah it could happen to anybody. Aarati: 50:57 But then like to think that also it was like kind of traced back to back again to racial segregation and how they couldn't find a motel for the night and they couldn't, like, stay anywhere, which might have prevented all of this if they could have just gotten a good night's sleep or, like, planned a little bit. Arpita: 51:12 I know. Aarati: 51:13 So, Arpita: 51:14 wow. He really did look pretty white. Aarati: 51:16 Yeah, he did. I think I read, that he probably had, Scottish And English genes and maybe even some Native American genes, thrown in there with his black genes. So, Arpita: 51:28 Yeah like he definitely looks pretty white. Aarati: 51:30 Yeah, he, he does. Just based off his picture, I thought he was white. Arpita: 51:35 Yeah. I was just curious. I was like wanting he looked like. Aarati: 51:38 Yeah. Arpita: 51:39 I do see the white passing. Aarati: 51:41 Yes, definitely. People give him a little slide there because of that, I think. Arpita: 51:47 For sure. Yeah. Great story. Aarati: 51:50 You. Thank you. very much. Also like when I was researching him, there were so many other side stories that I was like, we need to do this person next because they sound like this crazy vampire scientist that like all this, like all these people experimenting with blood transfusions to like, you know, give themselves eternal youth or like, these weird ways of like storing blood that I was like, Maybe in the future we'll have some of those kind of stories. Arpita: 52:17 Definitely. Okay. Yeah. Super interesting. Definitely. Keep those back of mind. We'll revisit them in the future. Thanks for listening. If you have a suggestion for a story we should cover or thoughts you want to share about an episode, reach out to us at smarttpodcast. com. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Smart Tea Podcast and listen to us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Leave us a rating or comment. It really helps us grow. New episodes are released every other Wednesday. See you next time.