Connections 40 : It's In The Can

On this day in 1978 the BBC broadcast the first programme in a series called “Connections”. This had a remarkable effect on me. It gave me a glimpse into the way that history, culture and technology are all linked. I still have the Radio Times tv listings cover promoting the series (above). I had just left full-time education that summer, and had never been really academically minded. “Connections” changed that.

Regular readers will know I’m well into the second half of my own version of “Connections” called “Around the World in Another 80 Gays”. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of “Connections” I’ve written this separate article as a self-contained chain of links which begins with a member of the lgbt community. It's adapted from research I did over 20 years ago – before Google, and before I had internet access – all researched using books.

There’s much in the news about plastic waste. Recycling waste has always been an issue in the modern world. When I was young the materials that we were most persuaded to recycle were paper, glass and aluminium drinks cans.

Even though aluminium is the most abundant metallic element on earth’s surface it doesn’t occur naturally. Most of it is locked up in clay-earth mineral ore. Today the biggest source of aluminium ore is bauxite, a mineral first identified by Pierre Berthier (1782-1861 (below).

Berthier (who died in Paris, as mentioned here), was a leading geologist and discovered that clay minerals near the French town of Les Baux were rich in this aluminium ore, which be named after it. With other aluminium-rich clay minerals bauxite was used in the manufacture of a highly popular imitation of a luxury earthenware called fiaence.

Italian fiaence became fashionable with the French aristocracy during the reign of King Louis XIV (1638-1715) because it replaced the luxury item that was rapidly disappearing – silver tableware. The reason for this was because silver was being melted down to help King Louis pay for the War of the Spanish Succession.

The war began after the king of Spain died. His successor and nephew was also a grandson of King Louis XIV. Europe was appalled at this turn of events because between them King Louis and the new King of Spain would own the majority of the American continent. It was the source of the European economy at the time, which was run by an early example of an international currency – silver pieces of eight made in Spanish America. Europe wanted to stop the kings of France and Spain from controlling this American silver trade.

South American silver-producing colonists wanted luxury goods from Europe in return for their silver. Since most luxury goods came from the east – silver, spices and porcelain – the colonists decided to get it direct (and cheaper) from Asia and established the trans-Pacific trade routes.

Fortunately, there was a market in Asia desperate for silver, and that was the Ming dynasty in China. China was rapidly running out of their own silver because they were using it to prop up their main currency which was being devalued through inflation. What was this other currency that caused the demand for American silver in China? It was paper money.

The Chinese had invented paper money and the woodblock printing that produced it. Through the Silk Road the Europeans were introduced to both, but rather than print money the Europeans began producing highly popular manuscripts and books with woodblock illustrations. In an effort to produce finer illustrations woodblocks were replaced with metal plates and engravings.

The Italians produced the best engraved illustrations, particularly one man called Marcantonio Raimondi (c.1480-c.1534). Unfortunately, he was imprisoned for producing pornography with his illustrated book on the sex lives of the gods. A toned down version of this book was produced by Rosso Florentino (1495-1540), who founded the Fontainbleau School. This school led a renaissance of French art and influenced a group of poets called La Péiade.

La Pléiade aimed to combine poetry with music, but one of their followers, Jacques Gohory (1520-1576), wanted to include philosophy and nature. To this end he created a garden in which poets could sit for inspiration. He also used the garden to experiment into the medicinal uses of plants.

This idea was taken up by King Louis XIII of France (1601-1643), who created his own garden for medical research, the Jardin des Plantes, still a popular tourist site in Paris today. The Jardin soon became a leader in medical research. One scientist working there was Christopher Glaser (c.1615-c.1672). He was the King’s Apothecary, but he was imprisoned for supplying arsenic to the serial killer Marie, the Marquise de Brinvilliers (c.1630-1676).

Arsenic was a popular poison because it was undetectable at that time. However, a later French serial killer, Marie, Madame Lafarge (1816-1851), was sent to the guillotine because proof of arsenic in human tissue was produced at her trial by chemist Matthieu Orfila (1787-1953).

Orfila is called the Father of Forensic Toxicology. Very soon many chemists were flocking to Paris to study this new science, including Sir Robert Christison (1797-1882). He published an article in the British Medical Journal in which he described experiments with a new plant from America called Erythroxylum which he said was invigorating if eaten.

An American pharmacist, John S. Pemberton (1831-1858), read Sir Robert’s article and began making a tonic drink from Erythroxylum syrup. He sold his tonic formula to Asa Griggs Candler (1851-1929) who marketed it so well that it’s still one of the biggest-selling products in the world today.

The tonic drink was named after the plant it was made from. The plant’s full botanical name is Erythroxylum coca. Pemberton’s drink was called Coca Cola.

I hope you recycle your aluminium drinks can. If it wasn’t for a gay French geologist discovering bauxite aluminium would still be a rare precious metal and not a common waste product.