Learn about the treadmill’s torture device origins. Then, author Melanie Peffer explains why biology is everywhere. Treadmills were originally torture devices by Steffie Drucker Protin, C., & Stuart, M. (2017, April 13). Treadmills were originally used as torture devices for prisoners. Business Insider; Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/treadmills-torture-device-prisoners-treadwheel-victorian-britian-crime-prison-2017-4 Treadmills Were Meant to Be Atonement Machines | JSTOR Daily. (2018, May 2). JSTOR Daily. https://daily.jstor.org/treadmills-were-meant-to-be-atonement-machines/ The National Archives. (2021). A Victorian prison - The National Archives. The National Archives. https://doi.org/https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/default.htm BBC. (2017, January 9). Free Thinking - The dark history of the treadmill. BBC; BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4w8bVrKRqQDP4fKl0b8XzdW/the-dark-history-of-the-treadmill The Torturous History of the Treadmill. (2021). The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/history-of-the-treadmill/ Additional resources from Melanie Peffer: Pick up "Biology Everywhere: How the Science of Life Matters to Everyday Life" from Amazon: https://amzn.to/3wQQVOA Melanie's TED-Ed lesson on the neuroscience discoveries of artist Santiago Ramón y Cajal: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-artist-who-won-a-nobel-prize-in-medicine-melanie-e-peffer Melanie Peffer's website: https://www.melaniepeffer.com/ Melanie Peffer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Melanie_Peffer Melanie Peffer on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MelaniePefferPhD Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer — for free! You can also listen to our show as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here:https://www.amazon.com/Curiosity-com-Curiosity-Daily-from/dp/B07CP17DJY
Learn about the treadmill’s torture device origins. Then, author Melanie Peffer explains why biology is everywhere.
Treadmills were originally torture devices by Steffie Drucker
Additional resources from Melanie Peffer:
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer — for free! You can also listen to our show as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here: https://www.amazon.com/Curiosity-com-Curiosity-Daily-from/dp/B07CP17DJY
Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/from-music-to-bacon-biology-is-everywhere-w-biologist-melanie-peffer
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about how treadmills were originally used as torture devices. Then, you’ll learn about how biology is connected to subjects you might not expect, with biologist and author Melanie Peffer.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
If you’ve ever been on a treadmill and thought “this is torture,” you weren’t too far off.
The treadmill has long reigned as America’s most popular piece of exercise equipment, but its story didn’t start with a quest for great glutes. It was originally invented to “rehabilitate” British prisoners.
British prisons in the 19th century were pretty rough: they were overcrowded, unsanitary, and didn’t even provide food or blankets to their prisoners — families actually bribed guards to sneak in those supplies. Petty thieves escaped death and exile, often emerging from prison with a whole new network of accomplices and a resume of criminal skills. Prison administrators decided hard labor would teach them a lesson.
Civil engineer Sir William Cubitt designed a machine in 1818 that could deliver on all fronts. Known as the “tread wheel” or “everlasting staircase,” it was a horizontal paddlewheel that could accommodate dozens of prisoners at once. A prisoner would press his foot down on a step embedded in the wheel, which would move the wheel and expose the next step.
It started out as a work machine, with the wheel milling corn or pumping water. But eventually it just became a torture device. Prisoners spent up to 10 hours at a time walking on the wheel in silence — 10 strenuous and mind-numbingly boring hours. In fact, some said it wasn’t the physical agony that made it heard to bear — it was the boredom. One writer said that it was the tread wheel’s, quote, “monotonous steadiness and not its severity, which constitutes its terror.” end quote.
Still, it was physically strenuous. Prisoners would be flogged if they couldn’t keep up with the rest of the group, and were often pushed to exhaustion. The device’s highest death rate was one prisoner per week.
One of the tread wheel’s final victims was Irish playwright Oscar Wilde, who spent hours on it while imprisoned for his sexual orientation from 1895 to 1897. Wilde’s health was so badly damaged that he died just three years later, at the age of 46.
Tread wheels were exported to other British colonies and America in the mid 19th century, but they never caught on quite like they did in their homeland. Britain finally banned them for their cruelty in 1898.
But treadmills didn’t totally disappear in the 20th century. Farmers used livestock-powered treadmills to operate machinery, and doctors started using them to assess heart health. The treadmill earned its household status thanks to the booming aerobic exercise industry that sprouted up in the ‘60s.
So next time you’re on the treadmill, try not to think about its original purpose. At least today, we’ve got headphones.
If you've ever taken a math or science class, at some point you've probably wondered: when am I ever going to use this stuff? Like, how does chemistry, or calculus, or geology actually help me in the real world? That's exactly the type of question today's guest just loves to answer. Melanie Peffer, Ph.D. is the bestselling author of the book "Biology Everywhere: How the Science of Life Matters to Everyday Life." In it, she connects biology to subjects you'd never think were possible, like business and parenting. Today, she's going to explain how biology relates to two things many of us enjoy — but first, I asked her how she makes these connections in the first place.
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Again, that was Melanie Peffer, Ph.D. the bestselling author of the book "Biology Everywhere: How the Science of Life Matters to Everyday Life." You can find a link to the book, along with her TED-Ed lesson and more, in the show notes.
Let’s do a quick recap of what we learned today
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CODY: Today’s first story was written by Steffie Drucker. Script and audio editing by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
ASHLEY: Today’s episode was produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow with your ears, which is biology, to learn something new with your brain, which is biology, in just a few minutes, which is… uh… physics. Or horology, [HER-rology] maybe. But… two out of three ain’t bad
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!