Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader by Bathroom Readers’ Institute Page B

uterine cancer. Today that test is known as a “Pap smear.”
    Josiah Wedgwood. An English potter of the late 1700s. He developed a line of china famous for its white designs on a blue background, which later became known as “Wedgwood” china.
    David Douglas. A 19th-century Scottish botanist and explorer of the western United States. He discovered a new species of tall evergreen trees that bear his name: Douglas firs.
    Draco. A magistrate and lawmaker who wrote the first code of laws of ancient Athens in the seventh century B.C. The code was one of the strictest set of laws ever written; it gave the death sentence for nearly every crime—even petty theft. Today any punishment that seems too severe for the crime can be labeled “draconian.”
    Caspar Wistar. A professor of “anatomy and midwifery” who held regular Sunday tea parties for a wide variety of scientists. One of his frequent guests was Thomas Nuttall, curator of the Harvard University Botanical Garden. In appreciation, Nuttall named a species of climbing plant “wistarias” in Wistar’s honor. But because of a spelling mistake, the plants became known as “wisterias.”
    There are almost as many chickens in the world as there are people.

THE TRUTH ABOUT
THE PANAMA CANAL
    The Panama Canal was a triumph of engineering—but it was also a triumph of political conspiracy. As one political wit said in the 1970s: “The Panama Canal belongs to us. We stole it fair and square.”
    T HE MYTH: The Panama Canal was an American idea.
    THE TRUTH: The idea of a building a canal through the Panama Strait was more than three centuries old before anybody actually did anything about it.
    The possibility was first discussed just decades after Columbus landed in the New World, when the Spaniards realized how far around South America they had to go to get to the Pacific Ocean. Panama seemed to be an ideal spot for a canal, since it measured only 50 miles from coast to coast.
    But the issue was put to rest in 1552 by King Philip, whose religious advisors reminded him that the scriptures warned: “What God has joined together let no man put asunder.” Philip agreed. “If God had wanted a Panama Canal,” he announced, “He would have put one here.”
    America’s First Effort. In the 1850s, the U.S. sent a survey team to Panama to see if it was possible to build a canal. But the idea was dropped when the team reported that there wasn’t “the slightest hope that a ship canal will ever be found practicable across any part of it.”
    The French Effort. That didn’t stop the chief promoter of the Suez Canal from trying. In 1880 Ferdinand de Lesseps, backed by a group of French investors, began building a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. American President Rutherford Hayes was outraged that this was happening in “our” territory and decreed that France should cede control of the canal to the United States.
    Before the issue became an international incident, however, the French project collapsed under the weight of corruption, poor planning, and the harsh Central American jungle environment: floods, earthquakes, yellow fever, and malaria. The French abandoned their partly dug canal and left most of their heavy machinery to rust in the jungle.
    The 100 Years War lasted 116 years.
    THE MYTH: The U.S. signed a treaty with the legitimate government of Panama to build and lease the Canal Zone.
    THE TRUTH: Panama wasn’t even a country when the U.S. decided to build a canal there—it was a territory of Colombia.
    Background. In 1898 the battleship Oregon , stationed off the California coast, was ordered to Cuba to prepare for battle in the Spanish American War. The voyage around South America took two months. Clearly, a faster route was needed.
    When the war was over, President Theodore Roosevelt began pushing for a canal. He was partial to a canal through Nicaragua: Even though that route was longer, it appeared to be an easier dig, since it would run through Lake