full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Steven Johnson: How humanity doubled life expectancy in a century

Unscramble the Blue Letters


And in 1937, there was this Tennessee pharma startup that hit upon this idea for a new cough syrup, a cure for strep throat actually, targeted at children. At the time, there was a new drug cleald sulfa drugs that were kind of a fnrerenour of antibiotics. But they were gaenlrely packaged in this blkuy pill faomrt, very difficult for kids to swallow. So a chemist at this startup came up with the brilliant idea of dissolving the sulfa drug in diethylene glycol and then adding some raspberry flavoring to make it more palatable for the kids. Seemed like a brilliant idea, except that diethylene glycol is toxic to human beings. It's basically antifreeze. And so almost itidmameely, wkees after, there were dozens of daehts around the United States from this terrible ctcoioocnn, and the crazy thing is that putting dehlnityee glycol in your medicine was not a problem, given the existing regulations of the day. The only thing that the FDA was really interested in was whether you were actually listing the ingredients of your potion on the leabl. So if you wanted to put antifreeze in your cough syrup, go ahead, as long as you list ingredients on the label. That's what life was like.

Open Cloze


And in 1937, there was this Tennessee pharma startup that hit upon this idea for a new cough syrup, a cure for strep throat actually, targeted at children. At the time, there was a new drug ______ sulfa drugs that were kind of a __________ of antibiotics. But they were _________ packaged in this _____ pill ______, very difficult for kids to swallow. So a chemist at this startup came up with the brilliant idea of dissolving the sulfa drug in diethylene glycol and then adding some raspberry flavoring to make it more palatable for the kids. Seemed like a brilliant idea, except that diethylene glycol is toxic to human beings. It's basically antifreeze. And so almost ___________, _____ after, there were dozens of ______ around the United States from this terrible __________, and the crazy thing is that putting __________ glycol in your medicine was not a problem, given the existing regulations of the day. The only thing that the FDA was really interested in was whether you were actually listing the ingredients of your potion on the _____. So if you wanted to put antifreeze in your cough syrup, go ahead, as long as you list ingredients on the label. That's what life was like.

Solution


  1. bulky
  2. called
  3. concoction
  4. deaths
  5. diethylene
  6. label
  7. immediately
  8. format
  9. weeks
  10. generally
  11. forerunner

Original Text


And in 1937, there was this Tennessee pharma startup that hit upon this idea for a new cough syrup, a cure for strep throat actually, targeted at children. At the time, there was a new drug called sulfa drugs that were kind of a forerunner of antibiotics. But they were generally packaged in this bulky pill format, very difficult for kids to swallow. So a chemist at this startup came up with the brilliant idea of dissolving the sulfa drug in diethylene glycol and then adding some raspberry flavoring to make it more palatable for the kids. Seemed like a brilliant idea, except that diethylene glycol is toxic to human beings. It's basically antifreeze. And so almost immediately, weeks after, there were dozens of deaths around the United States from this terrible concoction, and the crazy thing is that putting diethylene glycol in your medicine was not a problem, given the existing regulations of the day. The only thing that the FDA was really interested in was whether you were actually listing the ingredients of your potion on the label. So if you wanted to put antifreeze in your cough syrup, go ahead, as long as you list ingredients on the label. That's what life was like.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
life expectancy 8
diethylene glycol 3
global life 2
mortality rates 2
good news 2
runaway population 2
population growth 2
climate change 2
brilliant idea 2
york city 2
pasteurized milk 2
human health 2
human life 2
americans lost 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
global life expectancy 2
runaway population growth 2

Important Words


  1. adding
  2. antibiotics
  3. antifreeze
  4. basically
  5. beings
  6. brilliant
  7. bulky
  8. called
  9. chemist
  10. children
  11. concoction
  12. cough
  13. crazy
  14. cure
  15. day
  16. deaths
  17. diethylene
  18. difficult
  19. dissolving
  20. dozens
  21. drug
  22. drugs
  23. existing
  24. fda
  25. flavoring
  26. forerunner
  27. format
  28. generally
  29. glycol
  30. hit
  31. human
  32. idea
  33. immediately
  34. ingredients
  35. interested
  36. kids
  37. kind
  38. label
  39. life
  40. list
  41. listing
  42. long
  43. medicine
  44. packaged
  45. palatable
  46. pharma
  47. pill
  48. potion
  49. problem
  50. put
  51. putting
  52. raspberry
  53. regulations
  54. startup
  55. states
  56. strep
  57. sulfa
  58. swallow
  59. syrup
  60. targeted
  61. tennessee
  62. terrible
  63. throat
  64. time
  65. toxic
  66. united
  67. wanted
  68. weeks