Long before modern refrigeration, people in Russia and Finland reportedly placed living Russian brown frogs in milk to keep it fresh.
It turns out the curious practice has a basis in science: Recent research on the amphibians’ skin secretions led by Moscow State University organic chemist A.T. Lebedev shows they’re loaded with peptides, antimicrobial compounds as potent against Salmonella and Staphylococcus bacteria as prescription antibiotic
In modern times, many believed that this was nothing more than an old wives’ tale, But researchers at Moscow State University, led by organic chemist Dr Albert Lebedev, have shown that there could be some benefit to doing this, though of course in the end you’ll be drinking milk that a frog was in.
Ice boxes first became available to consumers in the early to mid-19th century and, with that, the ice trade became big business, New England and Norway became major purveyors of ice, but anywhere it was cold, ice was a major export.
Usually made out of wood with tin or zinc walls and insulation material like sawdust, cork, or straw, ice boxes were popular until they were rendered obsolete by the electrical refrigerator starting around the 1930s.
Jacob Perkins invented the first version of the refrigerator in 1834 when it was discovered that the hazardous compound ammonia, when liquefied, had a cooling effect.
But it wasn’t until the late 1920s when Freon was developed by General Motors and DuPont as a “nontoxic” cooling agent, and replaced ammonia, that refrigerators for consumers started to gain traction.
Despite the prevalence of ice in parts of Russia, in certain small rural Russian villages many didn’t have access to ice boxes, so they had to find ways to keep things cold and unspoiled, A practice developed, that continued into the 20th century, as described by Dr Lebedev from memories from his childhood.
