Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always for tuning in.
Speaker 1: If you are a fan of brain fever, you are,
Speaker 1: if you are consumed with thoughts of consumption, this is
Speaker 1: the episode for you, folks. Shout out super producer mister
Speaker 1: Max Williams.
Speaker 2: What man, this got me thinking. There's a bunch that
Speaker 2: we're not gonna get to in this episode. But man,
Speaker 2: there's some fun sounding diseases out there.
Speaker 3: Fun and quotation fingers.
Speaker 2: I guess we don't talk about pink eye, but does
Speaker 2: that sounds like the cutest of ailments?
Speaker 3: You got a little pink eye?
Speaker 1: I I uh, Ben Bolin, as a color blinds person,
Speaker 1: have had the enviable position of having pink eye and
Speaker 1: not knowing what pink eye looks like.
Speaker 2: Truly, Ben, it's just kind of bloodshot and watery. It's
Speaker 2: it's it's much. It's not pink at all, And when
Speaker 2: you learn how you get it, it's really.
Speaker 3: It's poop poop in the eye.
Speaker 1: Right, everybody touch her but shut shout out to Shout
Speaker 1: out to mister Noel Brown as well. Our hour avengers
Speaker 1: are assembled. As you might be able to tell we're
Speaker 1: slowly working our way out of our dirty humor phase.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: We went to the depths of it, the nadir of
Speaker 1: it with James. Oh sure, Yes, all sorts of descriptions
Speaker 1: of farts.
Speaker 2: It's sort of a trickle its way down into our
Speaker 2: text exchanges.
Speaker 3: Hasn't it been has a bit? Yes, it has been
Speaker 3: little farty texts here and there.
Speaker 1: You know, something for the Museum of Podcasts when our
Speaker 1: time is done, or for hr depending or for both,
Speaker 1: for both really, if we're being honest, that's why we
Speaker 1: were so thrilled. Max is our research associate for this one. Look,
Speaker 1: we talked about it in the past. The English language
Speaker 1: is weird. It's colonizer language. It's kind of a pirate language.
Speaker 1: They just took stuff willy nilly and kind of freestyled
Speaker 1: the rules and a lot of stuff in this language
Speaker 1: sounds very funny. Turns out diseases are no different, especially
Speaker 1: the further back you go in the past. We got
Speaker 1: to give a shout out to Esther Inglis r Kel
Speaker 1: from Gizmoto, who had a lot of the initial guiding
Speaker 1: force for this brief in this episode.
Speaker 2: Today, dare we say inspiration ten serious medical problems with
Speaker 2: cute see names. You know, here's one that you know
Speaker 2: a lot of times on our other show stuff they
Speaker 2: don't want you to know, Or at least, we used
Speaker 2: to do more of these kind of fakemmercials, you know,
Speaker 2: for stuff that kind of pertained to the theme of
Speaker 2: the show, brought to you by our buddies that Illumination
Speaker 2: Global Unlimited and oftentimes Ben. You would rattle off a
Speaker 2: list of side effects and such for things that were
Speaker 2: maybe a potential faux medic medication of some kind, you know,
Speaker 2: satirical medication. Hell, you don't even have to go that far.
Speaker 2: Pharmaceutical commercials are pretty satirical in and of themselves, but
Speaker 2: you always throw in dropsy as one of the potential
Speaker 2: ailments that might be caused by said fictional medication. I've
Speaker 2: never really fully known what it was, and esther inglis
Speaker 2: Arcle points out that it sounds like more like one
Speaker 2: of Peter Rabbit's siblings than a disease.
Speaker 3: You know, what is it?
Speaker 2: Flopsy mopsie cottontail sort of the outlier. Dropsy would be
Speaker 2: right at home, they would, It would at least fit
Speaker 2: the rhyme scheme.
Speaker 1: It also makes me think of Cropsy, which is just
Speaker 1: a terrifying documentary.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, somebod us who have never really fully known
Speaker 2: what that was about either are just sound spooky.
Speaker 3: And is it blair witchy?
Speaker 2: Is is it really a documentary or is it sort of
Speaker 2: like a Faulk cumentary.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not gonna ruin it for people, but it
Speaker 1: is technically so I guess the best way to describe
Speaker 1: it is it's kind of like a documentary that goes
Speaker 1: in a direction the filmmaker.
Speaker 3: Did not expect. Okay, so it's not it's.
Speaker 1: Got blair witch vibes, but it is true sort of
Speaker 1: like that one about tickling.
Speaker 3: You see that? God, yeah, that was frightening.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen it, but I know that it does
Speaker 2: that very thing. It's someone that sets out to make
Speaker 2: a charming documentary about tickling rings and professional tickling or
Speaker 2: tickling fetishists, and then it goes into like child kidnapping
Speaker 2: or something crazy like that.
Speaker 3: I think I'm exaggerate and assumed identity. What is dropsy?
Speaker 1: Ben Drops the not to be confused with priapism, is
Speaker 1: a kind of swelling known as a dema and bonus
Speaker 1: points to any of the nerds who already knew what
Speaker 1: priapism is.
Speaker 2: Why swelling joke ising and they leave Italy leave.
Speaker 1: It in that forever is the problem. Doctor, I'm way
Speaker 1: too turned on. And he's like, you gotta stop listening
Speaker 1: to shout a late at night man.
Speaker 2: Or ridiculous history, because we've also been known to cause
Speaker 2: some indefinite directions, especially during the James Joyce episode.
Speaker 1: Oh Boy, Oh Boy, have we ever? That's where our
Speaker 1: pal Alex circa shout out. We'll see if Alex gets
Speaker 1: on air more often. But uh so, that's where we
Speaker 1: had to warn our our coworker Alex. We're like, hey,
Speaker 1: not all of our episodes are like this. Please understand,
Speaker 1: we are trying to be adults. Adema is or edema
Speaker 1: is a swelling caused by too much fluid, too many
Speaker 1: cooks of fluid trapped in the tissues of your body,
Speaker 1: and unlike priaptism, it can affect all parts of your body.
Speaker 3: Any part can get that smoke.
Speaker 2: Doesn't a demo also sound like it should be the
Speaker 2: name of a tool album?
Speaker 1: It does, really surprised it's not. It feels like Maynard
Speaker 1: has some opinions about that already, but noll. I think
Speaker 1: a DIMA is more likely to show up in your extremities,
Speaker 1: like your legs, your.
Speaker 2: Feet, Yeah that's right, feet, hands, fat neck. No, I'm kidding,
Speaker 2: I made that one up, but yeah. It also sometimes
Speaker 2: is indicated by the symptom of having stretchy or shiny skin,
Speaker 2: swelling or puffiness of the tissue like underneath the skin again,
Speaker 2: especially in the arms and legs, belly or abdominal swelling
Speaker 2: that is beyond you know, just the typical pooch that
Speaker 2: that many of us are blessed with. And also a
Speaker 2: feeling of leg heaviness, so like a bit of a
Speaker 2: leaden foot kind of center.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Now all of a sudden, you feel like your
Speaker 1: legs are two suitcases you're carried around.
Speaker 3: And you got it.
Speaker 1: Need for speed, baby. And here's what happens. So, this
Speaker 1: dropsy occurs when tiny blood vessels in your bodies, aka
Speaker 1: the capillaries, start to leak fluid. The fluid that they
Speaker 1: leak will build up in surrounding tissue, and that leak
Speaker 1: per the Mayo clinic leads to the swelling Mayo clinic. Also,
Speaker 1: they're better, in my opinion than WebMD. WebMD everything is
Speaker 1: cancer the Mayo Clinic a little more reasonable, and they say, look,
Speaker 1: you can get dropsy from sitting in one position too long.
Speaker 1: That's happened to a lot of people with office jobs
Speaker 1: or during the pandemic eating too much salty food. And
Speaker 1: here's another one. This is the quote being pregnant. So
Speaker 1: that just just going to add that plot twist on
Speaker 1: one of the strangest and often most difficult parts of
Speaker 1: your life, ladies.
Speaker 3: I wanted to bring something up really quickly.
Speaker 2: It's it's sort of related, unrelatedly related, but it sort
Speaker 2: of speaks to this whole you know what di diseases
Speaker 2: speak to, if not the condition of being human art
Speaker 2: installation that I think it's somewhere in Scandinavia, and I'm
Speaker 2: one hundred percent sure exactly where, but I only just
Speaker 2: now found out about it. But speaking of leaking fluid,
Speaker 2: I don't know if you guys have heard of this.
Speaker 2: It is this robot hydraulic arm that is slowly, has
Speaker 2: been for years, slowly leaking hydraulic fluid, and its own
Speaker 2: only function is to sweep the hydraulic fluid back into
Speaker 2: itself and collect it's.
Speaker 3: Oh I saw this recently, Yeah it is, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Wild, and it is like very if you think about it,
Speaker 2: Like what better metaphor for like human condition than that.
Speaker 2: You know, we're all just slowly leaking fluid and trying
Speaker 2: our best to gather it back up and shove it
Speaker 2: back into ourselves, knowing that one day the clock will
Speaker 2: run out.
Speaker 1: I love sisaphia and art, that's what I call that stuff.
Speaker 1: Like I love figure where the you know the little
Speaker 1: mechanism where the you put something on a box and
Speaker 1: that opens up grabs it. Yeah, or or you have
Speaker 1: a switch that turns on the mechanism that turns itself
Speaker 1: off and closes the box.
Speaker 2: Is the is the little crane that dips its beak
Speaker 2: in the water kind of kind of in that vein
Speaker 2: or that's I.
Speaker 3: Think that's kind of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a kissing cousin, and this cousin at the
Speaker 1: very least.
Speaker 3: It's it's a dropsy cousin. We work on it.
Speaker 1: But this this is a serious condition. And uh, being
Speaker 1: pregnant is a serious condition, but so is dropsy. Of
Speaker 1: course they're very different conditions, but they will have an
Speaker 1: effect on your life. Also to that point about our
Speaker 1: good friends at Illumination Global Unlimited and their predilection for
Speaker 1: fine print. This condition dropsy can be a known side
Speaker 1: effect of some medicine, So you might get high blood
Speaker 1: pressure medication and the doctor might say, hey, just for
Speaker 1: a heads up, man, have you heard about dropsy?
Speaker 3: Pull up the Wikipedia. Yeah, it's it's it's it's a
Speaker 3: good read.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of another one that not going to
Speaker 2: get to in depth, but I think it's worth a mention.
Speaker 2: Gout is another condition that has a sort of a
Speaker 2: silly name and causes certain types of inflammation or like
Speaker 2: I believe it's urate crystals that accumulate in your joints,
Speaker 2: and it can cause all kinds of inflammation and swelling
Speaker 2: in the foot and the extremities I believe, but I
Speaker 2: think it's largely in the foot.
Speaker 1: It's it's arthritis, Like you said, too much uric acid.
Speaker 2: Which which is usually a symptom of eating poor a
Speaker 2: poor diet.
Speaker 1: I associate it with very prominent historical figures like the kings,
Speaker 1: the emperors, that's right, because they add all that rich
Speaker 1: you know, potted meat and stuff. In Franklin famously a
Speaker 1: gout enthusiasts.
Speaker 2: There's a there's a really good episode of King of
Speaker 2: the hill where Bobby gets gout because he becomes obsessed
Speaker 2: with this delicatessen that opens like in their mall or something,
Speaker 2: and he's just constantly eating like really rich you know,
Speaker 2: deli meats and like, you know, what is it, like
Speaker 2: liver worst and stuff. And he develops gout as a child,
Speaker 2: which is usually not when you would develop goutgut as
Speaker 2: sort of a condition of more, more more seasoned individuals.
Speaker 1: It's like a lifestyle condition also to amend it very quickly. Napoleon.
Speaker 1: I'm referencing Napoleon three, and I gotta tell you before
Speaker 1: we move on. I have a pretty good friend of
Speaker 1: mine in the Atlanta area, and a few years ago
Speaker 1: he told me he had gout, and I was because
Speaker 1: I didn't know much about it except what I've read
Speaker 1: of historical leaders. I was low key impressed, and I
Speaker 1: started treating him a little bit like an aristocrat because
Speaker 1: I was like, that's a rich person disease.
Speaker 2: I wonder if what's our same friend, because I know
Speaker 2: a friend, an Atlanta friend, who also has gout and
Speaker 2: it has definitely caused him to have to reassess his
Speaker 2: diet and and stay away from certain things. Wouldn't that
Speaker 2: be a trip if it was the same person, we
Speaker 2: will we will not name names to protect the gout.
Speaker 3: It right right?
Speaker 1: Uh, you know, no one's above about of the gout,
Speaker 1: and it may indeed be more prevalent than we think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh man.
Speaker 2: So oh well, one last thing, the gout to a
Speaker 2: lot of uh preserved seafood can cause it because of
Speaker 2: a lot. I think it's very high in salt and
Speaker 2: things like cod and canned tuna, and if you eat
Speaker 2: too much of that stuff, it can you can develop gout.
Speaker 1: Finally, for anybody who's like, man, this gout sounds like
Speaker 1: a hot new thing. How do I get in on
Speaker 1: the ground floor?
Speaker 3: Bro? Have you been getting ads for like fancy tinned fish?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, you're talking about fish wife, that's what
Speaker 1: uh huh yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: I'd tempted. And I find the idea of tinned fish disgusting.
Speaker 2: But when they slap a fancy looking, colorful logo on
Speaker 2: it and use the word, you know, like gourmet, I'm like,
Speaker 2: sign me up, send me those sardines and the mail.
Speaker 1: I kid you not about Once a year I go
Speaker 1: through and intelle it's because of my prepper stuff. I
Speaker 1: go through another tinned survival foods phase, and tin fish
Speaker 1: is so popular in Europe. In Japan, there's a oh god,
Speaker 1: maybe we do an episode about it. There's a chain
Speaker 1: of bars called Mister Canzo and their can Zumies and
Speaker 1: what they do They just sell canned food and they
Speaker 1: heat it up for you.
Speaker 2: But yeah, man, but there's arobably some nice options though, right,
Speaker 2: like some different flavors and all kinds of difference.
Speaker 1: Oh, there's some great stuff, but then there's also some
Speaker 1: stuff that Americans would find pretty disturbing, like canned bear
Speaker 1: is like canned ballue.
Speaker 2: They've always wanted to eat the bar rather than having
Speaker 2: the bar eat me, so to.
Speaker 1: Sew it up, Like I fear that, I feel the
Speaker 1: opposite of you when it comes to again. It's like
Speaker 1: a continuing, decade long, seasonal fascination with tin fish because
Speaker 1: I love the idea of it.
Speaker 3: I feel like it should.
Speaker 1: Be it's it can be considered kind of fancy in
Speaker 1: Europe too, But then when I open it, I'm always thinking, man,
Speaker 1: I could have just gone to the grocery store and
Speaker 1: gotten you know, a fresh fish.
Speaker 2: Or you know, it's definitely not the apocalypse times. Yet
Speaker 2: I could have just saved this, you know, for when
Speaker 2: it really counted.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I feel that even the most opportunity kind
Speaker 3: of you know.
Speaker 1: When when we filmed we filmed something for stuff, they'll
Speaker 1: once you know where. I was unpacking in MRI the
Speaker 1: whole time. In the back of my head, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I better know regret this, I better get my crap together.
Speaker 1: I got to immediately replace this what happens if the
Speaker 1: world ends? Because I'm a crazy person, so we.
Speaker 3: All go a little mad sometimes.
Speaker 2: We mentioned that that dropsy can be a sign of
Speaker 2: more serious stuff and that you should you should should
Speaker 2: if you are experiencing the shiny skin, any of these
Speaker 2: inflammations of the extremities, you should go see a doctor
Speaker 2: because it could potentially be a you know, a symptiment
Speaker 2: and of itself, especially if it's accompanied by shortness of breath,
Speaker 2: any kinds of chest pains, or irregular heartbeat.
Speaker 1: And luckily, so what we're going to do with LI
Speaker 1: is we're going to talk about symptoms. We're also going
Speaker 1: to talk about how they are usually mitigated, treated.
Speaker 3: Or cured.
Speaker 1: We are not medical professionals. Do see a medical professional
Speaker 1: if you suspect you have any of these symptoms or
Speaker 1: filling discomfort.
Speaker 3: I'm glad we got that in there.
Speaker 1: We should have said it at the top, but yes,
Speaker 1: we are not doctors of medicine, so how do you
Speaker 1: cure this? Luckily, sometimes it goes away on its own.
Speaker 1: Other treatments might include wearing spanks, kid, you not wearing
Speaker 1: compression garments, that's right, and trying to trying to leverage
Speaker 1: your circulatory system, so raising the affected area higher than
Speaker 1: your heart. You can get medication to flush out that
Speaker 1: extra fluid. A big thing, just like you mentioned with gout,
Speaker 1: A big thing is changes in diet or maybe finding
Speaker 1: different medications if the side effects lead to a DMA.
Speaker 1: And Max, I fully agree with you. You have a new
Speaker 1: here in the brief where you said something we all
Speaker 1: learned recording podcasts during the lockdown. Don't sit for extended periods.
Speaker 1: Get your steps in. I think all three of us
Speaker 1: live in houses with stairs, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well I know my studios in the basement,
Speaker 2: and I record here, work here for all of our stuff.
Speaker 2: Up and down yeah all day long at least forgot
Speaker 2: take it for granted, actually, but I definitely am up
Speaker 2: and down at least ten or thirteen times a day,
Speaker 2: if not more so, there's that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love it. I love going, I love go.
Speaker 1: We've got so you guys haven't seen the new place, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you haven't seen this new place yet. It has an
Speaker 1: egregious number of patios, as for an apartment has two
Speaker 1: patios and a rooftop. And so, whenever I'm on a
Speaker 1: phone call, just so you guys know, because we do
Speaker 1: talk all the time, whenever I'm on a phone call
Speaker 1: and I sound like I'm I'm huffing a little bit,
Speaker 1: and I don't have the video on, I guarantee you guys,
Speaker 1: I'm just promping from the roof to the first floor
Speaker 1: and back back in, back and forth. I'm like a salmon.
Speaker 1: I'm like the the noble passage of the salmon. Has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with dropsy. You probably are wondering, folks,
Speaker 1: where does the name dropsy come from. It's time for
Speaker 1: one of our favorite things, a little bit of etymology.
Speaker 3: Azah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, indeed, we're huge fans of etymology. Here on Ridiculous History,
Speaker 2: Miriam Webster traces the etymology of drops to a Middle
Speaker 2: English word, uh drop easy. I don't know why I
Speaker 2: said it, like Italian. It's Middle English, so let's call
Speaker 2: it drop drop Nope, how is the Middle English pronoun.
Speaker 3: There you go? Or which is actually short for a
Speaker 3: not that much longer word.
Speaker 2: It just has a weird why at the beginning, which
Speaker 2: would be a drop I guess right, yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 2: let's just shorten that easy to drop the which why
Speaker 2: could well be silent here too. It feels like what
Speaker 2: a silent why would do? But who knows into English
Speaker 2: is bonkers.
Speaker 1: I had to read, uh, Canterbury Tales, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: Chaucer's great unfinished work. It sounds like the Jabberwockie.
Speaker 3: You know, I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1: It's like it reminds reading the reading Canterbury Tales in
Speaker 1: the original version of English it's written in. It is
Speaker 1: exactly like hearing that song from that Italian guy who
Speaker 1: didn't know English, and he was like, this guy, what
Speaker 1: I've got? Okay, we've got to play hit me with
Speaker 1: one clip? Okay, so if you guys can see, uh,
Speaker 1: this guy looks sort of like a werewolf with glasses.
Speaker 3: Uh, let's fast forward to where he's actually singing to
Speaker 3: cut them off.
Speaker 2: Bat Yeah, now you're dead on man, it's like I
Speaker 2: always I said, jabberwocky vibes. But because it's always, it's
Speaker 2: all like ill swissing and pil will in the WHIPI
Speaker 2: dip in the sweet bee. You know, it's like, come on, man,
Speaker 2: what is this nonsense? I love it exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And do check out the rest of that the
Speaker 1: rest of that clip, because I believe it. I believe
Speaker 1: that song came about because the musicians said, Uh, these Italians,
Speaker 1: the Italian public, they just love English songs. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what you're saying. I could just make a song
Speaker 1: that sounds like that language and it would blow up.
Speaker 1: And he was right, He was all right with that one.
Speaker 1: And what might mystify some of us about the etymology
Speaker 1: here is and are actually from Latin a much more
Speaker 1: reasonable word hydropssis hydrop Okay, okay, I don't know why
Speaker 1: that seems like less of a twist than but I'm
Speaker 1: just looking for excuses to say at this point.
Speaker 2: And Ben, to your point about gout, I think this
Speaker 2: is also true of dropsy, that there are some notable
Speaker 2: individuals that were afflicted with this condition.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, we're looking at this, Uh Beethoven, it
Speaker 1: appears did not roll over as often as he should
Speaker 1: have and as a result, had a dema. Uh and
Speaker 1: then you know, uh famously not great President Andrew Jackson
Speaker 1: also had the dropsy.
Speaker 3: And uh.
Speaker 2: Also, when I hear drops the I think I'm gonna
Speaker 2: get the dropsy on you.
Speaker 3: You know, I feel like drop trou et cetera.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: This this however, look, folks, we we talked off air.
Speaker 1: We know this is probably going to be a two
Speaker 1: parter because there are a lot of these diseases and
Speaker 1: a lot of them have funny names. That's what we
Speaker 1: knew before we went into this. So we're not going
Speaker 1: to get to everything today, but we do want to
Speaker 1: introduce you to just a couple moore. Uh, here's the
Speaker 1: one that always confused me. I know somebody who got
Speaker 1: this hand, foot, and mouth disease, the combo meal of
Speaker 1: medical conditions.
Speaker 3: I've got heard we got to bring meals into it.
Speaker 3: But have you heard that kids can get this? Young kids?
Speaker 3: It's the most common young kids.
Speaker 2: Actually, you get in a similar way you get pink eye.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right.
Speaker 1: I always thought it sounded like a condition for non
Speaker 1: human animals, like growing up, I always thought it was
Speaker 1: something you know they got on the farm.
Speaker 2: I think there's a version of it that that is
Speaker 2: that that is hoof and mouth disease, which is a
Speaker 2: farm animal version of this condition.
Speaker 3: If I'm not mistaken. Ah, good, so you're not wrong.
Speaker 3: It's interesting because the very similar named, but you cannot
Speaker 3: transmit them like you can't get the animal version of it.
Speaker 3: That's not called zoticonic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, potentially the COVID was potentially zoonotic. It's not related
Speaker 2: to foot and mouth disease, which is also called hoof
Speaker 2: and mouth disease.
Speaker 3: Jeez, guys, I'm started to think hands are sort of
Speaker 3: dirty or related.
Speaker 2: It's a hand in glove disease, which is a bizarre,
Speaker 2: unhealthy obsession with the music of Morrissey.
Speaker 1: Right right, or related to hand feet disease, which is
Speaker 1: a condition I made up where your feet slowly transformed
Speaker 1: into hands.
Speaker 2: Terrifying you wouldn't be able to balance. It's untenable. Then
Speaker 2: it's untenable.
Speaker 3: It's it's unreasonable. What kind of world are we living in?
Speaker 1: Well, we're living in a world with hand, foot and
Speaker 1: mouth disease still, and it's uh, it's got it's real.
Speaker 1: That's the street name the real name for this thing
Speaker 1: is we kid you not even worse, mister Brown. Do
Speaker 1: you want to do the honors on this one?
Speaker 3: Oh? Absolutely?
Speaker 2: Uh sorry, Uh cocksacky, cocksacky man. I saw the funniest
Speaker 2: clip from I think it was like outtakes from between
Speaker 2: two ferns. Was Zach Galifanakis and he was talking to
Speaker 2: what he harre else in the other one Matthew McConaughey,
Speaker 2: and he goes, so, when you and Woody were both
Speaker 2: on the set of Drew Detective, wasn't there a concern
Speaker 2: that somewhere in the world a sack was not being hackied?
Speaker 3: I remember seeing that the McConaughey cracks up.
Speaker 1: You know that I love the I love the bloopers
Speaker 1: because they show you that everybody is actually having a
Speaker 1: good time for the most but not completely agree but
Speaker 1: addictcumber Batch, Uh so, if you didn't have your accent,
Speaker 1: do you think people would know that you're not.
Speaker 3: A good actor? That's very funny.
Speaker 2: These jokes are so good because they go they start,
Speaker 2: you think you know where they're going to go, and
Speaker 2: then they take you somewhere else completely and they're so quick.
Speaker 3: Kind of almost like norm McDonald's style.
Speaker 2: They are these little mini stories that are in joke
Speaker 2: form kind of.
Speaker 3: I think it's really brilliant stuff.
Speaker 2: So yeah, cocksacky, Ben tell us about cocksacky.
Speaker 1: Well, it's going to do a lot for stand up comedy.
Speaker 1: Cocksacky or cocksacky virus is the cause of hand foot
Speaker 1: mouth disease. It lives in the digestive track. It creates
Speaker 1: these blisters on your mouth, your tongue, your esophagus. As
Speaker 1: our pal Esther Inglis article points out, it's a real thing.
Speaker 1: But Esther says, quote, naming it cocksacky virus is like
Speaker 1: naming a planet uranus. Someone should have said something before
Speaker 1: it was made official. I tend to agree, But it's
Speaker 1: tough because cocksacky is a hilarious word, right, especially if
Speaker 1: you are a very high minded intellectual like all of
Speaker 1: us listening today. But it may not have anything to
Speaker 1: do with the sort of more body or lurid associations.
Speaker 2: Nope, but does not refer to any swimsuit area related things.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Instead, we'll get to that one in a second hand
Speaker 1: foot and mouth disease or HFMD to all the people
Speaker 1: unfortunate enough to have to deal with it, so often
Speaker 1: that they just made it an acronym HFMD. It's mild,
Speaker 1: it is contagious. Like we mentioned, it is common in
Speaker 1: very young children, and it's not something that has a
Speaker 1: specific treatment, which was which surprised me because it seems
Speaker 1: like it can, as you guys point out, be really
Speaker 1: common in kids. Why can't you fix it? It's been
Speaker 1: round long enough, they I think the solution is like
Speaker 1: the early days of COVID quarantining and washing your hands.
Speaker 1: I gotta I got a finger gun from Max, so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take that. Yes, I feel so cool when
Speaker 1: people throw the finger gun.
Speaker 2: So symptoms of this quite silly signing disease are not
Speaker 2: silly at all. They include things like fever. You mentioned
Speaker 2: the sores, but also u sore throat, additional rashes that
Speaker 2: can appear on the buttocks, even soles of the feet.
Speaker 2: And it actually the name refers to the virus that
Speaker 2: causes it, which is of course, the COCKSACKI virus. This
Speaker 2: is all one word we're gonna hear about what COCKSACKI
Speaker 2: actually is. It's it's it's it's a little less remarkable
Speaker 2: than you might think, but also pretty funny as as
Speaker 2: to why it's called this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got to note something here.
Speaker 1: It may sound like it may be something we could
Speaker 1: get lost in the shuffle, but I'm really glad you
Speaker 1: pointed out that people can get these blister like lesions
Speaker 1: on the souls of their feet. Having any kind of
Speaker 1: injury on the souls of your feet is incredibly dangerous.
Speaker 1: It's also phenomenally uncomfortable. It's so dangerous in fact, that
Speaker 1: there used to be a specific type of torture used
Speaker 1: to punish people called bastinado. Have you guys heard of this.
Speaker 1: It's a punishment from the maritime days, or at least
Speaker 1: that's where I associate it.
Speaker 2: It sounds like ostinato, though, which is a musical term
Speaker 2: that I believe refers to kind of like very kind
Speaker 2: of clipped, sort of repetitive phrases and classical music.
Speaker 3: What is a bostonado? It is? This is frighteningly specific.
Speaker 1: It is the practice of beating the souls of someone's
Speaker 1: bare feet. It's kind of flogging, just delivered to the
Speaker 1: bottom of your feet so that you can't run away.
Speaker 3: Think about the evil sanctions.
Speaker 2: Fond of that they did it like to the whole
Speaker 2: like soccer team when they disapproved of their performance.
Speaker 1: I think so it's it's loved by terrible people throughout history,
Speaker 1: and it's been used all across the world just because
Speaker 1: it's so effective. But that's me just going out of
Speaker 1: the way to mention specific types of torture, which is
Speaker 1: a totally different episode.
Speaker 3: We got to stay hooked on this.
Speaker 1: Hoof foot and mouth disease thing ahead, foot and mouth, hand,
Speaker 1: foot of mouth. Yes, hoof foot and mouth is the
Speaker 1: one for shape shifters. The good thing is it's not zoonotic.
Speaker 1: And I think we've already very clearly implied that young
Speaker 1: children get it more often because it's in the digestive tract.
Speaker 1: They need diaper changes, they need help using the bathroom.
Speaker 1: They also tend to, you know, be very exploratory and
Speaker 1: putting their hands in their mouths and stuff, and they
Speaker 1: can't see germs. So until you develop object permanence, are
Speaker 1: germs even real? Or is that just a story your
Speaker 1: parents tell you because they're lame and they don't want
Speaker 1: you to have fun and poop yourself.
Speaker 3: Oh jeez, Louise.
Speaker 2: So we've been teasing a little bit that this kind
Speaker 2: of goofy sounding name ain't for nothing, right. A lot
Speaker 2: of these names come from perhaps old English translations, you know,
Speaker 2: the maybe scientists that discovered them. There's any number of
Speaker 2: reasons that a thing can be called what it is
Speaker 2: in the medical community. This one, however, is actually named
Speaker 2: after a pretty small town on the Hudson River where
Speaker 2: this Cocksacki virus was first isolated.
Speaker 1: Right, and isolated here doesn't mean that the disease he
Speaker 1: started in this place. It means that this was the location,
Speaker 1: like in this town, that's where they found the thing
Speaker 1: and were able to get it closely studied and able
Speaker 1: to point to it and say, okay, we've figured out
Speaker 1: the cause of handfoot, headfoot and mouth disease. Sorry, I
Speaker 1: keep wayed to call it hoof, foot and mouth disease.
Speaker 3: Now just the internal it, you know. Yeah, So okay.
Speaker 1: They get described by this guy who's named Gilbert Doldorf.
Speaker 3: He was, yeah, great name, great name.
Speaker 1: Gil He was looking into outbreaks in nineteen forty seven
Speaker 1: and upstate New York, and he was pretty sure these
Speaker 1: were outbreaks of something called polio militis UH. And through
Speaker 1: this investigation he figured out that Cocksacki virus named after
Speaker 1: COCKSACKI New York is the is the cause of ham
Speaker 1: foot and mouth disease. And there's an interesting rabbit hole here.
Speaker 1: This is like, you know how, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of small towns where they have the one thing that
Speaker 1: they're famous for. It like the one the festival, every festival,
Speaker 1: the particular type of macromain, whatever, the fourth largest frying pan,
Speaker 1: and so on, world's biggest Adirondack chair exactly. Koksacky is
Speaker 1: probably most well known for the Koksaki virus.
Speaker 3: I don't know if that's kind of a bummer. I
Speaker 3: don't know if it's the pr they want, that's the
Speaker 3: one they got. Sometimes you just got to make do
Speaker 3: uh well.
Speaker 1: Max is an interesting note here, you say, as of
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, Kokshaki's population is just north of eight thousand people,
Speaker 1: and there is quote no mention whether or not is
Speaker 1: the epicenter of the New York state pornography scene.
Speaker 3: Oh that's what they're That's what they're known for them.
Speaker 3: That could be their other thing. We're not sure yes
Speaker 3: or no. But wait wait, you can either confirm Nordon
Speaker 3: I confirmed Nordon nine. Yeah, but I'm dirty, dirty boy.
Speaker 3: I've been reading too much joy we just did that episode.
Speaker 3: Uh no, no, who can play?
Speaker 1: Do check out our James Joyce episode and also all
Speaker 1: of us also you guys, Maya Kulpa. I know I
Speaker 1: instant sometimes I instantly turned into like congressional investigator. I
Speaker 1: don't think that was necessary. It's like, so, mister Williams,
Speaker 1: you have an interesting notes here. How would you respond? Uh? Luckily, Luckily,
Speaker 1: these two conditions that we explored today are not fatal,
Speaker 1: and they are often going to go away on their own.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Small changes can help mitigate them. But that's not the story.
Speaker 1: With all the diseases, all the weird diseases, we're gonna
Speaker 1: cover more, I think in part two, because we're all
Speaker 1: having a lot of fun with this, we're gonna get
Speaker 1: to Ricketts, mumps, brain fever, and.
Speaker 3: I gotta tell you. I gotta tell you guys.
Speaker 1: Uh, one of my favorites for years and years years
Speaker 1: has been consumption, entirely because of Doc Holliday and Tombstone.
Speaker 2: I will be your Huckleberry Ben. Thank you for asking.
Speaker 2: It's I like a lot of these disease. I like
Speaker 2: a lot of these diseases. Y'all can quote me on that.
Speaker 2: The ones that are like band names. There's like the mumps,
Speaker 2: you know, the consumption, the flu even you know, but
Speaker 2: like I think it gives it a lot of weight
Speaker 2: and gravitaze. When you add to the to the beginning
Speaker 2: of oh.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Nobody says, like, well they did you say the common cold,
Speaker 2: but no one says the cold it's a cold flu. Yeah,
Speaker 2: But like there is what is it that determines whether
Speaker 2: something is worthy of getting a the You never say
Speaker 2: the rickets. You might say I got a case of
Speaker 2: the rickets, a case of the say the rickets?
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Ben, Do you guys have any theories
Speaker 2: about this? I'm intrigued.
Speaker 1: It's it's interesting because we see something similar. I can
Speaker 1: talk about how it happens in geography and geopolitics, Like
Speaker 1: you know, there are some places they're called the Gambia
Speaker 1: or the Ukraine.
Speaker 3: The Gambia. A lot of folks are moving away from
Speaker 3: that now.
Speaker 1: They don't care for it because, at least in the
Speaker 1: case of Ukraine, the argument is calling it the Ukraine
Speaker 1: seems to imply that it is just a region of
Speaker 1: another country.
Speaker 3: Like how you go to.
Speaker 1: Right, like how you go to the southwest or something,
Speaker 1: So I get that, but I don't think that's the
Speaker 1: same logic behind diseases. Maybe someone can help us with this,
Speaker 1: because honestly, I should have been looking this up, you guys,
Speaker 1: but instead I watched Tombstone and I went through list
Speaker 1: of doc holiday quotes.
Speaker 3: So that's on me. That's my bad.
Speaker 2: Well, a little bit of Tombstone trivia. I believe the
Speaker 2: guy that directed Tombstone is the father It might be
Speaker 2: not directed, it might be cinematographer, is the father of
Speaker 2: one of my current favorite weirdo directors, Panos Cosmotos behind
Speaker 2: the Beyond the Black Rainbow and Mandy and that awesome
Speaker 2: the visit, I believe is what it's called in the
Speaker 2: Goo Yamadultoro Cabinet of Curiosities. But yeah, his father I
Speaker 2: think directed Tombstone. Wow, John and breenco that's all I
Speaker 2: got about it. Just over your grave. Oh yeah, those
Speaker 2: are good, those are very quitable and uh and uh yeah,
Speaker 2: I think of al Kilmar did a really good job
Speaker 2: at portraying a man with the consumption exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed, agreed, And we hope that you have enjoyed
Speaker 1: this episode.
Speaker 3: Folks.
Speaker 1: Uh, this is coming to you hot fresh on a Thursday.
Speaker 1: We hope everybody has a good weekend. We will be
Speaker 1: back with more terrible real life diseases that we think
Speaker 1: have funny names.
Speaker 3: Thanks of course, mister.
Speaker 1: Max Williams, our super producer, our research associate. Thanks to
Speaker 1: Thanks to our own funny disease, Jonathan Strickland aka the
Speaker 1: Quist missed the heck out of him.
Speaker 3: The human stains. That's a book, isn't that? Bye bye Roth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one day, one day Jonathan might hear all these
Speaker 1: all these weird things we shout him out as at
Speaker 1: the end of episodes. I hope he doesn't get a
Speaker 1: compli compilation uh track of it, or maybe we should
Speaker 1: give it to him for you know. And into the
Speaker 1: year present. Thanks also to mister Alex Williams. Thanks to
Speaker 1: Alex Circa, we have an abundance of Alex's Alex i alexis.
Speaker 2: Indeed, Chris Rossiota is here and Spirit Jeff Coates and
Speaker 2: do please check out her new podcast called on Theme,
Speaker 2: which is a story about black storytelling in all its forms.
Speaker 1: Yes, thanks also to our pals over at Ridiculous Crime,
Speaker 1: Zarah and Elizabeth, producer Dave. Thanks to everyone for tuning
Speaker 1: in we can't wait to hang out and go find
Speaker 1: more ridiculous diseases. I've got to stop reading doc holiday quotes.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be coming in hot with a terrible
Speaker 1: holiday impression in the next episode.
Speaker 3: Ah, you do you, buddy, and we'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.