Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
Speaker 1: for tuning in. And let's give a shout out to
Speaker 1: our super producer, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2: Shout out big ups to Henry Kissinger. Yes, yes, you
Speaker 2: on the other side, buddy, I.
Speaker 1: Will reserve a public statement for the you know what,
Speaker 1: for the press conference.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say it.
Speaker 1: You know, old Brown, I've been bowling in a previous life.
Speaker 1: I had some international affairs stuff going on, So I
Speaker 1: tell you with some authority, Henry Kissinger is a war criminal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, just just just come in hot.
Speaker 2: I think you're right, and it's definitely something we're probably
Speaker 2: gonna talk about more in depth on the other show. Yes,
Speaker 2: we keep it a little breezier here on Ridiculous History.
Speaker 1: We're in person, we're hanging out. The energy is lovely.
Speaker 1: We hope this finds you happy and healthy, because this
Speaker 1: is part two of a very strange episode about diseases. Folks,
Speaker 1: check out part one and if you want to know
Speaker 1: the origin of this, have you ever read Old Medical
Speaker 1: Tree Disease or Old Like What Happens in like Transatlantic
Speaker 1: movies and stuff. Someone has a weird disease, right, it's made.
Speaker 2: Oh exactly, And I mean maybe got to go a
Speaker 2: little bit further back, and I'm thinking maybe like Golden
Speaker 2: age Hollywood type stuff where some kind of naval situation perhaps,
Speaker 2: or some pirates on the high seas, someone's not eating
Speaker 2: enough vitamin C. Perhaps the little vitamin D deficiency. Well
Speaker 2: we'll figure it out. But what is rickets. It's it's
Speaker 2: the D. This is not the curvy which we kind
Speaker 2: of lump those in together. But when you're not getting
Speaker 2: enough D, yeah, ladies, you get rickets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, rickets. As you pointed out, Max, it sounds like
Speaker 1: it might be somehow related to cricket. That is not
Speaker 1: that is not the actual thing. Rickets is a frankly
Speaker 1: terrifying disease. It's the softening and weakening of bones.
Speaker 2: Right, which makes sense, like in terms of the automotopia
Speaker 2: of it all. Like I just think of rickets like creaky,
Speaker 2: creaking bones, rickety cricket well from any right exactly. But
Speaker 2: like when I hear the word rickets, I think of
Speaker 2: brittleness for some reason. And we're gonna get to the
Speaker 2: etymology of it. But sometimes I just like to come
Speaker 2: in with, like what how does it make me feel?
Speaker 2: You know, right?
Speaker 1: I mean, this is it is true, here's the truth.
Speaker 1: Or I know someone who got scurvy the way they
Speaker 1: were not a sailor. They're just very unhealthy, just didn't
Speaker 1: eat enough lemons, so they.
Speaker 2: Just didn't eat vitamin sea somehow. By the way, many
Speaker 2: of these diseases we're talking about have kind of been eradicated, right,
Speaker 2: Like you don't really hear about people getting rickets.
Speaker 1: They've been skirtgated, okay, fair and mitigated, like.
Speaker 3: You know, with like the balanced diet, like you know,
Speaker 3: vitamin C is in so many things. Right, It's like,
Speaker 3: you know, I eat like, you know, those little like
Speaker 3: orange wedges gummies like every day because it's like, okay,
Speaker 3: now I have like five thousand.
Speaker 2: Yeah they are. It's actually shocking they're good for you.
Speaker 2: Like those emergency gummies, you know, airborne or whatever. You're
Speaker 2: supposed to eat three of them. They feel like they're
Speaker 2: just chalk full of sugar, and they probably are somehow,
Speaker 2: They're they're good for you.
Speaker 1: I snarfed. I don't keep those gummy multi vitamins in
Speaker 1: the house because I started treating them like a snack
Speaker 1: a movie. Yeah, and I just like you said. I
Speaker 1: I remember I was looking around. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I can have as many as I want because I'm
Speaker 1: just getting more.
Speaker 2: Twelve. God help you if you have really tasty melatonin
Speaker 2: gummies zombie walking through your life.
Speaker 1: So let's look at this. Oh hey, and we are
Speaker 1: joined with our returning guest, Alex. Circa big, big shout
Speaker 1: out to Alex. She can't hear us, So, Noel, now
Speaker 1: is the time you got any hot takes, you got
Speaker 1: anything you need to set the record straight on before
Speaker 1: she puts her headphones on.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 1: Oh she can't hear it. Okay, okay, let's never mind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there will not be a public statement at this time Alex.
Speaker 2: Yeah, about about Henry Kissinger, about Henry Kissinger or Alex sirka. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know what's funny though, Sorry to get off the track,
Speaker 2: but for a second, whenever a big, you know, largely
Speaker 2: looming figure like that passes away and you hear the
Speaker 2: especially one that's been you know, alive for one hundred years,
Speaker 2: and you hear the first tricklings of obituaries, you're like,
Speaker 2: they've had that in a file for years.
Speaker 1: The New York Times has probably the best obituary I've
Speaker 1: read so far, and I've read several Kissinger's books. No
Speaker 1: one's saying that he's unintelligent, but clearly they had that
Speaker 1: locked and loaded, and then they went back through and updated.
Speaker 2: Updated, exactly right. Yeah, And I think there have been
Speaker 2: instances in the past where some of those have been
Speaker 2: published early by mistake.
Speaker 1: Yes, that has happened. That has happened. As Mark Twain said,
Speaker 1: reports of deaths canna be greatly exaggerated. And we know
Speaker 1: that Kissinger did not pass away from Ricketts.
Speaker 2: Look at you like you're a segue ninja over here,
Speaker 2: slicing and dice and chopping it up. So I have,
Speaker 2: by the way, and I believe Super producer Max Williams
Speaker 2: have a vitamin D deficiency. Yeah. We were talking about
Speaker 2: it off Mike earlier and I literally was looking through
Speaker 2: my You know, nowadays they do everything digitally with doctors,
Speaker 2: and I saw a message from my doctor that I
Speaker 2: didn't notice. Uh, it just says you your vitamin D
Speaker 2: levels are severely low. I'm writing you a prescript for
Speaker 2: a supplement, so I take that like once a week.
Speaker 2: But I think largely in max and I conferred on
Speaker 2: this and think it's probably true. It's because we don't
Speaker 2: go outside, and well this look, I'll say it.
Speaker 1: I recognize the sun is somewhat important, but I feel
Speaker 1: like it insists upon itself, really does.
Speaker 2: I find it.
Speaker 1: Presumptuously pushes it pushes it just it's all anyway, rickets,
Speaker 1: You're right, I'm Vitamin D is important and rickets is
Speaker 1: a consequence of this deficiency. Now, we mentioned that this
Speaker 1: is most commonly seen in children, right, so if you
Speaker 1: are if you are not a child, you can still
Speaker 1: have a vitamin D deficiency, but because your skeletal structure
Speaker 1: is already more developed, you're not going to be as endangered.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Vitamin D Why does that matter to your bones? It
Speaker 1: helps your body absorb calcium and phosphorus from food. So
Speaker 1: if you don't have enough vitamin D, you're also going
Speaker 1: to have a really difficult time maintaining the amounts of
Speaker 1: phosphorus and calcium. And then you get rickets. Common symptoms
Speaker 1: delayed growth, delayed motor skills, pain and the spine, pelvis, legs,
Speaker 1: and muscle weakness. It's way less fun than the name
Speaker 1: makes it.
Speaker 2: Sound. You think rickets sounds fun.
Speaker 1: I feel like it sounds like a board game.
Speaker 2: I was about to jacks or something, you know, or
Speaker 2: like tiddleywinks. What the hell is tidle winks? Tidy winks?
Speaker 2: Was this way like POGs? I figured, no, but it's
Speaker 2: it's Jack's or Pog's adjacent. You throw things you got
Speaker 2: like a slammer. Yeah, remembers, did you ever have a slammer?
Speaker 2: Did you? Were you a pog guy? I?
Speaker 1: I was a pog enthusiast, but I didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of friends, so I didn't play it.
Speaker 2: I just collected nobody played it. I mean, okay, maybe
Speaker 2: that's not true. Maybe some guess I got the Wikipedia
Speaker 2: definition right here. Tillywinks is a game played on a
Speaker 2: flat felt matt with sets of small discs called winks,
Speaker 2: a pot the target, and a collection of squitchers, which
Speaker 2: are also disks. That's all I'm gonna give. Okay, Squidgers
Speaker 2: should be a disease, by the way, twitgers should be
Speaker 2: a disease.
Speaker 1: Tiddley winks very like a weird thing to for a
Speaker 1: disease to be named, Like, give it to me straight, doc.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Mister Bolden, you have you have the winks,
Speaker 1: the tity winks.
Speaker 2: Did we talk last episode about how some of these
Speaker 2: diseases maybe this was off my Some of these diseases
Speaker 2: are like they're given this kind of grandiose treatment by
Speaker 2: placing the in front of them. Some things don't get that.
Speaker 2: It's sort of like bands from the early aughts that
Speaker 2: was there was the period of indie music. But I
Speaker 2: think you can do that. You don't say the rickets though,
Speaker 2: you just say you have rickets, but you would say
Speaker 2: sometimes the mumps, or you could say just mumps. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's interchangeable. I don't know if there's any rules in
Speaker 2: this scenario. I'm picturing you shaming a child for having rickets.
Speaker 2: You're like, look, you're nine, you need to get it together.
Speaker 2: You have rickets, Nathan, I don't know why. Apologies to
Speaker 2: all the Nathans. It does sound like a child's game,
Speaker 2: though you're right.
Speaker 1: It also shout out to one of the weirdest, most
Speaker 1: lazy games of childhood, Yesteryear's pickup Sticks. Do you guys
Speaker 1: remember hearing.
Speaker 2: Somewhat Paul adjacent as well. Yeah, it involves sort of
Speaker 2: like smashing things and then picking them up, or like
Speaker 2: you have a pile perhaps, and then you throw another
Speaker 2: thing at them and they scatter and then you just
Speaker 2: it's kind of like a free for all. It's like
Speaker 2: a feeding frenzy. So just jump in here.
Speaker 3: How you make pickup sticks fun is you play law
Speaker 3: and darts at the same time.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm back in. Lawn darts are illegal. Lawn darts
Speaker 1: are illegal. Yeah, what happened to this country?
Speaker 2: Rickets? Yeah? Sorry, we're going all over the place. But
Speaker 2: that's that's how we do. It's kind of what the
Speaker 2: show is. Yeah. Yeah, if you stuck around this long,
Speaker 2: you probably get it. And if you don't, then we're sorry.
Speaker 2: Write a mean review on iTunes please, we'll read them
Speaker 2: on the air. Starting to do that for a while.
Speaker 2: I think we should write or write a nice review,
Speaker 2: write a nice one. We'll definitely read. We should start
Speaker 2: doing that. We love attention. What do you think? Yeah,
Speaker 2: let's give it. Let's give it a go.
Speaker 1: Let's let's we're not going to overpromise, but we're gonna
Speaker 1: let's give what's the.
Speaker 2: Word prostrate, Let's prostrate ourselves in front of our at
Speaker 2: the mercy of our kind listeners, Please write us nice reviews.
Speaker 2: It helps with the algorithm, they say it does.
Speaker 1: And you are the most important part of this show.
Speaker 2: Folks.
Speaker 1: We're so glad you're here. We hope you don't have
Speaker 1: any of these medical conditions because ricketts is interrelated with
Speaker 1: some other.
Speaker 2: Conditions, much like adema. Right, it can be as a
Speaker 2: symptom of a larger issue that can be much more severe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, cystic fibrosis, kidney problems, celiac disease, inflammatory.
Speaker 2: Bowel disease, which is that IBS.
Speaker 1: I'm you know, at what point does is the irritable
Speaker 1: bowel syndrome turn into At what point does the doctor say, look,
Speaker 1: I've been nice calling this a syndrome. Yeah, you have
Speaker 1: a disease, you have a serious your bud is on fire.
Speaker 1: But at what point does it go for being irritable
Speaker 1: to being inflammatory? Oh that's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just wondering. Is there like a spectrum for
Speaker 2: these things, you know the doctors? Is it like the
Speaker 2: thing where you point to the smiley face or frowny
Speaker 2: face depending on how bad your butt hurts?
Speaker 1: Okay, So I b S and ib D are per
Speaker 1: Chrome Colitis Foundation dot org. They're two distinct gastrointestinal disorders,
Speaker 1: though in our defense, the differences between the two can
Speaker 1: be confusing for many people. Says so right there, it says,
Speaker 1: so right there, We're absolved. We're absolved, go in piece,
Speaker 1: we're shriven.
Speaker 2: So this is though as simple as again, maybe I
Speaker 2: was overstating the case or being overly optimistic when I
Speaker 2: stay eradicated. But typically because of what we mentioned, the gummies,
Speaker 2: you know, the touch and grass of it all. You know,
Speaker 2: not a lot of people are going to be suffering
Speaker 2: from what you would call rickets, right, hopefully not.
Speaker 1: And despite the tremendous breakthroughs that have been made in
Speaker 1: medicine over the past decades and centuries, things like rickets
Speaker 1: can still stick around because of that continued you know,
Speaker 1: the reliance on vitamin D and the way people's bodies grow.
Speaker 1: But no matter what happens to rickets, hey, we'll always
Speaker 1: have the etymology.
Speaker 2: We will we will. We should talk about that, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, because again it was more of a a
Speaker 2: how does it hit you? How? What's the ear feel
Speaker 2: of it all? You know what I mean? I like
Speaker 2: that and it does of course, as some of the
Speaker 2: other ones that we talked about have sort of a
Speaker 2: I believe, sort of an Old English root.
Speaker 1: Yeah, according to a brief history of nutritional rickets, bang, Okay,
Speaker 1: the etymologies, I'm that happens all the time, especially in English.
Speaker 1: But there's a great word we learned from this. It
Speaker 1: most likely originates from a German mistake, Ricking.
Speaker 2: For confusing Old English with German. Oh come on, there's
Speaker 2: I think German is so aggressive. Yeah, and like the
Speaker 2: Old English is so little tea and sweet tea and
Speaker 2: all of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, rick that sounds like the name of a horror
Speaker 1: It translates to twisting.
Speaker 2: Oh remember that that icp insane clown possely adjacent group Twisted?
Speaker 1: I do How do you know about twisted?
Speaker 2: I'm a juggler, dude, Okay, hatch it man for I
Speaker 2: don't even know. No, I see, I've already failed by
Speaker 2: using I'm not using the nomenclature Hatchett. Isn't that as
Speaker 2: the little guy, the running guy with the axe, he's
Speaker 2: the hatchet man?
Speaker 1: Oh huh yeah, yeah, well he's deaf.
Speaker 2: I think so. I had not ICP Cassette. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: had the Great Malenko Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Before they came out as like a Christian band.
Speaker 2: What Yeah, I remember the Magnet thing is that the
Speaker 2: one is there Christian undertones and their discussion of Magnets.
Speaker 1: I think that's around the same time period.
Speaker 2: Magnets is a scientific display of God's love.
Speaker 1: I love the I also love the weird stream of consciousness,
Speaker 1: but I think it's shaggy too dopey. He self defeats.
Speaker 1: I don't know who are we to judge art.
Speaker 2: But they had a thing. But man, but he self defeats.
Speaker 2: He's like, uh, magnets, how do they work? And I
Speaker 2: don't want to talk to a scientist. You be lying
Speaker 2: and getting me pissed. So he recognizes there is a
Speaker 2: problem and he refuses a solution. Yeah, he doesn't want
Speaker 2: to know how magnets work. I respect that.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I had this treatise locked and loaded.
Speaker 2: I apologize, Well, clearly we've both been thinking a lot
Speaker 2: about the Insane and their adjacent Detroit music scene.
Speaker 1: Every time I'm slow on a text, man, I apologize,
Speaker 1: but I'm just deep in Malenco.
Speaker 2: Dude, I was. I put it on in the are
Speaker 2: with my kid recently, just for fun, and they like
Speaker 2: knew the lyrics. I guess you know, they're they're just
Speaker 2: so aware of so much culture that I just have
Speaker 2: no idea that they're aware of. And for whatever reason
Speaker 2: they did a little toe dipping in an insane clown
Speaker 2: posse and new the lyrics to a couple of the tunes.
Speaker 1: Well, also, I would argue as a hip hop head
Speaker 1: that to your point about rhyme ski it's not it's
Speaker 1: barely hip hop. It's not difficult to predict what they're
Speaker 1: going to say next.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there is really this little piggy. It's something
Speaker 2: something something Piggy Piggy. It's pretty funny. Man.
Speaker 1: So with that, with that, oh uh, we've got to
Speaker 1: go back to rickets, do we? So with with that,
Speaker 1: with that knowledge of jugglers, we do want to be
Speaker 1: fair Jugglo culture, juggal culture, thank you. We do want
Speaker 1: to be fair and say that we are not. We
Speaker 1: don't know their position on rickets at this time. They
Speaker 1: may be pro ricket. I hope they're not.
Speaker 2: But rickets is a good candidate for like a rhyme scheme.
Speaker 2: It's you can build a nice flow around rickets. Uh huh, crickets, Yeah,
Speaker 2: stick it, wicket stick it, damn sure. You know flip it,
Speaker 2: kick it, twist it, bop it. Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 1: That's we just yep, that's how they made that toy.
Speaker 2: Uh, Ricketts looks like a sex toy.
Speaker 1: By the way, Rickets must have been around for a
Speaker 1: really long time, right, but it didn't get described until
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century by these these two English physicians.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I knew the English had something to do with it.
Speaker 2: There they are. Yeah, Daniel Whistler not nothing to speak
Speaker 2: of his mother, right, Whistler's mother, it has to be
Speaker 2: the same. And Francis Glisten.
Speaker 1: Yeah, famous duo, the Holland Oats.
Speaker 2: Of their day. Don't don't mention hollandos I'm still bummed
Speaker 2: but that they hate each other, there's the restraining or
Speaker 2: so mad at each other. Dude, what happened.
Speaker 1: A lot of water under the bridge, I guess troubled
Speaker 1: troubled water. Then they need a bridge over that troubled war.
Speaker 1: But every relationship is a country all its own, you know,
Speaker 1: so hopefully those guys can patch it up. Look, these
Speaker 1: dudes who describe Ricketts are recognizing something that, again, has
Speaker 1: been around for a long long time. And if you
Speaker 1: look further back at the early Roman and Greek medical writing.
Speaker 1: You can see that they're describing something that is like,
Speaker 1: we're ninety nine percent.
Speaker 2: Sure they're talking about rickets. They just didn't have the name,
Speaker 2: that's right, they didn't. How could they have. We needed
Speaker 2: the Germans to help us with that one.
Speaker 1: We needed the Germans. And clearly the band Twisted is
Speaker 1: a reference twizzt it z t w i z t
Speaker 1: i D And they had the longless positive their hair
Speaker 1: and the little little twisties twisties. That's what they kind
Speaker 1: of like because they're twisted. They're twisted, I get it.
Speaker 1: And they basically wore the same ICP makeup, you know,
Speaker 1: and weird that's right, yeah, oh yeah, all right. They
Speaker 1: got from hot topic before that was even a thing.
Speaker 1: So this is strange the need for vitamin D because
Speaker 1: it's one of it's also one of the leading theories
Speaker 1: to explain how evolution affected the spectrum of skin color
Speaker 1: in human beings depending on where they were living, what
Speaker 1: part of the world they were in, and therefore how
Speaker 1: much or how little exposure they that to sunlight.
Speaker 2: It's like if your house is facing the wrong way,
Speaker 2: your house plants are always going to be wilty and
Speaker 2: sad looking like mine, which they buried that in the
Speaker 2: in the home inspection. Nobody tells you, bro, you don't
Speaker 2: get direct sunlight, your house plants are going to die
Speaker 2: every time.
Speaker 1: You're going to have to live and cactus life, you know.
Speaker 2: No, I did find out there's a nice window that
Speaker 2: does offer some slight, but I've realized how important it
Speaker 2: is and that that's actually we've talked to recently on
Speaker 2: stuff that I want you to know about photosynthesis and
Speaker 2: how important that is for you know, humans to live,
Speaker 2: and how what an amazing feat of nature that is
Speaker 2: literally the byproduct of this incredible process is what allows
Speaker 2: human beings to like survive or at least one of
Speaker 2: the things production of oxygen. But it's a great way
Speaker 2: to see what happens if you don't get enough light,
Speaker 2: you know, because we need light too as humans because
Speaker 2: we absorb these vitamins through light sunlight.
Speaker 1: So I hate to admit it, but you are correct.
Speaker 2: So it's called UVB. I believe availability. So seasonal like
Speaker 2: places like example for example, that like stay dark longer,
Speaker 2: should know there's gonna be that's exactly right. People are
Speaker 2: going to be more prone to that and there's evidence
Speaker 2: of this in archaeological records, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you can look through archaeological evidence from pre
Speaker 1: industrial Europe and you'll see that Rickets was having a moment.
Speaker 1: There are skeletal changes that are indicative of childhood Rickets
Speaker 1: or here's a new word for us today, adult osteo Malaysia.
Speaker 1: And you can see this in France, you can see
Speaker 1: in Italy, Roman, Dorset, North Yorkshire. It's it's all over
Speaker 1: the place. And hopefully we have with a couple of tangents, granted,
Speaker 1: hopefully we have made the case that even if you
Speaker 1: like me, hate and fear the sun, you should get
Speaker 1: out there. You gotta put yourself out there.
Speaker 2: Touch grass. You gotta touch the grass. Stop playing Breath
Speaker 2: of the Wild for a few minutes, just get out there.
Speaker 1: And speaking of segues, you know who were kind of
Speaker 1: the juggalos of their day, the California Raisins.
Speaker 2: Right, oh man, this is a banger that Max Road.
Speaker 2: So the California Raisins, right, So those first things first.
Speaker 2: The California raisins were a marketing invention by like the
Speaker 2: raisin lobby basically, right yeah, And they were initially the
Speaker 2: claymation in these commercials for literal California Raisins snacks, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: nature's candy. Raisins are bullshit, by the way I can
Speaker 2: handle them.
Speaker 1: They're grapes that are failures there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fail sun grapes, that's what they are. They're terrible.
Speaker 2: I told you right.
Speaker 1: One time I tried to make raisins as a kid.
Speaker 1: I took a bunch of grapes and I like, hid
Speaker 1: them behind a door in our basement.
Speaker 2: Work. No, it didn't and maybe and then you ate
Speaker 2: them and tripped balls psychoactive.
Speaker 1: So also, raisins always feels like the disappointing thing that's
Speaker 1: given to you, as though it's a tree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, how is it a brag that the box
Speaker 2: of raisin brands says it has more extra scoops scoops? Yeah?
Speaker 2: And how much Rabney rat turns are in there too? Listen.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, clearly, but you know what's funny is I
Speaker 2: think this was probably they needed something to raisins and
Speaker 2: make it like sexy for the kids, you know. So
Speaker 2: they have these claymation things. Max is putting them up
Speaker 2: on the screen and it's fabulous. I forgot you guys
Speaker 2: like to watch it? Why don't we play a brief yet?
Speaker 2: Let's play I don't think I think Big rays in
Speaker 2: a lettuce slide. Come on, guyslet's harmonize. I've been footed
Speaker 2: on the radio. You did it? I remember this one.
Speaker 2: There's like a is that guy a carrot? What is
Speaker 2: this weird? Is he a radish? Why is he white?
Speaker 2: He looks like I guess there are white carrots. Well,
Speaker 2: you know, he's a root vegetable sort. There's a guy
Speaker 2: in So to set the scene, this is a barn
Speaker 2: lounge concert venue. The Raisins were performing. That's filling.
Speaker 1: That's Buddy Mills actually singing.
Speaker 2: Is it really yep?
Speaker 1: And Buddy Miles excuse me? And I owned one of
Speaker 1: those little places at where they would you would turn
Speaker 1: it on and noise, and then I.
Speaker 2: Had a bendy army one. Yeah, I mean almost like
Speaker 2: a mister Potato had type situation. But anyways, so there
Speaker 2: was a cartoon, kids cartoon all this to say the
Speaker 2: max and the outline said the Mumps sound like a
Speaker 2: band that would have opened for the California reasons or
Speaker 2: just in general. I could see the Momps as being
Speaker 2: like a like a sixties girl group type psychedelic type band,
Speaker 2: you know, think of like the Zombies and the Mumps.
Speaker 2: What's Hermon's Hermits?
Speaker 1: What's that place in New York City, the famous punk venue.
Speaker 2: G Cbgb'sgb's, Like, yeah, there's even a band. There is
Speaker 2: a band called the Mummies. That's actually a really fun
Speaker 2: They dressed like mummies. But the momps, this one gets
Speaker 2: to the so therefore it immediately Sorry for all that
Speaker 2: California raisin stuff, but I think it was worth it.
Speaker 1: She's mumps, She's mumps. She's in my head, she is
Speaker 1: in my head.
Speaker 2: This is one that I believe has been largely eradicated
Speaker 2: because of vaccinations, which we'll get into in a minute.
Speaker 2: But the momps, according to the Mayo Clinic, as an
Speaker 2: illness caused by a virus, usually affects the glands on
Speaker 2: each side of the face, then cause them to swell.
Speaker 2: These glands, called peroted glands, make saliva, swollen glands, maybe
Speaker 2: tender or painful. Mumps are not common in the United
Speaker 2: States because of vaccines, So again, not eradicated, but largely mitigated.
Speaker 2: Like you said, Ben, there's a pretty funny plot line
Speaker 2: in the series Brooklyn ninety nine that involves the mumps,
Speaker 2: and they make a lot out of the fact that
Speaker 2: that swelling can also happen in the testicles. Ah, yes,
Speaker 2: you get enlarged, enlarged testes to take doing this with
Speaker 2: my hand, like vaguely hands, Yeah you know what I'm doing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I feel you, man, I got you back.
Speaker 1: This is also this reminds me of cat scratch fever,
Speaker 1: which is a real thing.
Speaker 2: I think kind of makes you like, do the cat's bidding?
Speaker 2: Basically that's toxic plasmic.
Speaker 1: Now I'm starting to think it might be more dangerous
Speaker 1: to have befriended these cats.
Speaker 2: They're not to be trusted, right so, but they're so interesting.
Speaker 2: They are interesting, but they don't give a no no.
Speaker 1: They are all gas, no breaks as far as how
Speaker 1: they treat humans. And I think we can befriend them,
Speaker 1: you know, but if they were the size of tigers
Speaker 1: your house cat.
Speaker 2: Would he When they're in chill mode though, they're a
Speaker 2: lot of fun. But when they're and don't give a mode,
Speaker 2: they they're pure chaos energy. They're unpredictable. But I have
Speaker 2: two of them. I love them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got two as well. Max has a cat
Speaker 1: will learn Alex's pet situation in due time.
Speaker 2: Hopefully it's not a pet cemetery type of things. Hopefully
Speaker 2: it's not a pet semestery dark book. That is a
Speaker 2: dark book. That's frightening. I really enjoyed it, very mean spirited.
Speaker 2: No wonder it lived in a drawer for as long
Speaker 2: as it did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was probably wondering, what will people think of me?
Speaker 1: Will they think that my mind is disease? Well, they
Speaker 1: think I'm a freaky weirdo. What you Steven, No, here's
Speaker 1: the issue with mumps. Here's why you gotta get vaccinated
Speaker 1: for it. This is it presents similar to the flu.
Speaker 1: In the beginning, You'll have fevers, you have headaches, muscle aches,
Speaker 1: you'll feel just kind of down. And it's not until
Speaker 1: later that the clear symptoms of mumps developed.
Speaker 2: The swelling. Yeah, that can be the glands below the
Speaker 2: floor of the mouth. I that I'm doing it with
Speaker 2: my tongue, so that's like literally the bottom and on
Speaker 2: either side, I think the basement of your mouth. That's right,
Speaker 2: that's right, the wine cellar there, it is of the
Speaker 2: of the head.
Speaker 1: And the problem with this is that because the disease
Speaker 1: has become pretty rare in a lot of countries that
Speaker 1: have implemented vaccination programs.
Speaker 2: Why is vaccination so controversial?
Speaker 1: I think it's the first it's controversial. Oh, we talked
Speaker 1: about this their book stuff.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe mandated anything medical is feels controversial.
Speaker 1: It will be also things like the the horrific actions
Speaker 1: of the tuskegeek.
Speaker 2: That's for sure. That's for sure. This I would argue
Speaker 2: that a non controversial vaccination. It's called MMR right, the mumps,
Speaker 2: measles and rebella. That's then they give that to kids.
Speaker 2: I remember the first shot I ever gotten. I think
Speaker 2: I wept openly, not not out of joy, out of terror.
Speaker 1: When I started hitting the road, Like when I went
Speaker 1: to live in Central America. That was one of the
Speaker 1: things that freaked me out just a little bit. I
Speaker 1: had a card like a yellow vaccination can't you remember those?
Speaker 1: And they had the list of the different things I
Speaker 1: had to get vaccinated for, and each one of them
Speaker 1: sounded like they were warning me that I would be
Speaker 1: in a terrible situation like okay, danghay fever, yellow fever.
Speaker 1: Where we at with mumps. They started naming diseases I
Speaker 1: neither I had neither heard of nor believed existed. You know,
Speaker 1: I was like, this doctor, is just freestyle.
Speaker 2: Dang gay fever is the one where you poop a lot? Right? Oh? Doc?
Speaker 2: I don't know because luckily I didn't get it. I
Speaker 2: think you get it from like tainted water. If I'm
Speaker 2: the mistake. I think it involves like really explosive diarrhea, okay,
Speaker 2: like dysentery. I think it's something like, oh, it's caused
Speaker 2: by it's.
Speaker 1: Caused by the danngay virus transmitted by mosquito.
Speaker 2: Oh okay. Oh man, oh that's that's that's a rough one,
Speaker 2: isn't it funny? How the stuff that's in tonic water quinine,
Speaker 2: it was like a very important malaria curet and imperfect. Yeah, man,
Speaker 2: I think about that when I drink quarter or two.
Speaker 2: It's probably why I don't drink too much of it. Now.
Speaker 2: No pooping and dan gay fever, well you're still pooping,
Speaker 2: also known though as break bone fever. Yeah, that's pretty intense. Center.
Speaker 1: That's intense, you know. And look, the mumps can be
Speaker 1: very intense. And because they are rare, if you have
Speaker 1: a suspected mumps situation in your life, you're supposed to
Speaker 1: tell the medical provider beforehand so they can prepare, which
Speaker 1: is kind of weird because can you imagine going to
Speaker 1: a hospital and say, okay, I'm sorry, I have the
Speaker 1: mumps or you know, my case as the mumps or something,
Speaker 1: and they say we're not ready for you.
Speaker 2: No, we need time, we need time. Just hold on.
Speaker 2: Good luck with your glands. Yeah seriously. Oh that's another
Speaker 2: good band. By the way, at Athens band they're called
Speaker 2: the Glands. Oh yeah, fun, fun name for a band.
Speaker 2: But this condition was first documented or written about as
Speaker 2: far back as the fifth century BCE by Hippocrates, the
Speaker 2: father of medicine, the Hippocratic oath. You might have heard
Speaker 2: of it, Do no harm? Is that part of it?
Speaker 1: That's part of it. And you know, like Ricketts, this
Speaker 1: has been around for a really long time. As Hippocrates
Speaker 1: describes it, he says, swelling appeared about in the years,
Speaker 1: and many on either side, and then the greatest number
Speaker 1: on both sides, which is, okay, it's weird, little redundantly, yeah,
Speaker 1: but he's trying to be specific, and he goes on
Speaker 1: to describe the way these things look disused.
Speaker 2: A lax large, diffused character without inflammation or pain. And
Speaker 2: they went away without any critical son. That doesn't sound
Speaker 2: so bad. No, it doesn't sound so bad.
Speaker 1: And we're actually all very fortunate because so many people
Speaker 1: get mumps vaccinations when they're kids. You know, you, if
Speaker 1: you're hearing this now, you probably have a mump's vaccination.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it happens so long ago that you might not remember.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I do remember distinctly being terrified it
Speaker 2: was the first shot because it was the one, it
Speaker 2: was the one all the kids get. And now I
Speaker 2: think maybe there are more, because there are some that are,
Speaker 2: you know, very like I think we you know, my
Speaker 2: ex wife, who I love dearly, and we're very close
Speaker 2: a little bit on the holistic hippiepe side, and so
Speaker 2: we I think we're a little selective about the vaccinations
Speaker 2: we got our kid, or we spaced them out, because
Speaker 2: I think one of the controversies is that there's concern
Speaker 2: if you like overload this kid, a young child's system
Speaker 2: and doom all at once, that it can potentially have
Speaker 2: some adverse events. Yeah, so I don't think we skipped any,
Speaker 2: but we definitely like spaced them out or something. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because you can't. They won't let you go to school
Speaker 2: if you get if you don't get some of these.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely, And again there's with good reason, because
Speaker 1: schools on the best days are just hotbeds vector disease
Speaker 1: and dirtiness. There's all kinds of strange poop getting in
Speaker 1: strange places, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I need to get that specific strange poop.
Speaker 2: Another banger of abandoned strange poop.
Speaker 1: Oh geez, let's talk about the etymology, no, Like, where
Speaker 1: does mumps come from?
Speaker 2: Well? I do love the expression. Mum's the word, you know,
Speaker 2: like like a hush, right mum. But then I also
Speaker 2: associate that with like the mummers in Old English culture,
Speaker 2: who are sort of they would do these like it
Speaker 2: was a it was a form of theater mumming. They
Speaker 2: would travel door to door.
Speaker 1: Yeah, door to the door, and they would do certain
Speaker 1: ritual skits or sketches or plays, and it is very
Speaker 1: common in uh in Ireland.
Speaker 2: That's right, And I believe Middle English era, right is
Speaker 2: when that was the thing. So we don't quite see
Speaker 2: a connection to that, but I believe they were silent
Speaker 2: in many ways. It was almost like mime. If I'm
Speaker 2: not mistaken, I'm wondering, you know, just you know, I
Speaker 2: always do this, and I'm usually wrong, or I'm like,
Speaker 2: I wonder if the atymology of this word has to
Speaker 2: do with this thing that it sounds like, and it
Speaker 2: usually doesn't, but in any case, it does come from
Speaker 2: one theory is fifteen sixties of her mum to make silence,
Speaker 2: to be silent. But then there's also a version of
Speaker 2: it that's mom, an inarticulate, closed mouth sound indicative of
Speaker 2: unwillingness or inability to speak, probably imitative as an ad
Speaker 2: there you go exactly, then as an adjective meaning secret
Speaker 2: or silent, from the fifteen twenties. Mum's the word again,
Speaker 2: of course, seventeen oh four. But also mumbull is kind
Speaker 2: of what you were doing, or the idea of speaking
Speaker 2: in a jumbled, muted kind of way. It's hard to discern,
Speaker 2: you know. So all these things do seem related. Mambolin,
Speaker 2: which is to eat in a slow, ineffective manner, or
Speaker 2: to talk with one's mouthful, which is like you know,
Speaker 2: marble mouth, kind of.
Speaker 1: Viral, right, right, right.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of different thoughts around this, and I
Speaker 2: don't quite see how you know what, No, it does
Speaker 2: make sense. Sorry, if you have swollen glands in your mouth,
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, that would cause you to be a
Speaker 2: little mumbly, yeah, mumbly. Okay. We also have some honorable
Speaker 2: mentions we wanted to get to. There are, as we
Speaker 2: said in the previous episode, there are a ton of
Speaker 2: very strange names for diseases, and a lot of these
Speaker 2: names are really funny and delightful, and the conditions are terrible.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking of things like one of my favorites. I
Speaker 2: just got to say it, one of my favorites, brain fever.
Speaker 2: I love, love love using brain fever in stories. I
Speaker 2: love mentioning it. I've tried to use it as an
Speaker 2: excuse to call in sick to work. I'm sorry, I
Speaker 2: couldn't possibly come in then I'm afflicted with brain fever.
Speaker 2: Yeah that was.
Speaker 1: That was before I shifted to just getting out of
Speaker 1: social obligations by saying I have become strange.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it becomes strange. So where are you not? Though? Thanks?
Speaker 2: And brain fever is when a it's a dated term.
Speaker 2: You see it a lot of Victorian literature, sort of
Speaker 2: a general term kind of too right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, part part of the brain becomes inflamed and causes.
Speaker 1: The idea was a cause of symptoms that present as
Speaker 1: a fever. I just want hallucinations, even right, hallucinations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's another one that we just have to mention. This
Speaker 1: is so weird. Maple syrup urine disease.
Speaker 2: This is new to me. It sounds I immediately am
Speaker 2: picturing Kevin Costner peeing into that thing in water World
Speaker 2: and then drinking it. Oh yeah, this is okay. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I don't want to conjure any images of you putting
Speaker 2: your own urine on pancakes. But I've done it. There,
Speaker 2: I've done it. Can't be taken back. Now what is
Speaker 2: maple syrup urin? Wait? Wait, let's go back to this.
Speaker 2: Why did you be on the pancakes because of the
Speaker 2: Because because it tastes like maple syrup. Oh I know, yeah, no, no,
Speaker 2: tell me I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: One of the symptoms is sweet smelling urine.
Speaker 2: Okay, but no one's necessarily gone so far as to
Speaker 2: taste it because that would be gross.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, Billions of people have lived and die.
Speaker 2: People just yeah, it's some holistic kind of.
Speaker 1: It's been used in some traditional foods in like North
Speaker 1: Africa and parts of China. Yeah, yeah, it's it's weird. Uh, everybody,
Speaker 1: look up centry eggs.
Speaker 2: So oh those are like are those the ones where
Speaker 2: like the fetus is still like almost fully butte terrified.
Speaker 2: I've I've terrified.
Speaker 1: I've eaten both and I will take ballute over centry eggs.
Speaker 2: An that's terrifying nightmare fuel to me.
Speaker 1: Oh excuse me, sorry, there, I am incorrect everybody. They're
Speaker 1: not called centry eggs. What I'm thinking of is I
Speaker 1: just have to be accurate here in all something called
Speaker 1: virgin boy eggs.
Speaker 2: Okay, would you like to turn back now? No? No, no, possibly?
Speaker 1: All right, So back in the day, these things are
Speaker 1: similar to centry eggs, but back in the day in
Speaker 1: parts of China, you would create these things by boiling
Speaker 1: eggs in the urine of young boys under the age
Speaker 1: of ten HONGI dam, they're called uh. And you know,
Speaker 1: we always say we don't want to judge or yuck
Speaker 1: someone's yum. But at a certain point, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: have to say no.
Speaker 2: I gotta say though, Man century eggs I'm intrigued by.
Speaker 2: They look kind of good, and it says they have
Speaker 2: a rich and indulgent mouth feel and a custardy sweetness
Speaker 2: and earthy notes. And they look like a damn geode. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like those you know those by say did crystal things?
Speaker 2: You didn't like them? No? I didn't. I did not.
Speaker 2: You didn't need the boy you'urine ones though? No, no,
Speaker 2: no, no no, it seems like that wouldn't go over so
Speaker 2: well today. Yeah, how do you go about collecting this ingredients?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, how many questions that Facebook marketplace post
Speaker 1: has got to be on a couple of government lists.
Speaker 1: But so, maple syrup urine disease is a genetic disorder.
Speaker 1: It starts in childhood. It can lead to all sorts
Speaker 1: of terrible things up to an including death if it's
Speaker 1: not treated. So don't again, don't let the nice name
Speaker 1: fool you folks.
Speaker 2: Does sound pleasant?
Speaker 1: It sounds you know what, there's maybe if we have time,
Speaker 1: let's talk about one more. Paris syndrome.
Speaker 2: That sounds okay, it sounds fancy.
Speaker 1: Paris syndrome. I when I first heard about it, I
Speaker 1: thought it was the plot of like a Hallmark movie,
Speaker 1: sure or something, you know, But it turns out you've.
Speaker 2: Got mail right exactly. Or forget Paris. That's the one
Speaker 2: I'm thinking with Billy Christ.
Speaker 1: This is not a physical condition. This is a mental condition.
Speaker 1: Because you know, you've been to Paris. It's a beauty well,
Speaker 1: parts of it are beautiful. The culture is amazing, and
Speaker 1: everybody around the world who is not French tends to
Speaker 1: have a kind of rose colored glasses idea sure of
Speaker 1: what Paris is. The problem is, turns out, a lot
Speaker 1: of tourists over the years save up their whole lives.
Speaker 1: They want to take this trip to Paris. They get
Speaker 1: there and they meet the actual Paris and it's not
Speaker 1: what they expected. You know, it's definitely a modern city.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of noise, very crowded. Like any city,
Speaker 1: there are going to be some rude people. Apparently this
Speaker 1: affects some people so much, this discrepancy, that they get
Speaker 1: Paris syndrome. They get disoriented, they get shocked, and feelings
Speaker 1: of persecution, and sometimes they hallucinate.
Speaker 2: Cool, Oh you're in good. Hallucine is fun every now
Speaker 2: and again. Have you heard of Stendall syndrome?
Speaker 1: Stendall what is it?
Speaker 2: What is it? Stendall syndrome, also known as Florence syndrome,
Speaker 2: is a kind of a psychosomatic condition where you are
Speaker 2: overcome and often even compelled to hallucinate by being exposed
Speaker 2: to beautiful works of art. Oh okay, And there's actually
Speaker 2: a Dario Argento film, the Italian Giallo kind of creator
Speaker 2: of sort of the slasher Italian slasher film genre, called
Speaker 2: Stendall Syndrome where this actually is a big plot point.
Speaker 2: And I think we talked about it actually on a
Speaker 2: strange news episode of Stuff they Don't Want you to
Speaker 2: Know recently, where you there was a supposedly a woman
Speaker 2: who was an orgasm during a symphony and there's you know,
Speaker 2: tape of the sound of this person in ecstasy, and
Speaker 2: it was conjecture that this could potentially have been that,
Speaker 2: or it could just been someone getting diddled, you know,
Speaker 2: in a symphony. Maybe it was Lauren Bobert. There we go, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and with this, we're gonna we're gonna call it in folks.
Speaker 2: There's so many, so many different things could have gone on.
Speaker 1: We could have gone on, but at the end, I
Speaker 1: suspect we would have started making up our own conditions.
Speaker 2: Who knows, we didn't. Who know, who's to say, probably
Speaker 2: a doctor. Thanks as always to our super producer, mister
Speaker 2: Max Williams the doctor listening to this show thanks to
Speaker 2: I hope so, but doctor, what that's the question actly?
Speaker 2: Thanks to our returning guest to Alex Sirka, Alex, how
Speaker 2: do we do? That's always amazing? Learned so much good, good,
Speaker 2: glad to hear. A huge thanks to Alex Williams who
Speaker 2: composed our theme. Christophrasiotis here a spirit? Eves, Jeff cot
Speaker 2: Uh all the hits Ben Thanks to you man. This
Speaker 2: is a fun two part I'm glad we glad we
Speaker 2: traveled down this road together.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that we got vaccinated.
Speaker 2: Me too. We'll see you next time. Books. For more
Speaker 2: podcast from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.