1 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:05,840 Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 2 00:00:05,880 --> 00:00:14,319 Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 3 00:00:14,360 --> 00:00:17,160 Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 4 00:00:17,160 --> 00:00:20,159 Speaker 1: And today we're going to be exploring a topic in 5 00:00:20,200 --> 00:00:24,639 Speaker 1: the history of epidemiology and medicine and uh and a 6 00:00:24,680 --> 00:00:29,280 Speaker 1: precursor to modern germ theory. Yes, we're talking about me 7 00:00:29,440 --> 00:00:32,440 Speaker 1: asthma theory, which this is. This is something that has 8 00:00:32,560 --> 00:00:35,600 Speaker 1: has long fascinated me just as a if nothing else, 9 00:00:35,640 --> 00:00:39,159 Speaker 1: just as an idea that I'm just struck by this 10 00:00:39,440 --> 00:00:43,159 Speaker 1: vision of bad air rising up out of some Gothic 11 00:00:43,240 --> 00:00:47,840 Speaker 1: cemetery and uh, and in fearful humans running for their 12 00:00:47,920 --> 00:00:51,640 Speaker 1: lives to avoid that air touching them and turning them 13 00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:54,360 Speaker 1: into Google's or something. You know. Yeah, So, if you're 14 00:00:54,400 --> 00:00:58,200 Speaker 1: not familiar with this, uh, this long running hypothesis in 15 00:00:58,320 --> 00:01:00,760 Speaker 1: human history, I think we should set the scene for 16 00:01:00,920 --> 00:01:03,400 Speaker 1: you at the time of the Black Death in Europe. 17 00:01:03,880 --> 00:01:07,080 Speaker 1: All right, let's go there, Okay, bring bring them out. 18 00:01:07,160 --> 00:01:10,800 Speaker 1: So in the late thirteen forties, the first outbreak of 19 00:01:10,840 --> 00:01:13,360 Speaker 1: the Black Death fell on Europe, and it was I 20 00:01:13,400 --> 00:01:15,880 Speaker 1: think we can say, without a doubt the greatest human 21 00:01:15,920 --> 00:01:19,040 Speaker 1: disaster that had ever come to the continent, right. Uh. 22 00:01:19,080 --> 00:01:22,360 Speaker 1: Somewhere between a third and two thirds of the entire 23 00:01:22,480 --> 00:01:28,040 Speaker 1: population died. Communities and entire towns were depopulated. People didn't 24 00:01:28,080 --> 00:01:30,319 Speaker 1: know what to do with all of the dead and 25 00:01:30,440 --> 00:01:33,520 Speaker 1: dying people around them, And perhaps the worst part was 26 00:01:33,959 --> 00:01:37,120 Speaker 1: nobody knew what caused it. Now, when we have a 27 00:01:37,360 --> 00:01:40,240 Speaker 1: you know, a pandemic, at least we can we feel 28 00:01:40,319 --> 00:01:43,720 Speaker 1: like we have some sense of control, you know, I mean, 29 00:01:43,959 --> 00:01:47,640 Speaker 1: just many people can still die from pandemics, but you 30 00:01:47,680 --> 00:01:51,640 Speaker 1: can understand, Okay, there there is an organism causing this disease. 31 00:01:51,800 --> 00:01:54,920 Speaker 1: Maybe medical science can do something about it. We're working 32 00:01:54,920 --> 00:01:57,080 Speaker 1: on the problem. But at the time, you just you 33 00:01:57,120 --> 00:02:00,920 Speaker 1: had a limited understanding of how us a disease work, 34 00:02:01,200 --> 00:02:04,280 Speaker 1: and beyond that you would have to term to supernatural 35 00:02:04,280 --> 00:02:08,520 Speaker 1: explanations or perhaps the appearance of of knotted rats in 36 00:02:08,600 --> 00:02:11,560 Speaker 1: the ruins of the house, that sort of thing. Yeah, 37 00:02:11,919 --> 00:02:14,600 Speaker 1: you know, Actually, what might be worse than people not 38 00:02:14,720 --> 00:02:18,120 Speaker 1: knowing what caused the plague was that many people thought 39 00:02:18,200 --> 00:02:20,480 Speaker 1: they knew, and almost all of them were wrong. A 40 00:02:20,560 --> 00:02:23,320 Speaker 1: little knowledge is a dangerous thing, right, Yeah, So, as 41 00:02:23,360 --> 00:02:26,200 Speaker 1: you might expect, some people simply chalk the disease up 42 00:02:26,440 --> 00:02:30,200 Speaker 1: to magical punishments sent by God. So in thirteen forty nine, 43 00:02:30,560 --> 00:02:33,919 Speaker 1: Archbishop Zusch of York wrote an open letter to his 44 00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:37,400 Speaker 1: diocese that read as follows quote, there can be no 45 00:02:37,480 --> 00:02:40,480 Speaker 1: one who does not know, since it is now public knowledge, 46 00:02:40,760 --> 00:02:45,040 Speaker 1: how great mortality, pestilence, and infection of the air are 47 00:02:45,080 --> 00:02:48,880 Speaker 1: now threatening various parts of the world, and especially England. 48 00:02:49,160 --> 00:02:51,880 Speaker 1: And this is surely caused by the sins of men who, 49 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:55,480 Speaker 1: while enjoying good times, forget that such things are the 50 00:02:55,520 --> 00:02:58,160 Speaker 1: gifts of the most high giver. Now, one could be 51 00:02:58,200 --> 00:03:00,960 Speaker 1: optimistic and say, well, we don't think that anymore, but 52 00:03:01,760 --> 00:03:07,440 Speaker 1: I still see frequent eclips from television shows of of 53 00:03:07,440 --> 00:03:12,639 Speaker 1: of individuals speaking to their congregation, for instance, and saying, oh, well, 54 00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:16,160 Speaker 1: clearly this is because of our sin, either this disease 55 00:03:16,200 --> 00:03:19,639 Speaker 1: outbreak or this natural disaster. Clearly this is the reason 56 00:03:19,680 --> 00:03:22,800 Speaker 1: that we are suffering. But that's kind of a side tension. Now. 57 00:03:22,880 --> 00:03:25,760 Speaker 1: I think you're going to have two persistent facts throughout 58 00:03:25,840 --> 00:03:28,440 Speaker 1: history and continuing into the future. One is the fact 59 00:03:28,520 --> 00:03:32,160 Speaker 1: that you know, great calamities befall humankind, and the other 60 00:03:32,280 --> 00:03:34,960 Speaker 1: is the fact that people are always doing something that 61 00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:38,440 Speaker 1: other people don't like, and so anytime people can connect 62 00:03:38,480 --> 00:03:41,640 Speaker 1: the two, they're gonna try, right. And then also this 63 00:03:41,640 --> 00:03:47,360 Speaker 1: this comment, this this confusion of teleological explanations and causitive explanations, right, 64 00:03:48,280 --> 00:03:53,000 Speaker 1: trying to explain why this happened, why this, uh, this, 65 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:56,880 Speaker 1: this calamity occurred based on a cause and effect scenario, 66 00:03:57,200 --> 00:04:00,600 Speaker 1: and then also trying to work it into your worldview 67 00:04:00,600 --> 00:04:04,960 Speaker 1: in which there is some sort of divine infrastructure in place. Yeah. 68 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:07,200 Speaker 1: But then, of course, even at the time you had 69 00:04:07,240 --> 00:04:09,800 Speaker 1: some people who tried to come in with their idea 70 00:04:09,880 --> 00:04:12,080 Speaker 1: of a scientific explanation. They wanted to get to the 71 00:04:12,160 --> 00:04:16,040 Speaker 1: root cause, right. So in thirteen forty eight, King Philip 72 00:04:16,080 --> 00:04:18,599 Speaker 1: the sixth of France wanted to get to the bottom 73 00:04:18,600 --> 00:04:21,760 Speaker 1: of what was causing the terrible disaster. So he gathered 74 00:04:21,839 --> 00:04:25,080 Speaker 1: the most learned scholars of the medical faculty of the 75 00:04:25,160 --> 00:04:29,040 Speaker 1: University of Paris, and he charged them with explaining the 76 00:04:29,040 --> 00:04:31,960 Speaker 1: origins of the great death and coming up with solutions 77 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:34,799 Speaker 1: to fight it. They came back to him with an answer. 78 00:04:35,360 --> 00:04:40,400 Speaker 1: On March twenty five, at about one o'clock in the afternoon, 79 00:04:40,760 --> 00:04:46,480 Speaker 1: something crucial and devastating had happened Mars Jupiter and Saturn 80 00:04:46,600 --> 00:04:51,200 Speaker 1: all lined up in conjunction within the House of Aquarius, 81 00:04:51,240 --> 00:04:54,680 Speaker 1: and this event heralded exactly what France was undergoing at 82 00:04:54,680 --> 00:04:57,960 Speaker 1: the time, because the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn was 83 00:04:58,040 --> 00:05:01,240 Speaker 1: known to cause death and calamity. The conjunction of Jupiter 84 00:05:01,320 --> 00:05:05,200 Speaker 1: and Mars was known to bring a pestilence on the wind, 85 00:05:05,480 --> 00:05:08,839 Speaker 1: and here you were getting both conjunctions at the same time. 86 00:05:09,360 --> 00:05:12,640 Speaker 1: In the words of the historian Old Age Jurgen Benedicto 87 00:05:12,720 --> 00:05:15,839 Speaker 1: in his book The Black Death thirteen to thirteen fifty 88 00:05:15,880 --> 00:05:20,720 Speaker 1: three quote. In this astrological theory of epidemiology, Jupiter was 89 00:05:20,760 --> 00:05:24,520 Speaker 1: assumed to be warm and humid and to draw malignant 90 00:05:24,640 --> 00:05:28,560 Speaker 1: vapors both from the ground and from water, while Mars 91 00:05:28,680 --> 00:05:31,480 Speaker 1: was assumed to be hot and dry and therefore had 92 00:05:31,520 --> 00:05:36,120 Speaker 1: the capacity to kindle such malignant vapors into infective fire. 93 00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:40,480 Speaker 1: So they're postulating a cause and effect. The planets lined up, 94 00:05:41,080 --> 00:05:44,279 Speaker 1: and that did something to the Earth that caused these 95 00:05:44,279 --> 00:05:48,440 Speaker 1: infective vapors to appear, and this was what was causing 96 00:05:48,440 --> 00:05:54,280 Speaker 1: the plague. Uh so so so basically situations were astrologically 97 00:05:54,480 --> 00:05:58,600 Speaker 1: just right to draw some sort of disease causing vapor 98 00:05:59,120 --> 00:06:01,480 Speaker 1: out of the bowels the Earth. Right, So notice how 99 00:06:01,560 --> 00:06:03,479 Speaker 1: under this theory there's really not much you can do 100 00:06:03,560 --> 00:06:05,800 Speaker 1: to stop the spread of the disease. Yeah, you can't 101 00:06:05,880 --> 00:06:10,440 Speaker 1: change the the movement of the spheres. That can't eradicate 102 00:06:10,520 --> 00:06:13,120 Speaker 1: the sickness living in the earth. You just left to 103 00:06:13,120 --> 00:06:15,880 Speaker 1: suffer whatever occurs. Yeah, this is even worse than like 104 00:06:15,920 --> 00:06:18,799 Speaker 1: the theological judgment, right, because at least in that case 105 00:06:18,839 --> 00:06:21,240 Speaker 1: you'd think, well, maybe we can pray and petition God 106 00:06:21,279 --> 00:06:23,600 Speaker 1: to not do this to us anymore. Right, you can 107 00:06:23,640 --> 00:06:27,680 Speaker 1: appeal to God, you can't appeal to the clockwork movements 108 00:06:27,760 --> 00:06:29,719 Speaker 1: of the of the solar system. Right. It is a 109 00:06:29,920 --> 00:06:35,800 Speaker 1: is a pitiless astrological verdict. But but also despite being 110 00:06:35,880 --> 00:06:39,400 Speaker 1: a death by pure active fate, Benedictive notes that since 111 00:06:39,480 --> 00:06:42,600 Speaker 1: this theory entailed the more proximate cause of the disease 112 00:06:42,640 --> 00:06:45,680 Speaker 1: to be something more in the form of malignant vapors 113 00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:49,320 Speaker 1: rather than just straight up curse from God, some thought 114 00:06:49,360 --> 00:06:52,360 Speaker 1: that they could help avoid the disease by avoiding those 115 00:06:52,400 --> 00:06:55,760 Speaker 1: malignant vapors. So, like the planets cause the Earth to 116 00:06:55,960 --> 00:06:59,480 Speaker 1: release malignant vapors, or release malignant vapors on the Earth, 117 00:06:59,480 --> 00:07:02,040 Speaker 1: So if you can just avoid breathing this stuff in 118 00:07:02,160 --> 00:07:05,599 Speaker 1: or being exposed to it, then you can avoid the plague. 119 00:07:06,160 --> 00:07:09,240 Speaker 1: So just don't go to places where they're bad smells, 120 00:07:09,400 --> 00:07:12,760 Speaker 1: and therefore you might avoid the particular bad smells that 121 00:07:12,800 --> 00:07:16,320 Speaker 1: cause disease. Yes, and so this was a thing that 122 00:07:16,600 --> 00:07:21,080 Speaker 1: you see throughout history, the linking of disease with foul 123 00:07:21,160 --> 00:07:26,080 Speaker 1: smelling objects and things like filth and rotting organic matter, 124 00:07:26,760 --> 00:07:30,120 Speaker 1: which in itself, this kind of avoidance behavior may have 125 00:07:30,240 --> 00:07:33,760 Speaker 1: sometimes helped people avoid infection, though not necessarily for the 126 00:07:33,800 --> 00:07:37,280 Speaker 1: reasons they believed. Now, of course, we know today that 127 00:07:37,320 --> 00:07:41,080 Speaker 1: the Black Death was caused by infectious disease caused by germs. 128 00:07:41,160 --> 00:07:44,320 Speaker 1: In fact, there is actually still an interesting debate. Almost 129 00:07:44,320 --> 00:07:46,520 Speaker 1: all scientists, I think, agree that the Black Death was 130 00:07:46,560 --> 00:07:50,560 Speaker 1: caused by bubonic plague or your Cinea pestis, but there 131 00:07:50,560 --> 00:07:53,320 Speaker 1: have been some rival hypotheses in the past few decades 132 00:07:53,320 --> 00:07:55,240 Speaker 1: that it was something else, like maybe some kind of 133 00:07:55,320 --> 00:07:58,680 Speaker 1: viral hemorrhagic fever. Uh, and that topic might be worth 134 00:07:58,720 --> 00:08:00,960 Speaker 1: a look on its own for a different episodes. And yeah, 135 00:08:01,040 --> 00:08:05,240 Speaker 1: well there's always room to discuss more death. But the 136 00:08:05,280 --> 00:08:08,480 Speaker 1: confusion over the cause of the outbreak contu it really 137 00:08:08,840 --> 00:08:11,360 Speaker 1: it caused this sense of horror and despair, and many 138 00:08:11,400 --> 00:08:14,679 Speaker 1: writers of the time, like Petrarch has all this great 139 00:08:14,720 --> 00:08:17,960 Speaker 1: plague poetry is just about like, oh, how much worse 140 00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:20,640 Speaker 1: can things get? Is just going on and on lamenting. 141 00:08:20,960 --> 00:08:23,360 Speaker 1: I don't know why I sound like that, Like I'm 142 00:08:23,800 --> 00:08:26,160 Speaker 1: like calling him out for lamenting the plague. I mean 143 00:08:26,160 --> 00:08:29,720 Speaker 1: the plague was really awful. Uh, there there was sometimes 144 00:08:29,760 --> 00:08:33,320 Speaker 1: there were more bodies than anybody could figure out where 145 00:08:33,320 --> 00:08:35,360 Speaker 1: to put them, and so like to bring out your 146 00:08:35,400 --> 00:08:40,680 Speaker 1: dead scenario is literally mirroring things that happened in the past. 147 00:08:41,320 --> 00:08:43,560 Speaker 1: But I want to take you to another setting during 148 00:08:43,640 --> 00:08:47,520 Speaker 1: the Black Death of the forties, that of Catholic Pope 149 00:08:47,600 --> 00:08:50,440 Speaker 1: Clement the Six, who was living in Avignon at the time. 150 00:08:50,640 --> 00:08:52,360 Speaker 1: Now you might wonder, wait a minute, why is the 151 00:08:52,360 --> 00:08:55,280 Speaker 1: Pope living in Avignon. Shouldn't he be, you know, at 152 00:08:55,280 --> 00:08:58,880 Speaker 1: the Vatican. Shouldn't be at Rome For some complicated political 153 00:08:58,960 --> 00:09:01,719 Speaker 1: reasons having to do with the French monarchy. There were 154 00:09:01,720 --> 00:09:04,320 Speaker 1: several popes in the fourteenth century who lived in Avignon, 155 00:09:05,240 --> 00:09:07,960 Speaker 1: and so he so Pope Clement the Six was pope 156 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:11,160 Speaker 1: from thirteen forty two until his death in thirteen fifty two, 157 00:09:11,240 --> 00:09:13,920 Speaker 1: which means he was pope when the first large outbreak 158 00:09:13,960 --> 00:09:16,720 Speaker 1: of black death hit hit Europe in thirteen forty eight, 159 00:09:16,960 --> 00:09:19,640 Speaker 1: and he was notable for granting remission of sins to 160 00:09:19,720 --> 00:09:22,960 Speaker 1: those who died of the plague. But he himself survived 161 00:09:22,960 --> 00:09:27,520 Speaker 1: the plague. So what did he do? Well? Clement consulted 162 00:09:27,559 --> 00:09:31,160 Speaker 1: his surgeons and he wanted to know what's what's what's 163 00:09:31,200 --> 00:09:34,560 Speaker 1: the plan? Okay, give me a strategy. And because many 164 00:09:34,640 --> 00:09:38,400 Speaker 1: experts believed the bad air was to blame, they recommended, 165 00:09:38,640 --> 00:09:41,440 Speaker 1: for example, fleeing to the mountains or somewhere else with 166 00:09:41,559 --> 00:09:44,360 Speaker 1: pure air. But if you're pope, you can't just run 167 00:09:44,400 --> 00:09:46,800 Speaker 1: off in the wilderness, can you. So instead, on the 168 00:09:46,840 --> 00:09:51,040 Speaker 1: advice of his surgeons, Clement barricaded himself inside his palace 169 00:09:51,080 --> 00:09:56,520 Speaker 1: in Avignon and sat surrounded by torches and fires, constantly 170 00:09:56,559 --> 00:09:59,960 Speaker 1: burning fires under the belief that fire would somehow clear 171 00:10:00,120 --> 00:10:03,640 Speaker 1: en or purify the air. It would get these bad 172 00:10:03,760 --> 00:10:06,640 Speaker 1: vapors out of it. And whether or not the method 173 00:10:06,679 --> 00:10:09,520 Speaker 1: had anything to do with it, Clement survived the plague. Huh. 174 00:10:10,040 --> 00:10:12,280 Speaker 1: And it's kind of ironic to given that the first 175 00:10:13,360 --> 00:10:15,800 Speaker 1: bit of advice go into the middle of nowhere. It's 176 00:10:15,880 --> 00:10:19,880 Speaker 1: probably pretty good advice as well, assuming that this was 177 00:10:19,880 --> 00:10:22,400 Speaker 1: was definitely a case of ubonic plague, that it was 178 00:10:22,440 --> 00:10:27,760 Speaker 1: the fleas on rats that are living in a cramped 179 00:10:27,840 --> 00:10:30,960 Speaker 1: urban environment. Yeah, it would make sense to become a 180 00:10:31,040 --> 00:10:33,760 Speaker 1: hermit pope in the woods. But I love this idea 181 00:10:33,920 --> 00:10:36,360 Speaker 1: that this is an amazing image the Pope of Fire, 182 00:10:36,880 --> 00:10:40,400 Speaker 1: the hermit Pope of fire, barricaded in his castle, surrounded 183 00:10:40,400 --> 00:10:43,480 Speaker 1: by fire at all times, sitting locked in this flaming 184 00:10:43,520 --> 00:10:48,240 Speaker 1: court because he's essentially making his court mars right, his 185 00:10:48,240 --> 00:10:51,800 Speaker 1: his his his environment is the mars that is burning 186 00:10:51,800 --> 00:10:55,800 Speaker 1: away the vapors that would otherwise invade his, his abode, 187 00:10:55,880 --> 00:10:57,960 Speaker 1: and his body. Yeah, So for the rest of the 188 00:10:57,960 --> 00:11:01,040 Speaker 1: episode today, we're going to be exploring this idea of 189 00:11:01,160 --> 00:11:04,040 Speaker 1: the mi asthma hypothesis, or as it's often called, me 190 00:11:04,120 --> 00:11:07,839 Speaker 1: asthma theory. We just recently had some discussions online about 191 00:11:07,960 --> 00:11:10,800 Speaker 1: use of the word theory and hypothesis, so I'm sure 192 00:11:10,840 --> 00:11:13,600 Speaker 1: it's not possible to to do it always right here, 193 00:11:13,679 --> 00:11:16,520 Speaker 1: but but it's often called me asthma theory, even though 194 00:11:16,559 --> 00:11:20,640 Speaker 1: it's not a very well evidence theory. All right, well, 195 00:11:20,720 --> 00:11:23,280 Speaker 1: let's let's let's jump into the ne asthma. Let us 196 00:11:23,320 --> 00:11:26,400 Speaker 1: allow the mi asthma to roll over us and and 197 00:11:26,440 --> 00:11:28,960 Speaker 1: hopefully it won't turn us inside out or anything. Okay, 198 00:11:29,040 --> 00:11:32,000 Speaker 1: oh yeah, that fog. Just one sniff of that fog 199 00:11:32,040 --> 00:11:34,280 Speaker 1: and your inside out. You know, I could, I couldn't help, 200 00:11:34,280 --> 00:11:36,960 Speaker 1: but think of our various fictions about fogs that turn 201 00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:40,840 Speaker 1: you inside out, or or fogs that contain either space 202 00:11:40,920 --> 00:11:44,760 Speaker 1: monsters or pirate zombies. Uh. We have a lot of 203 00:11:45,760 --> 00:11:52,520 Speaker 1: interesting cultural ideas about the dangers of of strange gaseous 204 00:11:52,520 --> 00:11:55,959 Speaker 1: bodies moving into our habitats. Well, there are good reasons 205 00:11:56,000 --> 00:11:58,880 Speaker 1: to be afraid of fog, well, some types of fog. 206 00:11:58,920 --> 00:12:01,680 Speaker 1: I mean, there was like the Great smog that killed 207 00:12:01,720 --> 00:12:04,560 Speaker 1: so many people in London. That's just through you know, 208 00:12:04,679 --> 00:12:07,800 Speaker 1: breathing bad particulates and stuff. But also of course it's 209 00:12:07,800 --> 00:12:09,839 Speaker 1: a driving hazard and all that. I guess these are 210 00:12:09,880 --> 00:12:12,520 Speaker 1: features of the modern world, not that's the medieval world. 211 00:12:12,559 --> 00:12:14,280 Speaker 1: And if we're talking about the modern world, you also 212 00:12:14,320 --> 00:12:17,400 Speaker 1: have to consider the Great War, World War One, in 213 00:12:17,440 --> 00:12:23,400 Speaker 1: which we weaponized various gaseous agents, mastering this chemistry of death, uh, 214 00:12:23,640 --> 00:12:27,560 Speaker 1: to to create a very real sort of miasma that 215 00:12:27,600 --> 00:12:31,040 Speaker 1: would roll in and just feel you're dead in horrific ways. 216 00:12:31,080 --> 00:12:35,560 Speaker 1: It's almost like, right after miasthma theory became obsolete, we 217 00:12:35,600 --> 00:12:39,839 Speaker 1: started actually creating real miasmas. But we're getting ahead of 218 00:12:39,880 --> 00:12:42,840 Speaker 1: ourselves here. So going back to history, throughout much of history, 219 00:12:42,960 --> 00:12:46,040 Speaker 1: especially in the medieval period through like the mid nineteenth 220 00:12:46,080 --> 00:12:51,440 Speaker 1: century in Europe, many supposed experts were absolutely convinced that 221 00:12:51,480 --> 00:12:56,319 Speaker 1: the cause of the spread of disease was not tiny organisms, 222 00:12:56,360 --> 00:13:00,440 Speaker 1: not germs, but the inhalation of something called night air 223 00:13:00,720 --> 00:13:04,480 Speaker 1: or just bad air. There are million different names for it, 224 00:13:04,600 --> 00:13:08,559 Speaker 1: the miasma containing the MIAs mata, so it was known 225 00:13:08,760 --> 00:13:12,000 Speaker 1: as the miasma theory of disease, miasma coming from a 226 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:16,199 Speaker 1: Greek word that means to soil, corrupt, or pollute. Yeah, 227 00:13:16,280 --> 00:13:18,600 Speaker 1: and this was this was a cornerstone. This is this 228 00:13:18,679 --> 00:13:21,720 Speaker 1: wasn't just like popular idea of the time. This was 229 00:13:21,800 --> 00:13:25,280 Speaker 1: the cornerstone upon which a lot of additional understanding of 230 00:13:25,280 --> 00:13:27,320 Speaker 1: the natural world was based. Yeah, this is what many 231 00:13:27,400 --> 00:13:30,120 Speaker 1: experts believed. And the idea was so influential in the 232 00:13:30,160 --> 00:13:34,280 Speaker 1: history of epidemiology and study of disease that it still 233 00:13:34,400 --> 00:13:37,720 Speaker 1: lingers in some of our modern terminology. Like think about 234 00:13:37,760 --> 00:13:44,040 Speaker 1: the roots of the word malaria, mal meaning bad area, 235 00:13:44,160 --> 00:13:47,560 Speaker 1: meaning air. The word malaria is made right out of 236 00:13:47,600 --> 00:13:51,400 Speaker 1: the concept that the disease was caused by being exposed 237 00:13:51,440 --> 00:13:54,600 Speaker 1: to certain types of air. Now, of course, we know 238 00:13:54,760 --> 00:13:57,839 Speaker 1: today that malaria is a protozoan parasite. It's spread by 239 00:13:57,880 --> 00:14:00,920 Speaker 1: mosquito bites, it gets in the blood. In fact, Charles 240 00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:04,360 Speaker 1: Louis Alphonse lave Iran, the French physician who discovered the 241 00:14:04,400 --> 00:14:07,000 Speaker 1: fact that malaria was caused by a parasitic organism in 242 00:14:07,040 --> 00:14:10,920 Speaker 1: the blood, hated the word malaria, which in light of 243 00:14:10,960 --> 00:14:14,480 Speaker 1: his discoveries, he considered to be totally an unscientific word 244 00:14:14,520 --> 00:14:18,040 Speaker 1: that you shouldn't use. Instead, he liked the term palludism, 245 00:14:18,400 --> 00:14:23,520 Speaker 1: meaning that's from Latin palace meaning swamp or marsh, making 246 00:14:23,520 --> 00:14:27,520 Speaker 1: it something means something more like marsh disease or swamp syndrome. 247 00:14:29,160 --> 00:14:31,960 Speaker 1: And in fact paludisma is still the French word for 248 00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:34,480 Speaker 1: the disease. It's at least a local victory for him 249 00:14:34,520 --> 00:14:36,920 Speaker 1: on that front. Yeah, but here we are still like 250 00:14:37,240 --> 00:14:41,280 Speaker 1: propagating mi asthma theory every time we say malaria. But 251 00:14:41,400 --> 00:14:44,520 Speaker 1: some scholars believe the bad air, So like, where did 252 00:14:44,520 --> 00:14:46,840 Speaker 1: the bad air come from? We've heard the idea that 253 00:14:46,920 --> 00:14:49,840 Speaker 1: it was astrological forces in the heavens, but there was 254 00:14:49,880 --> 00:14:52,920 Speaker 1: also this idea that the bad air lay inside the earth, 255 00:14:53,080 --> 00:14:55,600 Speaker 1: or in the soil or in the water, and they 256 00:14:55,600 --> 00:14:59,560 Speaker 1: thought it could be released by volcanic eruptions or earthquakes 257 00:14:59,680 --> 00:15:02,360 Speaker 1: or other types of things. In fact, there's a great 258 00:15:02,400 --> 00:15:06,440 Speaker 1: passage where Shakespeare writes about the astrological version of the 259 00:15:07,360 --> 00:15:10,360 Speaker 1: of the Miasma and troy Less and Cressida, where he says, 260 00:15:10,440 --> 00:15:14,440 Speaker 1: quote a planetary plague, when Jove, meaning the planet Jupiter, 261 00:15:15,200 --> 00:15:18,320 Speaker 1: will or some high vised city hang his poison in 262 00:15:18,360 --> 00:15:22,160 Speaker 1: the sick air, when the planets an evil mixture to disorder? 263 00:15:22,280 --> 00:15:26,760 Speaker 1: Wander what plagues? What portents? What mutiny? What raging of 264 00:15:26,800 --> 00:15:33,200 Speaker 1: the sea? Shaking of earth? Commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors, diverting, crack, 265 00:15:33,680 --> 00:15:37,840 Speaker 1: rend and derascinate the unity and married calm of states 266 00:15:37,960 --> 00:15:43,520 Speaker 1: quite from their fixture. It's a total unity of destructive 267 00:15:43,560 --> 00:15:46,400 Speaker 1: forces here, right, So he's combining this kind of like 268 00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:50,920 Speaker 1: political chaos and disruption with the idea that the planet 269 00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:54,760 Speaker 1: Jupiter will do something to the air to put vapors 270 00:15:54,800 --> 00:15:57,840 Speaker 1: in it and poison people and bring plagues. But the 271 00:15:57,920 --> 00:16:01,080 Speaker 1: most common version we see throughout his story is not 272 00:16:01,560 --> 00:16:04,720 Speaker 1: so much the idea that it's something deep in the 273 00:16:04,760 --> 00:16:07,120 Speaker 1: earth that gets released or something that gets you know, 274 00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:09,920 Speaker 1: poorted down from the sky from Jupiter or Mars, or 275 00:16:09,960 --> 00:16:14,320 Speaker 1: Jupiter Mars interacting, but it's the idea that the particles 276 00:16:14,360 --> 00:16:19,280 Speaker 1: in the air, the miasma, are caused by decay, it's decomposition. 277 00:16:19,360 --> 00:16:23,840 Speaker 1: Any rotting or decomposing organic matter was believed by miasma 278 00:16:23,880 --> 00:16:28,720 Speaker 1: theorist to release these tiny particles of pollution or miasmata, 279 00:16:29,040 --> 00:16:32,680 Speaker 1: which could be identified by the presence of a foul smell. 280 00:16:33,280 --> 00:16:36,960 Speaker 1: In fact, this idea was so influential that there were 281 00:16:36,960 --> 00:16:40,640 Speaker 1: places where there was this miasthma that informed things like 282 00:16:40,760 --> 00:16:44,640 Speaker 1: where you would put cities like the first century BC 283 00:16:44,880 --> 00:16:48,640 Speaker 1: Roman architect Vitruvius wrote a treatise on architecture, including a 284 00:16:48,680 --> 00:16:51,720 Speaker 1: section on how to site the founding of a new town, 285 00:16:52,240 --> 00:16:55,800 Speaker 1: and he took miasma theory into consideration as a public 286 00:16:55,840 --> 00:16:59,200 Speaker 1: health concern when thinking about where you should put your towns. 287 00:16:59,280 --> 00:17:02,240 Speaker 1: He wrote, quote in setting out the walls of a city, 288 00:17:02,280 --> 00:17:05,480 Speaker 1: the choice of a healthy situation is of the first importance. 289 00:17:05,880 --> 00:17:09,000 Speaker 1: It should be on high ground, neither subject to fogs 290 00:17:09,080 --> 00:17:13,200 Speaker 1: nor rains. Its aspects should be neither violently hot nor 291 00:17:13,280 --> 00:17:17,520 Speaker 1: intensely cold, but temperate. In both respects. The neighborhood of 292 00:17:17,560 --> 00:17:21,160 Speaker 1: a marshy place must be avoided, for in such a sight, 293 00:17:21,280 --> 00:17:24,520 Speaker 1: the morning air uniting with the fogs that rise in 294 00:17:24,560 --> 00:17:27,560 Speaker 1: the neighborhood will reach the city with the rising sun, 295 00:17:27,920 --> 00:17:31,320 Speaker 1: and these fogs and mists, charged with the exhalation of 296 00:17:31,359 --> 00:17:36,199 Speaker 1: the finny animals, will diffuse and unwholesome effluvia over the 297 00:17:36,240 --> 00:17:40,480 Speaker 1: bodies of the inhabitants and render the place pestilent. Well 298 00:17:40,480 --> 00:17:44,159 Speaker 1: that's just common sense. But again we given the idea 299 00:17:44,240 --> 00:17:46,880 Speaker 1: that this was a kind of a corner stone understanding 300 00:17:46,880 --> 00:17:49,160 Speaker 1: of the world, and you can definitely see. I mean, 301 00:17:49,240 --> 00:17:53,440 Speaker 1: even even Lavaron wanted it to be called wanted malaria 302 00:17:53,520 --> 00:17:56,560 Speaker 1: to be called something like marsh sickness or swamp disease, 303 00:17:57,000 --> 00:17:59,480 Speaker 1: not because he thought it was caused by bad air 304 00:17:59,600 --> 00:18:01,639 Speaker 1: coming off the swamps, but knew that it was. You 305 00:18:01,680 --> 00:18:05,840 Speaker 1: know where these mosquitoes that delivered the disease dwell that 306 00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:08,440 Speaker 1: it is most likely to infect you. So there they 307 00:18:08,480 --> 00:18:12,439 Speaker 1: were identifying some kind of relevant factors there. It is 308 00:18:12,480 --> 00:18:16,320 Speaker 1: probably good if you are taking public health into consideration, 309 00:18:16,400 --> 00:18:18,840 Speaker 1: not to build your city in a swamp or next 310 00:18:18,880 --> 00:18:21,080 Speaker 1: to a marsh where it's going to be having all 311 00:18:21,080 --> 00:18:23,560 Speaker 1: these mosquitoes come in to give you the marsh fever, 312 00:18:24,240 --> 00:18:27,720 Speaker 1: but they didn't have the mechanism correctly identified. All right, 313 00:18:27,760 --> 00:18:29,359 Speaker 1: on that note, we're gonna take a quick break, and 314 00:18:29,359 --> 00:18:31,520 Speaker 1: when we come back, we're going to continue to discuss 315 00:18:31,840 --> 00:18:37,160 Speaker 1: the history of my asthma theory. Thank alright, we're back. 316 00:18:37,680 --> 00:18:42,000 Speaker 1: So I wonder if mi asthma beliefs might be older 317 00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:45,560 Speaker 1: than history itself, because you find me asthma type writings 318 00:18:45,560 --> 00:18:48,040 Speaker 1: when you go way back into history, it seemed like 319 00:18:48,080 --> 00:18:52,040 Speaker 1: it was already established this idea that certain types of 320 00:18:52,080 --> 00:18:56,159 Speaker 1: air and vapors caused diseases. Like around four b C. 321 00:18:56,480 --> 00:18:59,560 Speaker 1: The Greek physician Hippocrates was writing about malaria, which was, 322 00:19:00,040 --> 00:19:02,639 Speaker 1: as we've said, was already you know, named after bad 323 00:19:02,720 --> 00:19:05,600 Speaker 1: air uh, and it was known by many different names 324 00:19:05,640 --> 00:19:07,760 Speaker 1: back then, such as like the marsh fevers or the 325 00:19:07,800 --> 00:19:11,160 Speaker 1: agg use. And in a text called on Airs, Waters 326 00:19:11,160 --> 00:19:14,600 Speaker 1: and Places, Hippocrates wrote about how certain environments and seasons 327 00:19:15,040 --> 00:19:19,240 Speaker 1: carried air that could communicate different diseases. Well, yeah, I 328 00:19:19,240 --> 00:19:22,159 Speaker 1: mean I think I think something worth driving home is 329 00:19:22,200 --> 00:19:25,359 Speaker 1: that the truthiness of the theory does seem to closely 330 00:19:25,400 --> 00:19:28,919 Speaker 1: align with our basic instincts to feel discussed and avoid 331 00:19:28,960 --> 00:19:33,040 Speaker 1: certain odors, at least until the source of those odors 332 00:19:33,040 --> 00:19:36,080 Speaker 1: are better understood. I mean, don't hang around the latrine 333 00:19:36,119 --> 00:19:40,119 Speaker 1: fields is solid advice? Were repelled? Uh, And that repulsion 334 00:19:40,200 --> 00:19:43,600 Speaker 1: serves as a sort of physiological safety net. But the 335 00:19:43,720 --> 00:19:46,800 Speaker 1: bad air that communicates to us the potential dangers of 336 00:19:46,840 --> 00:19:50,320 Speaker 1: such a place are not necessarily the cause of the dangers. 337 00:19:50,320 --> 00:19:52,480 Speaker 1: Sort of like blaming your phone for all the robo 338 00:19:52,520 --> 00:19:55,640 Speaker 1: calls you're getting. Science, you know, often challenges us to 339 00:19:55,840 --> 00:19:58,560 Speaker 1: think in a way that goes beyond the evolved reactions 340 00:19:58,560 --> 00:20:02,600 Speaker 1: of the biological human. Yeah, exactly. Blaming the air is 341 00:20:02,680 --> 00:20:05,000 Speaker 1: kind of a shooting the messenger thing, Yeah it is. 342 00:20:05,480 --> 00:20:07,560 Speaker 1: But of course, as we've been discussing here, this was 343 00:20:07,600 --> 00:20:10,879 Speaker 1: an idea that not only gained traction but remained in 344 00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:13,520 Speaker 1: play for a very long period of time. I was 345 00:20:13,560 --> 00:20:16,680 Speaker 1: reading from a book titled The Scented Ape, The Biology 346 00:20:16,680 --> 00:20:20,600 Speaker 1: and Culture of Human Odor by David Michael Stoddart and 347 00:20:20,840 --> 00:20:24,240 Speaker 1: the author in this point uh to the the idea 348 00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:27,240 Speaker 1: that bad odors, you know, causing disease. That this goes back, 349 00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:32,520 Speaker 1: he says, through two key physicians. There's the Arabian physician 350 00:20:32,920 --> 00:20:35,879 Speaker 1: have A Sina who lived nine eight through ten thirty seven, 351 00:20:36,400 --> 00:20:39,840 Speaker 1: who noted that the odor of urine changed during sickness 352 00:20:40,200 --> 00:20:43,240 Speaker 1: and could be used to diagnose the illness. And of 353 00:20:43,280 --> 00:20:46,199 Speaker 1: course this is sound, but the observation caused others of 354 00:20:46,240 --> 00:20:49,200 Speaker 1: the time to develop the idea that these odors were 355 00:20:49,240 --> 00:20:53,199 Speaker 1: the cause of the disease and their expulsion was the 356 00:20:53,240 --> 00:20:56,240 Speaker 1: illness leaving the body. So the strange smell in the 357 00:20:56,400 --> 00:21:00,480 Speaker 1: urine that was the sickness leaving the patient. Yeah, you 358 00:21:00,480 --> 00:21:02,679 Speaker 1: can find parallels to this type of thinking and all 359 00:21:02,800 --> 00:21:06,280 Speaker 1: kinds of things, like what about the idea that sometimes 360 00:21:06,320 --> 00:21:10,399 Speaker 1: illnesses cause diarrhea and vomiting. That you could look at 361 00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:12,600 Speaker 1: that and say, oh, okay, so and so is sick. 362 00:21:12,720 --> 00:21:15,240 Speaker 1: What we need to do is give them enemas and 363 00:21:15,320 --> 00:21:18,400 Speaker 1: induced vomiting to purge all that stuff out that's making 364 00:21:18,440 --> 00:21:21,680 Speaker 1: them sick. But in fact that doesn't always help somebody 365 00:21:21,720 --> 00:21:23,439 Speaker 1: who's sick. Most of the time, you don't want to 366 00:21:23,440 --> 00:21:26,240 Speaker 1: do that. Yeah, you're you're taking Yeah, you're you're, you're 367 00:21:26,280 --> 00:21:30,119 Speaker 1: you're recognizing like an actual bodily function and the purpose 368 00:21:30,160 --> 00:21:32,480 Speaker 1: behind that bodily function. But then you're you're taking it 369 00:21:32,520 --> 00:21:37,560 Speaker 1: too far, your misunderstanding the cause now. Startard also points 370 00:21:37,600 --> 00:21:41,280 Speaker 1: to the Greek physician Galen several hundred years earlier, who 371 00:21:41,280 --> 00:21:44,199 Speaker 1: correctly judged that odors were perceived in the brain, but 372 00:21:44,359 --> 00:21:48,160 Speaker 1: he also incorrectly judged that they gained direct accents access 373 00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:51,800 Speaker 1: to the center of the brain via hollow olfactory nerves, 374 00:21:52,359 --> 00:21:55,600 Speaker 1: despite Aristotle's previous argument that scent receptors were in the 375 00:21:55,720 --> 00:21:59,239 Speaker 1: lining of the nose. Galen's theory survived for more than 376 00:21:59,280 --> 00:22:04,160 Speaker 1: a millennium, and Studdard also points out that English judges 377 00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:06,960 Speaker 1: as late as the nineteenth century would still take bunches 378 00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:10,200 Speaker 1: of sweet smelling flowers with them on jail visits to 379 00:22:10,359 --> 00:22:14,359 Speaker 1: ward off jail fever, which was what they called typhus. 380 00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:18,399 Speaker 1: But typhus incidentally is caused by a bacterium spread by 381 00:22:18,440 --> 00:22:23,080 Speaker 1: body lice, fleas, or chiggers to the plague. Yeah so, 382 00:22:23,160 --> 00:22:26,439 Speaker 1: but it's another example of people, even in the nineteenth 383 00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:31,520 Speaker 1: century still having a miasmic understanding, or at least on 384 00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:36,879 Speaker 1: a superficial level um of disease. No, miasma theory was 385 00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:40,320 Speaker 1: still absolutely in full swing in Europe in the nineteenth century. 386 00:22:40,320 --> 00:22:42,640 Speaker 1: I mean, it wasn't untill late in the nineteenth century 387 00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:46,840 Speaker 1: that we really we really got a beat down on it. Now. 388 00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:49,960 Speaker 1: In researching this, I also looked back to Virginia Smith's 389 00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:53,840 Speaker 1: excellent book clean A History of Personal Hygiene Impurity, which 390 00:22:54,200 --> 00:22:57,560 Speaker 1: is a faculous read. She'd basically throughout the book charts 391 00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:01,359 Speaker 1: how humans have always had this this understanding of what 392 00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:05,080 Speaker 1: is personal hygiene and then what is sort of moral 393 00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:09,199 Speaker 1: or spiritual hygiene, uh, and and how these become just 394 00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:13,600 Speaker 1: entertangled throughout history. Cleanliness is Godliness, yeah, exactly, And it's 395 00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:17,400 Speaker 1: it's a delightful book along those lines. But she talks 396 00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:20,439 Speaker 1: a little bit about miasthma. The idea that it's was 397 00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:23,600 Speaker 1: seen by the Greeks is this this dirt that caused disease, 398 00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:27,840 Speaker 1: the dirt of destruction. Uh. And it could be supposedly 399 00:23:27,840 --> 00:23:31,240 Speaker 1: generated in any place at any time, for any divine reason, 400 00:23:31,640 --> 00:23:34,959 Speaker 1: but was generally associated with like a foul setting, you know, 401 00:23:35,040 --> 00:23:37,639 Speaker 1: be at a place of the dead or a place 402 00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:42,640 Speaker 1: of of decay, and the Greeks believe that these seeds 403 00:23:42,640 --> 00:23:46,560 Speaker 1: of disease or miasmin quote, wafted down from the outer 404 00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:50,560 Speaker 1: universe in billowing clouds of people, of polluted air, and 405 00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:53,439 Speaker 1: whatever it touched its stained, and the staining of a 406 00:23:53,520 --> 00:23:57,159 Speaker 1: fabric was a key example of the process. And I 407 00:23:57,240 --> 00:23:59,399 Speaker 1: believe we We've already mentioned that the Greek word uh 408 00:23:59,800 --> 00:24:03,040 Speaker 1: me anno is even defined as uh as you know, 409 00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:06,680 Speaker 1: to die with another color, to stain uh, as well 410 00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:11,240 Speaker 1: as to defile, pollute, sully, contaminate, to soil, but also 411 00:24:11,440 --> 00:24:14,240 Speaker 1: to defile with sins. Again coming back to that idea 412 00:24:14,359 --> 00:24:20,480 Speaker 1: that humans cannot help but complicate their understanding of bodily, physical, 413 00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:24,560 Speaker 1: or even biological cleanliness with some sort of a moral 414 00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:28,320 Speaker 1: or spiritual component. Yeah, we've always got this metaphor in 415 00:24:28,359 --> 00:24:32,080 Speaker 1: our language, don't we. I mean I am soiled with sin. Yeah, 416 00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:36,720 Speaker 1: I'm gonna get clean. I'm going to cleanse myself. It's 417 00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:40,280 Speaker 1: it's very difficult to separate the two and with I 418 00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:43,640 Speaker 1: mean putting a third thing in there, with health, get 419 00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:46,639 Speaker 1: a clean bill of health, or like or if you 420 00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:48,840 Speaker 1: have an addiction or something, people might say, I'm gonna 421 00:24:48,840 --> 00:24:56,320 Speaker 1: get clean. Yeah. Interesting, this trifecta of of health, of hygiene, 422 00:24:56,440 --> 00:25:01,080 Speaker 1: and of moral rectitude. Yeah, think clean thoughts, but you know, 423 00:25:01,119 --> 00:25:03,159 Speaker 1: without realizing, yeah, you can, you can have very dirty 424 00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:06,680 Speaker 1: thoughts that are extremely hygienic. It's it's entirely possible now. 425 00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:10,320 Speaker 1: As we've been exploring, and we'll continue to explore. European 426 00:25:10,359 --> 00:25:12,920 Speaker 1: thinkers really went whole hog on mi asthma theory. But 427 00:25:13,040 --> 00:25:15,639 Speaker 1: it's not confined to Europe. This is a thinking this 428 00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:19,480 Speaker 1: common throughout the world. There was mi asthma thinking in 429 00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:23,640 Speaker 1: ancient China, there's mi asthma thinking in India. It's something 430 00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:28,760 Speaker 1: that's very natural, I think for people to conclude, and 431 00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:32,400 Speaker 1: thus I think is almost maybe a cultural universal Well, 432 00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:36,159 Speaker 1: it really begins to feel like a necessary step. You know, 433 00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:40,440 Speaker 1: if this were a civilization video game or or say, 434 00:25:40,600 --> 00:25:43,040 Speaker 1: you know, science fiction novel like something for me and 435 00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:44,560 Speaker 1: in banks, it would seem like that would be a 436 00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:47,560 Speaker 1: necessary stage of development that a culture would have to 437 00:25:47,600 --> 00:25:50,560 Speaker 1: go through before they got to the germ theory of disease. 438 00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:54,680 Speaker 1: And I think we should point out that, um, it 439 00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:59,159 Speaker 1: wasn't always throughout history that you had this misguided me 440 00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:02,800 Speaker 1: asthma hypothe the system against a clear and correct germ 441 00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:07,040 Speaker 1: theory contagion hypothesis. Sometimes the options seemed to be you 442 00:26:07,119 --> 00:26:10,040 Speaker 1: had a miasma theory of disease, in which epidemics were 443 00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:13,840 Speaker 1: spread ambiently through the air, and a contagion theory of disease, 444 00:26:13,840 --> 00:26:17,760 Speaker 1: where epidemics were spread by physical contact. Most of the time, 445 00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:21,240 Speaker 1: neither of these is exactly correct, but each one has 446 00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:23,800 Speaker 1: got a part of the truth right, right, And and 447 00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:26,639 Speaker 1: it's realizing that something is happening in the physical world, 448 00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:30,840 Speaker 1: be it with you know, physical touch, or it's conveyed 449 00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:34,560 Speaker 1: through the vapors and the gases around us. Yeah. But 450 00:26:34,600 --> 00:26:38,000 Speaker 1: by the seventeenth century, is pointed out by by Smith, 451 00:26:38,520 --> 00:26:42,320 Speaker 1: miasma theory was quote held to be true beyond doubt. Again, 452 00:26:42,359 --> 00:26:45,720 Speaker 1: it was a cornerstone of science, um though the actual 453 00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:48,800 Speaker 1: arcana and mechanisms had yet to be found. But but 454 00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:50,960 Speaker 1: she adds that there were there were at least a 455 00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:53,879 Speaker 1: three things you can point to that show how the 456 00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:58,000 Speaker 1: how miasma theory is remaining alive. She says that Venetian 457 00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:03,600 Speaker 1: physician Sentorio Sentaorio, he's a Josh and Chuck favorite. Oh yeah, 458 00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:05,840 Speaker 1: is he? Yeah? Got there into him. I can't remember 459 00:27:05,840 --> 00:27:10,160 Speaker 1: which one called him the guy so nicely named him twice. Well, yeah, 460 00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:14,919 Speaker 1: Sentario Sentario through sixteen thirty six. So he'd proven that 461 00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:19,400 Speaker 1: the body breathed out a miasma of perspiration. Uh. Then 462 00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:22,720 Speaker 1: you also had chemist discovering gases even though they had 463 00:27:22,720 --> 00:27:25,920 Speaker 1: not yet discovered oxygen, and scientists were in the process 464 00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:29,960 Speaker 1: of discovering that plants breathed as well. But of course 465 00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:32,119 Speaker 1: this wasn't just about figuring out how the world worked. 466 00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:35,920 Speaker 1: It was also about combating the plague. And if you've 467 00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:39,479 Speaker 1: ever seen a plague doctor mask, which I'll make sure 468 00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:42,879 Speaker 1: to at least include an image of an illustration of 469 00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:44,800 Speaker 1: this on the landing page for this episode of Stuff 470 00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:46,439 Speaker 1: to Buy Your Mind dot com. If you look at 471 00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:49,440 Speaker 1: one of these masks, you can see the emphasis put 472 00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:53,520 Speaker 1: on air circulation. Man, no sketchy website is complete without 473 00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:56,560 Speaker 1: some clip art of a plague doctor mask, you know 474 00:27:56,560 --> 00:27:58,560 Speaker 1: what I mean. It's like, that's like the stock photo 475 00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:01,280 Speaker 1: that's like in every creep corner of the Internet as 476 00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:03,359 Speaker 1: the plague doctor mask, I know, And there are only 477 00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:07,120 Speaker 1: so many like widely distributed illustrations of it that on 478 00:28:07,119 --> 00:28:10,160 Speaker 1: one level they begin to feel less special. And yet 479 00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:12,399 Speaker 1: every time I look at one at one, I still 480 00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:15,280 Speaker 1: get wrapped up in the excitement of everything that's going 481 00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:17,880 Speaker 1: on with it. Well, it is really interesting to plumb 482 00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:21,119 Speaker 1: the frame of mind that designed it, right, Yeah, I 483 00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:25,399 Speaker 1: mean it's essentially a hazmat suit for the play gears 484 00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:29,320 Speaker 1: to avoid bad smells. So, as a Stoddard points out 485 00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:32,400 Speaker 1: in the center date, Uh, these were doctors who wore 486 00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:36,040 Speaker 1: long leather coats rubbed with bees wax. They wore gloves 487 00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:40,080 Speaker 1: and long bird like masks, and the mask themselves, the 488 00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:43,680 Speaker 1: snout of it was filled with with herbs and dried petals. 489 00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:46,440 Speaker 1: And then they used a cane to probe the patient's 490 00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:49,760 Speaker 1: armpits and growing for signs of infection. And they used 491 00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:53,000 Speaker 1: a sounding stick so they could listen to the patient's 492 00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:57,440 Speaker 1: pulse without actually coming into physical contact. Now my understanding though, 493 00:28:57,440 --> 00:29:00,800 Speaker 1: this would this would differ depending on who were examining. 494 00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:04,280 Speaker 1: Maybe we're examining a peasant versus examining royalty, so you 495 00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:07,360 Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily, you know, poke the keen with the stick, 496 00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:09,800 Speaker 1: but you would definitely poke the peasant. So like if 497 00:29:09,840 --> 00:29:12,920 Speaker 1: Pope Clement the sixth were too, maybe wonder if he 498 00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:15,080 Speaker 1: had the plague and had a physician come in and 499 00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:17,440 Speaker 1: look with look at him. He wouldn't have put up 500 00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:20,200 Speaker 1: with the stick, right, Yeah, you would get a stick 501 00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:24,280 Speaker 1: free evaluation. Sometimes there were scented substances in the tip 502 00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:27,280 Speaker 1: of that dust stick or cane and uh. I've also 503 00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:30,320 Speaker 1: read that the bird like appearance of the plague doctor 504 00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:33,920 Speaker 1: maybe why we sometimes call a bad doctor a quack 505 00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:38,080 Speaker 1: because they look like a duck um. But at Yeah, 506 00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:41,760 Speaker 1: it's all about distancing the know who's uh from the 507 00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:45,520 Speaker 1: smell uh. And another controversial treatment method of the day, 508 00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:49,720 Speaker 1: if we can call it a treatment, was quote aerial quarantine. 509 00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:52,360 Speaker 1: So you don't want your home to catch plague, simply 510 00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:55,719 Speaker 1: box it up, shutting out all the plague gear, like 511 00:29:55,840 --> 00:29:57,760 Speaker 1: it's a night of the living dead and you just 512 00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:00,520 Speaker 1: want to keep the evil out. Then you can just 513 00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:03,440 Speaker 1: purify it with good odors within. It's kind of basically 514 00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:05,680 Speaker 1: what what we were talking about earlier with the with 515 00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:08,000 Speaker 1: the Pope of Fire. Yeah, and some some of the 516 00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:12,080 Speaker 1: things you read about where people went to I don't 517 00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:13,720 Speaker 1: know why I was about to say great links, not 518 00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:16,440 Speaker 1: actually great links, kind of normal lengths to avoid the 519 00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:19,400 Speaker 1: night air was like they close all the windows at night, 520 00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:21,840 Speaker 1: you know, because you didn't want that bad night air 521 00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:25,440 Speaker 1: getting in. Yeah, But at the same time, it was 522 00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:29,240 Speaker 1: still obvious to many people of the day that ceiling 523 00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:33,080 Speaker 1: up a body of air didn't necessarily seem to help matters. 524 00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:36,480 Speaker 1: Uh and and since seventeen century, riders had observed that 525 00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:40,160 Speaker 1: a change of air was helpful. Um. You know, I 526 00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:43,400 Speaker 1: think we've we've all encountered situations where we are boxed 527 00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:46,280 Speaker 1: in somewhere with a bad smell, be it a smelly 528 00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:50,640 Speaker 1: dog in a car, or a you know, a very 529 00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:54,280 Speaker 1: small child with a soiled diaper in a closed room 530 00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:58,800 Speaker 1: and changing the air a change podcast studio, or some 531 00:30:58,800 --> 00:31:00,840 Speaker 1: some sweaty hosts of been in there for a few 532 00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:03,959 Speaker 1: hours before you exactly, yeah, some a circulation of the 533 00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:07,440 Speaker 1: air is u is sometimes desirable And and they were 534 00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:10,160 Speaker 1: not blind to this, you know, they they too had 535 00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:16,040 Speaker 1: experienced sweaty rooms and uh and and soiled infants before. 536 00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:18,520 Speaker 1: Can you imagine how rough it would be for a 537 00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:22,719 Speaker 1: mi asthma theorist at like a festival or concert outdoors 538 00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:26,400 Speaker 1: where you gotta go use the porta John's but you know, 539 00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:28,680 Speaker 1: like you gotta hold your breath the entire time you're 540 00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:31,240 Speaker 1: in there. You'll get the plague. I don't know. That 541 00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:33,840 Speaker 1: is an interesting question. What would a denizen of the 542 00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:36,840 Speaker 1: seventeenth century make of a modern porta potty? I feel 543 00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:38,760 Speaker 1: depending on who you're asked. In some cases they might 544 00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:42,280 Speaker 1: think this is amazing, this is this is a vision 545 00:31:42,320 --> 00:31:45,680 Speaker 1: of the future I didn't even dare hope for whereas 546 00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:47,680 Speaker 1: other porta potties they might say, yeah, this is this 547 00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:50,400 Speaker 1: is horrible. Why would you use the restroom here and 548 00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:53,680 Speaker 1: not behind that tree over there? All right, so I 549 00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:57,120 Speaker 1: guess we need to discuss what happened to miasthma theory, 550 00:31:57,280 --> 00:32:00,000 Speaker 1: Like how did it go away? Yeah? Like I mean 551 00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:03,400 Speaker 1: is generally what seems to be the case is that 552 00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:07,680 Speaker 1: you have new signs that comes along and knocks a 553 00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:11,719 Speaker 1: previous theory out of contingent. Yes, Now, there was no 554 00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:15,560 Speaker 1: single cause for the demise of miasthma theory. As we said, 555 00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:18,080 Speaker 1: it was sort of um one side of a long 556 00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:21,440 Speaker 1: running and confusing debate where the different sides would sort 557 00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:24,200 Speaker 1: of bleed into each other. But it got chipped away 558 00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:27,200 Speaker 1: at by many lines of evidence over the centuries. One 559 00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:29,880 Speaker 1: of the greatest and most important final blows to me 560 00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:33,080 Speaker 1: asthma theory came from the work of an English doctor, 561 00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:37,600 Speaker 1: an epidemiologist named John Snow, not to be confused with 562 00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:40,960 Speaker 1: Game of Thrones John Snow right spelled differently John with 563 00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:44,520 Speaker 1: an H, but still a hero very much. So John 564 00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:48,240 Speaker 1: Snow is a cool guy from history. He So, I've 565 00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:50,440 Speaker 1: got a couple of sources I'm going to be referring 566 00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:52,880 Speaker 1: to for the story of John Snow. One is an 567 00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:56,720 Speaker 1: article called John Snow, m d. And Anesthetist to the 568 00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:01,480 Speaker 1: Queen of England and Pioneer Epidemiologists by Michael A. Ramsey, 569 00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:04,040 Speaker 1: and the other is an article by Stephen Halliday from 570 00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:07,840 Speaker 1: two thousand one from the British Medical Journal. So these 571 00:33:07,880 --> 00:33:10,200 Speaker 1: are about the life of John Snow. So. John Snow 572 00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:13,240 Speaker 1: was born in March eighteen thirteen in the city of 573 00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:16,000 Speaker 1: York in northern England, and he was the oldest of 574 00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:19,440 Speaker 1: nine children. His father was a manual laborer and his 575 00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:22,480 Speaker 1: family lived in Micklegate, which was one of the poorest 576 00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:26,320 Speaker 1: and most unsanitary parts of York at the time. People 577 00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:30,040 Speaker 1: who lived there got their water from natural sources like wells, 578 00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:33,160 Speaker 1: or from the two nearby rivers, which were the Swale 579 00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:36,880 Speaker 1: and the Ooze. Well, that doesn't that doesn't sound good, 580 00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:40,080 Speaker 1: not like T M and T use but so U 581 00:33:40,280 --> 00:33:43,440 Speaker 1: s e oh okay, but it's it sounds like secret. 582 00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:47,720 Speaker 1: But have you ever seen a turtle get down? I 583 00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:50,520 Speaker 1: have at the zoo, but not not in the way 584 00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:54,640 Speaker 1: that you mean it. Okay. Anyway, Unfortunately, this water that 585 00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:57,440 Speaker 1: the people of Michelegate were getting at the time was 586 00:33:57,520 --> 00:34:01,440 Speaker 1: often just filthy. It contained way ston runoff from quote 587 00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:06,800 Speaker 1: and as as Ramsey says, quote market squares, cesspools, cemeteries, 588 00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:10,919 Speaker 1: and dung hills. So just imagine your water goes through 589 00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:14,400 Speaker 1: all that before you get it to drink. Ah, the 590 00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:18,239 Speaker 1: delicious necro water. Yeah. So Snow became apprentice to a 591 00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:22,799 Speaker 1: surgeon apothecary in eighty seven and he enrolled in the 592 00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:27,000 Speaker 1: hunter Rion School of Medicine in London. While he was there, 593 00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:30,440 Speaker 1: he also got experience working at Westminster Hospital, which had 594 00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,400 Speaker 1: a problem. Actually, the hospital had what's known as a 595 00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:37,600 Speaker 1: dead room, where students could perform post mortem dissections of 596 00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:40,759 Speaker 1: patients who died in the wards. Unfortunately, a lot of 597 00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:44,920 Speaker 1: the students who performed these dissections would get sick. Eventually, 598 00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,759 Speaker 1: Snow was able to figure out through experiments what was 599 00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:51,160 Speaker 1: going on, what was making the medical students sick was 600 00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:54,799 Speaker 1: not the bodies themselves, but a preservative used to keep 601 00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:59,840 Speaker 1: them from decaying arsenic. The bodies were embalmed with arsenic, 602 00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:04,040 Speaker 1: then the students performed the dissections, they inhaled arsenic vapor, 603 00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:07,200 Speaker 1: and then they got sick. So Snow's research led to 604 00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:10,879 Speaker 1: different preservation practices for cadavers, but it also was the 605 00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:13,480 Speaker 1: end of It also led to the end of the 606 00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:17,399 Speaker 1: manufacture of candles made with arsenic, which apparently burned very 607 00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:22,040 Speaker 1: brightly but put off toxic arsenic fumes. Other claims to fame. 608 00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:25,279 Speaker 1: After Snow completed his medical education in London in the 609 00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:28,839 Speaker 1: eighteen thirties and forties, he became an expert in respiration 610 00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:31,680 Speaker 1: and asphyxiation, and he also became one of the world's 611 00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:36,120 Speaker 1: leading anesthetists, studying the medical use of ether and chloroform 612 00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:40,120 Speaker 1: to anesthetize people for surgery. Uh Snow played a very 613 00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:44,040 Speaker 1: important role leading to the acceptance of anesthetics for pain 614 00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:46,840 Speaker 1: relief and childbirth. Like at the time, a lot of 615 00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:49,279 Speaker 1: people thought that it was for some reason immoral for 616 00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:53,960 Speaker 1: women to have pain relief while giving birth. That's because 617 00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:58,680 Speaker 1: of the whole biblical description right of the punishment. It 618 00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:00,640 Speaker 1: seems like there was a link there, like leaders of 619 00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:04,200 Speaker 1: the Anglican Church preached against pain relief for for women 620 00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:08,440 Speaker 1: in childbirth from the pulpit. But then Ramsey writes quote. However, 621 00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:12,399 Speaker 1: on April seventh, eighteen fifty three, Queen Victoria asked John 622 00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:16,319 Speaker 1: Snow to administer chloroform analgesia for the delivery of her 623 00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:19,960 Speaker 1: eighth child, Prince Leopold. This was such a success that 624 00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:22,799 Speaker 1: it was repeated for the delivery of Princess Beatrice three 625 00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:27,279 Speaker 1: years later. Obstetrical anesthesia now had the royal blessing, and 626 00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:31,560 Speaker 1: medical and religious acceptance soon followed. But John Snow's real 627 00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:35,960 Speaker 1: claim on history came the interaction between miasthma theory, germ 628 00:36:36,080 --> 00:36:40,920 Speaker 1: theory and cholera. So the first pandemic of Asian cholera 629 00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:44,000 Speaker 1: in England occurred in Newcastle in eighteen thirty one while 630 00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:46,960 Speaker 1: John Snow was working as a surgeon's apprentice, and the 631 00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:50,000 Speaker 1: second pandemic of Asian cholera hit London in the fall 632 00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:53,320 Speaker 1: of eighteen forty eight. Now, the prevailing theory about the 633 00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:55,719 Speaker 1: spread of cholera at the time was sort of a 634 00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:59,200 Speaker 1: mixture of a dash of contagion theory with a huge 635 00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:02,400 Speaker 1: helping of me asthma theory. Basically, most people at the 636 00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:05,600 Speaker 1: time believe that cholera was an infection that spread through 637 00:37:05,719 --> 00:37:10,480 Speaker 1: particles disseminated ambiently in the air, which would then settle 638 00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:14,480 Speaker 1: in the atmosphere in low lying areas, and proponents of 639 00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:17,200 Speaker 1: miasma theory laid blame for the disease on workers in 640 00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:22,680 Speaker 1: industries that produced nasty odors, including slaughter houses, rendering plants, 641 00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:27,480 Speaker 1: and as as Ramsey notes, quote bone merchants and the 642 00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:30,320 Speaker 1: miasma theory of disease was not the only odd idea 643 00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:34,040 Speaker 1: about the power of smells in Victorian Britain. For example, 644 00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:39,320 Speaker 1: Professor H. Booth, writing and builder in eighteen forty four wrote, 645 00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:43,160 Speaker 1: quote from inhaling the odor of beef, the butcher's wife 646 00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:47,440 Speaker 1: obtains her obesity that that seems quite a stretch, but 647 00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:52,040 Speaker 1: Holiday actually notes a lot of interesting beliefs about miasma 648 00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:56,040 Speaker 1: theory at the time, and especially about bad smells. So 649 00:37:56,200 --> 00:37:59,200 Speaker 1: Sir Francis Head, he notes, was a colonial governor who 650 00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:02,560 Speaker 1: served in Canada, and in eighteen forty two had argued 651 00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:06,080 Speaker 1: that quote some settlements in the America's had been rendered 652 00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:10,160 Speaker 1: dangerous by the plowing of virgin soil, which had exposed 653 00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:13,960 Speaker 1: decaying vegetable matter and the miasms that rose from it. 654 00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:18,520 Speaker 1: Also in eighteen forty two, the English social and public 655 00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:22,839 Speaker 1: health reformer Edwin Chadwick, who lived from eighteen hundred eighteen ninety. 656 00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:27,040 Speaker 1: He wrote an eighteen forty two report on the sanitary 657 00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:30,480 Speaker 1: condition of the laboring population of Great Britain. So Chadwick 658 00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:33,120 Speaker 1: wanted to make people's lives better. He was a social reformer, 659 00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:36,400 Speaker 1: but he argued that what we should do is improve 660 00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:40,880 Speaker 1: sewage and drainage systems in housing to remove dangerous foul smells. 661 00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:45,200 Speaker 1: He later told a parliamentary committee in eighteen forty six quote, 662 00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:50,440 Speaker 1: all smell is if it be intense, immediate acute disease, 663 00:38:51,080 --> 00:38:54,680 Speaker 1: And eventually we may say that by depressing the system 664 00:38:54,719 --> 00:38:57,600 Speaker 1: and rendering it susceptible to the action of other causes, 665 00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:03,600 Speaker 1: all smell is disease. Oh wow again shooting the messenger here. Yeah. 666 00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:06,560 Speaker 1: So in eighteen ninety, at a Royal Society of the 667 00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:09,680 Speaker 1: Arts meeting on sewage and waste disposal, Chadwick gave a 668 00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:13,080 Speaker 1: talk and The Builder the same magazine again reported quote 669 00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:18,279 Speaker 1: Sir Edwin concluded his somewhat prolox communication by by advocating 670 00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:21,040 Speaker 1: the bringing down of a fresh air from a height 671 00:39:21,320 --> 00:39:24,640 Speaker 1: by means of such structures as the Eiffel Tower and 672 00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:29,440 Speaker 1: distributing it warmed and fresh in our buildings. Now, wouldn't 673 00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:31,920 Speaker 1: that be a great addition to our public health infrastructure. 674 00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:35,200 Speaker 1: I would towers to suck the sky are down. I'm 675 00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:37,640 Speaker 1: surprised I haven't seen Maybe I have seen this and 676 00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:40,680 Speaker 1: just haven't zeroed in on the detail. But you see 677 00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:44,000 Speaker 1: these sort of these, these these older visions of an 678 00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:49,440 Speaker 1: advanced future with archaic flying machines and towers. I wonder 679 00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:52,240 Speaker 1: if this uh works its way into any of those visions, 680 00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:54,600 Speaker 1: you know, the use of towers to grab clean air 681 00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:56,839 Speaker 1: and bring it back down for the masses. Yeah, would 682 00:39:56,840 --> 00:39:58,840 Speaker 1: that show up in like H. G. Wells or something. 683 00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:01,600 Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm gonna to look at particularly some 684 00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:04,480 Speaker 1: of the French illustrations again, it might show up there. Well. 685 00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:06,960 Speaker 1: At least here you can see a departure from the 686 00:40:07,040 --> 00:40:09,680 Speaker 1: ideas that we talked about earlier, like during the plague, 687 00:40:09,680 --> 00:40:13,239 Speaker 1: where they thought that maybe bad noxious air would come 688 00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:16,240 Speaker 1: down from outer space or from the planets or something. 689 00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:19,480 Speaker 1: I hear the ideas that the bad air is low lying, 690 00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:22,080 Speaker 1: and it settles in low lying areas, what you need 691 00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:24,520 Speaker 1: to do is bring down fresh, clean air from up 692 00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:28,040 Speaker 1: above to sort of air it out. But one of 693 00:40:28,040 --> 00:40:31,240 Speaker 1: the unfortunate side effects of Chadwick's proposal, I mean, obviously, 694 00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:35,360 Speaker 1: nobody's going to really protest the idea of removing sewage 695 00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:37,680 Speaker 1: from the houses and stuff. That seems like a good idea. 696 00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:42,680 Speaker 1: But Chadwick's proposal, uh led to the idea that foul 697 00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:45,719 Speaker 1: smelling ways should be efficiently funneled away from houses and 698 00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:49,360 Speaker 1: neighborhoods and down to the river from which many people 699 00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:53,560 Speaker 1: were still drawing their water. So this in they're trying 700 00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:56,880 Speaker 1: to prevent color exactly. Yeah, So we'll get to that 701 00:40:56,920 --> 00:41:00,000 Speaker 1: in a minute. Uh. In eighteen forty four, the physicis 702 00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:04,279 Speaker 1: shan Neil Arnott, who lived eighteen seventy four told a 703 00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:08,399 Speaker 1: Royal Commission quote, the immediate and chief cause of many 704 00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:11,359 Speaker 1: of the diseases which impair the bodily and mental health 705 00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:14,960 Speaker 1: of the people and bring a considerable proportion prematurely to 706 00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:19,719 Speaker 1: the grave is the poison of atmospheric impurity, arising from 707 00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:23,640 Speaker 1: the accumulation in in and around their dwellings of the 708 00:41:23,719 --> 00:41:28,040 Speaker 1: decomposing remnants of the substances used for food and from 709 00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:31,279 Speaker 1: the impurities given out of their own bodies. So he's 710 00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:36,919 Speaker 1: saying human excrement and rotting food waste release particles into 711 00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:40,200 Speaker 1: the air that wind breathed in are the cause of disease. 712 00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:44,719 Speaker 1: And crazily enough, Florence Nightingale was even convinced of the miasmata. 713 00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:48,480 Speaker 1: She believed that scarlet fever, measles, and smallpox could all 714 00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:51,359 Speaker 1: be caused by bad odors, especially those emanating up from 715 00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:54,640 Speaker 1: the drains underneath housing, and she tried to encourage good 716 00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:59,320 Speaker 1: health by making hospitals sweet smelling. I think sweet smelling 717 00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:02,480 Speaker 1: medical facilities are kind of disturbing. Actually, you don't want 718 00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:05,120 Speaker 1: to smell a sweet smell. I think medical facility should 719 00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:07,680 Speaker 1: smell like cucumbers. It's like when you encounter, you know, 720 00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:12,279 Speaker 1: a really obnoxious air freshener. You know it's um It 721 00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:15,600 Speaker 1: can be almost like a chemical assault on your senses. 722 00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:17,840 Speaker 1: And then also there is the question what is this 723 00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:20,640 Speaker 1: covering up? This was deployed for some reason and it's 724 00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:23,160 Speaker 1: probably horrible, but anyway, so all this stuff was in 725 00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:26,360 Speaker 1: the air, right, all in the air, so to speak. 726 00:42:26,440 --> 00:42:29,319 Speaker 1: The idea of me as mata was everywhere all the 727 00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:32,440 Speaker 1: pretty much all the experts believed in it, but John 728 00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:36,040 Speaker 1: Snow was not convinced. Because he'd done a lot of 729 00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:40,160 Speaker 1: work with inhaled things, right, so he'd work closely on 730 00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:43,520 Speaker 1: cases where people were subject to toxic inhalence. He even 731 00:42:43,560 --> 00:42:46,440 Speaker 1: worked on a case where a young woman died from 732 00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:49,319 Speaker 1: an overdose of chloroform from a rag because it hadn't 733 00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:54,000 Speaker 1: been administered properly. And from his experience with arsenic vapors 734 00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:58,600 Speaker 1: and all that, he knew that the potency of airborne 735 00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:02,120 Speaker 1: toxins was directly linked to their concentration in the immediate 736 00:43:02,200 --> 00:43:07,400 Speaker 1: vicinity of the victim. If slaughter houses and bone merchants 737 00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:11,800 Speaker 1: and all the other sources of waste and food waste 738 00:43:11,800 --> 00:43:14,279 Speaker 1: and animal parts and stuff like that, if that was 739 00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:17,760 Speaker 1: what was producing the miasma that caused the disease, shouldn't 740 00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:21,279 Speaker 1: the people closest to these places and the people who 741 00:43:21,320 --> 00:43:24,879 Speaker 1: worked in them be the most affected by the disease? Yeah, 742 00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:27,319 Speaker 1: And that the bone merchants would be the ones that 743 00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:31,239 Speaker 1: were like essentially wiped out by cholera. Yeah, And yet 744 00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:34,560 Speaker 1: Snow noticed this was not the case. So to prove 745 00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:37,960 Speaker 1: his case, he gathered evidence showing that cholera could only 746 00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:41,920 Speaker 1: infect someone if they swallowed quote morbid matter from an 747 00:43:41,920 --> 00:43:46,400 Speaker 1: infected person, often meaning particles of their excrement particles of 748 00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:49,799 Speaker 1: their poop. So essentially he showed that the disease was 749 00:43:49,840 --> 00:43:53,440 Speaker 1: at least partially waterborne. And and what did this evidence 750 00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:57,480 Speaker 1: consist of? Well Snow put together a geographical model of 751 00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:01,080 Speaker 1: cholera infection in London by determining how many people had 752 00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:04,120 Speaker 1: died from the disease in thirty two different subdistricts of 753 00:44:04,160 --> 00:44:06,600 Speaker 1: the city, and he found in the first instance that 754 00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:11,080 Speaker 1: families who drew their water from sources supplied by parts 755 00:44:11,080 --> 00:44:15,399 Speaker 1: of the Thames River above London higher upstream had very 756 00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:18,799 Speaker 1: few infections of cholera, whereas people who drew their water 757 00:44:18,880 --> 00:44:22,160 Speaker 1: from sources supplied by the lower Thames lower down in 758 00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:25,480 Speaker 1: the in the river where more things had been entering 759 00:44:25,520 --> 00:44:28,520 Speaker 1: the river above the water source, they had lots of 760 00:44:28,600 --> 00:44:31,480 Speaker 1: cases of cholera. And the cause for this was that 761 00:44:31,600 --> 00:44:34,799 Speaker 1: cholera has spread by oral ingestion of fecal matter from 762 00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:38,320 Speaker 1: other people infected by the disease, so as the sewage 763 00:44:38,360 --> 00:44:41,400 Speaker 1: produced by cholera patients in London was disposed of. It 764 00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:44,600 Speaker 1: generally made its way down into the Thames, and then 765 00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:48,080 Speaker 1: water companies drew the water back from sections of the 766 00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:52,959 Speaker 1: river directly below that and redistributed the filthy water contaminated 767 00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:56,920 Speaker 1: with fecal matter to families for drinking and home use. Uh. 768 00:44:56,960 --> 00:44:59,040 Speaker 1: And I've got this great illustration here. In the year 769 00:44:59,080 --> 00:45:02,719 Speaker 1: eighteen fifty, the magazine Punch published a cartoon of what 770 00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:05,160 Speaker 1: they thought a drop of the water from Thames must 771 00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:08,160 Speaker 1: from the Tims must look like up close? You know 772 00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:10,600 Speaker 1: what do we see here, Robert? Oh, Well, it just 773 00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:14,160 Speaker 1: looks like it's loaded with sort of a hybrid of 774 00:45:14,239 --> 00:45:18,440 Speaker 1: cartoon characters and microscopic organisms. Just like it's almost like 775 00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:20,920 Speaker 1: a like a Bosch painting exactly. That's what I was 776 00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:23,720 Speaker 1: thinking of. Yeah, it's hieronymous bosh and a drop of water. 777 00:45:24,080 --> 00:45:26,600 Speaker 1: I'll try to include this image on the landing page 778 00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:28,640 Speaker 1: for this episode of Stuff to Bulive dot Com so 779 00:45:28,719 --> 00:45:30,680 Speaker 1: that everyone else can see it as well. Yeah, So, 780 00:45:30,880 --> 00:45:34,359 Speaker 1: what was John Snow's recommendation for avoiding the cholera outbreaks? 781 00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:38,680 Speaker 1: It was, can you guess clean water exactly? Draw your 782 00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:42,919 Speaker 1: water from distant sources from clean sources far away rather 783 00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:46,880 Speaker 1: than polluted parts of the river nearby, and Snow's ideas 784 00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:50,080 Speaker 1: were not initially accepted by everyone. Snow was criticized by 785 00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:53,719 Speaker 1: miasma theorists the Lancet Ran an article of viscerating his 786 00:45:53,760 --> 00:45:58,040 Speaker 1: waterborne infection theory, and most experts still favored some version 787 00:45:58,120 --> 00:46:01,120 Speaker 1: of the explanation from bad air particles in the air. 788 00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:05,880 Speaker 1: So then, cholera struck London yet again in eighteen fifty four, 789 00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:08,719 Speaker 1: and Snow went back to work on it. He conducted 790 00:46:08,760 --> 00:46:13,600 Speaker 1: more epidemiological research linking rates of cholera infection directly to 791 00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:17,600 Speaker 1: sources of water, and most famously, he isolated a single 792 00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:20,920 Speaker 1: water pump on Broad Street as the source of a 793 00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:24,120 Speaker 1: huge number of cases of cholera and subsequent deaths. Like 794 00:46:24,200 --> 00:46:27,200 Speaker 1: locals had been complaining that the water coming out of 795 00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:30,800 Speaker 1: the pump smelled bad, and Snow followed up by collecting 796 00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:33,680 Speaker 1: information about who had died from cholera in the Soho 797 00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:37,160 Speaker 1: area where the pump was. There were a staggering number 798 00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:40,840 Speaker 1: of cholera deaths centered just around this one water pump, 799 00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:43,360 Speaker 1: and Snow was able to convince the local board of 800 00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:46,279 Speaker 1: governors of his theory, and they removed the handle from 801 00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:49,000 Speaker 1: the Broad Street pump. The local outbreaks seemed to go 802 00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:51,560 Speaker 1: away after this, but Snow's critics argued, well, maybe it 803 00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:53,640 Speaker 1: had been on the wane anyway, and then the handle 804 00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:58,719 Speaker 1: was replaced. Holliday writes, quote Snow's conclusions were dismissed by 805 00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:01,800 Speaker 1: the members of the Committee of Inquiry appointed by Parliament 806 00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:05,680 Speaker 1: to inquire into the eighteen fifty four cholera epidemic. Commenting 807 00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:09,080 Speaker 1: on Snow's hypothesis that deaths had resulted from the consumption 808 00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:12,200 Speaker 1: of contaminated water drawn from the Broad Street pump, the 809 00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:16,000 Speaker 1: committee concluded, quote, after careful inquiry, we see no reason 810 00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:19,360 Speaker 1: to adopt this belief. The committee came down firmly in 811 00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:23,359 Speaker 1: favor of the supposition that the coloradic confection multiplies rather 812 00:47:23,480 --> 00:47:27,120 Speaker 1: in air than in water. You know, I'm reminded again 813 00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:30,040 Speaker 1: of Game of Thrones John Snow, because it's somewhere scenario, 814 00:47:30,239 --> 00:47:32,479 Speaker 1: you know that John Snow and Game of Thrones is saying, look, 815 00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:34,719 Speaker 1: the White Walkers are a threat. You've gotta you've gotta 816 00:47:34,760 --> 00:47:37,560 Speaker 1: realize this. You gotta do something about it. You know, like, no, no, no, 817 00:47:37,719 --> 00:47:40,400 Speaker 1: that's ridiculous. We know how the world works. Right, and 818 00:47:40,440 --> 00:47:43,719 Speaker 1: this is it, and he's coming up against similar opposition 819 00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:46,360 Speaker 1: is saying no, no, no, don't try and rewrite me 820 00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:51,760 Speaker 1: asma theory. This is the way disease works exactly. But unfortunately, 821 00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:54,719 Speaker 1: and now we know that ultimately Snow was proved right 822 00:47:54,800 --> 00:47:58,040 Speaker 1: or at least partially right, that that colera is definitely 823 00:47:58,040 --> 00:48:00,480 Speaker 1: spread through water, can also be spread through food and 824 00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:03,560 Speaker 1: other things. But unfortunately Snow never lived to see his 825 00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:06,240 Speaker 1: theories gain wide acceptance, since he died of a stroke 826 00:48:06,280 --> 00:48:08,960 Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty eight at the young age of forty five. 827 00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:12,200 Speaker 1: But we now know that Snow's theory was mostly correct. 828 00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:16,920 Speaker 1: Cholera is caused by a bacterium Vibrio colorae. Colorae infects 829 00:48:16,960 --> 00:48:19,200 Speaker 1: the body by being ingested, as we've said, where it 830 00:48:19,239 --> 00:48:23,120 Speaker 1: reproduces and creates toxins that attack the gut and cause 831 00:48:23,200 --> 00:48:27,440 Speaker 1: watery diarrhea, and then this diarrheal discharges prolific and of 832 00:48:27,440 --> 00:48:29,880 Speaker 1: course it can easily kill a person infected with the 833 00:48:29,920 --> 00:48:33,239 Speaker 1: disease through dehydration within hours if they're not treated. Lots 834 00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:36,200 Speaker 1: people die of cholera uh and the cycle of infection 835 00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:39,359 Speaker 1: occurs when the infected person's fecal matter gets back into 836 00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:42,400 Speaker 1: water sources that people drink from, or ends up on 837 00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:46,800 Speaker 1: food that people eat. And fortunately, cholera has been mostly 838 00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:51,520 Speaker 1: eliminated in wealthier nations through sanitation, sewage disposal, and water treatment, 839 00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:53,640 Speaker 1: but it still affects a lot of the world today. 840 00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:56,440 Speaker 1: There's still a lot of work to do on cholera. Uh. 841 00:48:56,480 --> 00:49:00,200 Speaker 1: The w h O sites research from indicating that there 842 00:49:00,200 --> 00:49:03,240 Speaker 1: are somewhere between one point three to four million cases 843 00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:07,000 Speaker 1: of cholera infection worldwide every year and between twenty one 844 00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:09,680 Speaker 1: thousand and a hundred and forty three thousand deaths. So 845 00:49:09,719 --> 00:49:13,080 Speaker 1: this is like a major world disease. Yeah, it's so 846 00:49:13,120 --> 00:49:16,600 Speaker 1: easy to take it for granted, especially in in countries 847 00:49:16,640 --> 00:49:19,239 Speaker 1: like the United States where generally you're using a If 848 00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:23,160 Speaker 1: you use bathroom facilities, you are you have drinking water 849 00:49:23,239 --> 00:49:25,800 Speaker 1: coming out of the saint drinking water coming out of 850 00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:30,480 Speaker 1: the showerhead, drinking water filling the toilet into which you 851 00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:34,720 Speaker 1: are going to urinat or defecate. Yeah, and that's actually 852 00:49:34,800 --> 00:49:38,520 Speaker 1: one of the things that led to the understanding that 853 00:49:38,640 --> 00:49:42,480 Speaker 1: snows theories were correct. Other people began to accept Snow's 854 00:49:42,560 --> 00:49:45,600 Speaker 1: theory after he died, once they saw what a difference 855 00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:49,719 Speaker 1: it made to keep drinking water separate from sewage disposal. 856 00:49:49,760 --> 00:49:52,480 Speaker 1: So in the second half of the nineteenth century, uh 857 00:49:52,719 --> 00:49:55,640 Speaker 1: Snow's theory of cholera and German theory in general started 858 00:49:55,640 --> 00:49:57,680 Speaker 1: to get this wide acceptance, and it was due to 859 00:49:57,760 --> 00:50:02,400 Speaker 1: multiple factors in Great Britain, specifically Snow's former critics, including 860 00:50:02,440 --> 00:50:05,520 Speaker 1: the Registrar General William Farr, who had been a miasma 861 00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:08,759 Speaker 1: theory guy. He he later became convinced to the role 862 00:50:08,880 --> 00:50:12,239 Speaker 1: that water and drainage played in the cholera outbreaks after 863 00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:15,920 Speaker 1: a subsequent epidemic in eighteen sixty six, because in the 864 00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:19,680 Speaker 1: years just before this epidemic, the engineer Sir Joseph Basil 865 00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:23,919 Speaker 1: gets plans for a contained sewer and drainage system had 866 00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:26,000 Speaker 1: been put in place in a lot of parts of London. 867 00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:29,359 Speaker 1: Construction was still going on until eighteen seventy five. But 868 00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:31,440 Speaker 1: like we were just saying, the main benefit of the 869 00:50:31,480 --> 00:50:34,359 Speaker 1: sewer system was that it would keep sewage separate from 870 00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:37,880 Speaker 1: the water supply, and the eighteen sixty six epidemics shows 871 00:50:37,920 --> 00:50:41,799 Speaker 1: the areas that were well drained did not suffer cholera outbreaks, 872 00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:45,640 Speaker 1: but neighborhoods with lingering defective drainage were still hit yet 873 00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:49,680 Speaker 1: again with cholera, and then also in eighteen two, Hamburg 874 00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:52,880 Speaker 1: was struck with cholera, but the now well drained London 875 00:50:53,040 --> 00:50:56,280 Speaker 1: was not. In London, of course stank at the time 876 00:50:56,320 --> 00:50:58,920 Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety two, if you were still thinking maybe 877 00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:02,560 Speaker 1: it's the stinks that call as cholera, London smell bad. 878 00:51:02,920 --> 00:51:06,440 Speaker 1: Holiday attributes the lingering sting mainly to horse maneuver and 879 00:51:06,480 --> 00:51:09,839 Speaker 1: stuff like that in the streets. But yeah, it's still 880 00:51:09,840 --> 00:51:12,879 Speaker 1: smelled bad. But people weren't getting colera anymore because they 881 00:51:12,880 --> 00:51:16,760 Speaker 1: were keeping their water clean. The incoming water was clean 882 00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:20,200 Speaker 1: and the disposed of water was separately removed. Of course, 883 00:51:20,200 --> 00:51:22,839 Speaker 1: a bigger part of the puzzle was the increasing isolation 884 00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:27,680 Speaker 1: and identification of specific microbial life forms with their corresponding diseases, 885 00:51:27,800 --> 00:51:32,279 Speaker 1: like Fibrio colorade, identified by Felippo Paccini and later by 886 00:51:32,360 --> 00:51:35,640 Speaker 1: Robert Coke is the cause of cholera, uh the identification 887 00:51:35,680 --> 00:51:38,360 Speaker 1: of Bacillus and Thracis by Robert Coke in the eighteen 888 00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:41,160 Speaker 1: seventies is the cause of anthrax, and so on. Once 889 00:51:41,200 --> 00:51:45,040 Speaker 1: you could link these individual germs to the diseases, they 890 00:51:45,080 --> 00:51:48,560 Speaker 1: caused miasma theory didn't have much of a place anymore. 891 00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:50,480 Speaker 1: All Right, we're gonna take a quick break, and when 892 00:51:50,480 --> 00:51:53,400 Speaker 1: we come back, we will continue our discussion of miasma theory. 893 00:51:54,400 --> 00:51:59,760 Speaker 1: Than alright, we're back. Okay, so we've discussed how miasma 894 00:51:59,800 --> 00:52:03,399 Speaker 1: theory got finally knocked out. But you know, I think 895 00:52:03,400 --> 00:52:06,879 Speaker 1: about how miasthma theory was wrong, but it might have 896 00:52:06,960 --> 00:52:10,360 Speaker 1: done us a lot of good. Right, Yeah, Yeah, I 897 00:52:10,360 --> 00:52:13,200 Speaker 1: think you can certainly make a case for for it 898 00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:16,560 Speaker 1: being a perhaps a necessary step in our understanding of 899 00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:19,760 Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, because, specifically, as we've pointed out, versions 900 00:52:19,760 --> 00:52:22,600 Speaker 1: of the theory that linked disease to foul smelling air 901 00:52:23,239 --> 00:52:26,960 Speaker 1: would be somewhat useful because air, the matter that causes 902 00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:30,560 Speaker 1: air to smell foul, can itself also carry and allow 903 00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:37,080 Speaker 1: the growth of harmful bacteria, sewage, dead bodies, spoiled food. Um. 904 00:52:37,120 --> 00:52:39,319 Speaker 1: And if you think about specific cases, you think about 905 00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:42,040 Speaker 1: the Pope of Fire, Clement the sixth. He didn't become 906 00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:44,400 Speaker 1: infected with the plague. Now we don't know whether the 907 00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:48,040 Speaker 1: fire actually saved him. It's possible, it's impossible to know 908 00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:51,440 Speaker 1: for sure. But one thing that we would later discover 909 00:52:51,600 --> 00:52:55,160 Speaker 1: is that you can sterilize your environments with heat. Yeah. 910 00:52:55,360 --> 00:52:57,359 Speaker 1: And also, as Virginia Smith points out in her book, 911 00:52:58,160 --> 00:53:00,560 Speaker 1: we do kind of go from obsession with the asthma 912 00:53:00,640 --> 00:53:05,520 Speaker 1: and filth diseases too, obsessions with something called autointoxication, which 913 00:53:05,520 --> 00:53:07,880 Speaker 1: I'll get into in a bit, and uh, an obsession 914 00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:11,560 Speaker 1: with bacteria living in our bowels, and from their interest 915 00:53:11,600 --> 00:53:15,400 Speaker 1: in bacterial fermentation, which quote proves to be a fruitful 916 00:53:15,520 --> 00:53:19,360 Speaker 1: lead towards GM germ theory. And of course greatly improved 917 00:53:19,360 --> 00:53:22,320 Speaker 1: microscopes also helped. But again I'm stuck with this idea 918 00:53:22,320 --> 00:53:25,040 Speaker 1: that this is maybe just a necessary step in the 919 00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:29,480 Speaker 1: technology tree, uh, that the humanity used to get to 920 00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:32,840 Speaker 1: our modern understanding of illness. Yeah, well wait a minute, 921 00:53:32,840 --> 00:53:34,960 Speaker 1: but I want to know more about the auto intoxication. 922 00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:38,040 Speaker 1: So this is this was really interesting. I was reading 923 00:53:38,120 --> 00:53:42,200 Speaker 1: up on this, Uh, auto intoxication. Uh, this peaked as 924 00:53:42,239 --> 00:53:45,960 Speaker 1: a health buzzword in the nineteen hundreds. And as Mary 925 00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:49,759 Speaker 1: Roach pointed out in her Salon article Passing Gas and 926 00:53:49,840 --> 00:53:53,040 Speaker 1: in her excellent book Gulp, which is all about, um, 927 00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:56,160 Speaker 1: the science of human digestion and the quest for an 928 00:53:56,239 --> 00:54:00,080 Speaker 1: understanding of how digestion works, Uh, it was a it 929 00:54:00,160 --> 00:54:04,920 Speaker 1: was just a natural offshoot of myasthma theory. Roach says, quote, 930 00:54:05,040 --> 00:54:08,279 Speaker 1: if one bought into the dangers of miasthma's, it wasn't 931 00:54:08,360 --> 00:54:10,440 Speaker 1: much of a leap to buy into the dangers of 932 00:54:10,520 --> 00:54:15,640 Speaker 1: one's own internal sewage. Purveyors of laxatives and intimate devices 933 00:54:15,680 --> 00:54:18,960 Speaker 1: played up the connection, referring to the colon as quote, 934 00:54:19,040 --> 00:54:23,359 Speaker 1: the human privy an obstructed sewer, and this cesspool of 935 00:54:23,440 --> 00:54:26,839 Speaker 1: death and contagion. Yeah. So, like the idea is that 936 00:54:26,880 --> 00:54:30,440 Speaker 1: if bad smelling stuff comes out of you, there's bad 937 00:54:30,520 --> 00:54:32,680 Speaker 1: stuff inside of you, and you need to get rid 938 00:54:32,680 --> 00:54:35,760 Speaker 1: of it as much as possible. Yeah, the poisonous gas 939 00:54:35,880 --> 00:54:40,439 Speaker 1: was coming from inside the colon, for instance, as a 940 00:54:40,560 --> 00:54:43,760 Speaker 1: Dr Walter C. Alvarez wrote in the nineteen nineteen essay 941 00:54:43,760 --> 00:54:46,920 Speaker 1: in the Journal of the American Medical Association. UH. He 942 00:54:46,960 --> 00:54:51,040 Speaker 1: wrote that this intuitive sense in this theory really resonated 943 00:54:51,080 --> 00:54:54,840 Speaker 1: with folks. Quote they reasoned that if feces are foul, 944 00:54:55,080 --> 00:54:58,120 Speaker 1: then the body must be in the best condition when 945 00:54:58,200 --> 00:55:01,120 Speaker 1: freest from such material. And this essay, by the way, 946 00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:03,440 Speaker 1: he was this played a big role in turning the 947 00:55:03,480 --> 00:55:08,320 Speaker 1: tide against um this idea of auto intoxication. UH. The 948 00:55:08,560 --> 00:55:10,759 Speaker 1: whole essay is pretty great, but I want to read 949 00:55:11,160 --> 00:55:15,080 Speaker 1: just this bit from the intro. The caveman of the 950 00:55:15,080 --> 00:55:18,400 Speaker 1: glacial period and the savage of today would doubtless agree 951 00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:21,960 Speaker 1: that practically all diseases due to the malevolence of evil spirits. 952 00:55:22,560 --> 00:55:25,839 Speaker 1: The idea constituted the first system of medicine. The next 953 00:55:25,840 --> 00:55:28,560 Speaker 1: one appeared with the dawn of civilization, when men awoke 954 00:55:28,600 --> 00:55:32,759 Speaker 1: to the possibility that some diseases might arise from spontaneous 955 00:55:32,840 --> 00:55:37,160 Speaker 1: derangements of the bodily functions, particularly those concerned in excretion. 956 00:55:37,760 --> 00:55:40,400 Speaker 1: They reason that if feces are foul, then the body 957 00:55:40,480 --> 00:55:42,520 Speaker 1: must be in the best condition when free is from 958 00:55:42,520 --> 00:55:45,840 Speaker 1: such material. The idea, which is based on what appears 959 00:55:45,880 --> 00:55:49,160 Speaker 1: to be an obvious truism, has always been an attractive one, 960 00:55:49,160 --> 00:55:53,000 Speaker 1: particularly to the lay mind. The ancient Egyptians purge themselves 961 00:55:53,040 --> 00:55:55,600 Speaker 1: at certain times in the moon's cycle, just as many 962 00:55:55,640 --> 00:55:59,360 Speaker 1: people now take caluml in the spring. For thousands of years, 963 00:55:59,400 --> 00:56:02,120 Speaker 1: physicians have been in the habit of purging their patients 964 00:56:02,320 --> 00:56:05,080 Speaker 1: when they have not known what to do. We see 965 00:56:05,080 --> 00:56:09,319 Speaker 1: then that the present day dread of stasis and autointoxication 966 00:56:09,440 --> 00:56:12,320 Speaker 1: is nothing new. In the eighteenth century, the high priest 967 00:56:12,400 --> 00:56:15,640 Speaker 1: of the cult was Joe was Johann comp who believed 968 00:56:15,680 --> 00:56:19,880 Speaker 1: that all disease was due to impacted feces. Under his teaching, 969 00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:24,080 Speaker 1: the use of large medicated enemies became immensely popular and 970 00:56:24,120 --> 00:56:28,480 Speaker 1: the apothecaries fattened off the hypochondriacs. Then, just as the 971 00:56:28,600 --> 00:56:33,440 Speaker 1: quote internal bath specialists do today internal bath. Yeah, that 972 00:56:33,600 --> 00:56:38,640 Speaker 1: is the worst term ever, internal bath. So you had this, uh, 973 00:56:38,760 --> 00:56:42,719 Speaker 1: this one company that the Tyrrell Hygienic Institute Tyre, the 974 00:56:42,760 --> 00:56:49,160 Speaker 1: Tyrell Corps has nothing to do with with replicants, but 975 00:56:49,320 --> 00:56:53,840 Speaker 1: this was This was the organization created by Charles Alfred 976 00:56:53,920 --> 00:56:58,160 Speaker 1: Tyrell Um. He was essentially the Colon Klin's expert of 977 00:56:58,239 --> 00:57:01,160 Speaker 1: the day, and the chief produ was the JB. L. 978 00:57:01,320 --> 00:57:05,160 Speaker 1: Cascade Colonic Irrigator. J B L, by the way, stood 979 00:57:05,160 --> 00:57:08,399 Speaker 1: for Joy Beauty Life. Wait, isn't that also a brand 980 00:57:08,400 --> 00:57:11,320 Speaker 1: of speaker it Maybe I don't know if that stands 981 00:57:11,320 --> 00:57:14,560 Speaker 1: for Joy Beauty Life as well, but uh, it might 982 00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:17,840 Speaker 1: have a slightly different connotation. Yes it is. It's a 983 00:57:17,840 --> 00:57:21,400 Speaker 1: it's a brand of speakers. All right. Well, I'll leave 984 00:57:21,680 --> 00:57:24,280 Speaker 1: our our listeners to explore what that stands for. Unless 985 00:57:24,320 --> 00:57:26,560 Speaker 1: you have a quick answer for us, Well, I don't know, 986 00:57:26,800 --> 00:57:30,080 Speaker 1: Joy Beauty Life. Maybe one product was developed from another, 987 00:57:30,120 --> 00:57:35,600 Speaker 1: like we're listening to our favorite music through colonic irrigators. Well, 988 00:57:35,640 --> 00:57:37,560 Speaker 1: in addition to create putting out this product, they also 989 00:57:37,600 --> 00:57:40,520 Speaker 1: put out thousands of promotional pamphlets for doctors to give 990 00:57:40,560 --> 00:57:44,440 Speaker 1: their patients. And not everyone was won over by this 991 00:57:44,640 --> 00:57:47,320 Speaker 1: fake disease and it's fake treatments. And you might well 992 00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:49,640 Speaker 1: be thinking, hey, isn't this a problem worth sewing a 993 00:57:49,640 --> 00:57:53,200 Speaker 1: few dog anuses shut over? What? No, I'm not thinking that. 994 00:57:53,880 --> 00:57:57,200 Speaker 1: So it was indeed, because it's Mary Roach points out 995 00:57:57,440 --> 00:58:02,640 Speaker 1: in nine quote physician and otto intoxication doubter Arthur Donaldson 996 00:58:03,000 --> 00:58:09,040 Speaker 1: artificially and incontrovertibly constipated three dogs by temporarily sewing shut 997 00:58:09,160 --> 00:58:12,920 Speaker 1: their anus. That is horrible. And in this experiment he 998 00:58:12,920 --> 00:58:16,160 Speaker 1: observed quote no physical symptoms beyond a mild loss of 999 00:58:16,200 --> 00:58:19,439 Speaker 1: appetite occurred and there was no internal poisoning. He also 1000 00:58:19,560 --> 00:58:23,080 Speaker 1: checked their blood and so this provided uh some additional 1001 00:58:23,120 --> 00:58:27,520 Speaker 1: ammo against this idea of auto intoxication, which itself was 1002 00:58:27,680 --> 00:58:30,400 Speaker 1: a child of mi asthma. And I might add that 1003 00:58:30,440 --> 00:58:33,120 Speaker 1: this is a child of miasma, that is that still 1004 00:58:33,240 --> 00:58:37,160 Speaker 1: lives in our world. You will still see plenty of 1005 00:58:37,160 --> 00:58:40,520 Speaker 1: of of of agents of Tyrrell at work in the world. 1006 00:58:41,160 --> 00:58:45,080 Speaker 1: You mean, all the like the pseudoscience and the clan's culture. Yeah, 1007 00:58:45,120 --> 00:58:49,000 Speaker 1: and filth building up in the colon and become This 1008 00:58:49,080 --> 00:58:50,480 Speaker 1: is the kind of thing that I find that I 1009 00:58:50,600 --> 00:58:54,080 Speaker 1: encounter in an uh little clickbait images at the bottom 1010 00:58:54,120 --> 00:58:58,640 Speaker 1: of various blog posts, was like this famous actress removed 1011 00:58:58,680 --> 00:59:01,280 Speaker 1: this from her colon and now she will live to 1012 00:59:01,800 --> 00:59:03,880 Speaker 1: be a hundred and fifty. That's sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah, 1013 00:59:03,920 --> 00:59:06,280 Speaker 1: and it's some sort of grotesque picture that you still 1014 00:59:06,360 --> 00:59:09,640 Speaker 1: feel obligated to click on just to figure out what 1015 00:59:09,680 --> 00:59:11,800 Speaker 1: you're looking at, and then you find no answers in 1016 00:59:11,840 --> 00:59:15,840 Speaker 1: the in the clickbait content, of course. Cleanse your toxins. Yeah, 1017 00:59:16,000 --> 00:59:18,320 Speaker 1: so that's auto intoxication in a nutshell. If you want 1018 00:59:18,320 --> 00:59:21,040 Speaker 1: to know more about that, again, I highly recommend Mary 1019 00:59:21,080 --> 00:59:24,320 Speaker 1: roaches salon article or her book Gulp, It's it's miasma 1020 00:59:24,360 --> 00:59:26,760 Speaker 1: theory on the inside. Yeah, so there you have at 1021 00:59:26,800 --> 00:59:29,840 Speaker 1: miasma theory in a nutshell. I would say one thing 1022 00:59:29,880 --> 00:59:32,120 Speaker 1: you should take away from this episode is if you 1023 00:59:32,160 --> 00:59:35,400 Speaker 1: are lucky enough to have access to clean water that 1024 00:59:35,520 --> 00:59:39,080 Speaker 1: is separate from your sewage disposal system. You should recognize 1025 00:59:39,120 --> 00:59:41,920 Speaker 1: that this is a thing that you're very fortunate to experience. 1026 00:59:41,960 --> 00:59:44,160 Speaker 1: You should be thankful for it. It's something we take 1027 00:59:44,200 --> 00:59:46,680 Speaker 1: for granted in our lives, but it's a huge part 1028 00:59:46,680 --> 00:59:50,400 Speaker 1: of what makes like city life livable. Indeed, all right, 1029 00:59:50,480 --> 00:59:52,640 Speaker 1: if you want more episodes of Stuff to Blow your mind, 1030 00:59:52,680 --> 00:59:54,360 Speaker 1: you know where to go. I don't know to Stuff 1031 00:59:54,400 --> 00:59:56,520 Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot Com. That is the mothership. 1032 00:59:56,560 --> 00:59:58,600 Speaker 1: That's where you'll find all our episodes going back to 1033 00:59:58,640 --> 01:00:01,440 Speaker 1: the very beginning. You'll find log posts and links out 1034 01:00:01,440 --> 01:00:04,680 Speaker 1: to our various social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, 1035 01:00:04,720 --> 01:00:08,600 Speaker 1: and Instagram. On Facebook, you will also find that discussion group, 1036 01:00:08,960 --> 01:00:12,840 Speaker 1: the discussion module where you can engage with with Joe 1037 01:00:13,160 --> 01:00:16,600 Speaker 1: and myself as well as various other listeners who have 1038 01:00:16,880 --> 01:00:20,360 Speaker 1: lots of intriguing thoughts on topics we are discussing, topics 1039 01:00:20,400 --> 01:00:24,640 Speaker 1: we should discuss, et cetera. Oh yes, so big, thanks 1040 01:00:24,680 --> 01:00:28,680 Speaker 1: as always to our audio producers Alex Williams and Tory Harrison. 1041 01:00:28,760 --> 01:00:30,960 Speaker 1: And if you want to get in touch with us 1042 01:00:31,120 --> 01:00:33,600 Speaker 1: to let us know feedback on this episode or any other, 1043 01:00:33,840 --> 01:00:35,720 Speaker 1: or to let us know a topic you'd like to 1044 01:00:36,200 --> 01:00:38,760 Speaker 1: like us to do in the future. Uh to just 1045 01:00:38,800 --> 01:00:40,959 Speaker 1: say hi, just let us know what you like about 1046 01:00:40,960 --> 01:00:44,200 Speaker 1: the show. You can email us at blow the Mind 1047 01:00:44,280 --> 01:00:56,680 Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com for moral this, and 1048 01:00:56,760 --> 01:01:09,600 Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com. 1049 01:01:06,640 --> 01:01:15,880 Speaker 1: Let people the Biggest Part five Part