WEBVTT - The Artifact: The Toad Vomit Miracle 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:05.640 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of 0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:11.040 I Heart Radio. Hi. My name is Joe McCormick. And 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:14.400 this is the Artifact, a short form series from Stuff 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:18.079 to Blow Your Mind, focusing on particular objects, ideas, and 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:25.760 moments in time. In June of the international auction house 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:30.280 known as Bonham's put a rare artifact up forbidding. It 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:33.960 was an original manuscript of the English physicist and mathematician 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:38.400 Sir Isaac Newton, dating back to the seventeenth century, containing 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:41.839 Newton's handwritten notes on a book he had read around 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:45.800 the time he went into quarantine to avoid the Bubonic plague. 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:50.400 The book was called The Tumulus Pestis or the Tomb 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.840 of the Plague by the Flemish alchemist and physician Yan 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:59.800 Baptista van Helmont. In this manuscript, Newton summarizes van Helmont's 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:03.520 for stand observations and warnings about the plague, which were 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:06.640 based on his time working as a doctor in Antwerp 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:09.440 when it was struck by an outbreak in sixteen o five. 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:14.080 The Tumulus Pestis, of course, predates the germ theory of disease, 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.560 so the advice it gives is of limited scientific value. 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:22.000 It does recommend avoiding areas crowded with infected people, which 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:25.759 is sound though pretty obvious, but it also warns, for example, 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:28.600 that infection could be spread if you were to touch 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:33.560 a pestilent read with your finger. Newton records Van Helmont's 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:37.959 prescriptions for treatments and prophylactics against infection as well. Some 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:40.640 come in the form of amulets made of gems like 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:45.399 sapphire or amber, but according to Newton's notes quote, the 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:49.280 best is a toad suspended by the legs in a 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:54.000 chimney for three days, which at last vomited up earth 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:58.200 and various insects in it onto a dish of yellow wax, 0:01:58.640 --> 0:02:03.320 and shortly after die. Combining powdered toad with the excretions 0:02:03.320 --> 0:02:07.559 and serum made into lozenges and worn around the affected area, 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:18.680 drove away the contagion and drew out the poison. Today 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:21.799 we know the plague is caused by a bacterium your 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:25.960 Sinea pestis, and it can usually be treated with antibiotics. 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:29.840 I really doubt the lozenge made out of powdered toad 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:33.720 vomit and toad corpse would be effective at staving off infection, 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:36.280 and I don't know what would have caused an early 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:39.240 modern physician like Van Helmont to believe in it. But 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:42.920 one thing that's absolutely impossible to ignore is that the 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:47.520 vomiting behavior of frogs and toads, known technically as and 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:52.519 urine emesis, is a surprising, memorable, and many splendored thing. 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:56.880 For example, if an untrained observer were to catch some 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:00.080 species of frogs and toads at the right moment, it 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.040 would look like they were giving birth to live young 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:08.720 by vomiting them up through the mouth. The species Rhinoderma darwinii, 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.640 also known as the Darwin frog, is native to South America, 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:17.080 found primarily in the freshwater streams of Chile and Argentina. 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:21.360 As part of their reproductive cycle, male Darwin frogs eat 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:24.400 their young. This is not as grim as it sounds. 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:29.600 There's no chewing, no digestion. Instead, when a male Darwin 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:33.160 frog swallows his tadpoles, he stores them in a pouch 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:37.240 known as the vocal sack, where they brood safely until 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:41.560 metamorphosis occurs. After this, they can be vomited out of 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:46.040 their father's mouth as fully formed froglets. Other species of 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:51.000 nurins practice genuine gastric brooding, where a parent stores their 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:53.840 young not just in a sack access through the mouth, 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:57.360 but literally in the stomach where the food usually goes. 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:00.720 But there's a fact about a urine emesis that's even 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:04.200 more astounding, and it comes not during reproduction, but when 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.520 frogs and toads need to vomit up whatever they just ate. 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:11.600 And urins have such a strong vomiting reflex that when 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:15.280 their bodies detect the presence of potentially toxic contents in 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:18.920 the stomach, they will vomit not only the contents of 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:23.800 the digestive system, but the digestive system itself, with the 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:27.480 stomach turning inside out, shooting out of the mouth, and 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:30.680 hanging out from between the lips like a giant pink 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:35.520 balloon made of ham. This adaptation is known as gastric aversion. 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:38.960 Frogs and toads are not the only animals that do it. 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:42.040 Sharks and rays are sometimes known to barf up their 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:45.680 own guts when they need to. In fact, this gastric 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:49.279 aversion adaptation among and urins features in a strange letter 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:51.800 I found published in the journal Nature in the year 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:56.600 nineteen six, but authors tomy O Nito and Richard wasser 0:04:56.640 --> 0:05:00.760 Sug called why are toads right handed? In this letter, 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:03.719 the authors are responding to previous research published in the 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.800 same journal reporting that most toads show a preference for 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:12.080 using their right foreleg to wipe away material stuck to 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:15.120 their head or their face. There was a question that 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:20.000 lingered about this why the preference for right handed grooming behaviors. 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:25.919 Nito and Wassersug suggested a possible answer rooted in gastric aversion. 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:29.800 You see, sometimes it's not enough to turn your own 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:33.400 stomach inside out and dangle it out between your jaws. 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:36.400 You have to make sure that when you swallow your 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:40.800 stomach once again, you don't accidentally drag the noxious material 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.920 you were trying to get rid of back inside along 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:47.920 with your guts. So to prevent this, frogs and toads 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:52.359 have an instinctive wiping reflex. While the inverted stomach is 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:55.960 hanging out through the mouth, they will vigorously wipe off 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:59.839 the inside of their stomach with their forelegs. What Nito 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.440 and wasser Sug pointed out was that the urine digestive 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:08.360 system is not symmetric because the tissue connecting the digestive 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:11.120 system to the inside of the abdomen is shorter on 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.760 the right side than on the left. The stomach, when inverted, 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:17.479 tends to hang out the right side of the mouth, 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:21.600 sometimes completely out of reach of the left hand. So 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:24.520 they argue there's a chance that when a toad grooms 0:06:24.560 --> 0:06:28.240 itself with its right hand, it's because that's the hand 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:33.960 that it can count on to reach the guts. Tune 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:37.120 into new editions of the Artifact every Wednesday, hosted by 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:40.720 either Robert or myself. As always, you can email us 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:51.960 at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:54.599 Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:57.240 For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:00.080 Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to her 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:00.760 favorite shows.