Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the shorty. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
Speaker 1: there's Jerry. We don't say last names on these because
Speaker 1: we're crunched for time. Does that mean we need to
Speaker 1: say welcome to the long form when it comes to
Speaker 1: the other ones? All right, I think that's a great idea.
Speaker 1: Change is good, But you have to roll your L
Speaker 1: Welcome to the long for WHOA, I didn't know you
Speaker 1: were so good at that. Wait, there's an L, N
Speaker 1: and R in there. Let's see if I can do it.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the long from How is that you look
Speaker 1: like and sound like you're underwater and eating peanut butter? Uh?
Speaker 1: Speaking of eating peanut butter, did you know that in
Speaker 1: ancient Rome, if you ate a couple of gallons of
Speaker 1: peanut butter, it was very acceptable to stroll on over
Speaker 1: to a vomitorium and throw it up and stick a
Speaker 1: feather down your throat, or have sorry, have some young
Speaker 1: child stick a feather down your throat, or Bill murray
Speaker 1: so you could so you could throw up and then
Speaker 1: eat even more peanut butter. That's right, Chuck, that's an
Speaker 1: indisputable fact of history. Not true. No, And you know
Speaker 1: what something was bugging me researching this, I was like,
Speaker 1: I feel like I've said something like on the podcast
Speaker 1: before where I referenced this being correct and it wasn't.
Speaker 1: I probably did. But I'm in pretty good company because
Speaker 1: we've got this idea that that, yeah, in ancient Rome,
Speaker 1: it was totally normal to go throw up basically binge
Speaker 1: and purge, but purge in like a public area that's
Speaker 1: designated to go purge. Um that that's been around for
Speaker 1: at least since the nineteen twenties, and we can trace
Speaker 1: it all the way back to Algius Huxley. Actually, who
Speaker 1: who created this misconception? Yeah, I mean I thought this
Speaker 1: was a true fact up until two days ago. Basically
Speaker 1: everyone does. So don't feel bad again. You're in the
Speaker 1: company of Algius Huxley. How you pren on that Huxley?
Speaker 1: Not the first name Algius Algius? What do you pronounce
Speaker 1: it as Deletrius? I think you're you're swapping the U
Speaker 1: and the oh Aldus Aldus. I think it's Aldus. Oh,
Speaker 1: I like Algius, all right, I've re christened him. Well,
Speaker 1: he was a very alguous person. I don't know what
Speaker 1: that word means. I just made it up, Okay, good,
Speaker 1: because I was really embarrassed for a second. Yeah. So apparently, well,
Speaker 1: let's go back to Rome to quote the Great Frank
Speaker 1: Black and the Catholic song, uh vomitorius, which is the
Speaker 1: pull of vomitory Um. There were these things in ancient Rome, apparently,
Speaker 1: but it was just a very well, to my ear,
Speaker 1: weird name for a very u now common thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they actually know who was the first two references
Speaker 1: a guy named Macrobius back in the fourth century CE.
Speaker 1: He just used it as a term to describe, based clear,
Speaker 1: a passage into and out of, say like the Colosseum,
Speaker 1: where people would be disgorged out at such a gross
Speaker 1: word into like um. Like you've been to Colosseum, right
Speaker 1: to the Colosseum, Yeah, okay, same here. It's an amazing place. Um,
Speaker 1: and there's there's just a lot of walking space that's
Speaker 1: actually really effectively designed. And one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: it's so effectively designed is because of these passageways to
Speaker 1: basically to your seat and then back out into the
Speaker 1: main walkway around the perimeter inside the Colosseum. Those places
Speaker 1: in and out between the two those are vomitoria. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's what do we call them today? It's a not
Speaker 1: a portal but a portico maybe. No. I mean it's
Speaker 1: just like it's like any modern stadium design. It's the
Speaker 1: the hallway open thing that you walk through and then
Speaker 1: you're like, now I'm in the stadium. What do you
Speaker 1: call concourse? No? I think we should just go back
Speaker 1: to calling the vomitoria. Yeah, I'm gonna say that next
Speaker 1: time I go to a Falcons game. Hey, meet me
Speaker 1: at the vomatory to pardon me? Can you direct me
Speaker 1: to my vomatorium? I can't think of the word, and
Speaker 1: it's really bugging me. I know what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: and I want to say it's like portal too. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is a portal. Maybe some people call them that,
Speaker 1: but I think that's what they're called, like sports. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there were seventy six of these though around up
Speaker 1: and down the coliseum. And apparently did you say how
Speaker 1: many people that they could shuttle in and out of there? Yet? No?
Speaker 1: Apparently fifty thousand people could get in and out of
Speaker 1: this thing, uh and like to their seats within about
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes. That's not bad, that's amazing. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: the porschemoho I just sit there in time it by
Speaker 1: looking at the sun, so many went blind right until
Speaker 1: it finally happened. They'd have to replace the first in
Speaker 1: every thirty seconds they were carting him away. Would be like,
Speaker 1: I got thirty seconds. Uh, what is the name of
Speaker 1: those things that's gonna buck me? I don't know. Uh.
Speaker 1: Should we take a break and talk about Aldus Huxley again? Algius?
Speaker 1: All right? Right after this? All right, so you set
Speaker 1: us up with Algius Huxley. What in the world did this?
Speaker 1: How could in the world could he have affected this?
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess he just heard of it before,
Speaker 1: and basically he mentions it in passing in a single line.
Speaker 1: He wrote a comic novel um called Antick Hay about
Speaker 1: post World War one decadent like upper upper class society
Speaker 1: and um he just basically mentioned like a goth coming
Speaker 1: into a vomitorium, and UM. I from the line I
Speaker 1: saw it didn't even really seemed to be like he
Speaker 1: was talking about the goth was gonna come throw up
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Um. But that was the first
Speaker 1: instance they could find if somebody using it not in
Speaker 1: the way that Macrobius was was using it as that
Speaker 1: portal thingy. Right, So so they think that he was
Speaker 1: the first one to say this or put it down
Speaker 1: and pen to paper. And you have to give him
Speaker 1: a break because he just injected a tremendous amount of
Speaker 1: LSD under his own eye before he started writing this, right,
Speaker 1: So we're gonna excuse him. The next person who gets
Speaker 1: zero excuse whatsoever is Lewis Mumford. And he was an historian,
Speaker 1: he was a critic. He should have known better. He
Speaker 1: did not do his which apparently had been reading al
Speaker 1: Drus Huxley and just basically cited it as fact in
Speaker 1: one of his books, The City in History. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he he full on to find it as uh, where
Speaker 1: you over eat and you go and make yourself throw
Speaker 1: up And he just made that up. Yeah, as a
Speaker 1: fan of Huxley's I guess yeah, I guess so. I
Speaker 1: don't think he ever took a drop of acet either.
Speaker 1: He has zero excuse Lewis Mumford does. Uh. Well, here's
Speaker 1: the thing though, and this is where it does get
Speaker 1: kind of gross, because even though they did not originate
Speaker 1: in ancient Rome, there are real vomitoriums, apparently in places
Speaker 1: like Vietnam, and I look this up and I was
Speaker 1: trying to find a picture and I did find one,
Speaker 1: and it looks like where you would go to the
Speaker 1: sink and wash up in a public bathroom. But it
Speaker 1: has it looks like a tiny toilet bowl, like it's
Speaker 1: got the shape of a toilet bowl on a you know,
Speaker 1: like waist high. And then above this least this one
Speaker 1: it had a little tiny toilet tank. Even it looks
Speaker 1: like a miniature toilet except waiste high. So I saw
Speaker 1: when that was like a big stainless steel sink with
Speaker 1: like one of those like dishwasher like you have you
Speaker 1: ever washed dishes for a living? That was the first job.
Speaker 1: So you know, that's right. We talked about that, didn't
Speaker 1: you read out like everybody? And the Chase Barbecue? I
Speaker 1: didn't d out anybody. What are you talking about? What
Speaker 1: was it? I worked at JJ's. I was a boy
Speaker 1: and dishwasher, but they stuck their tennis shoe and like
Speaker 1: the Brunswick stewards that. Yeah, but I didn't read amount
Speaker 1: I should have, Okay. Yeah, So anyway, um, so you know,
Speaker 1: like the dishwashing sink thing, the Fawcett it had like
Speaker 1: one of those, so I guess you're expected to rinse
Speaker 1: the sink out after you vomited into it. But the
Speaker 1: way you know what you're doing and I saw your
Speaker 1: picture too, um, is there's a sign, like a like
Speaker 1: a road sign type graphic of of somebody throwing up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's how you know to use it. So it's
Speaker 1: like it's like thick action became reality. Yeah, so like
Speaker 1: it has someone kind of been over heaving out. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know Graphic Spew great great band name, right, they're
Speaker 1: sort of they opened up for Guar for a while.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I'll bet actually I did see a band
Speaker 1: called Vomitory. Um. Oh, I'm sure Graphic Spew though, man
Speaker 1: a lie. But apparently all over ho Chi Minh City
Speaker 1: you can find these things, and some of them even
Speaker 1: have um like pictures of ancient Rome and stuff, I
Speaker 1: guess as a nod to the false claim that they
Speaker 1: started in ancient Rome. My head's about a pop and
Speaker 1: what about Germany? That gets even grosser. So this article
Speaker 1: on how stuff works says that they're puke pants. They're
Speaker 1: known colloquially as a puke pants. Not true. The only
Speaker 1: place I saw that on the internet is in this
Speaker 1: how stuff Works article. But there are vomitoriums in Germany.
Speaker 1: There's a place called Hoffbrow House in Munich. It's a
Speaker 1: beer hall that's known to have I've been there. Oh really,
Speaker 1: I've been to the Hot Boy House. Did you see
Speaker 1: the vomitorium? No, sorry, the puke pan. I did all
Speaker 1: my puking in the potted plants. Oh there, you god,
Speaker 1: I think that's that's ghosh, man, that's like wearing white
Speaker 1: after labor day. No, so there is one at the
Speaker 1: Hot Boy House. Supposedly, that's what I saw on trip Advisor.
Speaker 1: So our article claiming that in German frat houses that
Speaker 1: first of all, I didn't know Germany had fraternitys. That's
Speaker 1: got to be this. This whole thing just stinks of conception. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well their source was antique dash Photos whatever that is.
Speaker 1: It's a Crystal Lynx site. I think. So. At the
Speaker 1: very least we know that in Germany there are designated
Speaker 1: puke places, and anyone who's I mean, I guess. I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, you shouldn't be drinking so much that
Speaker 1: you regularly throw up anyway, that's point number one. But uh,
Speaker 1: if you've ever been in a bathroom stall and walked
Speaker 1: in like Oh boy, I gotta pee and it's just
Speaker 1: got vomit every where. It's one of the worst experiences
Speaker 1: you can have as a human. Yeah, especially if you
Speaker 1: don't have to pee but have to pooph We'll forget it.
Speaker 1: It's like Trainspotting. What is I never saw that movie?
Speaker 1: What happens? Then? Well, there's a scene where he goes
Speaker 1: to throw up some heroine that he had ingested so
Speaker 1: he can shoot it. Man. It's like it's a sort
Speaker 1: of a dreamy sequence of the bathroom is labeled as
Speaker 1: the worst bathroom in Scotland, and it's nasty, and he
Speaker 1: pukes in there and then reaches in and eventually you
Speaker 1: and McGregor goes all the way into the toilet and
Speaker 1: swims around. So it's it's a fantasy sequence. It does
Speaker 1: sound a little dreamy, you know, everyone's fantasy about going
Speaker 1: into a poop puke infested toilet and swimming And I'm
Speaker 1: missing out not having seen train Spotting. Yeah, it's a classic. Okay,
Speaker 1: well I'll go check it out. All right, you got
Speaker 1: anything else on this gross? I'm ready to move on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I am to everybody. We're moving on. If you want
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us. You can go onto
Speaker 1: our website Stuff you Should Know dot com, look for
Speaker 1: our social meds inked, and then send us an email
Speaker 1: to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com