Speaker 1: The farmer was beside himself. He was meant for a
Speaker 1: life in the field, not the jail cell. But he
Speaker 1: had been convicted of murder, and now he had been
Speaker 1: sentenced to die. He probably never saw his life heading
Speaker 1: in this direction, but desperation had made him do some
Speaker 1: unspeakable things. This farmer had met a peasant girl who
Speaker 1: had been traveling the country, and hired her to work
Speaker 1: in his house. She confided in him that she had
Speaker 1: been saving some money to go to America. The farmer,
Speaker 1: deeply in debt, saw in the girl a temporary relief
Speaker 1: for his financial woes, so one dark night he coaxed
Speaker 1: the girl to follow him from their house. Her body
Speaker 1: was found sometime later, and the investigations trail led pretty
Speaker 1: obviously right back to our farmer. In the days leading
Speaker 1: up to his execution, he had become a nervous wreck,
Speaker 1: so much so that it was actually delayed. Yet the
Speaker 1: final day had now arrived, But in the same way
Speaker 1: that he had counted down days in dread, many others
Speaker 1: were waiting too, not with fear, but with curious anticipation.
Speaker 1: In fact, extra trains had been scheduled to accommodate the
Speaker 1: thousands of people who were flooding in from all over
Speaker 1: Germany who wanted to catch a glimpse of the farmer's
Speaker 1: final breath. When the time for his execution came, the
Speaker 1: farmer was taken from his cell by soldiers and escorted
Speaker 1: up the scaffolding platform by two priests. The three men
Speaker 1: began to pray, and the the crowd fell silent. The farmer meanwhile,
Speaker 1: fell deathly pale. With the prayer finished, the priests helped
Speaker 1: lift the farmer up and situate him in a wooden
Speaker 1: chair while his arms and legs were bound so that
Speaker 1: he would be unable to move. The faces and the
Speaker 1: crowd made for his last glimpse of the world just
Speaker 1: before the blindfold was placed over his eyes. Next, leather
Speaker 1: strap was fastened under his chin and extended upward over
Speaker 1: his head. This wouldn't be a hanging, you see, but
Speaker 1: a beheading. The strap pulled high and taut, would allow
Speaker 1: for a clean swing. The executioner, a headsman as he
Speaker 1: was often called, was almost seventy years old and clad
Speaker 1: in a cloak. He was a notable character in the
Speaker 1: community for his station in life. He had an air
Speaker 1: of plainness and respectability about him, and a sense of
Speaker 1: solemn duty. When everything and everyone was in their proper place,
Speaker 1: the headsman picked up a large sword. Still, not a
Speaker 1: whisper could be heard amongst the crowd. The headsman raised
Speaker 1: his tool and rotated it as if to show it
Speaker 1: off to all of those who had assembled to witness
Speaker 1: the event. He stepped forward, and, after making a few
Speaker 1: final adjustments, positioned his sword very deliberately a few inches
Speaker 1: from the farmer's neck. He wanted to make sure that
Speaker 1: when he struck, it would be in just the right place.
Speaker 1: Holding the sword horizontally with both hands and about a
Speaker 1: foot away from the man's neck, the headsman swung, made
Speaker 1: contact with our unfortunate farmer, and severed his vertebrae. With
Speaker 1: a few more hacks through muscle and tissue and skin,
Speaker 1: the farmer's head lopped off. The whole process of severing
Speaker 1: the head is over almost instantaneously. The assistant executioner then
Speaker 1: held the head high in the air. It read like
Speaker 1: a perverse trophy, a warning sign to all those who
Speaker 1: might consider committing similar crimes. But if you think this
Speaker 1: whole spectacle is shocking, what came next might just take
Speaker 1: it to the next level. As the farmer's head was
Speaker 1: still held above the crowd. About ten onlookers rushed forward.
Speaker 1: They jockeyed with their outstretched arms, trying to catch the
Speaker 1: blood spurting from the dead man's trunk in the goblets
Speaker 1: that they had brought from their home. According to one source,
Speaker 1: one of the men jumped on the scaffolding, grabbed the corpse,
Speaker 1: and tipped it over as if he were pouring a
Speaker 1: decanter of fine red wine. He drank from the bloody
Speaker 1: stump of the man's neck, overcome with ecstasy and relief.
Speaker 1: You see, these men were epileptics, and it was believed
Speaker 1: that the blood from the body of a freshly executed
Speaker 1: person was a key remedy to their affliction. It was
Speaker 1: thought to be full of vim and vigor and life force,
Speaker 1: a soothing tonic for the brains malfunctioning electrolytes. When we
Speaker 1: hear the word cannibalism, a few images might come to
Speaker 1: our minds. Perhaps we think of secluded or primitive tribal
Speaker 1: groups or cults scattered in out of reach regions around
Speaker 1: the globe, or coming a bit closer to home, we
Speaker 1: might think of groups like the Donner Party, Ordinary civilized
Speaker 1: folk who due to extreme and extraordinary conditions, were pushed
Speaker 1: to inhumane activities that were simply for survival. Yet, humans
Speaker 1: likewise have a long history of willfully practicing this kind
Speaker 1: of medicinal cannibalism which we saw unfold here at the
Speaker 1: scaffold in Germany, and we need not look back far
Speaker 1: to find examples of it. In the case of our
Speaker 1: most unfortunate farmer, you might be surprised to hear that
Speaker 1: the year was eighteen sixty one. That's the same year
Speaker 1: that the American Civil War began. The first version of
Speaker 1: the Periodic Table would be published just a few years later.
Speaker 1: Louis Pasteur was right in the middle of his career
Speaker 1: revolutionizing germ theory. This moment, you see, was far from
Speaker 1: a remote primitive period in the past. It was a
Speaker 1: part of the modern world. I'm Aaron Manky, and welcome
Speaker 1: to bedside manners. If you get a headache today, you
Speaker 1: might take some ib profin or maybe an antacid to
Speaker 1: treat the stomach ache. These remedies, though, haven't been options
Speaker 1: for most of human history. Prior to the major medical
Speaker 1: and pharmaceutical advancements of the twentieth century, there were far
Speaker 1: more gaps in our understanding between illnesses and their cures.
Speaker 1: But you might be thinking, why did we fill that
Speaker 1: gap by choosing to drink hot, bubbling human blood. What
Speaker 1: we need to understand first is that for nearly all
Speaker 1: of history, the human body has been understood to be
Speaker 1: special compared to other living organisms. That is, in the
Speaker 1: Judaeo Christian tradition, the belief of God's image and creation
Speaker 1: lad people to try to find his imprints. In the
Speaker 1: case of humans, these imprints could be the lines in
Speaker 1: one's home, wrinkles on the forehead, the size of their nose,
Speaker 1: or the color of their hair. These features were believed
Speaker 1: to convey the way in which God made each individual unique.
Speaker 1: This idea was paired with an ancient concept concerning the
Speaker 1: interconnectedness of all matter. Plants and animals that resembled certain
Speaker 1: body parts were thought to contain healing powers for those
Speaker 1: body parts. It was thought that God had left such
Speaker 1: resemblances as deliberate clues throughout creation for humans to learn from.
Speaker 1: This phenomenon has come to be referred to as sympathetic magic.
Speaker 1: This idea that like needed to be cured by like
Speaker 1: would become a major part of the tradition of medical cannibalism.
Speaker 1: An assumption championed by our good friend Paracelsius and his
Speaker 1: followers was that the spirit was not just a way
Speaker 1: of talking abstractly about the human essence, but was understood
Speaker 1: to be a very real physiological part of the human body,
Speaker 1: and was thought to be contained in the blood. By
Speaker 1: consuming human bodies, weak living humans could take the vitality
Speaker 1: and thus find a possible cure from deceased humans. Now,
Speaker 1: another somewhat related assumption that would be very important to
Speaker 1: the practice of corpse medicine was that bodies killed violently
Speaker 1: and suddenly were the best dying. A quick, violent death,
Speaker 1: rather than a long, slow decline from illness or old age,
Speaker 1: meant that the life force within the body was still
Speaker 1: strong at the point of death. Some recipes even advocated
Speaker 1: for blood to be taken, especially from people in their
Speaker 1: mid twenties, as they would have most likely been physically
Speaker 1: in the prime of life. This was evidently often paired
Speaker 1: with the idea that a person's lifespan was fore ordained,
Speaker 1: and thus if that were cut short, the residual power
Speaker 1: that remained in the body could be transferred to someone else.
Speaker 1: The seventeenth century medical textbook Pharmacopeia Medico Kaimaka advocates the
Speaker 1: practice of drinking blood and even describes some bodies as
Speaker 1: being more beneficial than others. It prescribed that one acquire,
Speaker 1: and I quote, a fresh, unspotted cadaver of a red
Speaker 1: headed man, because in them the blood is thinner and
Speaker 1: the flesh hence more excellent. Better still, if that body
Speaker 1: had been about twenty four years old and recently executed,
Speaker 1: the body should be laid out for twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: but only in good weather, it recommended, after which it
Speaker 1: should be cut into pieces and sprinkled with aloe and mirror. Then,
Speaker 1: it said, soak it in spirits of wine for several days,
Speaker 1: hang it up for six to ten hours, soak it
Speaker 1: again in spirits of wine. Then let the pieces dry
Speaker 1: and dry air in a shady spot. Thus they will
Speaker 1: be similar to smoked meat and will not stink. The
Speaker 1: practice of medical cannibalism reached its peak in Western Europe
Speaker 1: towards the end of the Renaissance and lasted well into
Speaker 1: the latter years of the eighteenth century. And lest you
Speaker 1: think that this is just a folk practice, people across
Speaker 1: class lines participated in corpse medicine on a more or
Speaker 1: less routine basis. The influential eighteenth century theologian and clergyman
Speaker 1: Richard Baxter was treated for a fit of bleeding by
Speaker 1: applying moss that had been grown on a buried human skull.
Speaker 1: The unfortunate Charles the Second, who, if you recall, met
Speaker 1: his demise in a previous episode, was famously fond of
Speaker 1: something known as the King's drops, which consisted of human
Speaker 1: skulls ground to a fine powder and mixed with alcohol,
Speaker 1: which was then drunk to cure a variety of diseases.
Speaker 1: With interest peaking in the sixteenth century, European apothecaries were
Speaker 1: chock full of salves and powders made of pillaged mummies.
Speaker 1: But as mummies became harder to come by, people's cannibalistic
Speaker 1: attention shifted from ancient Egypt to their local gallows, and
Speaker 1: that likewise brought attention not just to the bodies of
Speaker 1: those who were executed, but to the person tasked with
Speaker 1: carrying out the deadly deed itself. It was a strange role,
Speaker 1: this one of the executioner. Their job was to end lives,
Speaker 1: and yet when the rich and poor, educated and uneducated
Speaker 1: alike look to the gallows for medicine. We find that
Speaker 1: life and death, punishment and healing became in the person
Speaker 1: of the executioner, the very strangest of bedfellows. Let's imagine
Speaker 1: that you are a good family man. You're an attentive
Speaker 1: husband and father, teaching your children your trade so that
Speaker 1: they can make a living when they grow up. Perhaps
Speaker 1: you enjoy spending time in your garden. Maybe you like
Speaker 1: to feed stray cats. You go to church when or
Speaker 1: if you are able. What is more, you have a
Speaker 1: relatively well paid job working for the government, and yet
Speaker 1: the wages of your honest labors include the crippling stain
Speaker 1: of dishonor by virtue of the tasks which your government
Speaker 1: job requires you to perform. And what's worse, this social
Speaker 1: disease is both a blood borne pathogen because your children
Speaker 1: automatically inherit it, and it's also highly contagious. An otherwise
Speaker 1: honorable member of your town could contract your dishonnor simply
Speaker 1: by getting too close. If you're allowed into churches or taverns,
Speaker 1: you have to stay in a special section, far away
Speaker 1: from other people. Sometimes you even are required to wear
Speaker 1: special clothing whenever you're in public, so that people will
Speaker 1: notice stay away from you, so it's no surprise to
Speaker 1: you or anyone else when people cross the street when
Speaker 1: they see you coming, and that few are ever willing
Speaker 1: to darken the doorway of your house. This is your lots,
Speaker 1: of course, because you're a professional executioner in pre modern Europe,
Speaker 1: and on account of your trade, there are very few
Speaker 1: people in society who are considered more repulsive, more untouchable,
Speaker 1: and dishonorable than yourself. Executing criminals has been around for
Speaker 1: as long as there have been well crime, but for
Speaker 1: a long time, governments took a rather passive role in
Speaker 1: criminal prosecution. They began to change that in the late
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, though, local governments became more proactive in investigating
Speaker 1: and punishing crime, resulting in a rise of convictions. Likewise,
Speaker 1: a new array of specialized public spectacles of punishment were developed,
Speaker 1: which were meant to both demonstrate the government's power and
Speaker 1: to horrify any onlooker who might even consider entering into
Speaker 1: a life of crime themselves, and this in turn led
Speaker 1: to the creation of a professional class of people who
Speaker 1: doled out these punishments. Enter the professional executioner now The
Speaker 1: executioner's main job was to carry out all interrogations, particularly
Speaker 1: with the skilled use of torture, and to dispatch those
Speaker 1: found guilty in whatever way the authorities dictated. He often
Speaker 1: had many other dirty or demeaning tasks, though, such as
Speaker 1: overseeing the town's sex workers, cleaning the public out houses,
Speaker 1: and driving lepers out of town. Even still, people would
Speaker 1: apply for this job. For those born into an execution
Speaker 1: or family, there was little else they could actually do.
Speaker 1: Their familial dishonor after all, excluded them from practicing pretty
Speaker 1: much any other trade, and it paid surprisingly well. But
Speaker 1: not only that, this trade, which pushed them far to
Speaker 1: the edges of society, also opened one very particular back
Speaker 1: door among the honorable of all classes. For centuries, you see,
Speaker 1: reviled executioners also moonlighted as revered village healers. In Germany,
Speaker 1: which had a particularly developed tradition of execution or healers,
Speaker 1: we first heard about execution or medicine in the early
Speaker 1: fifteenth century when an executioner set up a stand to
Speaker 1: sell local remedies. In fourteen sixty, in the city of Munich,
Speaker 1: they hired an executioner to treat local burn victims. A
Speaker 1: few years later, the city hired one to help treat
Speaker 1: local pregnant women as well as folks afflicted with venereal diseases.
Speaker 1: They were true gig workers, occupying multiple community spaces and
Speaker 1: wearing many hats. In the moments that they were healing,
Speaker 1: the social boundary of acceptability flexed for them. How much
Speaker 1: did it flex well? Later on, King Frederick the First
Speaker 1: of Prussia hired Berlin's executioner to be his personal physician
Speaker 1: at the moment when medicine was attempting to professionalize. And
Speaker 1: we've heard all about physicians, guilds, barber surgeons and the
Speaker 1: likes earlier in our series. Executioners occupied a very complicated
Speaker 1: liminal space. Public executions unfolded almost as a kind of
Speaker 1: sacred liturgy, which began days before the execution itself. In
Speaker 1: the process, the condemned criminal, so long as they repented
Speaker 1: and received absolution, was thoroughly transformed from a vile center
Speaker 1: into a saintly martyr in the eyes of the public.
Speaker 1: These rituals caused the bodies of these criminals to take
Speaker 1: on a kind of spiritual power of their own in
Speaker 1: the popular mind and from the gallows. Then the executioner
Speaker 1: became a kind of pharmacist of the sympathetic magic variety
Speaker 1: of medicine, a lucrative side gig that helped bulk up
Speaker 1: their salaries. Epileptics, as we've seen, might pay to drink
Speaker 1: the hot blood from a criminals caldaver, or they might
Speaker 1: consume ground skulls or drink wine from the skull of
Speaker 1: an executed criminal. Executioners often provided local apothecaries with the
Speaker 1: raw materials for medicines like these, but they were also
Speaker 1: good examples of some of the early direct consumer marketing folks.
Speaker 1: People would buy corpse medicine right from the executioner himself.
Speaker 1: This way they could be assured of its quality and
Speaker 1: know about the efficacy of it. Sometimes executioners served as
Speaker 1: a competitor to apothecaries selling human fat and goblets of
Speaker 1: blood at reduced prices, cutting out the middleman, kind of
Speaker 1: like a farmer's market, but for medicines made of human
Speaker 1: body parts. Right, people with external maladies like goiter's could
Speaker 1: come to the gallows and pay the executioner to rub
Speaker 1: the hand of a freshly dispatched criminal over their skin.
Speaker 1: Novelist Victor Hugo famous for authoring The Hunchback of Notre Dame,
Speaker 1: documented the case of the last person executed in Guernsey,
Speaker 1: one of the Channel islands off the coast of France.
Speaker 1: He wrote that epileptics came and could not be prevented
Speaker 1: from seizing the convulsive hand of the dead man and
Speaker 1: passing it frantically over their faces, and this power to
Speaker 1: heal was likewise sometimes transferred to the executioner himself. Now, remember,
Speaker 1: being physically touched by an executioner would in almost any
Speaker 1: other circumstance infect a person with their dishonor which might
Speaker 1: result in being ejected from their own guild. In a
Speaker 1: healing context, though the executioner's touch was thought to have
Speaker 1: almost magical healing power. In a more practical sense, executioners
Speaker 1: knew the human body better than most physicians at the time, who,
Speaker 1: as we've learned in earlier episodes, looked down on touching
Speaker 1: the body. You have to remember that during this period
Speaker 1: human dissections were incredibly rare. Executioners were among the few
Speaker 1: who had any practical hands on experiences with human bodies
Speaker 1: and human anatomy in real time. The medicine. These executioners
Speaker 1: often performed was external setting bones and suturing skin, the
Speaker 1: skills and knowledge of which were passed down from father
Speaker 1: to son, just as the necessary skills of the deadly
Speaker 1: part of their trade were passed down. It was highly
Speaker 1: practical work, and they evidently were very good at what
Speaker 1: they did. Executioners were a kind of living crossroads. They're
Speaker 1: deadly trade imbued them with a socially lethal disease, but
Speaker 1: the same trade made them attractive and powerful healers, capable
Speaker 1: of greater social mobility than just about anyone else at
Speaker 1: the time, and in at least one case, these execution
Speaker 1: or healers could find their dishonor cured by their own medicine.
Speaker 1: Franz Schmidt had never known a life without shame, but
Speaker 1: his parents had. Their small town of Hoff, Germany, was
Speaker 1: laid under siege, their lord having abandoned them. When he returned,
Speaker 1: his people were, as you can imagine, pretty upset with
Speaker 1: his performance. As tensions in the community rose further, he
Speaker 1: caught wind of an attempt on his life. He had
Speaker 1: three local gunsmiths arrested, and, invoking an ancient custom, the
Speaker 1: cowardly lord commanded an innocent bystandard to carry out their
Speaker 1: executions as opposed to sending for a professional. The unfortunate
Speaker 1: person chosen for the job was France's father, Heinrich, a
Speaker 1: respectable woodsman, and he couldn't protest, which meant that his
Speaker 1: fate was sealed. France was born shortly after sometime in
Speaker 1: the first half of fifteen fifty four. Heinrich was determined
Speaker 1: to make the best of the lot that was forced
Speaker 1: upon his family. After France's mother died, he remarried and
Speaker 1: relocated the family. He applied for better pain and more
Speaker 1: prestigious execution or positions, and eventually found work for the
Speaker 1: prince Bishop of Bamberg. France would grow up listening to
Speaker 1: the song of the local hangman, receiving a rudimentary education
Speaker 1: at home. He would shadow his father at executions as
Speaker 1: his apprentice, studying the trade, knowing full well that it
Speaker 1: would be his own someday. By the age of twelve,
Speaker 1: he was already practicing different forms of dispatching condemned criminals.
Speaker 1: Now the most difficult method of execution, according to Heinrich,
Speaker 1: was the infamous beheading by sword. He took his cherished
Speaker 1: in streament down from the mantel over the fireplace and
Speaker 1: allowed his son to practice on pumpkins and gourds. They
Speaker 1: eventually moved on to livestock as France learned to definitely
Speaker 1: wield the weapon and his aim became true. France came
Speaker 1: of age during a period of history that historians referred
Speaker 1: to as the Golden Age of the executioner. It marked
Speaker 1: the culmination of a long transformation of German law, which
Speaker 1: in part saw the part time hangman evolved into the
Speaker 1: office of a full time, salaried professional executioner, who, while
Speaker 1: still officially dishonorable, enjoyed a much better status and social
Speaker 1: position than had executioners in the past. This evolved role
Speaker 1: of the executioner, though required a higher standard of work
Speaker 1: and personal character, their family's life was largely comfortable. Heinrich,
Speaker 1: made as much money as a teacher or a pastor,
Speaker 1: and had an enviable amount of job security. He was
Speaker 1: known and respected for his honesty, integrity, and diligence, and
Speaker 1: young France watched closely, taking pains to model at through
Speaker 1: his father, because he knew this was deeply necessary if
Speaker 1: they were to ever restore their family's name. He might
Speaker 1: have been angry, yes, but he was also principled and determined.
Speaker 1: France's training culminated when he was nineteen years old. He
Speaker 1: and his father traveled to Bamberg to dispatch a criminal
Speaker 1: as part of his test to become a recognized master
Speaker 1: of his trade. Although hangings required the least amount of
Speaker 1: skill for an executioner, there was always a chance that
Speaker 1: something could go wrong for him. But as it would happen,
Speaker 1: the convict was dropped and swung freely from his neck.
Speaker 1: I hate to say it, given the circumstances, but France
Speaker 1: couldn't have hoped for a better day. His father climbed
Speaker 1: to top the scaffolding and, standing tall and in accordance
Speaker 1: with ancient custom, slapped France across the face three times.
Speaker 1: He had passed the test with flying colors. Having achieved
Speaker 1: master executioner status, France now needed to refine his skills
Speaker 1: and build a client base. Like any good tradesman at
Speaker 1: the time, he set out on the road, working on
Speaker 1: a gig basis and gaining experience as he did so.
Speaker 1: Think of it as something like a study abroad for executioners.
Speaker 1: As France grew in technical skill, he also very intentionally
Speaker 1: cultivated a reputation as a respectable man who kept respectable company.
Speaker 1: Most dramatically, he swore off alcohol for the rest of
Speaker 1: his life, quite uncharacteristic for an executioner, and people noticed
Speaker 1: his self possession with admiration. The breakthrough moment in France's life,
Speaker 1: which would open up the path to his family's restoration,
Speaker 1: was in fifteen seventy eight, when he was appointed the
Speaker 1: Master executioner of the city of Nuremberg. The city was
Speaker 1: spectacular for its day, made up of hundreds of streets,
Speaker 1: ornate public buildings, bustling with artisans and merchants, public squares
Speaker 1: and parks, and amazingly a well developed water and sewage system.
Speaker 1: It stood in stark contrast to the squalid hoff of
Speaker 1: France's youth. As part of his salary, France was given
Speaker 1: his own stately home and a five year contract that
Speaker 1: made him the best paid executioner in the Empire. Within
Speaker 1: a few years, he received the guarantee of lifetime appointments
Speaker 1: in Nuremberg, a pay raise, and even a pension. But
Speaker 1: even still, being an executioner always came with a price.
Speaker 1: On one occasion, for example, he was forced to torture
Speaker 1: and execute his own brother in law, Friedrich Verner, over
Speaker 1: the course of several decades, France would carefully and painstakingly
Speaker 1: establish an incredibly good name for himself as Nuremberg's faithful executioner.
Speaker 1: He performed hundreds of executions, maintained excellent relations with city officials,
Speaker 1: and became widely known for his technical skill, his piety,
Speaker 1: and his calm demeanor. He was also widely known for
Speaker 1: his successful medical trade. For him, healing and not torturing
Speaker 1: and killing was his true vocation. By his own accounting,
Speaker 1: he treated over fifteen thousand people nursing to health, prisoners
Speaker 1: whom had confessed under torture, high society types, and everyone
Speaker 1: in between. We know this because of the diaries he kept,
Speaker 1: and he did so for an entire four plus decade
Speaker 1: service to the Emperor. He retired as an old man,
Speaker 1: but still had one task left to do. In June
Speaker 1: of sixty four, he sent a letter to the Emperor.
Speaker 1: In it, he told of his honorable exploits, focusing especially
Speaker 1: on his medical work, which had benefited so many people
Speaker 1: in his community. In all of this, he asked for
Speaker 1: one thing in return, that the Emperor restore his family's
Speaker 1: honor that had been stolen from them. Doing so would
Speaker 1: release his sons from a life that they were set
Speaker 1: to inherit and open up a world of possibilities for them.
Speaker 1: Three months later, he received a letter of response. It said,
Speaker 1: on account of the subservient petition to us from the
Speaker 1: highly esteemed Mayor and Council of the City of Nuremberg,
Speaker 1: the inherited shame of Franz Schmidt that prevents him and
Speaker 1: his heirs from being considered upright or presents other barriers,
Speaker 1: is out of imperial might and clemency hereby abolished and dissolved,
Speaker 1: and his honorable status among other reputable people declared and restored.
Speaker 1: It's possible that this man alone killed more people than
Speaker 1: anyone in the entire Empire. But with this letter the
Speaker 1: story turned once more. He would experience honor for the
Speaker 1: first time in his life, something that his father had
Speaker 1: so quickly been stripped of. His sons could now exist
Speaker 1: in a society that welcomed them with open arms, and
Speaker 1: could now begin to chart a path of their own.
Speaker 1: By the end of the nineteenth century, public executions of
Speaker 1: any kind were largely abolished in most European countries. Some
Speaker 1: countries even abolished the death penalty altogether, as criminal bodies,
Speaker 1: and those who sold their parts became more and more
Speaker 1: difficult to come by. Folks turned less and less to
Speaker 1: the gallows to cure what ailed them. Yet corpse medicine
Speaker 1: didn't disappear entirely. It just evolved these days. Of course,
Speaker 1: we might not eat or drink the blood or body
Speaker 1: parts of other humans in order to cure our various ailments,
Speaker 1: but we do, at least in principle, sometimes engage in
Speaker 1: a very similar activity and for the very same reasons
Speaker 1: as the folks in Frantz Schmidt's day. Think about blood
Speaker 1: transfusions and organ transplants. Sure these are deeply scientific procedures,
Speaker 1: but at their roots they arose from the realization that
Speaker 1: sometimes there are afflictions in our bodies that can be
Speaker 1: cured by and only by transferring the blood or organs,
Speaker 1: and thus the ability to live from one human body
Speaker 1: to another. In principle, we might say we are doing
Speaker 1: the same thing as the folks who came to the
Speaker 1: executioners for their medications. Only the methodology and the physiological
Speaker 1: understanding beneath it looks just a bit different. In the
Speaker 1: life and career of the ever faithful execution or healer,
Speaker 1: fronts Schmidt, we see two healing miracles at work. On
Speaker 1: one hand, he, like so many others in his trade,
Speaker 1: was a source of medicine and healing for the community
Speaker 1: around him. But that work of healing, intimately connected, as
Speaker 1: it was, with his dishonorable trade of being a professional
Speaker 1: killer on behalf of the government, was also the means
Speaker 1: of his own healing in the social sense. And for
Speaker 1: those of you who love a happy ending, here's one
Speaker 1: more detail for you. After his death, it was declared
Speaker 1: that France would be remembered in court records as a
Speaker 1: physician and not as an executioner, the deadly and dishonorable
Speaker 1: job that he'd held for over forty five years. It's
Speaker 1: wild to imagine that's in the grand scheme of things.
Speaker 1: These gruesome stories you've heard today didn't actually take place
Speaker 1: that long ago. We'd like to believe that as time
Speaker 1: marches on, progress does too. But sometimes old habits and
Speaker 1: old beliefs die hard, which is why there's more to explore.
Speaker 1: Stick around through this brief sponsor break, and my teammates
Speaker 1: Robin Miniter will tell you all about one more cannibalistic treatment.
Speaker 1: Right the South Korean Custom Service knew they had a
Speaker 1: problem on their hands. They've been cracking open pills and
Speaker 1: testing powders, which usually was a very typical part of
Speaker 1: their job, but for about seven months, one particular kind
Speaker 1: of case started showing up more frequently, and by the
Speaker 1: time they completed their investigation and released their report in
Speaker 1: mid the agents had documented over thirty five cases and
Speaker 1: confiscated over seventeen thousand pills that contained dehydrated and powdered
Speaker 1: human remains. Further testing show that these remains were young,
Speaker 1: very young. The data pointed to them originating largely from
Speaker 1: unborn fetuses are stillborn babies. Some capsules even contained the
Speaker 1: remnants of fingernails and human hair. Consuming placentas as a
Speaker 1: way to improve blood supply and increased stamina has long
Speaker 1: been practiced in China, and these particular pills were billed
Speaker 1: as youth enhancing stamina boosters. Ironically, not only does this
Speaker 1: not work, but the super bacteria discovered within the capsules
Speaker 1: is actually pretty deadly. The idea that ingesting someone else's
Speaker 1: blood supply is not only curative but life giving is
Speaker 1: a belief that we just can't seem to shake, and
Speaker 1: we see it underground in the cases of folks who
Speaker 1: call themselves medical sanguinarians, which are roughly the equivalent of
Speaker 1: modern day vampires. But we also see this in the
Speaker 1: bright light of day. A startup company called Ambrosia Medical
Speaker 1: was launched in which offered a very particular kind of service,
Speaker 1: blood transfusions for older patients, using the blood specifically of
Speaker 1: a young donor. The idea was that it would help
Speaker 1: them reverse the aging process. In seventeen, the company ran
Speaker 1: a trial to study the effects of young blood transfusions
Speaker 1: and what the possible health benefits might be. The procedure
Speaker 1: would involve transfusing one and a half leaders of plasma
Speaker 1: from a younger donor over a two day period into
Speaker 1: an older patient to the tune of eight thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: In eighteen, Ambrosia announced a plan to open its flagship
Speaker 1: clinic in New York City, with dreams of expanding to
Speaker 1: other wealthy cities. That didn't end up happening, but there
Speaker 1: are smattering of sites across the US where people could
Speaker 1: go and have the procedure performed. The results of the
Speaker 1: study were never published. It seems even so many people
Speaker 1: shelled up big money eight thousand dollars from one leader,
Speaker 1: or twelve thousand dollars for two of young blood, despite
Speaker 1: there being no clinical evidence that would be beneficial, and
Speaker 1: despite the fact that it came with many risks and
Speaker 1: rosia medical shutdown in Our scientific and medical knowledge has
Speaker 1: increased dramatically over the last several hundred years, and yet
Speaker 1: it seems that we're not as far removed from spreading
Speaker 1: jam made of human blood on a piece of toast,
Speaker 1: or sipping a goblet of hot, bubbling blood alongside the
Speaker 1: gallows and our attempts to be healthy as we might
Speaker 1: like to think. Grim and Mild Presents Bedside Manners was
Speaker 1: executive produced by Aaron Manky and narrated by Aaron Manky
Speaker 1: and Robin Minat. Writing for this season was provided by
Speaker 1: Robin Miniter, with research by Sam Alberty, Taylor Haggard Orn
Speaker 1: and Robin Miniter. Production assistance was provided by Josh Thane,
Speaker 1: Jesse Funk, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. You can learn
Speaker 1: more about this show, the Grim and Mild team, and
Speaker 1: all the other podcasts that we make over at Grimm
Speaker 1: and Mild dot com, and as always, thanks for listening.