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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. We

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Speaker 1: are continuing our assault on Valentine's Day Downtown exactly. We've

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Speaker 1: We've talked about kissing, We've talked about the color pink um.

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Speaker 1: Today we're talking about something a little different, something that's

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Speaker 1: a little less of a Valentine's Day staple. It's not

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Speaker 1: like a lingerie, it's not something that is advertised on

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Speaker 1: billboards come every February. We're talking about Spanish fly, an

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Speaker 1: aphrodisi act that is at once kind of mythic and

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Speaker 1: kind of has all this these fictional airs about it,

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Speaker 1: but at the same time is a definite real thing

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Speaker 1: that is fascinating in its own right, and often in

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Speaker 1: ways that you might not expect. Yeah, I mean, people

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Speaker 1: associate fish fly with afrotusi acts, right, this idea that

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Speaker 1: you know, someone just needs to have a bit of

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Speaker 1: it and all of a sudden they will fill amorous

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Speaker 1: and we'll discuss that. But yeah, you're right there. The the

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Speaker 1: the actual implications of Spanish fly itself very differently. When

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Speaker 1: is the earliest you ever heard any inkling of Spanish fly,

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Speaker 1: You know, I don't. I want to say, like middle

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Speaker 1: school is I have an idea of that. And I

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Speaker 1: also have an idea of tequila in the worm at

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Speaker 1: the end of the bot or the bottom of the

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Speaker 1: bottle is being part and parcel of that, which I

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Speaker 1: don't think exists either. Yeah, I feel like and maybe

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Speaker 1: you can relate to this. I feel like it might

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Speaker 1: have been referenced in kind of an off color reference

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Speaker 1: in some old timey cartoons, like I don't know if

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Speaker 1: it was something that I had some exposure to, and

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Speaker 1: because I feel like there was maybe a moment where

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Speaker 1: somebody had had a bottle labeled Spanish fly and it

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Speaker 1: showed up as a gag and something in another you know,

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Speaker 1: like it was that level of of unbelievable that it's

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Speaker 1: just some sort of like magic juice that that somebody

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Speaker 1: gives to another person and it makes them, uh you know,

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Speaker 1: wild and randy or something. Well, it's back I think

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Speaker 1: in the collective conscience because uh, as we know, Bill

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Speaker 1: Cosby allegedly has been accused of um giving his giving

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Speaker 1: people certain drugs um and then raping them and uh

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Speaker 1: he has a routine I believe in the sixties, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: from his sixty nine comedy album It's True, It's True.

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Speaker 1: And he also talks about it in his childhood yes, um.

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Speaker 1: And he he has referenced rufies or some sort of

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Speaker 1: rufies before and other interviews and someone and so forth. Um.

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Speaker 1: But he talks specifically about Spanish fly in this one

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Speaker 1: routine from the album It's True, It's True. Yeah, if

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Speaker 1: I remember correctly, in the bit he's he's talking about

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Speaker 1: as a kid hearing about it, which is very relatable

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Speaker 1: because I, you know, my earliest memories of hearing about

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Speaker 1: this thing are also in childhood, and and from a

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Speaker 1: childhood perspective, it sounds kind of just fanciful and weird

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Speaker 1: and maybe even attractive on some level, you know, like, oh,

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Speaker 1: this is this thing, and you know, and though off,

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Speaker 1: you give it to somebody and then suddenly they're all

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Speaker 1: lovey devy, like that's the very unreal version of it.

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Speaker 1: But then you you take it and you put it

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Speaker 1: into reality, you put it into an adult reality, and

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Speaker 1: you're talking about something that's really rather horrible and and

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Speaker 1: in in in the case with the allegations against Bill Cosby.

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Speaker 1: You also see that that that story of childhood taken

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Speaker 1: and then and then what happens when you look at

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Speaker 1: it from a very real adult standpoint. I mean it's

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Speaker 1: a it's just deplorable. Yeah, I mean, the the actual

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Speaker 1: thing that he says. He says, go to a party,

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Speaker 1: see five girls standing alone and that boy. If I

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Speaker 1: had a whole jug of Spanish way, I'd light that

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Speaker 1: corner up over there. Ha ha ha. So right, it's

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Speaker 1: a you know, hearing it now is it's a little

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Speaker 1: bit disconcerting, but it brings up the whole idea of

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Speaker 1: the Spanish fly and whether or not it's actually a

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Speaker 1: true aphrodisiac and what the deal is with it. And

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Speaker 1: I just want to point out that FDA study proved

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Speaker 1: that the chemical had no sexual effects on men or women,

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Speaker 1: and yet the myth of this continues to persist, and

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Speaker 1: how you define sexual effects kind of differs, and we'll

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Speaker 1: talk more about that later. All right, So what is it?

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Speaker 1: People are probably wondering, what is the Spanish fly? Is

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Speaker 1: it an actual fly? No, but it is. It is

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Speaker 1: a beetle, technically a blister beetle. To be a specific

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Speaker 1: They're about different species of blister beetle. But we tend

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Speaker 1: to collect this. Uh, this agent cantharadin from two specific species.

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Speaker 1: There's a European blister beetle called light of Asigatoria and

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Speaker 1: there's a North African blister beetle known as my lab

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Speaker 1: risk kikori. And uh, they secrete this. They secrete cantharit

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Speaker 1: and as a self defense, as a chemical weapon to

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Speaker 1: keep things from eating them. And this is the type

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Speaker 1: of insect that's it's brightly colored, long body, bright greens,

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Speaker 1: blue wing cover stripes. It's sending a clear message to

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Speaker 1: potential predators. Hey, if you eat me, bad things are

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Speaker 1: going to happen because I'm just laden with chemical weapons. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And that canthar it in. It's a it's a turpin

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Speaker 1: and organic chemical compound. And they secrete it. The beatle

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Speaker 1: secrete it as this kind of milky looking fluid from

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Speaker 1: the joints in their legs. Very convenient. Yeah. Now this

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Speaker 1: is this doesn't have much to do with canthartin, but

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Speaker 1: it's pretty interesting as a side note. Um, these blister bugs,

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Speaker 1: they the adults lay eggs near the nest of the

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Speaker 1: solitary b and then these larval b lice as they

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Speaker 1: call them, feed on the eggs and food stores, and

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Speaker 1: they eventually grow into adulthood dropped to the ground, feed

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Speaker 1: on vegetation. And it's in this life then that they

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Speaker 1: have the full protection of the canthard and to keep

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Speaker 1: things from from meeting, most things from eating them. Because

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Speaker 1: it's worth noting that there are um some birds such

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Speaker 1: as the meadow lark, such as the bluebird scissor tailed flycatcher,

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Speaker 1: that are conferred and resistant and uh and make them

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Speaker 1: a part of their diet. Yeah. And there are accounts

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Speaker 1: though of some livestock eating them and actually being poisoned

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Speaker 1: by them. So most most animals steer clear, but as

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Speaker 1: you say, some of them can actually stave off the

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Speaker 1: effects of conferait in. Now we should probably talk about

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Speaker 1: how conferred in works in terms of the Beatles reproductive life.

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Speaker 1: This is very interesting. Yeah, And then in this we

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Speaker 1: get right into the Valentine's Day theme, like legitimately and

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Speaker 1: not in a weird creepy way, because of course Valentine's

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Speaker 1: is about, hey, here's a gift for the person I love,

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Speaker 1: you know, or failing that, the person that I want

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Speaker 1: to mate with. That sort of thing you know. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like here's a box of chocolate, right, and is essentially

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Speaker 1: a pre nuptial offering, as we call it in the

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Speaker 1: animal world. I feel like we've we've talked about this

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Speaker 1: in the talked about this with orb weaving spiders, where

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Speaker 1: they say, here, here, here's a gift. Here's a here's

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Speaker 1: a gift that shows my you know, to anthropomorphize a bit. Here,

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Speaker 1: here's a gift that shows my my support for you.

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Speaker 1: Here is some some energy in the form of some

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Speaker 1: food or whatnot that will help you survive and help

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Speaker 1: our our offspring survive. Yeah, it's like, hey, we'll we'll mate, right,

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Speaker 1: here's a little bit of energy. In the case of

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Speaker 1: pyrochroid beetles, they're doing somewhat of the same thing as

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Speaker 1: as the male or weaving spiders. They're presenting a gift,

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Speaker 1: not so much for energy though, is more like protection.

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Speaker 1: And what happens is that the male beetles essentially hand

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Speaker 1: over a packet of sperm to the female when they're mating,

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Speaker 1: and she will fertilize her eggs and she can kind

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Speaker 1: of take her sweet time with whether or she does

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Speaker 1: this right. Um, the females can discard the packets that

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Speaker 1: don't please them, right, there's just not please me, bring

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Speaker 1: me another. Um. So, what crafty private chroid beetles do

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Speaker 1: to ensure that their gift of spirm is like really

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Speaker 1: highly prized and received, is that they produce bonus packs

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Speaker 1: of camper ridden and this this camphor written will allow

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Speaker 1: the females to cover her eggs with it, and then

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Speaker 1: that keeps those eggs safe for predators. So it's kind

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Speaker 1: of like if you were to give your your your

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Speaker 1: sweetie a handgun for Valentine's Day and say, here, take this,

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Speaker 1: protect yourself and our offspring with this lovely handgun. I

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Speaker 1: think they call that a Texas Valentine. A Texas Valentine, yes,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's probably a Georgia Valentine too for that matter.

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Speaker 1: So is the mating ritual kicks off? The pyrochoid male

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Speaker 1: actually secretes this gooey substance from a groove like structure

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Speaker 1: in its forehead. Uh. And then the female of course

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Speaker 1: tastes the gooy since and if she detects canthardin, then

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Speaker 1: she knows that this is the this is the guy

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Speaker 1: for her. If it's if it's not there, well then

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Speaker 1: then maybe she'll pass. Yeah. That's what I think is

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Speaker 1: so great about this is that, you know, maybe the

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Speaker 1: beetle titles up and says, hey, I've got a little

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Speaker 1: camphor it in package here for you, and she's like,

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Speaker 1: prove it, prove that you can secrete this, and then

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Speaker 1: out of his forehead it uzes and then she sniffed them.

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Speaker 1: It's great. This is good like Valentine's drama right here. So,

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of hard the beat in terms

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Speaker 1: of a mating ritual. If you want to learn more

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Speaker 1: about that, check out this article Spanish flies a lure

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Speaker 1: ardor or armor by Janet Rolla from Science News. So

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Speaker 1: we're talking about canthardon that that powder you derive from

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Speaker 1: grinding up the the booster beetles essentially a chemical weapon

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Speaker 1: devised for the creature's defense. But as as we've discussed before,

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Speaker 1: humans are all about taking another creature's chemical weapon and

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Speaker 1: using it for their own advantage. We do it, and

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Speaker 1: everything from the spices on our food to indeed some

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Speaker 1: questionable aphrods as in the form of Spanish fly. Hippocrates

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Speaker 1: prescribed ground blister beetles as a treatment for dropsy. And

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Speaker 1: then you also have traditional Chinese medicine, using bliss for

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Speaker 1: beetles to treat piles, alterers and brabies and even warts.

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Speaker 1: There's another as far as it to use as um

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Speaker 1: an aphrodeziac or at least it's it's more recreational uses. Um,

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Speaker 1: there's there's some some interesting details from the life of

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Speaker 1: the Marquis assad Um s eighteen fourteen, if anyone who's

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Speaker 1: not familiar with him, French aristocrat, revolutionary, politician, philosopher and writer.

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Speaker 1: He was a free thinker, a free doer. He was randy,

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Speaker 1: he was he liked the ladies, he liked the men.

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Speaker 1: He uh, he liked everything. Uh and uh then he

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Speaker 1: had a lot of of course, a lot of scandals

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Speaker 1: in his life. Um, you know, pretty much constantly in

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Speaker 1: the In seventeen seventy two, Um, there was an incident

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Speaker 1: where he had engaged his uh, his servant latour to

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Speaker 1: find him some some prostitutes, and apparently the women in

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Speaker 1: question helped themselves to the marquees uh personal stash of

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Speaker 1: Spanish fly laden candies. And uh, since suddenly they're you know,

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Speaker 1: they're suffering upset stomachs. Uh, they fear they've been poisoned

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Speaker 1: and uh. Meanwhile, Dessad and the Littour flee the estates

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Speaker 1: of the king of Sardinia who wanted to have him arrested,

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Speaker 1: and that they end up being executed in effigy for

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Speaker 1: for this this crime. But essentially at the case, these

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Speaker 1: women are poisoned by the Spanish fly. Yeah, and they survived.

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Speaker 1: But I mean, as we'll discuss it a little bit,

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Speaker 1: they probably had they probably suffered pretty greatly depending on

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Speaker 1: the amount that he gave them. I mean, after all,

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Speaker 1: he was um sentenced to death or attempted murder. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So just that's just sort of an idea of just

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Speaker 1: how potent this is. I mean, it's a you know,

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Speaker 1: it's again it's the it's the the insects chemical weapon,

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Speaker 1: and if taken in small doses, presumably it's not gonna

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Speaker 1: kill anybody, but it's apparently very easy to to reach

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Speaker 1: that threshold of serious harm with this particular agent. Now,

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Speaker 1: this was also used in terminating pregnancy and um If

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Speaker 1: you look at the long history of um of abortion,

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Speaker 1: particularly before it was legalized, and you will see that

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Speaker 1: there are all sorts of accounts of different things that

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Speaker 1: may induce pregnancy termination. In the article leeches lie in

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Speaker 1: Spanish Fly by Kate Manning in the New York Times. Um,

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Speaker 1: she says, quote and talking about this sort of secret

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Speaker 1: coda of terminating and pregnancy, she says, quote French periodical

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Speaker 1: pills warranted to have the desired effect in all cases.

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Speaker 1: Was one such knowing ad that appeared in the Boston

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Speaker 1: Daily Times. In those ads spoke euphemistically of curing female

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Speaker 1: complaint or renovating or unblocking the womb. So what's interesting

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Speaker 1: about that is, and we'll talk more about the effects

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Speaker 1: on the human body, is that there was a sort

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Speaker 1: of wink, wink, Hey, this is this is a substance

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Speaker 1: that you could use if you have these sort of

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Speaker 1: female complaints. Yeah. Now, just to go back to Marquis

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Speaker 1: Assad for a moment, um, there was there's at least

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Speaker 1: one account that Marquis Assad would would would encourage prostitutes

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Speaker 1: to partake of these Spanish fly cookies because it would

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Speaker 1: make them a little gassy, and that he was into that. Um,

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Speaker 1: he was into gassy sexual relations. I mean, he was

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Speaker 1: into a lot of things. So I guess that was

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Speaker 1: you know, that's on the menu. Um, but these are

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Speaker 1: not this is not the primary desired of fact with

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Speaker 1: Spanish fly. Most of the accounts that you see generally,

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Speaker 1: the idea is that it's supposed to to fire up

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Speaker 1: one's lust or to provide a mail with an erection

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Speaker 1: when they're having difficulty achieving or sustaining that state. And

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Speaker 1: it does. But I feel like it's an erection that

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Speaker 1: you would never want if you if you haven't to

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Speaker 1: look at the descriptions of this. And let's just start

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Speaker 1: just even with, um, what it's like to have skin

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Speaker 1: contact with Spanish fly, because it's not called blister beetle

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Speaker 1: for nothing, right, Um, you get blisters, estering ones. If

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Speaker 1: you have contact with your eyes, it can cause blindness.

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Speaker 1: A deadly dose is only thirty milligrams, and one gram

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Speaker 1: is enough to cause symptoms in five thousand people. And

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Speaker 1: when you ingest it, that camphor it in inflames the

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Speaker 1: gastro intestinal tract, and that maybe we're decide was trying

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Speaker 1: to take advantage of the side effects here of Spanish

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Speaker 1: by and then depending on the dose, it can completely

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Speaker 1: strip away the stomach lining. Yeah, there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: burning and uh. And when you're talking about an overdose,

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Speaker 1: you're talking about abdominal pain. Respiratory and heart problems, renal failure,

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Speaker 1: bloody urine convulsions, coma, and possibly death. Yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: about it making its way through the rest of the body,

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Speaker 1: not just the stomach um. It can affect the lining

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Speaker 1: of the uterus and it irritates that lining. But it's

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Speaker 1: that your irritation is sort of negligible when you compare

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Speaker 1: it to men, in whom it causes a great deal

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Speaker 1: of swelling. And that's where the erection comes into play. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: basically we're talking an allergic hell direction, we're talking a

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Speaker 1: non sexual priapism, so as you end up dealing with

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Speaker 1: with a lot of burning swelling down there that results

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Speaker 1: in an erection, but not really the kind of erection

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Speaker 1: that I feel like anybody reasonably wants to have. No.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's like an anaphloctic response for your keenness,

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Speaker 1: right that can't be at all romantic or even you know, essential,

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Speaker 1: I mean, barely functional. I'm thinking, you know, like it's

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Speaker 1: just it's just it's a bad idea anyway anyway to

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Speaker 1: shake it. Yeah, and even a minor overdose of canard

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Speaker 1: and can lead to erections long enough to need medical intervention.

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Speaker 1: To uh to put them down. But you know what

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Speaker 1: it does for enough that there's actually one species that

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Speaker 1: is taking it so that they may secure some more

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Speaker 1: amorous flings in the future. And what I'm talking about

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Speaker 1: here is the male bustard bird. Oh yes, this is

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Speaker 1: a This is one of one of the birds that

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Speaker 1: that has some degree of of resistance to the canthard

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Speaker 1: and but uses it in a most interesting manner. The

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Speaker 1: males actually pick the blister beetles out, you know, of

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Speaker 1: array of possible food choices, and they do it to

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Speaker 1: reduce STDs and more importantly, to reduce to to to

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Speaker 1: watch away the appearance of STDs when picking out mates,

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Speaker 1: because they wanted to appear clean and disease free. According

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Speaker 1: to Discovery Magazines, uh seriously, Science blog quote, a white,

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Speaker 1: clean cloaca with no infection symptoms is an honest signal

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Speaker 1: of both resistance to canthardin and absence of parasites, and

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Speaker 1: represents a reliable indicator of the male quality to the

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Speaker 1: extremely choosy females. That's right, because the lady bustards actually

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Speaker 1: examine the male busterds cloaca before deciding to mate with him.

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Speaker 1: A little look, you know, under the hood. As it were. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: before taking it for a test run. So so there

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Speaker 1: you go. We just wanted to go out on a

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Speaker 1: positive note there and let you know that the male

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Speaker 1: bustards are are using it in the appropriate way are

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Speaker 1: probably the only ones who should be using besides the

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Speaker 1: actual beetles themselves. Um. And we wanted to do a

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Speaker 1: little public service announcement. If you're we're thinking about Spanish blood,

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Speaker 1: please do not. I cannot use it unless you are

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Speaker 1: a bustard bird looking to clean your kloeaka a bit uh.

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Speaker 1: In those cases, go ahead, um, or if you yourself

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Speaker 1: or a blister bug, I mean you should naturally occurring

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Speaker 1: chemical weapons as you see fit. Yeah. You know, we

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Speaker 1: talked about STD posters a while back, and I can't

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Speaker 1: help but think if animals, if the Animal Kingdom had

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Speaker 1: their own PR campaigns, what might those posters look like,

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Speaker 1: especially from the bustard birds. Keep your chloeca clean, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would guess so. And for the rest of you, yeah,

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Speaker 1: just don't do Spanish flag because it's either this horrible

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Speaker 1: chemical irritant or it's just a bunch of vitamin B

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Speaker 1: three jens ng uh. And you know, maybe a little

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Speaker 1: horny goat we packaged in some sort of scandalous packaging

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Speaker 1: or at a very least like sugar and some dust. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so it's there are better ways to go about curing

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Speaker 1: what ails. You. You know, the best way is that

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Speaker 1: using your noggin. Oh, you already know, like if you're

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Speaker 1: if you're trying to get in the mood, like wining

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Speaker 1: and dining your own mind is probably the way to go. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: and hey, if you would like to wine and dine

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Speaker 1: that brain of yours, I want to go to Stuff

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00:19:11,960 --> 00:19:14,320
Speaker 1: to Pull your Mind dot com. That's where you'll find

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00:19:14,359 --> 00:19:16,720
Speaker 1: all of our podcast episodes, including all of our Valentine's

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00:19:16,760 --> 00:19:19,600
Speaker 1: Day podcasts past and present. If you click on the

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Speaker 1: landing page for this episode, you'll find links to a

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Speaker 1: lot of those, uh, those older episodes, so be sure

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Speaker 1: to check those out, along with all the videos, blog

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Speaker 1: post links out to social media accounts, pictures of what

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Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. And if you have any thoughts

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Speaker 1: about this, please do let us know. You can send

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Speaker 1: us an email at blow the Mind at house to

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Speaker 1: other topics, visit how stuff works dot com,