WEBVTT - Brain and Head Theft, Part 1 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:04.640 Detective, What do you make of it? Here we have 0:00:04.720 --> 0:00:09.000 yet another body, another skull opened up with clinical precision. 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.520 What manner of monster are we dealing with here? I 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:15.840 don't believe we're dealing with the monster at all, certainly 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:20.560 not of the brain gobbling ghoul sort sensationalized in the press. 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.920 I've studied the ways of ghouls, inspector, and they consume 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:29.560 all hard and soft tissues. But they prefer the brain. Yes, yes, 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:33.920 as does the common zombie or Mexican vitellius. But look 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:36.720 at what we see here. Not only was the brain 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:40.960 and only the brain targeted, but different regions of the 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.360 brain have been removed from victim to victim. Not a 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:49.680 monster or even a cannibal, then, but a a brain thief. Indeed, 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:52.839 And look at the profiles of the victims and the 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:55.640 portions of the brain pilfered from each one of them. 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:59.640 The vernicus area and the angular gyrus of the noted 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:04.640 ling list, the Broca's area of the Soliloquist, the best 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:10.319 parts of the best brains. Our murderer is building himself 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:18.960 the perfect brain out of stolen parts. But to what end? 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:21.440 Welcome to stot to blow your mind. The production of 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:30.280 my Heart Radio. Hey, you welcome to stuff to blow 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.479 your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:36.000 And this is my second take at pronouncing my own name. 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:38.440 I'm glad I got it right this time. Today we're 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:42.520 gonna be talking about our stolen brains, our stolen heads. Uh. 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.119 This is a topic that yet again, like another one 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:49.640 we did recently, This started as uh an artifact episode 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:51.680 that I was trying to develop, but then it quickly 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:54.880 became clear to me that this was not a short topic. 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:58.120 This was a huge topic with all kinds of bizarre 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:02.400 tangents and and and dark alleys down which to tread. Uh. 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:05.000 So I'm so excited to to embark on this two 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:09.480 parter about removing and stealing people's heads and people's brains. 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:13.440 That's right, This one just keeps growing and expanding, dragging 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:17.320 in more heads, more brains. That has an insatiable appetite 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:20.280 this topic. Yeah. One of the so one of the 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:22.840 original stories that I was looking at that got me 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:28.600 interested in this was the theft of the Austrian composer 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:33.400 Franz Joseph Haydn's head in the early nineteenth century and 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:35.040 that's a story that that we're going to come back 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:37.799 to at the end of this first episode part one here, 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:40.000 but before that, I think it makes sense to to 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:42.480 back up and look at the removal of heads in 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:45.760 the context where it's probably more familiar to everyone, which 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:49.320 is not in reality but in you know, fiction. Yeah, 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:51.800 and we promised not to spend too long here because 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:53.679 I know some of you might be saying, look, you 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:57.000 guys have Friday's Weird House Cinema episodes. Now you can 0:02:57.040 --> 0:02:59.799 pour all of your enthusiasm for horror movies into their 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:02.560 uh and maybe a little less gets used in the 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:04.720 core episodes. But but there's still some important stuff to 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:07.680 touch on here, and I think that the fiction sums 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:10.320 up a lot of what's going on when we think 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:15.079 about these topics. So yeah, brain and head theft are 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.079 frequent trokes in horror and science fiction, particularly of the 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:20.440 twentieth century, and a lot of this seems to be 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:24.560 centered in notions and fears concerning identity and the scientific 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:28.000 understanding of the brain is the seat of consciousness, explored 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:30.720 in such thoughtful science fiction films as Tammy and the 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:33.480 t Rex, one of one of the all time great 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:39.280 brain theft movies. Yeah, yeah, uh, there there are various 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:41.480 versions of this, right, you know, because sometimes the brain 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:45.440 is just stolen. Uh. Sometimes it's kept alive. Sometimes the 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:47.520 head is kept alive free of the body of a 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:51.480 you know, jan in the pan situation. Um. Sometimes it's 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:55.119 a human transplant, putting the head of one person under 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:58.640 the body of another, sometimes next to the original head 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:02.200 of the other um you know, the other in in 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:04.120 a way in their own way. Sometimes a kind of 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:07.920 a thoughtful attempt to get at something, you know, culturally, 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:10.600 but other times just kind of this another rumination on 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.880 the bizarre idea of what if my head but different body, 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:17.080 What if two heads same body? You know. Uh, there's 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:19.440 just so much about this idea that continues to amaze. 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:23.839 What if my brain in a dinosaur exactly? Not what 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:28.520 if my brain in a robot um, you know, etcetera. Uh. So, yeah, 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:31.400 you'll you'll find so many different versions of this, living 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:36.440 heads and jars, living brains and jars, head transplants between humans, 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:40.200 brain transplants into other human beings, and of course brain 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:44.040 transplants into machines. And there's plenty to talk about here, 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.480 even if we're just dealing with consensual brain and or 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:50.360 head transplant. But then what if your head or brain 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:54.640 were stolen? Right, that becomes the extra level of potential horror. 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.320 What do you have some mad science maniac were to 0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:59.720 plug your brain into the body of a hideous monster 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.440 by or a killer robot. Or what if you were 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:05.279 just reduced to nothing but a head bobbing around in 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:09.440 a jar, or even even more limiting, a brain just 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:12.440 shut off in alive inside of some sort of contraption. 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:16.279 H I mean this is explored to some degree in 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:19.120 things we've talked about on the show before. For example, 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.039 the the Thought Experiments Lash short story where Am I 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:26.320 by Daniel Dennett, which is all about brains being removed, 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.159 and that's ultimately trying to get at the question of 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:32.080 what is the seat of consciousness and is it located 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:35.279 in a place uh, you know, given various you know, 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:38.720 constraints and and and thought experiments about like how brains 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:43.000 could be replicated with machinery. But but also there are 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:46.760 I guess, much less technical explorations of the subject where 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:49.360 it's just kind of like, uh, you know, the Futurama 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:52.839 model where you're just preserving ahead or preserving a brain 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:57.039 to supposedly keep the keep the consciousness alive after the 0:05:57.080 --> 0:05:59.800 body dies or after the body is superseded by some 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.919 period technology. I think both of us really enjoy um. 0:06:04.320 --> 0:06:07.680 The character Kane from RoboCop two a noon in brain 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:12.400 in a jar, uh, powering a mechanized death machine. Yeah, 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:17.120 tom noonan uh. And he's just like pain embodied controlling 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:20.120 a killer robot, which is a brilliant idea. There's even 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.599 like a drug insertion because he's he was he's addicted 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:24.480 to some sort of super drug, right. Oh yeah, the 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:32.600 the drug called nuke. Yeah. So Robo Cup two is amazing. Um, 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:35.600 there's a there's actually a really excellent Star Wars tie 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:37.279 in here as well. I mean, you have a lot 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:40.599 of cybernetic stuff going on in Star Wars, but you 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:42.839 have this one creature. I don't know if you remember it, Joe, 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:45.400 because it kind of just walks around in the background 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:49.120 briefly in Return of the Jedi. But it looks like 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:54.000 a mechanical spider. And then it has this glass looking 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:57.600 container or sphere hanging underneath it, and inside there's fluid 0:06:57.800 --> 0:06:59.760 and what appears to be a brain of some sort. 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:03.080 I don't think I made the brain connection when I 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:05.280 watched for Turning the Jedi as a kid, but just 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:07.920 looked like a big mechanical spider. I think the brain 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:10.800 things explored more in I don't know what you call it, 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:15.240 the the supplementary Star Wars universe material, the encyclopedias and 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:17.680 all that. Yeah, I remember reading. I think there's a 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:20.040 whole story about them entales from Java's Palace, or at 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:22.920 least it's a story that concerns them to some degree. 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.800 But we are told in in other forms that this 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:31.400 these are the remains of the Bomar monks. Um. And 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.760 I'm just gonna read this quick passage from Wikipedia. UM. 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:38.960 It says this follows quote. The Bomer Order, which consisted 0:07:38.960 --> 0:07:41.560 of Bomar monks, was a religious order that believed in 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:45.880 isolating themselves from all physical sensation to enhance the power 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:49.120 of their minds. To that aim, in enlightened monks had 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:53.440 their brains transplanted into nutrient filled jars. Whenever they wanted 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:58.200 to move, those bottled brains used spider like droid walkers. 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:01.600 I can just imagine the purer hierarchy. It's like, oh, 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:04.160 you're you're gonna walk around in your spider today instead 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:07.400 of just sitting there and a jar doing nothing. Okay, Well, 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:09.800 I mean sometimes you have to have your nutrient fluid 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:12.640 switched out, right. I'm guessing there's like win me one 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.120 machine in job As Palace that does that, and you've 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.320 gotta get there early. I mean, I guess if you're 0:08:17.320 --> 0:08:21.160 addicted to the pleasures of the flesh. So that's just 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:23.720 that's just a brief glance at some of the many, 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:26.720 many variations of this you'll find in sci fi and 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:29.800 horror because we can't get enough of it, because at 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.600 the heart of it, there are so there are several 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:37.400 different um you know, enigmas and conundrums and paradoxes that 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:39.880 that emerge, you know, because it's dealing with what we 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:42.400 are and who we are and just sort of that 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:46.480 some of the mysteries that that seem to revolve around 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:51.680 are are fleshly self and some of the more supernatural 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:54.240 ideas about what we are, and of course some of 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:57.320 the you know, the mysteries of consciousness itself. Yeah, and 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:00.240 that's the true when when you get into mysteries, one 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:03.680 of the great things to wonder is um as far 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:07.720 as consciousness and its relationship to different types of tissue, 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:10.320 in the body, nervous system, tissue in the brain versus 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:13.520 other parts of the body. You always kind of wonder, um, 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:15.880 what did ancient people know, you know, or what did 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:20.600 they suspect before we had modern neuroscience and anatomy and uh, 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:23.679 and there is something interesting you can observe. Is not 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.880 necessarily going to be theft, like we're talking about it 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:28.680 in a lot of our examples, though in some cases 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:32.240 it probably is. But there are interesting cases you can 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:36.120 observe from the ancient world and from ancient religion where 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:40.200 sometimes the head or the brain were treated differently than 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:43.120 some other parts of the body were, which indicated at 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:47.480 least something some interesting belief. Yeah, yeah, this is this 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:50.439 gets really fascinating. Now. First of all, we should stress 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:55.000 that we modern humans are probably just mostly focused on 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:56.760 the idea of the brain being the seat of the 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:01.960 mind and the self, because we also paradoxically carry along 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:04.280 other ideas with us. You know, there's so many just 0:10:04.360 --> 0:10:06.960 parts of our language and just the way think about 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.360 ourselves that we may talk talk about feeling something with 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:12.559 our heart, and when we do that, we may on 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:16.520 some level position our our our center of being and 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:19.760 position our mind in the middle of our torso uh 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:23.240 my gut feeling, yeah, yeah, your gut feeling, etcetera. And 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:25.400 you can take this even further, of course, getting into 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:32.120 various um uh you know, supernatural and religious ideas about 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:36.400 say various chakras and energy points in the body, um, 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:39.679 you know, and the and we can carry this around 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.199 with us and also carry around a science more or 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.240 less scientific understanding of the brain, um, you know, and 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:47.240 we can we can believe in both. We can we 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:50.600 can you know, dip out of both steamer trays as 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:53.599 it suits us. Yeah, obviously people do. I mean like that, 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:57.600 a lot of people probably believe in some type of 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.560 supernatural mind in one way or another. But then also 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:03.480 like you would consult a neurologist if you needed to, 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:06.520 right and and you know, I'm I'm always a kind 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:08.480 of two minds on all of this because on one hand, 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.320 you know, we we the brain is is the the 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.520 the author of of all these ideas, you know, I mean, 0:11:15.520 --> 0:11:18.360 it is the center of our being. And we see that, 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:21.560 um you know, and that that bears out anytime there's 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:25.200 a brain injury, etcetera. But then also we're not just 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:29.600 the brain. We're also the body, and while you know, 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:31.680 you might be stretching it to say that you're you know, 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:35.240 you're thinking something or feeling something with your heart in 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:37.480 the same way that you would with your mind. You know, 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:40.400 there is this um we are more than just the brain, 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:44.080 we are this entire organism. Yeah, that's something that I 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:48.079 think is often overlooked in these like so the Beaumar 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:50.679 monks or whatever, the brain in a jar with a 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:53.360 spider body, and you think like, well, that's just pure 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:55.920 mental existence, you know, as if you you'll just live 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:58.160 forever in this mechanical set up and you can have 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.280 your your pure mind continue young to do whatever it does, 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:04.679 meditation or whatever. But I think that might be really 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:10.040 underappreciating how much your mental life would be changed if 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:12.640 you were only your brain and did not have the 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:15.360 rest of your body for the brain to interact with. Yeah, 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:17.679 that's why General Grievous got to bring his guts with him, 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:20.400 you know. Yeah, he's not just a brain. He's also 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:22.920 eyeballs and guts in there so well, I mean, and 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:25.120 there's even literal feedback. I mean, in some ways, the 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:28.199 brain is influenced, for example, by hormones that are secreted 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:33.280 by organs in other parts of the body. Absolutely, uh. 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:36.839 In thinking about what ancient people's thought, though, it's it's 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:39.480 impossible to get into this discussion without, of course touching 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:43.240 on the ancient Egyptians, because, as in many of you 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.839 are probably already thinking about, they famously removed and discarded 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:50.160 the brain, dering and balming, while taking great care to 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:54.920 store various other organs economic jars. Yet at the same time, 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:58.400 the ancient Egyptians are responsible for the oldest written record 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:02.480 using the word brain. I mean, it wasn't brain. You 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:06.040 know obviously that it was the higheroglyphics for brain aren't known. 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:09.400 We see it in a sevent BC text that was 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:12.080 in turn apparently based on texts that go back to 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:15.199 about three thousand BC. Uh. This is the so called 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:20.160 Edwin Smith's Surgical Papyrus, named for the American Egyptologists who 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:22.720 discovered it. Okay, so we're looking at it now. The 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:26.640 the hieroglyphic word form that meant the brain. The oregan 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:29.600 it's like a bird, and then something that looks maybe 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:31.880 like a feather or a knife, and then like a 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:34.520 hook shaped thing, and then what looks like maybe a 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:37.480 b or a fly. Yeah, yeah, I guess the hook. 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:40.719 I have no idea, but the hook thing is very suggestive, 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:43.880 of course, uh, not being entirely sure what this this 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:48.000 these hieroglyphics um individually, these parts of it mean because 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:49.520 of where we think about the hook that is used 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:54.760 to carefully remove the brain um tissue during embalming um, 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:57.520 which was a delicate procedure because you had to do 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.360 it apparently as well without you had to take care 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.920 not to damage the facial features during the removal. And 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:05.719 and one thing that's important to realize here is that 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:09.079 the Egyptians didn't necessarily think the brain was garbage or anything, 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.559 but it was one of the first organs to go foul. 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:16.040 Part of their practice was to first remove the organs 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:19.840 that decayed rapidly, and this certainly included the brain. This 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:22.680 is going to tie directly into an account from the 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:25.160 early nineteenth century that we're going to talk about later 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:28.440 in the episode, about a very prominent and fascinating case 0:14:28.440 --> 0:14:33.200 of head theft. All right, UM, just briefly some other 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:37.240 tidbits about our history of understanding the brain. In the 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:40.720 fourth century BC, Aristotle considered the brain to be a 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.240 secondary organ that cooled the heart, a place where the 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:46.960 spirit could circulate. The heart was the center of thought, 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:51.720 though now in the second century, ce Galen concluded that 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:54.520 the brain was the seat of the animal soul uh, 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:57.440 one of three souls in the body. But this was 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:00.440 based in part on his observations of the efects of 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:04.000 brain injuries on mental activity. So again, even if you 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.000 even if you you you were really clinging to some 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:10.440 idea that uh, that thought and being is tied up 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:12.680 in the torso you know, after a while, it becomes 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:15.440 clear that when things happen to the head um, it 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:19.400 can it can drastically affect how we think and how 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.160 we uh we process. Yeah, that seems like that would 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:24.400 have probably been one of the earliest ways that people 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:26.680 could deduce the important role of the brain. Not just 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:30.400 because you could make the argument that sometimes it's somehow 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:33.000 kind of feels like thought is taking place in the head. 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:35.360 Obviously it didn't always feel like that to everybody. Some 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:37.480 people must have thought it felt like it was happening 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:39.920 somewhere else. But but yeah, you noticed that you hit 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:42.720 somebody in the head. It is much more likely to 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:47.480 have a complex and profound effects on how they think 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:49.880 and how they feel. Than hitting them in any other 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:53.600 part of the body. Yeah, it's interesting. How again, it's 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:56.240 an unavoidable in our language. Right, So we talked about 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:58.080 like putting our thinking cap on, and you know, we're 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:00.120 just so many times like we're thinking really hard. We 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:03.480 might do something involving our head, we might touch our head. 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:05.480 But if you were living in a culture that was 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.520 more based in an idea that would that thinking was 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.640 based in the chest, would you put your I don't know, 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:15.240 you're you're thinking brazier on? Would you would you sort 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:17.640 of like hold your chest a little bit as you 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:20.240 as you think? I don't know. Yeah, And I also 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:22.440 wonder what are the limits to that? Like is is 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.320 that is it possible that if you just had the 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.040 right cultural ideas fed into you as you were growing up, 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.720 that it would literally feel to you like you were 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:34.000 thinking with your feet or thinking with your knees or something, 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:36.840 or is there a sort of limited range of where 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.880 it can feel like thinking is happening. I don't know. 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.000 This is fascinating. I hadn't really thought about all this before. 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:43.920 But maybe there's some papers out there that get into 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:47.240 it that would it would be interesting to read about. Yeah, 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:49.440 but any your right. From here, we gradually built up 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:52.320 an improved understanding of how the brain function, though much 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:56.080 remained unknown for a considerable amount of time, leading to 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:59.479 what I've seen referred to as a quote cultural anatomy 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:02.520 of the brain pane that doesn't necessarily match up with 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:10.480 the neurological reality. Yeah, that's interesting, Thank you, Thank you. 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:15.879 Now there's one example from ancient history I guess actually 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:20.640 this would be prehistory, uh, of how heads were treated 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:22.480 in a way that was somewhat different than how the 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:25.600 rest of the body was treated. And this comes from 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:30.720 the ancient Neolithic or Chalcolithic Neolithic settlement known as Chattel 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:34.480 hu Yok from Turkey. That's a place in southern Turkey 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.800 that was thousands of years BC. Did did you have 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:40.359 the date on that? Um? I I read that it 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:44.760 thrived back in seven thousand BC. Yeah, I mean it 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:46.359 was around for a while, but I think that was 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:49.640 like the period of its the height of its population 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:53.280 and power, and so it's one of the earliest large 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:57.440 human settlements that we have evidence of sustained habitation at. 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:00.520 There were all of these houses that were a sort 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:02.920 of built right next to each other. They were built 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:04.800 up and you would enter them through the roof. It 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:07.280 was like a grid of sort of cubicle houses. You'd 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:09.480 go in through the roof, and there are these living 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:14.280 spaces that archaeologists can still explore today. And it's fascinating 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:16.960 to try to put together the culture of the people 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:21.000 who lived at Chattahoyuk because one of the things observed 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:25.840 there is sometimes, uh, sometimes there would be mortuary practices 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:31.600 that would involve apparently incorporating the dead bodies of friends 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:35.560 and family members into like the furniture, just into stuff 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:38.520 inside the house where the people were living, so the 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:42.359 body of a dead relative might be buried underneath the 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:45.760 bed where you sleep. But one of the other really 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:50.400 interesting things sometimes observed there is the removal of heads 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:54.920 from dead bodies I presumably family members, where the head 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:58.679 would be taken off and uh and then covered in 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:02.640 some kind of plaster and just like kept in the house. Yeah, 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:05.359 it's it's really fascinating because in this we we get into, 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:07.320 you know, you sort of have to strip away sort 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:12.440 of your modern funerary customs and ideas about what is 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:14.560 what is proper to do with the with the body 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:17.320 of the deceased, etcetera. And you if you try and 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:21.240 sort of put yourself in this this different mindset and imagine, like, 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:24.119 how do we relate to the bodies that no longer 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:26.520 have life in them? You know what what is the 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:30.000 what is the skull of the dead? Uh? Now that 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:32.280 they have you know that, now that the individual has 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:35.040 passed on, you know, you you get into this sort 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.280 of like base area. Then you you can build up 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.040 from there and imagine how some of these these customs 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:44.840 could have taken root. Yeah, and it it definitely signals 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:49.119 like how variable and culturally determined our feelings about the 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:52.400 treatment of dead bodies are. Because I think now and 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:54.760 it's probably very somewhat to culture even today, but in 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:56.879 most of the cultures were familiar with like if you 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.719 were to take Grandma's dead body and like cut her 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:02.359 head off and cover it with plaster and put it 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:05.199 on a desk, that would widely be seen as like 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:08.040 disrespectful in some way, But here it's the exact opposite. 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:11.359 It seems to suggest that this is a way of 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:14.119 revering the dead, and in some way it has some 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:18.680 kind of religious significance or ritual use. Yeah, Like nowadays 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:20.520 you sat down and you watch the Texas chainsaw mask 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:23.640 you and you say this is not right, this family 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:27.080 of texts and cannibals are are are not being respectful 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:29.600 to the dead. But you can make a case for 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:31.320 most of the things they're doing and say, no, they're 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:35.119 being very respectful. Um to to a to a to 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:38.080 a point. I'm only going to defend the sawyers so much. 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:44.199 But um but but now there's a lot to consider, like, 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:46.600 you know, what happens to the body when it dies? 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:49.120 Wand or what do we do to the body when 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:53.200 it dies? And how we approach these different views of death, 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:55.440 like they have a huge impact on not only how 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:57.400 we we treat the bodies of the dead, but then 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:01.360 also like how we think about death itself. Yeah, and 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:04.080 so we're gonna be focusing in these episodes on some 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:09.120 cases of brains and heads being taken off of bodies 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:12.560 um or or being stolen in one way or another 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:16.359 without the consent of the person involved. But there we 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:19.040 should at least know that there are plenty of cases 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:23.000 where heads are removed, brains are removed and this was 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:26.040 according to the wishes of the person from whose body 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:30.520 they're being taken, right, Yeah, so a few I think 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:35.479 mostly if not completely, consentually preserved brains, worth mentioning, uh, 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:37.720 one of one of the big ones that that probably 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:42.399 a lot of people were thinking of is is Broken's brain. Um. 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:44.320 And one of the reasons, of course, is that Carl 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:48.520 Sagan has a whole book titled Broker's Brain, because one 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:51.359 of the essays in it deals with it specifically. And 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:53.960 I'll get back to that in just a second. But 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:58.040 Paul Broco lived through eighteen eighty. He was a French 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:01.320 surgeon and neurologist who played a major role in the 0:22:01.320 --> 0:22:03.840 mid nineteen in mid nineteenth century medicine, and was the 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:07.680 founder of modern brain surgery. He also supported some extremely 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:11.600 prejudiced ideas, but his work with the brain itself was 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:14.800 expressed it was it was extremely important. As such, he 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:17.840 worked a lot with human brains, and many of the 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:20.960 preserved brains that he worked with can still be found 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:25.880 at the Pierre and Marie Curry University in Paris, and 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:31.679 that potentially includes Brocco's own brain. The museum has apparently 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:34.919 denied that it can be found there, but there are 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:37.000 accounts that say that his brain ended up on a 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:39.920 shelf alongside the others and Carl Sagan in the book 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:43.399 Brokeer's Brain. In the the the chapter or essay dealing 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:47.520 with this, he discusses holding the jar and that allegedly 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:50.920 contained it, saying, quote, it was Broca himself whose brain 0:22:50.960 --> 0:22:54.639 I was cradling, who had established the macab collection I 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:57.639 had been contemplating, and from their second goes on to 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:01.240 question just how much of who Coroco was is still 0:23:01.320 --> 0:23:04.840 in there? You know, is the physical brain in the jar? 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:08.760 Is that him? Is this some remnant of him? It's 0:23:08.760 --> 0:23:11.240 it's a wonderful, wonderful section of the book that you 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:15.400 should you should read, but it's um uh, probably one 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:19.160 of the more famous preserved or allegedly preserved brains. Yeah, 0:23:19.640 --> 0:23:23.160 and yeah, that raises really interesting questions, like in a way, 0:23:23.200 --> 0:23:25.760 is it possible even to think about the person as 0:23:25.800 --> 0:23:30.280 an object or as a person something more like a process? Yeah, 0:23:30.359 --> 0:23:34.600 and then also like the whole seeming mystery about whether 0:23:34.640 --> 0:23:37.720 there's there's an actual, uh specimen that is broke his brain, 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:40.680 it does also bring up the question, you know, once 0:23:40.720 --> 0:23:42.480 the brain is removed, how do you tell whose it was? 0:23:42.600 --> 0:23:45.200 Especially when you're dealing with an old brain like this, 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:47.639 you know, it's not like you can just hook it up, 0:23:47.720 --> 0:23:50.440 fire it up and see what memories are in there, etcetera. Right, 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:52.920 But of course, so there's a question about this one. 0:23:52.920 --> 0:23:55.600 But there are examples of people who were just like, yep, 0:23:55.720 --> 0:23:58.440 you know, you use my brain, do something with it. Yeah. 0:23:58.520 --> 0:24:00.560 Charles Babbage is a great exam pull of this, who 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:04.400 have through eight seventy one, the father of the computer, 0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:07.480 as he's sometimes known, he donated his brain to science 0:24:07.720 --> 0:24:10.520 and today you can see it, uh in two halfs, 0:24:11.200 --> 0:24:13.879 one side of it at London Science Museum and the 0:24:13.920 --> 0:24:18.720 other at the Hunterian Museum in the Royal College of Surgeons. 0:24:19.040 --> 0:24:21.240 Wait a minute, did a Lovelace also have her brain 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:23.960 preserved or just Babbage? It would be great if you 0:24:23.960 --> 0:24:26.560 could see him. I did not run across her brain, 0:24:26.680 --> 0:24:28.439 but I guess it would be great to see him 0:24:28.440 --> 0:24:30.960 side by side I hooked up to the same computer. 0:24:33.520 --> 0:24:37.160 It's it's interesting how um it is presented into how 0:24:37.280 --> 0:24:39.160 I mean, there's so much, so many directions you could 0:24:39.200 --> 0:24:41.960 go there with that, right, um, but yeah, you go 0:24:42.000 --> 0:24:43.879 to one place to see one hemisphere and the other 0:24:43.920 --> 0:24:48.080 to see the other hemisphere. Um. I wonder if I 0:24:48.119 --> 0:24:50.480 mean when you look at those hemispheres, do you, is 0:24:50.480 --> 0:24:53.320 there a feeling like this is wrong. They should be reunited, 0:24:53.359 --> 0:24:55.680 the brain should be It's okay to preserve a brain 0:24:55.760 --> 0:24:57.840 and display it, but it should be displayed as a whole, 0:24:58.200 --> 0:25:01.240 complete piece. But I don't know, maybe not now as 0:25:01.240 --> 0:25:04.119 far as famous people go, quote, quite a few athletes 0:25:04.440 --> 0:25:07.040 have pledged their brain to science and an effort to 0:25:07.080 --> 0:25:09.359 better understand concussions, you know. And then a lot of 0:25:09.359 --> 0:25:12.520 people just in general donate their bodies and or their 0:25:12.600 --> 0:25:16.960 organs to science. Um, and so a lot of brain 0:25:17.000 --> 0:25:20.520 study continues in this in this manner, by the way, 0:25:20.600 --> 0:25:23.280 by most all accounts, and certainly all accounts that matter, 0:25:23.480 --> 0:25:25.560 we should point out that Walt Disney did not have 0:25:25.720 --> 0:25:28.920 his body, brain, or head frozen following his death. Oh 0:25:28.960 --> 0:25:32.240 that's a popular myth, and it is, yeah, and I 0:25:32.240 --> 0:25:34.440 think I was reading about Apparently it's largely based on 0:25:34.480 --> 0:25:37.320 the fact that he was interested in the topic at 0:25:37.359 --> 0:25:40.080 some point and and in general was known to be 0:25:40.200 --> 0:25:44.879 interested in in in scientific topics, and therefore it just 0:25:44.920 --> 0:25:47.320 kind of carried away, like what you know about Disney. 0:25:47.400 --> 0:25:49.800 You're like, oh, well, it seems like something he would do. 0:25:50.160 --> 0:25:52.680 He did it. It's just like, oh, he's weird. Enough. 0:25:53.680 --> 0:25:55.720 So I guess if we're in in the modern era 0:25:55.920 --> 0:25:59.720 for for now and talking about brains that were actually 0:26:00.080 --> 0:26:04.359 straight up stolen. Probably the most famous brain theft uh 0:26:04.520 --> 0:26:07.320 in the modern world, happened to the body of Albert Einstein, 0:26:07.600 --> 0:26:09.720 And I guess we'll maybe come back and talk about 0:26:09.760 --> 0:26:12.359 that more later as we go on. But he is 0:26:12.400 --> 0:26:14.840 by no means the only one I want to back 0:26:14.920 --> 0:26:18.120 up and tell a story from the early eighteen hundreds 0:26:18.160 --> 0:26:23.119 about the famous composer Joseph Haydn uh. And so a 0:26:23.160 --> 0:26:25.840 couple of sources I was looking at here. One is 0:26:25.960 --> 0:26:31.199 a book by Francis Larson published called Severed, A History 0:26:31.200 --> 0:26:33.679 of Heads Lost and Heads Found. And the part of 0:26:33.720 --> 0:26:35.920 this that I was reading is just wonderful, So I 0:26:36.000 --> 0:26:37.760 might have to go back and read this entire book 0:26:37.760 --> 0:26:40.199 at some point, um. But the other is just a 0:26:40.240 --> 0:26:43.919 biography of Hayden called Hayden A Creative Life in Music 0:26:44.320 --> 0:26:47.720 by Carl Geyringer and Irene gey Ringer from University of 0:26:47.760 --> 0:26:52.000 California Press in nineteen two. And so just a brief 0:26:52.040 --> 0:26:55.560 background on on Franz Joseph Hayden, also just known as 0:26:55.640 --> 0:26:59.600 Joseph Hayden. He was a renowned classical composer from Austria 0:27:00.040 --> 0:27:03.480 who lived from seventeen thirty two until eighteen o nine. 0:27:03.840 --> 0:27:06.159 It was very influential. I think he was sort of 0:27:06.160 --> 0:27:09.959 a mentor figure to some other later composers like Mozart. 0:27:10.560 --> 0:27:14.720 And probably the fact that most people know about him today, 0:27:14.800 --> 0:27:16.719 or at least the one that I remember from school, 0:27:17.359 --> 0:27:20.080 is that he was the composer of what's known as 0:27:20.119 --> 0:27:24.000 the Surprise Symphony. It's a composition that is very kind 0:27:24.000 --> 0:27:27.760 of dreamy and sleepy and then has the sudden extremely 0:27:27.880 --> 0:27:31.720 loud chords that will almost like make you pee yourself, 0:27:31.840 --> 0:27:33.879 like they will wake you up if you are falling 0:27:33.880 --> 0:27:37.560 asleep at the at the on orchestra night. I wonder 0:27:37.600 --> 0:27:41.040 if we can play some some public domain selections of 0:27:41.160 --> 0:27:43.560 Hyden music while I'm telling the story of how his 0:27:43.640 --> 0:27:56.560 head was hacked off and stolen. Okay, So the story 0:27:56.600 --> 0:27:59.479 of Hyden around the time of his death, especially as 0:27:59.520 --> 0:28:01.480 told in the I Ringer book, here is what I'm 0:28:01.480 --> 0:28:04.320 starting with. So for a long time, Hayden was the 0:28:04.400 --> 0:28:09.000 court musician of a Hungarian noble family called the ester 0:28:09.160 --> 0:28:12.960 Hasy family. So I guess you can imagine something kind 0:28:13.000 --> 0:28:15.199 of like if you've seen the movie Amadeus, you know 0:28:15.240 --> 0:28:18.359 the roles Salieri plays in the Austrian Emperor's court in 0:28:18.400 --> 0:28:21.640 that movie. He's the the court composer, the court musician, 0:28:22.320 --> 0:28:25.320 kind of there to to do musical work for and 0:28:25.440 --> 0:28:28.720 flatter this rich family, except, of course, this would not 0:28:28.800 --> 0:28:32.080 have been the emperor. This was just one particular noble house, 0:28:32.160 --> 0:28:36.480 the ester Hazy line, and Hayden died in eighteen o nine. 0:28:36.520 --> 0:28:39.400 He died in Vienna, I think actually while Vienna was 0:28:39.480 --> 0:28:42.840 being occupied by Napoleon's troops, so there was a war 0:28:42.920 --> 0:28:47.280 zone situation happening, uh, and his body was not taken 0:28:47.400 --> 0:28:51.120 back to this uh, this remote castle where the ester 0:28:51.240 --> 0:28:54.400 Hazy family lived, because I think I think it had 0:28:54.440 --> 0:28:56.920 something to do with the war situations. Why he was 0:28:57.040 --> 0:28:59.960 kept in Vienna near where his house or apartment was, 0:29:00.040 --> 0:29:02.600 and he was buried in a local cemetery known as 0:29:02.640 --> 0:29:07.760 the hun Storm Cemetery. And that same year the prince 0:29:07.840 --> 0:29:10.080 of the ester Hassie line, I think it was Nicolaus 0:29:10.240 --> 0:29:13.520 ester Hasie, he put in an application to have Hayden's 0:29:13.560 --> 0:29:18.320 body dug up from the cemetery and transferred to Eisenstadt, 0:29:18.400 --> 0:29:21.880 which was the seat of the ester Hazie house. And 0:29:22.000 --> 0:29:26.000 permission for the disinterment was granted, but ester Hazi never 0:29:26.080 --> 0:29:29.080 actually did it. He got permission, but then he just 0:29:29.160 --> 0:29:32.080 kind of forgot about it, and Hayden stayed there. Hayden's 0:29:32.120 --> 0:29:37.000 tomb stayed as it was. But finally, in eighteen twenty, 0:29:37.280 --> 0:29:40.120 Ester Hazy, to quote from the Gey Wringer book quote, 0:29:40.400 --> 0:29:45.480 was reminded of his obligations by Adolphus Frederick, Duke of Cambridge. 0:29:45.560 --> 0:29:49.960 This distinguished visitor observed after attending a galla performance of 0:29:50.080 --> 0:29:53.680 the Creation, which was an oratorio of Hayden's given in 0:29:53.800 --> 0:29:57.600 his honor at Eisenstadt. Quote, how fortunate was the man 0:29:57.720 --> 0:30:00.720 who employed this Hayden in his lifetime him and now 0:30:00.760 --> 0:30:05.880 possesses his mortal remains, Which that moment, I'm just imagining that. 0:30:05.960 --> 0:30:11.560 Like Prince ester Hazzy must have been like, oh yeah, yeah, that. 0:30:12.480 --> 0:30:16.320 But apparently he did not correct his guest though. Immediately 0:30:16.360 --> 0:30:19.720 after this he gave orders to have the body exhumed 0:30:19.800 --> 0:30:23.080 from the cemetery in Vienna and brought over to Eisenstat 0:30:23.480 --> 0:30:26.920 and re entombed at a church there near the castle. 0:30:27.120 --> 0:30:30.360 The church was called berg Kircha, which was where Hayden 0:30:30.480 --> 0:30:33.320 had often performed some of the masses that he wrote 0:30:33.320 --> 0:30:36.760 for the ester Hazy family. Uh So the order goes through, 0:30:37.440 --> 0:30:40.400 and but then the guy Ringers right quote. When the 0:30:40.400 --> 0:30:44.800 coffin was open for identification, the horrified officials found no 0:30:45.080 --> 0:30:49.320 head on the body, but only the wig. And this 0:30:49.400 --> 0:30:52.960 seems especially bad because, like it would be harder for 0:30:53.120 --> 0:30:55.479 Esther Hassey at this point to pretend that he just 0:30:55.600 --> 0:30:58.520 had Hayden's body where it was supposed to be all along. 0:30:59.120 --> 0:31:01.360 It kind of reminds me that situation where like somebody 0:31:01.360 --> 0:31:04.240 gives you a gift, like an appliance that you don't 0:31:04.240 --> 0:31:06.800 really want, and you never opened and they keep asking 0:31:06.800 --> 0:31:08.400 you if you like it. You're like, yeah, we use 0:31:08.440 --> 0:31:10.640 it all the time. It's great. And then they're going 0:31:10.680 --> 0:31:12.360 to come over to your house and you're like, hey, 0:31:12.440 --> 0:31:14.760 let's use that blender whatever it was. And then you 0:31:14.800 --> 0:31:17.360 finally open it and discover that it's missing a piece 0:31:17.440 --> 0:31:21.440 or it's broken or something. But so obviously Prince ester 0:31:21.560 --> 0:31:24.719 Hassy was not amused that Hayden's head had been stolen. 0:31:24.800 --> 0:31:27.920 He was really mad, and he made inquiries about the 0:31:27.960 --> 0:31:31.480 missing head, and soon the mystery was solved. It turned 0:31:31.480 --> 0:31:35.080 out it was sort of an inside job. The culprits 0:31:35.120 --> 0:31:39.000 who stole the head were Hayden's friend, apparently not a 0:31:39.040 --> 0:31:42.040 super close friend, but they knew each other, a friend 0:31:42.040 --> 0:31:46.760 of Hyden's named Joseph Carl Rosenbaum who had been employed 0:31:46.840 --> 0:31:50.080 by the Ester Hassey family, and then another guy named 0:31:50.200 --> 0:31:55.080 Johann Napomuk Peter who was the administrator of a penitentiary 0:31:55.200 --> 0:31:59.360 somewhere in Austria. So why would these guys, including a 0:31:59.400 --> 0:32:03.960 former end of Haydn's, dig up his grave, steal his head, 0:32:04.040 --> 0:32:07.360 and then cover everything back up. Well, the answer is 0:32:07.480 --> 0:32:10.880 that they were amateur phrenologists. And I'll come back to 0:32:10.880 --> 0:32:13.560 the subject in more detail in in a few minutes, 0:32:13.600 --> 0:32:16.240 And I guess throughout a couple of both of these episodes, 0:32:16.280 --> 0:32:18.800 But the short explanation of what's going on here is 0:32:18.840 --> 0:32:22.760 that they were devotees of the then popular pseudo science 0:32:22.800 --> 0:32:26.320 of phrenology, and they were fans of its leading proponent 0:32:26.440 --> 0:32:30.720 at this time and place, the German anatomist friends Joseph Gall, 0:32:30.880 --> 0:32:34.600 who lived seventeen fifty eight eight. And yes, I did 0:32:34.640 --> 0:32:38.720 also notice that friends Joseph Gall has the same first 0:32:38.760 --> 0:32:41.880 and middle name is Hayden. I don't know if there's 0:32:41.920 --> 0:32:44.160 any reason for that. Maybe a bunch of boys were 0:32:44.240 --> 0:32:46.760 named after a king or something at this time. I 0:32:46.760 --> 0:32:48.640 don't know if you have any insights on the on 0:32:48.720 --> 0:32:51.800 the friends Joseph's. Maybe it's just a total coincidence. Yeah, 0:32:51.840 --> 0:32:53.120 I'm not sure. Off the top of my head, I 0:32:53.120 --> 0:32:56.800 don't know any I don't know any friends Joseph's. But 0:32:56.960 --> 0:33:02.080 so they these two guys, Rosenbaum and Peter, wanted Hayden's 0:33:02.120 --> 0:33:06.320 head because they wanted to conduct a pseudo scientific dissection 0:33:06.440 --> 0:33:11.520 of the skull to determine its characteristics according to phrenological theory, 0:33:12.080 --> 0:33:14.640 to see if you could read his musical genius in 0:33:14.720 --> 0:33:18.120 the shape of his skull. So I'll come back to 0:33:18.360 --> 0:33:22.040 that aspect in a bit. But together these guys bribed 0:33:22.040 --> 0:33:26.160 a grave digger in the Vienna cemetery to dig up 0:33:26.240 --> 0:33:28.960 Hyden a few days after his funeral, hack off his 0:33:29.040 --> 0:33:32.160 head and deliver it to them quote to protect it 0:33:32.240 --> 0:33:39.920 from desecration. Um. So, according to to Larsen, the grave 0:33:39.920 --> 0:33:42.400 digger did this. It was a few nights after the burial. 0:33:42.440 --> 0:33:44.640 He chopped off the head, wrapped it up in some rags, 0:33:44.640 --> 0:33:47.960 and then handed it off to Rosenbaum. And Rosenbaum had 0:33:48.000 --> 0:33:50.440 a carriage waiting nearby. He was on the way taking 0:33:50.440 --> 0:33:52.400 the head to the carriage, but he was so curious 0:33:52.440 --> 0:33:55.520 to see it that he peeled back the rags uh 0:33:55.600 --> 0:33:59.040 to take a peek. But this was June, and Hayden 0:33:59.160 --> 0:34:01.480 had been dead for while at this point, and the 0:34:01.520 --> 0:34:05.360 body was already beginning to rot. And apparently Rosenbaum was 0:34:05.440 --> 0:34:08.160 so overwhelmed by the sight and the smell that he 0:34:08.320 --> 0:34:11.680 just vomited in the cemetery, but then got right back 0:34:11.719 --> 0:34:14.160 to business. So he got into the carriage, went straight 0:34:14.200 --> 0:34:18.160 to Vienna Hospital, where the skull was de fleshed and 0:34:18.280 --> 0:34:22.280 the brain was removed from its casing. And Rosenbaum described 0:34:22.320 --> 0:34:24.920 the scene later in his own writing. This is quoted 0:34:24.920 --> 0:34:28.600 in Larsen quote. The site made a lifelong impression on me. 0:34:28.760 --> 0:34:32.320 The dissection lasted for one hour. The brain, which was 0:34:32.360 --> 0:34:36.120 of large proportions, stank the most terribly of all. I 0:34:36.320 --> 0:34:38.680 endured it to the end. And that's what I was 0:34:38.719 --> 0:34:42.120 thinking of when you mentioned earlier that the brain, according 0:34:42.160 --> 0:34:43.960 to the Egyptians, at least you know, was one of 0:34:43.960 --> 0:34:47.080 the earliest parts of the body to spoil and smell bad, 0:34:47.120 --> 0:34:49.480 which might have had something to do with the process 0:34:49.560 --> 0:34:52.200 for its early removal. Yeah, well I've I've read this 0:34:52.280 --> 0:34:55.719 other places as well. In fact, tomorrow's episode of The 0:34:55.840 --> 0:35:00.480 Artifact will touch on how quickly a brain will rot. Well, 0:35:00.520 --> 0:35:04.080 apparently Rosenbaumb noticed like he could, despite the fact that 0:35:04.120 --> 0:35:05.759 they had a whole head there. He was like, the 0:35:05.760 --> 0:35:10.160 brain was the worst. But anyway, at the Vienna hospital 0:35:10.160 --> 0:35:12.279 here the skin muscle in the brain were burned in 0:35:12.280 --> 0:35:14.920 the furnace, and then the skull was soaked in lime 0:35:15.120 --> 0:35:17.560 to clean the bones so it could be measured for 0:35:17.600 --> 0:35:21.480 the phrenology purposes. And this soaking would take a while, 0:35:21.680 --> 0:35:24.640 So while that was going on, Rosenbaum went back home 0:35:24.880 --> 0:35:27.480 and he and Peter at some point designed a case 0:35:28.000 --> 0:35:31.720 with which to hold the skull the guy Ringers right quote. 0:35:31.719 --> 0:35:35.200 Peter had a black wooden box made with a golden 0:35:35.280 --> 0:35:38.440 lyre at the top and glass windows in it. The 0:35:38.480 --> 0:35:42.200 skull was placed on a white silk cushion trimmed with black, 0:35:42.880 --> 0:35:45.320 which reminds me very much of some of the displays 0:35:45.360 --> 0:35:50.000 I've seen of supposedly incorruptible saints bodies and the relics 0:35:50.040 --> 0:35:54.239 of saints and old Catholic and Orthodox museums or not 0:35:54.400 --> 0:35:57.279 museums cathedrals. Yeah, they didn't just stick it on the 0:35:57.280 --> 0:35:59.040 table and put a candle on top of it or 0:35:59.120 --> 0:36:01.719 let a raven perch on it. You know, they did 0:36:01.760 --> 0:36:04.239 it upright. Yeah, you get a nice glass box. But 0:36:04.320 --> 0:36:06.840 this one here has a golden lyre. And Larson actually 0:36:06.840 --> 0:36:09.040 has a very wonderful passage about this that I wanted 0:36:09.080 --> 0:36:12.000 to quote. She calls attention to the fact that this 0:36:12.160 --> 0:36:15.560 box was ornamented with a golden liar, and she asks 0:36:15.640 --> 0:36:18.200 if this might have been intended as a reference to 0:36:18.239 --> 0:36:21.320 the Greek god Orpheus. So here I'm quoting from larsen 0:36:21.840 --> 0:36:25.040 whose music carried him safely into the underworld to save 0:36:25.120 --> 0:36:29.120 his wife Eurydicy. Rosenbaum's own dark and earthy mission had 0:36:29.120 --> 0:36:32.440 been driven by his passion for music and his admiration 0:36:32.560 --> 0:36:36.200 of Haydn as a composer. He too, had retrieved his 0:36:36.320 --> 0:36:39.000 love from the rod of the nether world. If the 0:36:39.080 --> 0:36:42.000 liar did refer to Orpheus, there may have been other 0:36:42.080 --> 0:36:45.600 symbolic residences at work as well. In one version of 0:36:45.640 --> 0:36:48.720 the myth, Orpheus lost his own head when his body 0:36:48.800 --> 0:36:51.600 was ripped apart and thrown into the sea by the 0:36:51.640 --> 0:36:56.120 women of Thrace, and Macedonia. Later, Orpheus's head was found 0:36:56.200 --> 0:36:59.800 floating in the river Mela's, fresh and vigorous and still 0:37:00.040 --> 0:37:03.400 singing mournfully. The place where it was buried became a 0:37:03.480 --> 0:37:08.400 shrine and an oracle for pilgrims. And that is interesting 0:37:08.400 --> 0:37:11.479 to me because within the special box, Hydn's severed head 0:37:11.719 --> 0:37:14.960 would become kind of like a shrine within Rosenbaum's house. 0:37:15.560 --> 0:37:17.400 It's so weird to to to think about this in 0:37:17.480 --> 0:37:21.920 terms of patrons and artists, you know, um, like like 0:37:22.080 --> 0:37:25.719 what if what I have today on Patreon or or 0:37:25.760 --> 0:37:28.400 some sort of a kickstarter like that was a tier level, 0:37:28.480 --> 0:37:31.680 Like if you support me, then you can cut off 0:37:31.680 --> 0:37:34.240 my head when I'm dead and run off with my skull, 0:37:34.360 --> 0:37:36.520 or you will be you will be tasked with keeping 0:37:36.560 --> 0:37:40.319 my body and protecting it. That sort of thing. The 0:37:40.360 --> 0:37:43.360 Platinum Club membership. Yeah yeah, but to a certain extence, 0:37:43.480 --> 0:37:45.960 like at least a metaphorical level. Um, you know, a 0:37:46.000 --> 0:37:48.000 lot of this does kind of weirdly match up with 0:37:48.080 --> 0:37:52.120 some of our attitudes about celebrity you know, and celebrities 0:37:52.120 --> 0:37:56.000 and creators you know, and how we how we treat 0:37:56.040 --> 0:37:59.440 them and uh regard them after their death, you know, 0:38:00.120 --> 0:38:04.400 like literally turning turning their their their deaths into and 0:38:04.560 --> 0:38:08.359 sometimes their places of burial into the holy shrines, and 0:38:08.640 --> 0:38:13.000 like you're invoking this whole pseudo scientific field to come 0:38:13.080 --> 0:38:19.480 up with a physical explanation for their supposedly superhuman genius. Um. Anyway, 0:38:19.560 --> 0:38:22.080 so to come back to the story, years go by, 0:38:22.640 --> 0:38:26.240 we already narrated the intervening events, remember, so princester Hazy 0:38:26.600 --> 0:38:31.160 at some point he's reminded like, oh, yeah, Hyden's body, 0:38:31.239 --> 0:38:34.840 Oh I need yeah, that should be here. Uh So, 0:38:34.840 --> 0:38:37.879 so back to the investigation, because they discovered no head, 0:38:38.000 --> 0:38:43.280 only a wig in the in the coffin, and um, 0:38:43.360 --> 0:38:47.080 so they had Hyden's body moved to the castle at Eisenstock, 0:38:47.120 --> 0:38:50.640 where the Prince wanted it. But the Prince was furious 0:38:50.719 --> 0:38:53.480 because there was no head, and he had them investigate, 0:38:53.600 --> 0:38:58.040 and eventually, somehow it was figured out that Peter and 0:38:58.160 --> 0:39:01.360 Rosenbaum had been you know, the ones implicated here, that 0:39:01.400 --> 0:39:03.080 they would have been the people who took the head. 0:39:03.440 --> 0:39:06.439 And so the police went to interrogate Peter, who said 0:39:06.480 --> 0:39:08.879 that he had given the head to Rosenbaum, and then 0:39:08.920 --> 0:39:12.040 the investigators went to Rosenbaum's house and they searched for 0:39:12.080 --> 0:39:16.080 the skull, but they didn't find it. Quote since Rosenbaum's wife, 0:39:16.280 --> 0:39:20.120 the opera singer Teresa Gossman, hid the skull in her 0:39:20.160 --> 0:39:25.040 straw mattress and lay down on the bed. And then 0:39:25.080 --> 0:39:28.200 to to finish up the story, the guy ringers right. Quote. 0:39:28.200 --> 0:39:31.800 The prince now tried bribery, and his emissary promised Rosenbaum 0:39:31.880 --> 0:39:34.680 a large sum if he would deliver the skull, whereupon 0:39:34.760 --> 0:39:37.000 the skull of an old man was handed to the 0:39:37.040 --> 0:39:41.200 prince and buried with Hyden's body. Uh not unnaturally, Prince 0:39:41.440 --> 0:39:44.480 Princess Okay, so fake skull handed off for a bribe. 0:39:45.160 --> 0:39:48.800 Not unnaturally, Prince esther Hazy did not keep his promise 0:39:48.840 --> 0:39:52.640 of a reward, But neither had the wary ex secretary 0:39:52.719 --> 0:39:56.160 acted honestly since he had not delivered the right skull. 0:39:57.360 --> 0:39:59.880 So it's a double double cross. But I wonder if 0:39:59.880 --> 0:40:01.759 they both leave happy with that. You know, it's like, 0:40:01.760 --> 0:40:06.240 all right, I've got a skull can literally somebody's skull. 0:40:06.560 --> 0:40:09.480 It might not have the right kind of musical genius bump, 0:40:09.600 --> 0:40:13.279 but uh, yeah, somebody's skull is in there. And but 0:40:13.320 --> 0:40:15.680 the guy did not get his money. Uh. And then 0:40:15.719 --> 0:40:19.720 finally they say on his deathbed, Rosenbaum gave Hyden Skull 0:40:19.800 --> 0:40:23.360 to his collaborator, to Peter and quote made him promise 0:40:23.840 --> 0:40:26.080 to leave it in his will to the Museum of 0:40:26.200 --> 0:40:30.840 guessel Shoft dear music Freund in Vienna, the owner of 0:40:30.880 --> 0:40:33.919 a great number of valuable Hyden relics. So Hyden Skull 0:40:34.000 --> 0:40:38.759 stayed there from until nineteen fifty four, and then eventually 0:40:38.800 --> 0:40:41.640 there was a there was a mausoleum built in berg 0:40:41.800 --> 0:40:45.439 Church all that that church in uh in Nissenstock where 0:40:45.440 --> 0:40:47.960 the body was supposed to be. Eventually it was in 0:40:48.040 --> 0:40:51.200 nineteen fifty four that the skull was finally reunited with 0:40:51.239 --> 0:40:53.399 the rest of the body. But I think at least 0:40:53.400 --> 0:40:56.400 for a while, maybe maybe permanently after that, but at 0:40:56.480 --> 0:40:58.120 least for a while there were two skulls in the 0:40:58.120 --> 0:41:02.360 grave because they also had the original fake decoy skull 0:41:02.480 --> 0:41:05.120 that had been interred with the body and the wig. 0:41:05.800 --> 0:41:18.360 He had a friendly roommate, right exactly, thank you, thank you. 0:41:19.520 --> 0:41:22.680 But this brings me back to to the pseudoscience underlying 0:41:23.280 --> 0:41:26.560 uh this, this head theft mission here. Why did Rosenbaum 0:41:26.560 --> 0:41:30.640 and Peter steel the head again? They were enthusiastic amateur 0:41:30.719 --> 0:41:35.240 phrenologists they were students of the German anatomist friends Joseph Gall, 0:41:36.040 --> 0:41:40.400 who again he's credited with pioneering the now discredited field 0:41:40.400 --> 0:41:44.920 of phrenology. Now, Gall apparently made some legitimate contributions to 0:41:45.000 --> 0:41:48.160 the development of neuroscience and neuro anatomy, but I think 0:41:48.200 --> 0:41:51.799 whatever these legitimate contributions where they are now overshadowed in 0:41:51.880 --> 0:41:55.440 his legacy by the association with phrenology, which is just 0:41:55.480 --> 0:41:58.960 one of the most awful and rightfully infamous pseudosciences in 0:41:59.080 --> 0:42:03.480 human history. And we can explain more about phrenology across 0:42:03.800 --> 0:42:06.759 this couple of episodes, but the short version is that 0:42:06.880 --> 0:42:11.960 phrenologists incorrectly believed that you could make accurate inferences about 0:42:12.040 --> 0:42:18.160 human mental traits like uh like personality traits, moral characteristics, 0:42:18.200 --> 0:42:22.959 and intellectual aptitudes by measuring the shape and the contours 0:42:22.960 --> 0:42:27.359 of people's skulls, particularly bumps on the skull. So if 0:42:27.400 --> 0:42:29.920 there's a bump in a certain place right near the 0:42:29.920 --> 0:42:31.880 top of your head, that might show that you have 0:42:31.920 --> 0:42:35.040 a special propensity for veneration, maybe you'd be a good 0:42:35.080 --> 0:42:38.920 candidate for the clergy. But if there's a pronounced ridge 0:42:39.000 --> 0:42:41.760 over the top of your ear, that is a swelling 0:42:41.800 --> 0:42:44.840 of the organ of destructiveness, and you will surely become 0:42:44.840 --> 0:42:48.239 a violent criminal, etcetera. And I think you can pair 0:42:48.440 --> 0:42:53.280 phrenology along with what's known as physiognomy. More broadly, physiognomy 0:42:53.400 --> 0:42:55.960 is the belief that you can accurately assess a person's 0:42:56.000 --> 0:42:59.920 mental characteristics by looking at their outward appearance. Often, physiogo 0:43:00.040 --> 0:43:01.960 to me, would focus on the face. You'd see these 0:43:02.040 --> 0:43:04.120 charts of like, oh, somebody has a face like this, 0:43:04.239 --> 0:43:07.680 it means that they're they're very sanguine and uh and 0:43:07.680 --> 0:43:10.480 and they're you know, prone to laughter and to gluttony. 0:43:10.560 --> 0:43:12.920 And somebody has a face like this, and there, you know, 0:43:12.960 --> 0:43:16.839 without a doubt a murderer. Uh. And So phrenology and 0:43:16.840 --> 0:43:19.279 that kind of thing they led to all kinds of 0:43:19.400 --> 0:43:26.000 horribly misguided applications and pseudo scientific criminology supposed scientific justifications 0:43:26.040 --> 0:43:29.880 for racism and ethnic prejudice, for gender prejudice and so forth. 0:43:30.480 --> 0:43:33.800 And it's weird because phrenology, like if you explain it today, 0:43:33.880 --> 0:43:36.640 it's one of those things that sounds so stupid on 0:43:36.719 --> 0:43:39.960 its face. It's hard to see how people ever believed it. 0:43:40.280 --> 0:43:44.000 But phrenology was hugely influential, especially in the first half 0:43:44.040 --> 0:43:47.320 of the eighteen hundreds. Uh, though it was, it should 0:43:47.320 --> 0:43:49.480 be said, it was not like everybody believed it at 0:43:49.480 --> 0:43:53.680 the time. It was subjected to fierce scientific criticism even 0:43:53.800 --> 0:43:56.040 during its heyday, But that doesn't mean it did not 0:43:56.160 --> 0:43:59.880 find very popular applauding audiences. Yeah, like you said, so 0:44:00.080 --> 0:44:02.360 much of the time it ends up being this way 0:44:02.400 --> 0:44:06.640 of saying those horrible things you think when you look 0:44:06.840 --> 0:44:11.360 at certain people's skulls and faces, those feelings are backed 0:44:11.440 --> 0:44:15.480 up by scientific principles, and here they are, and and 0:44:15.480 --> 0:44:17.600 and that. You know, you can see why that would 0:44:17.600 --> 0:44:21.160 be enough to hook people who wanted to believe these things. 0:44:21.160 --> 0:44:23.359 Oh yeah, it's great to tell people like that. You know, 0:44:23.440 --> 0:44:27.759 you can have a scientific justification for whatever you gut 0:44:27.800 --> 0:44:30.600 feeling you get when you look at somebody like, oh, 0:44:30.640 --> 0:44:33.200 this guy he has the you know, the the pointy 0:44:33.320 --> 0:44:35.400 top of the head of a genius, or you know 0:44:35.800 --> 0:44:38.640 this late Yeah, my wife won't do what I tell 0:44:38.680 --> 0:44:40.960 her because there's something wrong with the shape of her skull, 0:44:41.000 --> 0:44:44.640 and science proves it. Now, the tragedy of phrenology is 0:44:44.719 --> 0:44:47.759 started with some premises that are basically true. Like it 0:44:47.880 --> 0:44:51.120 started with the idea that the personality and mental traits 0:44:51.239 --> 0:44:54.600 are in large part determined by processes in the brain. 0:44:54.800 --> 0:44:57.919 Of course, that's true, we know that today and uh 0:44:57.960 --> 0:45:00.279 and with the premise that some brain function and are 0:45:00.360 --> 0:45:04.600 especially dependent on localized regions in the brain, so we 0:45:04.680 --> 0:45:07.600 also know that's basically true. Like you know, visual processing 0:45:07.640 --> 0:45:10.319 depends especially on the visual cortex in the back of 0:45:10.320 --> 0:45:13.319 the head. Speech is especially dependent on the area now 0:45:13.360 --> 0:45:15.759 known as Broca's area, which is on the left side 0:45:15.760 --> 0:45:17.879 of the brain, near the front of the head. Uh. 0:45:17.920 --> 0:45:21.040 And these were real discoveries of early neuroscience that there 0:45:21.040 --> 0:45:23.839 were regions of the brain that correlated with certain types 0:45:23.880 --> 0:45:27.040 of mental activity, though not always as strictly as some 0:45:27.080 --> 0:45:33.239 people think. Um. But from these real discoveries was extrapolated 0:45:33.520 --> 0:45:36.920 this flawed chain of reasoning that led to chronology, and 0:45:36.920 --> 0:45:39.480 according to people like Franz Joseph Gall it would go 0:45:39.560 --> 0:45:41.680 something like this. So you'd say the mind is a 0:45:41.680 --> 0:45:44.120 product of the brain. You know, apparently true or at 0:45:44.160 --> 0:45:48.040 least mostly true. The brain is not a homogeneous mass, 0:45:48.080 --> 0:45:50.120 but they're you know, there are different parts of it 0:45:50.160 --> 0:45:53.239 that do different things. That's generally true. But then the 0:45:53.280 --> 0:45:56.560 next leap is to the size of a localized part 0:45:56.560 --> 0:45:59.880 of the brain will be correlated to how powerful it 0:46:00.040 --> 0:46:04.919 associated mental faculty is, which is not necessarily true. And 0:46:04.960 --> 0:46:07.760 then from there you get to well, you get bumps 0:46:07.760 --> 0:46:10.279 on the outside of the skull that will indicate the 0:46:10.360 --> 0:46:13.560 size and therefore the strength of the underlying regions of 0:46:13.600 --> 0:46:17.440 the brain, which that's pretty much not true. And then 0:46:17.480 --> 0:46:20.560 therefore you can make a generalized map of the skull 0:46:20.719 --> 0:46:24.759 to find which shapes and bumps and protuberances create which 0:46:24.800 --> 0:46:28.040 personality characteristics and aptitudes, which at this point is just 0:46:28.080 --> 0:46:31.000 completely wrong. You can just imagine the branch on the 0:46:31.040 --> 0:46:35.200 tree here just going growing gradually more crooked for the 0:46:35.280 --> 0:46:39.239 further you go. Right, yeah, um, But for a few 0:46:39.280 --> 0:46:43.200 decades at least, phrenology again proved extremely popular again, as 0:46:43.239 --> 0:46:45.440 it was especially during like the first half of the 0:46:45.520 --> 0:46:49.320 nineteenth century. Uh. And there's an interesting section in Lawson's 0:46:49.360 --> 0:46:52.560 book where she attributes at least some of the appeal 0:46:52.560 --> 0:46:57.000 of phrenology to Franz Joseph Skull's skills at public speaking 0:46:57.600 --> 0:47:01.120 and the allure of his lectures. She writes that he 0:47:01.200 --> 0:47:04.160 always gave his public addresses with props surrounded by his 0:47:04.239 --> 0:47:07.279 personal collections of heads, which he would pick up and 0:47:07.400 --> 0:47:11.360 use for demonstration to enraptured audiences. You know, here's the 0:47:11.360 --> 0:47:14.200 skull of a man who was consumed in life by vanity. 0:47:14.320 --> 0:47:17.440 You can see the bulge corresponding to his organ of conceit. 0:47:18.239 --> 0:47:21.040 Or here's the skull of a genius composer observed the 0:47:21.080 --> 0:47:25.400 swelling above his organ of music, etcetera. And then Larson 0:47:25.400 --> 0:47:29.480 writes quote, when fresh specimens were available, his assistant would 0:47:29.520 --> 0:47:33.200 dissect an animal brain or occasionally a human brain in 0:47:33.280 --> 0:47:37.120 front of the audience. Galls talks became famous in Vienna 0:47:37.160 --> 0:47:40.000 and later throughout Northern Europe, and they were attended by 0:47:40.000 --> 0:47:42.680 a wide cross section of the public, from tourists and 0:47:42.760 --> 0:47:47.759 tradesmen to ambassadors and academics. The combination of medical terminology 0:47:48.000 --> 0:47:50.879 visual aids few members of the public can have seen 0:47:50.880 --> 0:47:56.600 a dissection before, and talented oratory was intoxicating. After a lecture, 0:47:56.840 --> 0:47:59.560 people queued up to have their own heads read by Gall. 0:48:00.120 --> 0:48:03.880 This was science endowed with psychic powers, the scientists who 0:48:03.960 --> 0:48:06.760 knew you better than you knew yourself, and all thanks 0:48:06.800 --> 0:48:09.520 to the secrets inscribed in the shape of your head. 0:48:10.360 --> 0:48:12.600 But but I mean the horrible part being, of course 0:48:12.600 --> 0:48:15.560 that it was all just completely wrong. Phrenology had no 0:48:15.680 --> 0:48:20.759 empirically verifiable basis, its founding premises were incorrect, and it 0:48:20.800 --> 0:48:24.279 could not make accurate predictions about future findings. But it 0:48:24.320 --> 0:48:27.440 was popular nonetheless. And it seems like, at least to 0:48:27.520 --> 0:48:30.719 some extent, it's popularity had more to do with the 0:48:30.800 --> 0:48:35.160 personal flair and charisma of its founding popularizer than with 0:48:35.239 --> 0:48:38.560 its empirical merits. And this is something I think about 0:48:38.560 --> 0:48:40.719 a lot. I think this is always something to be 0:48:40.800 --> 0:48:44.800 really conscious of. It is so so easy to mistake 0:48:44.920 --> 0:48:48.759 good public speaking for truth. Uh, you know, the the 0:48:48.800 --> 0:48:52.799 allure of a weekly supported claim delivered by a charismatic 0:48:52.880 --> 0:48:55.920 voice is always present and something to you know, be 0:48:56.040 --> 0:48:59.080 conscious of, to like ask yourself if that's happening in 0:48:59.160 --> 0:49:02.880 your brain, if you are thinking something is true because 0:49:02.920 --> 0:49:06.160 somebody is good at talking and they're saying it. And 0:49:06.239 --> 0:49:09.000 I think about digital versions of this today, the digital 0:49:09.120 --> 0:49:14.000 versions of the Viennese lecture halls like YouTube, where you know, 0:49:14.000 --> 0:49:16.799 I get a feeling that there is a huge undercurrent 0:49:16.840 --> 0:49:20.400 of ideological shaping that often takes place on a similar 0:49:20.440 --> 0:49:23.960 basis here viewers of things like YouTube and even podcasts. 0:49:24.000 --> 0:49:27.719 So we could say, listen to somebody mainly because they're 0:49:27.760 --> 0:49:31.200 a compelling speaker. They're captivating to listen to. They you know, 0:49:31.239 --> 0:49:34.000 they they're good with words, there's something nice about their voice, 0:49:34.080 --> 0:49:37.279 whatever that is, and over time can end up adopting 0:49:37.320 --> 0:49:40.000 their beliefs or claims, regardless of whether there's a good 0:49:40.080 --> 0:49:43.319 reason for the claims themselves. Yeah, you know what I mean. 0:49:43.320 --> 0:49:45.120 It makes me think back to uh, you know Carl 0:49:45.120 --> 0:49:48.080 Sagan I mentioned earlier. I mean, Sagan was an individual 0:49:48.160 --> 0:49:51.440 who every everything tended to line up for him. You know, 0:49:52.200 --> 0:49:56.799 a great scientific mind, an excellent speaker and science communicator. 0:49:57.760 --> 0:50:00.719 But you don't have to have every line up with 0:50:00.760 --> 0:50:02.960 a person, and many times it does not. You have 0:50:03.000 --> 0:50:06.080 plenty of great scientists who are not natural public speakers, 0:50:06.520 --> 0:50:09.319 and you have plenty of natural public speakers who do 0:50:09.400 --> 0:50:13.160 not have a mind for science or an appreciation for science, 0:50:13.160 --> 0:50:17.920 and maybe not interested in in impressing the science like that. 0:50:18.000 --> 0:50:20.600 They may use the science in some cases when it 0:50:20.640 --> 0:50:23.160 suits them, but that is not their their primary go Well, 0:50:23.160 --> 0:50:25.560 I would say one thing that really works against us 0:50:25.600 --> 0:50:30.080 here is the tragic disjunction of the fact that one 0:50:30.120 --> 0:50:33.920 of the most compelling qualities in a speaker, one of 0:50:33.920 --> 0:50:36.640 the things that makes people most fun to listen to 0:50:36.719 --> 0:50:41.720 as a speaker is confidence. And yet being a good 0:50:41.760 --> 0:50:46.000 communicator of science often requires you to be extremely circumspect 0:50:46.080 --> 0:50:49.600 and to repeatedly in tone, you know, communicate doubt and 0:50:49.640 --> 0:50:52.920 to repeatedly communicate you know, we're not sure about this, 0:50:53.080 --> 0:50:55.439 that you know that these are reasons for thinking so, 0:50:55.520 --> 0:50:57.719 but there are reasons against it and all that which 0:50:57.719 --> 0:51:00.080 goes exactly against some of the things that makes but 0:51:00.280 --> 0:51:04.080 the most fun to just like watch lectures from right right. 0:51:04.120 --> 0:51:06.799 And this is true at at various levels in different ways. 0:51:06.840 --> 0:51:08.799 It's certainly true at our level because we are we 0:51:08.840 --> 0:51:12.120 are not experts in the topics that we discuss, and 0:51:12.160 --> 0:51:15.120 therefore we always have to admit this could this could 0:51:15.120 --> 0:51:18.040 be wrong, and or this is changing, this could change, 0:51:18.480 --> 0:51:20.520 because then we get into the level of just that's 0:51:20.560 --> 0:51:24.279 what science is. So you'll encounter, you know, experts in 0:51:24.320 --> 0:51:28.160 their field who are also voicing the same level of uncertainty. 0:51:28.640 --> 0:51:32.719 And there are times where that is not as convincing 0:51:33.280 --> 0:51:37.160 as someone who, uh, you know, who's very sure of themselves, 0:51:37.200 --> 0:51:39.600 like the the the yeah. And you know, you can 0:51:39.640 --> 0:51:42.400 easily think of various examples of this um you know, 0:51:42.520 --> 0:51:44.799 you can see why they You can be drawn into 0:51:44.840 --> 0:51:48.480 the siren song of someone who's absolutely seems absolutely certain 0:51:48.520 --> 0:51:51.680 about what they're talking about, versus someone who says, well, 0:51:51.960 --> 0:51:54.440 we're still figuring it out. All right, Well, you know, 0:51:54.440 --> 0:51:56.799 we're almost out of time here. But I want to 0:51:56.840 --> 0:52:00.239 share another story of brain theft, and this one comes 0:52:00.239 --> 0:52:04.080 to us from two thousand sixteen. I don't know if 0:52:04.120 --> 0:52:07.080 you ran across this one, Joe, uh, but the basic 0:52:07.120 --> 0:52:09.640 premise here is summed up well in the headline, this 0:52:09.719 --> 0:52:14.160 headline from the Daily Mail. My nemesis, are you're gonna 0:52:14.160 --> 0:52:17.120 make me click on a Daily Mail article? Uh? Well? 0:52:17.160 --> 0:52:19.799 I also I also provided you with or maybe I didn't. Yeah, 0:52:19.800 --> 0:52:22.680 I did provide you with another uh report as well 0:52:22.719 --> 0:52:27.960 from CBS Pittsburgh your choice. Okay, thirty thousand caveats to 0:52:28.000 --> 0:52:30.880 whatever this story is, but I do want to hear it. Okay. 0:52:30.920 --> 0:52:34.280 So the Daily Mail headline was burglar stole human brain, 0:52:34.760 --> 0:52:39.080 nicknamed it Freddie and used the embombing fluid to get high. Um. 0:52:39.120 --> 0:52:41.640 And there were various versions of this this headline that 0:52:41.719 --> 0:52:46.319 were that were traded about in So what happened here 0:52:46.480 --> 0:52:50.400 is Okay, this is Pennsylvania where Allegedly, a twenty six 0:52:50.480 --> 0:52:54.440 year old uh individual was in jail on burglary charges 0:52:54.719 --> 0:52:58.560 when his grandma discovered a human brain underneath the porch 0:52:59.040 --> 0:53:04.440 in a Walmart path. Okay, allegedly the stolen brain, named 0:53:04.480 --> 0:53:08.920 Freddie by the year old individual. Okay, he named it, 0:53:09.239 --> 0:53:12.920 He named it. Freddie was being used for its embalming fluid, 0:53:13.239 --> 0:53:16.720 which the accused and and a friend used to soak 0:53:16.880 --> 0:53:21.359 their marijuana in prior to smoking said marijuana. Oh no, 0:53:21.440 --> 0:53:27.880 if that's true, that no, no, no so um. According 0:53:28.000 --> 0:53:31.200 First of all, according to CBS Pittsburgh reporting on the incident, 0:53:31.239 --> 0:53:35.120 the brain was most likely a stolen teaching specimen. So basically, 0:53:35.160 --> 0:53:38.680 go back to the original Frankenstein. That's scene where was 0:53:38.680 --> 0:53:41.000 his named. Fritz goes in to steal a brain, and 0:53:41.040 --> 0:53:43.080 there are the two brains, there's the normal brain and 0:53:43.160 --> 0:53:46.239 the criminal brain, and he accidentally smashes one of the 0:53:46.280 --> 0:53:51.080 jars and steals the other one. Basically that scenario um, 0:53:51.120 --> 0:53:54.319 except in this case, Uh, I guess Fritz had other 0:53:54.400 --> 0:53:58.040 ideas in mind. So to two tips I want to 0:53:58.280 --> 0:54:01.719 share for everybody here. First of all, and obviously, do 0:54:01.800 --> 0:54:05.759 not steal a human brain. I mean it's it's illegal 0:54:05.960 --> 0:54:08.399 in the United States to possess a human brain like this. 0:54:08.680 --> 0:54:10.880 It's illegal to own or possess the remains of a 0:54:10.960 --> 0:54:14.440 human being other than ashes. Uh. You know, with certain 0:54:14.480 --> 0:54:17.640 caveats obviously, if you're like a teaching institution, etcetera. But 0:54:17.719 --> 0:54:20.880 for the just a random individual, No, you can't have 0:54:20.920 --> 0:54:23.359 a brain. You can't have a skull. Um. So that 0:54:23.400 --> 0:54:26.680 means no head, no brain, no skull, none of that. 0:54:27.560 --> 0:54:32.440 Second smoking formalde hide laced anything is just a terrible idea. 0:54:32.760 --> 0:54:35.000 Do not do it, um. It can result in a 0:54:35.080 --> 0:54:39.160 host of issues including brain damage to your brain, not Freddy, 0:54:39.280 --> 0:54:43.360 your brain, lung damage, and body tissue destruction. So just 0:54:43.440 --> 0:54:47.520 a some bad choices were made here regarding Freddy. Never 0:54:47.560 --> 0:54:53.200 smoked Freddy. Yeah, so uh with that, I think we're 0:54:53.239 --> 0:54:55.600 gonna close out part one here, but I'm excited to 0:54:55.600 --> 0:54:57.680 come back in part two because we're gonna we're gonna 0:54:57.719 --> 0:55:00.920 get into other cases of head and brain theft. We're 0:55:00.920 --> 0:55:03.759 gonna get into some ancient traditions. We're gonna talk a 0:55:03.760 --> 0:55:07.279 little bit about mythology and folklore. Uh, it should be 0:55:07.360 --> 0:55:09.640 a really fun time. I can't wait. And then at 0:55:09.640 --> 0:55:12.040 the end of the week, are are weird how cinema 0:55:12.080 --> 0:55:14.719 selection is also going to concern brains. We have a 0:55:14.800 --> 0:55:18.759 really brainloaded week here. I'm so excited, as chop Top 0:55:18.800 --> 0:55:23.680 would say, my brain is burning. All right. Well, if 0:55:23.760 --> 0:55:26.279 your brain is burning and you would like to listen 0:55:26.320 --> 0:55:28.200 to more Stuff to Blow your Mind, check out the 0:55:28.200 --> 0:55:31.200 Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed. Wherever you get 0:55:31.239 --> 0:55:35.840 your podcasts, you'll get your core episodes of science and 0:55:36.120 --> 0:55:40.360 culture on Tuesdays and Thursdays, that short form artifact on Wednesdays. 0:55:40.600 --> 0:55:43.399 Do you get listener mail on Monday's and yep, Friday 0:55:43.480 --> 0:55:46.000 is weird how cinema? And we run a vault episode 0:55:46.239 --> 0:55:50.040 a rerun on Saturday's. Um if if you can rate, 0:55:50.080 --> 0:55:53.400 review and subscribe because that helps out the show. Huge things. 0:55:53.400 --> 0:55:56.520 As always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. 0:55:56.880 --> 0:55:58.359 If you would like to get in touch with us 0:55:58.360 --> 0:56:00.920 with feedback on this episode or an other, to suggest 0:56:00.960 --> 0:56:03.240 a topic for the future, or just to say hello, 0:56:03.320 --> 0:56:05.919 you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow 0:56:05.960 --> 0:56:16.160 your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your minds production 0:56:16.200 --> 0:56:18.960 of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, 0:56:19.160 --> 0:56:21.840 visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 0:56:21.880 --> 0:56:31.160 you listening to your favorite shows