Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, you're welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Sager.
Speaker 1: And today before we get the episodes started, there's a
Speaker 1: few things that we want to let you our audience
Speaker 1: know about up top that are coming up in the
Speaker 1: month of October, which is one of our favorite months here.
Speaker 1: First of all, we are going to start doing listener
Speaker 1: mail episodes over periscope. We're going to attempt this. If
Speaker 1: you've ever used the periscope apt before, it's connected to Twitter.
Speaker 1: We've been been getting so much listener mail lately that
Speaker 1: we don't really feel like we could do it justice
Speaker 1: in one podcast episode, so we figured we'd give this
Speaker 1: periscope thing a try, and we're going to try it
Speaker 1: out on Friday, October. The second thing that we want
Speaker 1: to let you know about is the return of Monster Science. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're a listener of the podcast but you've never
Speaker 1: seen any of the videos before, I have to recommend
Speaker 1: the you check these out. I wasn't involved in the
Speaker 1: original ones, and it's one of my favorite things that
Speaker 1: we've ever produced here at How Stuff Works. Robert, you
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit more about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have four new episodes coming at you. In each one,
Speaker 1: Dr Anton Jessup discusses uh the fictional world of monsters
Speaker 1: as well as the real world, the real natural world
Speaker 1: of biology, and finds the comparisons to make between the two.
Speaker 1: So it's it's always a fun video. It's great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it has so much value to like the effects
Speaker 1: that are in it that our producer Tyler throws in
Speaker 1: and also like some really cool background props and items
Speaker 1: that you guys get to work with. So if you're
Speaker 1: into horror, if you're excited about Halloween and October, and
Speaker 1: you love science like we do, you should totally check
Speaker 1: out Monster Science. It's already the first two seasons are
Speaker 1: already on YouTube, and if you follow us on Facebook,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be posting at least one or two episodes
Speaker 1: a week directly there for the next couple of weeks
Speaker 1: leading up to Halloween in the new season. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you can sort of follow the very loose narrative that
Speaker 1: that goes through all of these yeah, and and and
Speaker 1: real quick before we get started, just you know, if
Speaker 1: you want to find out any of this stuff, and
Speaker 1: you're a fan of the show, and you haven't you
Speaker 1: haven't had the opportunity to learn about these yet. Definitely,
Speaker 1: you know, follow us on social media. We're on Facebook,
Speaker 1: We're on Twitter, and Tumbler, all those platforms were blow
Speaker 1: the mind. There's also the home page stuff to blow
Speaker 1: your mind dot com, which is full of blog posts
Speaker 1: that Robert and I and Joe work on, and videos
Speaker 1: older videos that Robert and Julie used to do, and
Speaker 1: including all the monster science stuff. So definitely just give
Speaker 1: it a shot. And speaking of monsters, today, we are
Speaker 1: talking about a topic that has definite ties into the
Speaker 1: mythological world of monsters, but also uh ties in very
Speaker 1: nicely to themes of biological and chemical weapons and to
Speaker 1: uh into themes of just natural biology and of course
Speaker 1: natural medicine. Yeah, this is a topic that you know,
Speaker 1: if you had asked me about a week ago, before
Speaker 1: I'd done the research, I would have just had some vague,
Speaker 1: sort of universal pick sure's ideas about what this means.
Speaker 1: So of course we're talking about wolf Spain, yes, and
Speaker 1: I honestly I wasn't completely sure it was real and
Speaker 1: very recently me you see it, you hear it mentioned,
Speaker 1: it sounds a little bit too cute, right, you know,
Speaker 1: And how do you fight off a werewolf for potentially
Speaker 1: make awarewolf? It gets convoluted. Um, well you find this, uh,
Speaker 1: this this plant, this little flower that's occurring, and it's
Speaker 1: called wolf Spain, ironically enough, and it can be used
Speaker 1: against the creature. Yeah. And it turns out this is
Speaker 1: a real thing, very real and very prominent in Northern
Speaker 1: Europe and has a real deep history with a lot
Speaker 1: of interesting sort of connections to how it's used in
Speaker 1: the variations in which people have used it to heal
Speaker 1: and to hurt one another. Uh. And the werewolf thing
Speaker 1: is fascinating. But I also think that it's just it's
Speaker 1: got like a very odd kind of horticultural background to
Speaker 1: something that I'd never heard of, maybe because I've you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not like one foot in the botany world the
Speaker 1: way I'm on foot into the horror world. Yeah, like it.
Speaker 1: It definitely has deep roots, if you will, in the
Speaker 1: in the botany world, and also also in the world
Speaker 1: of traditional medicines, especially traditional Chinese medicine. Yeah. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: all right, what are we actually talking about here? Wolf
Speaker 1: Spain is what exactly. Well, we're talking about the perennial
Speaker 1: herbs of the buttercut family rannow cool, let's say, and
Speaker 1: that's divided into two genera, a contum and Erathus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so h Latin is going to be a major
Speaker 1: thing that pops up here in terms of like the
Speaker 1: naming conventions surrounding these plants. And I think there's something
Speaker 1: like sixty sixty different subspecies of these, So forgive us
Speaker 1: if our Latin isn't up to par and we're not
Speaker 1: pronouncing these exactly right. But the main thing to know
Speaker 1: is that this is largely referred to as a conatum,
Speaker 1: and we'll also be talking about a con night, which
Speaker 1: is this deadly poisonous alkaloid that is emitted from the plant,
Speaker 1: primarily from its roots. Yeah, I mean it's present all
Speaker 1: through the plant, but in its roots and root tubers
Speaker 1: that's where you find the highest concentrations. But it's it's
Speaker 1: also in the in the in the leaves, it's in
Speaker 1: the flowers, it's in the it's in high levels in
Speaker 1: the pollen. It's crazy dangerous and this is one of
Speaker 1: the things one of the reasons why after doing this research,
Speaker 1: I was like why don't we all know about this
Speaker 1: because this seems like this incredibly dangerous thing that we
Speaker 1: just refer about casually in werewolf movies. Yeah, we'll discuss
Speaker 1: some of the dangers that have But you you find
Speaker 1: it throughout the northern hemisphere, um in in in America,
Speaker 1: you find it throughout Eurasia, and accidents do occur, and
Speaker 1: it's mostly native to mountains. It's known as a rock
Speaker 1: flower and some uh, some parts of the world because
Speaker 1: it grows up out of spaces in between rocks. But
Speaker 1: there's primarily two sort of informal categories. There's monkshood and
Speaker 1: there's wolf spain. Uh. And it's called monkshood because of
Speaker 1: its shape, So it has this U shape to it.
Speaker 1: They call it the sepals. I guess those are like
Speaker 1: the upper petals um that kind of curve over and
Speaker 1: look like the hood over like I guess like a
Speaker 1: capuchin monk or something like that. Um. And there's different colors, right,
Speaker 1: So the monks hoods usually are like dark blues or
Speaker 1: purple's sometimes that you'll find them in white variations, whereas
Speaker 1: like wolf spain is usually yellow. Sometimes it's lavender or pink,
Speaker 1: and those are commonly grown in the Alps of Switzerland, actually,
Speaker 1: which again I didn't I had no idea. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: hills are alive and uh and it's it's important to
Speaker 1: to to drive home to here that the reason that this, uh,
Speaker 1: this thing is just so filled with toxic alkaloids is
Speaker 1: because it's it's in essence, the chemical prodect protection against herbivores. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean some of the not just some of the
Speaker 1: ways that this has been used against humans, but also
Speaker 1: animals I thought was uh, pretty mortifying. But I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe I'm coming at it from a modern
Speaker 1: day standpoint where I wouldn't purposely poison horses, for instance.
Speaker 1: But we'll get into that. So, okay, there's a there's
Speaker 1: an interesting etymology behind this particular flower. So the name
Speaker 1: is thought to be derived from the Greek word I
Speaker 1: think it's a conaton, which means without struggle. But there's
Speaker 1: also an idea that it also comes from the Greek
Speaker 1: word a con which is word for dart or javelin,
Speaker 1: And we'll talk about that later. But it primarily has
Speaker 1: to do with this substance being coded on those weapons
Speaker 1: us more essentially a chemical weapon. It's also thought to
Speaker 1: come from the word Akona, which is a word connected
Speaker 1: to rocky grounds, like I just said, like it grows
Speaker 1: up in mountainous regions. And actually Pliny the Elder talked
Speaker 1: about it and some of his writings, and he said
Speaker 1: that it might be connected to the port of Akina,
Speaker 1: which was apparently a place known for evil repute um.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, again connected to it because of
Speaker 1: the whole poison in the Aconite thing. So the last
Speaker 1: one apparently acon All those kinds of iterations within Greek
Speaker 1: all have kind of deadly meanings. So a wet stone
Speaker 1: is apparently pronounced at home in Greek. And uh, that's
Speaker 1: so if you don't know, that's the like the thing
Speaker 1: that you used to sharpen a sword, basically, and they
Speaker 1: think that that might also be in origin for it.
Speaker 1: Because it's like a wet stone, it makes a blade
Speaker 1: even deadlier. So how do people end up finding them
Speaker 1: self poisoned by wolf spain? Uh? They're basically two ways.
Speaker 1: And it depends on where you are in the world.
Speaker 1: If you if you reside in the East, if particularly
Speaker 1: if you're if you're in China, then there's a very
Speaker 1: good chance that you might encounter it through traditional medicine.
Speaker 1: And if the proportions are long, if it are wrong,
Speaker 1: if it hasn't been prepared properly, or you take too
Speaker 1: much of it, uh and it's prepared form, then you
Speaker 1: can become poisoned by the aconite. Yeah, and it's nasty stuff.
Speaker 1: And and then you know there's just the casual like
Speaker 1: walking by it or accidentally putting it to your lips,
Speaker 1: to which you know, surprisingly happens more often then you think.
Speaker 1: In fact, last year, there was a thirty three year
Speaker 1: old gardener named Nathan Greenaway and he worked He worked
Speaker 1: at this place called mill Court House, which was owned
Speaker 1: by like a retired ventured capitalist named Christopher Ogilvy Thompson uh.
Speaker 1: And apparently they had wolfspand growing in their giant garden
Speaker 1: and Nathan didn't know this. He brushed up against it
Speaker 1: and it killed him within a day. Um. And some
Speaker 1: people speculate, you know, it's it's worse if you have
Speaker 1: like open wounds on your hands. Apparently this guy wasn't
Speaker 1: wearing gloves at the time. But it's pretty dangerous. In fact,
Speaker 1: some people over the years have even mistaken it for
Speaker 1: horse radish and put their roots in their mouth and
Speaker 1: died from it, so it leads to bad results. Um.
Speaker 1: And before we get into the werewolves and the poisons
Speaker 1: and the herbology and all that stuff. Um, we'll just
Speaker 1: kind of briefly talk about why this thing is so toxic.
Speaker 1: So we know that the roots and the tubers are
Speaker 1: especially toxic. It's really prevalent, especially you know, it can
Speaker 1: be absorbed through your skin, and how to be handled
Speaker 1: with extreme care because of those alkaloids that we were
Speaker 1: talking about before. Um. But but what is the actual
Speaker 1: effect of this thing? Right? So it produces a topical
Speaker 1: tingling at first, kind of like an anesthetic, I'm assuming, uh,
Speaker 1: and followed by I guess like it's an altered state.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call it hallucinating, but it's kind of like
Speaker 1: your mind is affected. And we'll talk about different ways
Speaker 1: in which people have used it purposely to affect their
Speaker 1: own minds. But it sounds to me like it's sort
Speaker 1: of like a a state that slows down the mind
Speaker 1: and sort of puts most things out of your your
Speaker 1: thoughts so you can focus singularly. Yeah, And there's a
Speaker 1: there's a lot of mention in the in the literature
Speaker 1: about particularly when we get into its use with a
Speaker 1: poison that that it you remain very clear headed until
Speaker 1: the very ends, kind of adding to the nefarious nature
Speaker 1: of it as a weapon. Having just gone under anesthetic yesterday,
Speaker 1: I can I can imagine what the effects are like.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so all you need is three to six
Speaker 1: milligrams of aconite to kill a healthy adult Like this
Speaker 1: stuff is so potent, just like a few grams of
Speaker 1: the plant matter touching your hands or obviously being ingested
Speaker 1: is super dangerous. Uh. And I found there's an old
Speaker 1: nineteen eleven Encyclopedia Britannica entry that mentioned that some people
Speaker 1: purposely put the pedal or the roots to their lips
Speaker 1: to produce like a numbness or a tingling. I guess
Speaker 1: it's like the whippets of the Turn of the Sectary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a very dangerous um practice indeed, though, because you need
Speaker 1: to make sure you just get enough of it to
Speaker 1: to inspire tingling and numbness and not you know, poison
Speaker 1: you to death. Yeah. Absolutely, um. And this is the
Speaker 1: horse thing, which I found unfortunate, but apparently horse dealers
Speaker 1: used to use this. They'd feed it to their horses
Speaker 1: before they brought their animals to market, and the reason
Speaker 1: why was it works the opposite on horses. It stimulates
Speaker 1: horses and makes them lively. So if you had an old,
Speaker 1: tired horse and you're trying to get rid of it,
Speaker 1: you give it a little bit of wolf spain, bring
Speaker 1: it to market, and it appears more lively and you're
Speaker 1: more likely to sell it. And then you know, the
Speaker 1: person who buys it gets at home and realize that
Speaker 1: this is a very tired horse. All right, Well, let's
Speaker 1: let's get into the werewolf mythology a little bit. And
Speaker 1: I think like one of the key things here that
Speaker 1: we keep finding is that you see wolf spain mentioned
Speaker 1: as both a preventative measure and uh and and also
Speaker 1: the cause of leokanthropy. Yeah, that was the thing that
Speaker 1: was confusing to me. So before going into this, I
Speaker 1: had always heard of it through the myths, I guess,
Speaker 1: or the fiction that I had encountered as being the
Speaker 1: thing that you use. It's like other than a silver bullet,
Speaker 1: it's like the only thing that can stop a werewolf, right. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I think there's like a Marvel Comics like X
Speaker 1: Men character whose name I don't think, I know. There's
Speaker 1: a there's an X Men character named wolf Spain. The
Speaker 1: name doesn't really make sense because as you suspect her
Speaker 1: powers that she transforms into a werewolf. So what, like,
Speaker 1: I don't understand. I guess why there's the divergence in
Speaker 1: the mythos there of like it's the thing that will
Speaker 1: kill a werewolf, but it's also the thing that will
Speaker 1: turn you into a werewolf. Yeah, I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: just so tied to how a werewolf works that you
Speaker 1: can be Yeah, I mean, it's it's kind of it
Speaker 1: kind of represents the dual nature of the of the
Speaker 1: substance itself, right and incorrect proportions. It can be used
Speaker 1: as a medicine and in um strong enough dosus and
Speaker 1: or you know which doesn't doesn't take very much. As
Speaker 1: we've already discussed, you have a dire weapon on your hands,
Speaker 1: you know what. That's a really good point actually, And
Speaker 1: so there's definitely historical connections to the poison part because Akinaton,
Speaker 1: like I'm going to pronounce this wrong, like a tonum
Speaker 1: uh is this is the genus that's essentially uh the
Speaker 1: wolf Spain, the like prominent wolf Spain. It was originally
Speaker 1: used as a way to kill panthers and wolves and
Speaker 1: other quote wild beasts. Uh, and it was considered deadly
Speaker 1: to them. One of the quotes that I read from
Speaker 1: an old textbook said it kills them in the same
Speaker 1: day if you put the root or the leaf on
Speaker 1: the animals genitals. So I don't know, I don't know
Speaker 1: how they're grabbing a wolf and and rubbing the leaves
Speaker 1: of wolf spain on its genitals. But the other thing
Speaker 1: that I heard was that they used to lure wolves out,
Speaker 1: but they would take like chunks of raw meat and
Speaker 1: they would mix in wolf spain juice a sense essentially
Speaker 1: into this stuff, throw it out. Everybody would go into
Speaker 1: their homes. The wolves would come out and eat the
Speaker 1: stuff and be dead like a day later. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting to see the connection here between wolf
Speaker 1: spaane and the and using it as a a turrent
Speaker 1: against wolves and they're they're likewise. There are some arguments
Speaker 1: that the werewolf myth has its roots, So you know,
Speaker 1: I don't not only in sort of the dual nature
Speaker 1: of man is you know, a beast but also you know,
Speaker 1: a higher animal, but but also in our older struggles
Speaker 1: against wolves where we were having to compete against wolves
Speaker 1: for resources. Yeah, it's not something that we run into
Speaker 1: on a daily basis now, or at least I guess
Speaker 1: maybe in our culture we don't. But but yeah, I
Speaker 1: was thinking about this, like, as I was doing the research,
Speaker 1: my dog often hangs out next to my office desk
Speaker 1: and just kind of you know, looks up at me,
Speaker 1: and occasionally I pat him and stuff. And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: we have a very different relationship with these animals today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you look. I mean, of course, you can
Speaker 1: look at very recent history and the United States even
Speaker 1: with the poisoning of wolves and very large numbers to
Speaker 1: the point where we we've had to to help bring
Speaker 1: the numbers back up in the wild. Uh So, yeah,
Speaker 1: we have a very troubled history with with the canines.
Speaker 1: But so there's there's there's a lot of folklore connected
Speaker 1: to this, and I think you're right to say that
Speaker 1: it it comes from the sort of dual nature of
Speaker 1: it being both a poison and a cure. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was looking in the Larust Dictionary of World Folklore, and
Speaker 1: it's pointed out there that according to some folk police
Speaker 1: that if you apply to fatal dose wolf bane would
Speaker 1: repel a werewolf, which which seems kind of like a
Speaker 1: no brainer. It would repel anything like this is a
Speaker 1: powerful poison, so I should hope it would work against
Speaker 1: the werewolf that's threatening my village. Right. If it doesn't,
Speaker 1: then I'm I'm kind of boned, right, Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: even in the horse case, I think it's still poisonous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just has different sort of side effects and uh.
Speaker 1: And in the Lorusa Dictionary World Folklore also mentioned that
Speaker 1: as an ointment, it could transform a sorcerer into a werewolf,
Speaker 1: though obviously a very careful dosage would be needed to
Speaker 1: avoid certain death um this uh And it's also mentioned
Speaker 1: that it's possible that like a correct dosage level might
Speaker 1: have created or helped to create an allucinogenic effect um,
Speaker 1: which I'm not as sure about based on our reading,
Speaker 1: especially you know, the descriptions of aconite poisoning keeping you
Speaker 1: pretty uh stable in the mind up until the very end,
Speaker 1: with some possible effects on how you're perceiving the world,
Speaker 1: but not like a strong hallucinatory effect. So I'm not
Speaker 1: so sure about sorcerers taken aconite and having a werewolf
Speaker 1: paranormal experience, unless they are combining, say the physical numbers
Speaker 1: with some other agent. Yeah. I might be jumping a
Speaker 1: little bit ahead here, but I think I have a
Speaker 1: theory for where this werewolf thing came from it and
Speaker 1: maybe not the sorcerer's standpoint, from the people watching somebody
Speaker 1: proclaiming themselves to be a sorcerer taking this stuff. So
Speaker 1: there's two things. First of all, when you're poisoned by this, uh,
Speaker 1: a lot of times you end up foaming at the mouth. Um,
Speaker 1: So there's clearly a connection there. In fact, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a connection to the hellhound Cerebrius that we'll talk
Speaker 1: about in a moment, But there's you know, also this
Speaker 1: idea apparently that German berserkers used to take it right
Speaker 1: before they would go into battle, because they wanted to
Speaker 1: be mindless right before they went into a fight. And
Speaker 1: again they would foam at the mouth, supposedly, So you
Speaker 1: have these German berserkers running at you, foaming at the mouth,
Speaker 1: and I can see where folklore would spin out from
Speaker 1: that that like these men had turned themselves into beasts,
Speaker 1: you know, somehow, and they're sacrificing their their humanity in
Speaker 1: order to win the war. Remembering some of the various
Speaker 1: symptoms of aconite poisoning. Though, It's like I'm imagining this
Speaker 1: berserker running into battle. He's foaming at the mouth, he's
Speaker 1: kind of numb all over, fierce diarrhea like you know,
Speaker 1: so I guess vomiting, yeah, and then and then collapsing
Speaker 1: and twitter. Yeah, it's definitely like, if you're going to
Speaker 1: take this stuff, it's like a comic coze maneuver, right,
Speaker 1: because there's no way you're coming back from that fight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it seems like now in terms of causing werewolves.
Speaker 1: So you know, we're not going to spend too much
Speaker 1: more time on this podcast talking about werewolves, but I
Speaker 1: did want to run through, uh many some of the
Speaker 1: many ways you can turn into a werewolf according to
Speaker 1: world folklore, and these come from Carol Rose is always
Speaker 1: excellent Giants, Monsters and Dragons, Encyclopedia, Folklore, legend and myth.
Speaker 1: So let's just let's just roll back and back and
Speaker 1: forth on this list here. First up, classic lunar induced transformation,
Speaker 1: full moon pops out right turns into a wolf. And
Speaker 1: then there's of course the curse, like somebody curses you
Speaker 1: and you become a werewolf. Right. Then there's magical pelt
Speaker 1: induced transformation, which we don't see enough of. You know,
Speaker 1: work you wear the pelt of the wolf. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: have like a magical wolf pelt. Put it on, and
Speaker 1: then you become a wolf. All right. And then there's
Speaker 1: something called new moon conception induced transformation. What's that? Just
Speaker 1: when the moon is new you're going to see you
Speaker 1: hearing a new moon, and then obviously you're gonna be
Speaker 1: born a worlf. Oh interesting, okay, all right, here's a
Speaker 1: here's a variation on that Friday full moon slumber induced transformation.
Speaker 1: So um, this one is basically, there's a full moon
Speaker 1: on a Friday, you sleep during it, Boom, your werewolf.
Speaker 1: I would be in werewolf trouble done because that happens
Speaker 1: a lot. Uh. And then there's of course, if a
Speaker 1: wolf touched the water that you're consuming, that's something that
Speaker 1: would theoretically turn you into a werewolf. Yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 1: one that makes sense. It makes sense. Yeah, just you're
Speaker 1: coming into sort of contact with the beast wolf. Brain
Speaker 1: consumption induced transformation. So you eat the brain of a
Speaker 1: wolf and then you you take on partially that the
Speaker 1: mind and spirit of a wolf. And then so this
Speaker 1: next one, it sounds like it's a wolf and human
Speaker 1: flesh combined. You eat it, and then you become by
Speaker 1: eating the two things together, you merge them so that
Speaker 1: you're sort of a bipedal wolf creature. Yeah, okay, then
Speaker 1: that's ancient Greek. Yeah, that's an ancient Greek one. They're
Speaker 1: then besality induced transformation also makes sense. You're laying with
Speaker 1: the beast, and therefore you're becoming partially beast. So Catherine
Speaker 1: the Great would then like be half horse. I mean
Speaker 1: if you buy into those smiths, right, Yeah, well I
Speaker 1: buy into the wolf brain consumption one. Why wouldn't And oh,
Speaker 1: well we've got you know, we've also got over zealous
Speaker 1: Zeus worship transformation. So if you're you're two into Zeus,
Speaker 1: there's a certain amount of worshiping Zeus that works. But
Speaker 1: if you're too into Zeus, you can turn into a werewolf. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that comes from the Greek myth of like canon
Speaker 1: and uh, and there's some other details going on in
Speaker 1: that story too, but essentially the route there is he
Speaker 1: was just really over those Yeah. Uh, there's seasonal feast
Speaker 1: induced transformation. M Herodotus talks about this a little bit
Speaker 1: in his writings that they were uh Neru tribal sorcerers
Speaker 1: who would just turn it the occasional you know, seasonal feast.
Speaker 1: And of course there's witchcraft, which is similar to the
Speaker 1: curse thing. We've we've seen that as an origin story.
Speaker 1: I think in some of the sort of modern fiction, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that it's a curse. They're creating sort of a I
Speaker 1: don't know, like a beastial bodyguard or something, or cursing
Speaker 1: an enemy. And you see that popping up in a
Speaker 1: witchcraft trial accounts as well, Like this guy here, he
Speaker 1: clearly turned into a wolf and he was killing pool
Speaker 1: in the in the area. So we're going to take
Speaker 1: care of him and then finally have by having eaten
Speaker 1: certain certain herbs, namely wolf spain. So they didn't list
Speaker 1: the one that I think of as like the primary method,
Speaker 1: which is being bitten or clawed at by a werewolf. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she didn't mention that in the werewolf entry, which makes
Speaker 1: me wonder to what extent that was just uh borrowed
Speaker 1: from the vampire mythology. Yea, for Hollywood purposes. It's an
Speaker 1: easy way to make a werewolf in in a movie. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then you've got you you end up tracing it
Speaker 1: back to a kind of chicken or egg type situation, right,
Speaker 1: like how did how did the first werewolf become a werewolf?
Speaker 1: So it's gonna be one of those things that we
Speaker 1: can mentioned because anytime you can introduce a contagion into
Speaker 1: your your horror story or your monster mythology, you know,
Speaker 1: it makes it, It makes it all the more pervasive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we mentioned um Cerebus earlier. Yeah, so okay, so
Speaker 1: the service thing is really interesting. The idea here is
Speaker 1: from Greek myth and I think it's Hercules was fighting
Speaker 1: Cerebrus or dragging it up. He drag it up um
Speaker 1: him her Yeah, I think it's male in the mythos,
Speaker 1: but I'm not a percent sure about that. But uh.
Speaker 1: And then as he was dragging it up from from Hades,
Speaker 1: Cerberus was drooling as three headed dogs do, and the
Speaker 1: drool fell on the ground. And where it fell is
Speaker 1: where wolf spane first started to grow or aconite. And
Speaker 1: that sounds logical. You have a magical beast, it's coming up,
Speaker 1: it's drooling all over the place. Natural things are gonna happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, just as logical as like drinking the same
Speaker 1: water as a wolf would turn you into a whirl wolf.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I follow it. It's a good story though.
Speaker 1: I this is one of those like when Hercules did
Speaker 1: like the various labors, right, yeah, this was definitely one
Speaker 1: of the labors. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. Yeah, thanks Hercules,
Speaker 1: thanks for Yeah, you got popular, Hercules, and you were
Speaker 1: able to prove that you're a legend and the rest
Speaker 1: of us got werewolves. Yeah. And poisoning, so okay, wolf Spain.
Speaker 1: We've talked about how poisonous this stuff is and how
Speaker 1: it's so reviled that it's connected to this long lore
Speaker 1: of werewolves in uh, most cultures. Right, whether it's whether
Speaker 1: it's a cure or whether it's a poison to werewolves,
Speaker 1: it's connected to them somehow. So how is it People
Speaker 1: have used it though as medicine for centuries as well,
Speaker 1: And we think that that maybe where the sort of
Speaker 1: cure for werewolf is um comes from. Yes, certainly like cantherropy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's use the D and D language here. Yeah, certainly
Speaker 1: in in western traditions and uh and there and something
Speaker 1: too that you have medieval witches that you know, at
Speaker 1: least those individuals who are actually tied to traditional um
Speaker 1: traditions of using native verbs in the treatment of maladies
Speaker 1: UM as opposed to individuals who are just caught up
Speaker 1: in the storm of which gap persecution those individuals, I'd
Speaker 1: have utilized wolf Spain for its curative properties or even
Speaker 1: you know, in some cases it's destructive properties. Yeah, even
Speaker 1: outside of the whole wolf span thing. Again, remember there's
Speaker 1: two sort of subclassifications here in Monkshood as one of them,
Speaker 1: and Monkshood was also associated with black magic and dark medicines,
Speaker 1: and you know, obviously because of its poisonous trades. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: over you know, across the continent and the relatively werewolf
Speaker 1: free region of China, you see aconite used for about
Speaker 1: two thousand years UM as an essential drug and traditional
Speaker 1: Chinese medicine. Uh. And a number of these details about
Speaker 1: this got this from an article published in the two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine edition of the Journal of ethno Pharmacology
Speaker 1: titled Aconitum in Traditional Chinese Medicine Valuable drug or an
Speaker 1: unpredictable risk question mark because because because it all comes
Speaker 1: down to, uh, you know, the the toxicity levels that
Speaker 1: we're still debating this, Yeah, that we're still like, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe I mentioned this to a friend of mine this morning,
Speaker 1: and he compared it to chemotherapy. He was like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean think about it. It's you know, a thing
Speaker 1: that's like really you know, ultimately like causing you pain
Speaker 1: and is really dangerous to your body. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean when you look at a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of the the naturally occurring agents that we use in
Speaker 1: traditional medicines or even just call it for culinary use, spices,
Speaker 1: uh at a at A at an appropriate levels, these
Speaker 1: can add flavor to your dish. At at higher levels,
Speaker 1: they can prove toxic to your body. And uh, and
Speaker 1: that's just that kind of ties into what they're originally
Speaker 1: there for. There there is a plant's chemical defense system,
Speaker 1: and we've found ways to hijack a lot of these
Speaker 1: defense systems for our own benefit. Yeah, that's kind of
Speaker 1: the miraculous thing, right of like how human cultures over
Speaker 1: the years figured all these things out, Like how many
Speaker 1: people had to like touch it to their lips and
Speaker 1: die or eat a certain quantity before they figured out
Speaker 1: exactly the right amount that they could use from medicinal purposes.
Speaker 1: And in this in this Chinese usage, uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: very clear that they have to process it in an
Speaker 1: elaborate way for it to be safe. That's right. There's
Speaker 1: there are these traditional Chinese processing methods referred to as
Speaker 1: pal z, which play an essential role in detoxifying the aconite.
Speaker 1: So typically the pal z consists of, you know, several
Speaker 1: different methods of heating the substance, So you're roasting it
Speaker 1: your honey, frying at your wine, frying at earth, frying
Speaker 1: at vinegar, frying at or various other means. And uh,
Speaker 1: and and we also have additional modern methods which basically
Speaker 1: boil down to the same thing, using heat to detoxify
Speaker 1: it to a level to where you can can consume it.
Speaker 1: So we're like burning off the alkaloid content. Yeah, basic basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: boiling it down, burning it off to the level where
Speaker 1: you can take advantage of the benefits without having to
Speaker 1: worry as much about poisoning yourself. And all told, the
Speaker 1: the palsy process reduces the alkaloid content by up to Wow. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, Uh, because I don't really recall like a
Speaker 1: process like that in the literature on the European usages.
Speaker 1: It's more like tintshare type stuff that they're making. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're more playing with fire. Yeah, it's like one part
Speaker 1: per It's in the notes, but it's like one part
Speaker 1: per fifty or something like that is what you do.
Speaker 1: So okay, so they've got this elaborate process they reduce
Speaker 1: the amount of alkaloids that's in there. Uh, what are
Speaker 1: they using it for in particular? Like, what is it
Speaker 1: a cure for? Well, not a cure, but I guess
Speaker 1: a remedy. Well, first of all, I should I should
Speaker 1: draw a finer line on on how it actually works. Uh,
Speaker 1: so everyone can get an idea here. So it acts
Speaker 1: on the voltage sensitive sodium channels of the cell membranes
Speaker 1: of excitable tissues, including tissue with the heart, nerves, and muscles. Um,
Speaker 1: So it stimulates and then and then if the dosages
Speaker 1: sign up later paralyzes the nerves. And if it's a
Speaker 1: I had to broken skin, the initial tangling becomes a
Speaker 1: kind of an anesthetic. Yeah. So that's what I recalled
Speaker 1: reading about the European variations. And but one of the
Speaker 1: things was that they never ingested. It's always used as
Speaker 1: like an ointment or something like that, because ingestion would
Speaker 1: obviously increase the amount of risk that this alkaloid is
Speaker 1: going to be interacting with your cells. So I'm assuming
Speaker 1: that this Chinese variation is also not eaten. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: believe so, especially based on on that that significant detoxification.
Speaker 1: Again the ideal to detoxification, because the vast majority of
Speaker 1: aconite poisonings that still occur in China and India, um
Speaker 1: throughout Asia are due to um incorrect levels medicine. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so presumably, I mean, even though you're burning off n
Speaker 1: of it during that process, if you take enough of it,
Speaker 1: you're going to be poisoning. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: So it's used homeopathically, right, Yeah, you see homeopathic uses
Speaker 1: of aconite to treat stress, um stress, you see. You
Speaker 1: see it as a treatment for stress and in various
Speaker 1: stuff not used to Chinese culture, but also a cold relief,
Speaker 1: pain relief, aches and pain. Yeah. I read that the
Speaker 1: Greeks used to use it specifically for eye pain, and
Speaker 1: so I'm curious about that because do you do you
Speaker 1: make like eye drops and drop it in there or
Speaker 1: do you And it's particularly uh, you know, as we
Speaker 1: were talking about that gardener earlier who has hurt, it's
Speaker 1: particularly bad if you get the alkaloid directly in your eye. Um,
Speaker 1: so that that was curious to me. But you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: in all cultures in the European and Chinese uses, uh,
Speaker 1: they're using it to treat pains, agitation, indigestion, all kinds
Speaker 1: of conditions. Um, I read facial paralysis is one. Uh
Speaker 1: in particular, Uh, it's used for um neuralgia. So if
Speaker 1: you have like facial neuralgia, you take an ointment of
Speaker 1: this and you rub it on the area until it's
Speaker 1: numb so that you're no longer feeling pain. So it's
Speaker 1: a pain killer. So yeah, yeah, yeah. In addition to
Speaker 1: to facial processes, you used to joint pain, gout, finger numbness,
Speaker 1: cold hands and feet, which granted would be due to
Speaker 1: other conditions and not just feeling kind of cold, drafting
Speaker 1: socks on. Why don't we take some poison, inflammation, painful
Speaker 1: breathing fluid in the space surrounding the lungs, certain heart problems, fever,
Speaker 1: skin diseases, hair loss, even which seems like a stretch.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, I mean, I guess the thing is
Speaker 1: it's basic numbing feature, Like it's something you can definitely
Speaker 1: you can definitely feel feel. An aconite derived medication working
Speaker 1: in your system. So even if you're just going to
Speaker 1: apply to Polsebo effect, you can say, oh, I feel different,
Speaker 1: and maybe that that difference on feeling is treating it.
Speaker 1: I would imagine that it works somewhat like a tranquilizer
Speaker 1: in certain doses. Right, So I know that in some
Speaker 1: of the instances they use it to treat anxiety and
Speaker 1: nervous disorders, especially like what we would today called post
Speaker 1: traumatic stress disorder. But like if you had a traumatic
Speaker 1: event in your life and you were subsequently having trouble
Speaker 1: dealing with it, they would give you this because of
Speaker 1: that what we were talking about, that clear headed, kind
Speaker 1: of mind numbing feeling of it that the German berserkers
Speaker 1: would use for a very different effect. Yeah, so even
Speaker 1: if it's not able to directly treat the condition that's
Speaker 1: ailing you, it could at least have some effect on
Speaker 1: your stress level surrounding that condition. So but I'm curious,
Speaker 1: like the literature made it sound like there are places
Speaker 1: in the world right now that people are still using
Speaker 1: it ways, uh, through throughout throughout China and India. Um,
Speaker 1: and then you see it used homeopathically here in the West.
Speaker 1: I wonder if anybody out there who's listening as has
Speaker 1: used it before, and if they have, I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you what the effects are like. Is it
Speaker 1: just like you know, tranquilized are kind of anesthetic or
Speaker 1: is it different? But it you know, that's the that's
Speaker 1: the curative side, that's the medicinal side. Now let's get
Speaker 1: into the nasty because we would also love to hear
Speaker 1: from any listeners who have been shot with an aconite
Speaker 1: laced arrow. Yeah, yeah, anybody out there who's used it
Speaker 1: as a biological weapon. And that was one of the
Speaker 1: things that I kept thinking about when I was looking
Speaker 1: at this research, was like, Wow, like, I'm surprised that
Speaker 1: there aren't more like poison assassination kind of attempts regarding
Speaker 1: this because from what I was reading, uh, it essentially
Speaker 1: just looks like the person is fixiated. There aren't traces
Speaker 1: of this stuff after it's been ingested, Yeah, because it
Speaker 1: seems it's it's relatively easy to cultivate and acquire, so
Speaker 1: you would think there would be more cases of nefarious
Speaker 1: agonite poisoning. Maybe there are, Maybe there are, and we
Speaker 1: just don't know because because it doesn't leave that much
Speaker 1: of a trace behind. But Uh. It has been considered
Speaker 1: the most dangerous and poisonous plant in all of Europe
Speaker 1: though for a long time, and in European art it's
Speaker 1: been depicted as a symbol of death uh and used
Speaker 1: in rich as ritual poison in certain societies. So kind
Speaker 1: of Jim Jones kool aid type thing. It sounds like
Speaker 1: it's crazy, how so much of this is lost beneath
Speaker 1: the you know, vague mentions in werewolf myths, because again
Speaker 1: it sounds like just this fanciful thing that oh it
Speaker 1: it has. It almost sounds like it would have no
Speaker 1: effect on anything but a werewolf. But in in effect,
Speaker 1: it's like saying, oh, you need to kill a werewolf,
Speaker 1: why don't you try using dynamite, which would work against
Speaker 1: most things, right, Yeah, exactly. Yeah, So, um, how does
Speaker 1: it kill you? Yeah? I'm assuming the way that it
Speaker 1: kills you is the same way that it makes you
Speaker 1: feel numb, right, basically just an enhanced version, enhanced version
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah. So based on another research we were
Speaker 1: doing it, it it seems like it would roll out like this.
Speaker 1: First of all, your poisoned in some way. Either you're
Speaker 1: either say the enemy has has poisoned the well and
Speaker 1: your drinking poison water or you've been shot, stabbed, or
Speaker 1: or bludgeoned with with a wolf vane laced weapon. Right,
Speaker 1: so after that shock, you're gonna get a station of burning, tingling,
Speaker 1: numb just in the mouth, which I guess might be
Speaker 1: kind of nice at first, since you're not feeling that
Speaker 1: arrow poking on your exactly. Then there's a burning in
Speaker 1: your abdomen, and it said that death usually supervenes at
Speaker 1: this point before the numbing effect on the intestine can
Speaker 1: be observed. But but that's where it goes next, right,
Speaker 1: and pretty soon you're vomiting. Yeah, And so to clarify,
Speaker 1: like the same thing, like this neurotoxin is opening up
Speaker 1: sodium channels inside your body, which caused the tingling, but
Speaker 1: it also spreads throughout your entire body. Right, it's essentially
Speaker 1: paralyzing your circulatory and respiratory system, and that's what leads
Speaker 1: to death. Yeah. Yeah, you end up dying from asphyxia
Speaker 1: and and through all this though you're supposedly conscious and
Speaker 1: clear minded to the last. So you're standing set, you're
Speaker 1: laying there on the battlefield staring at this arrow protruding
Speaker 1: from your shoulder, and you're thinking, oh, well, I'm not
Speaker 1: really feeling this arrow all that much. Um, I'm kind
Speaker 1: of numb. Must be the aconite, must be the wolf spane. Um,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm not long for this world. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's just, uh, you know, it basically sounds like
Speaker 1: all of the symptoms of like the worst possible cold
Speaker 1: hitting you suddenly right, or like flue right. Like You're
Speaker 1: you're dizzy, you're nauseous, you're vomiting, your motor skills start
Speaker 1: slowing down and becoming weak. You your circulatory system slows down,
Speaker 1: your respiration slows down, and then boom that leads to
Speaker 1: you being unconscious and then followed up by you're dead.
Speaker 1: Because within an hour of consuming it, it can kill somebody. Uh.
Speaker 1: And like we said, it's it's, you know, the death
Speaker 1: for the most part, from the asphyxia, not from the
Speaker 1: arrow wound or the knife wound or whatever however it's delivered. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the only post mortem signs are from asphyxia. UM.
Speaker 1: And there aren't a lot of ways to treat this.
Speaker 1: UM that nineteen eleven Encyclopedia Britannic I was looking at.
Speaker 1: They suggested emptying the stomach by tube, which I don't
Speaker 1: know is is necessarily how we'd handle it today. Um,
Speaker 1: but they did that. There are a couple of antidotes, atropine,
Speaker 1: digitalent and strophantathine. All of those, if they're injected subcutaneously,
Speaker 1: I think can counteract these effects. Uh. And then this
Speaker 1: was the old like the old wives tail remedy that
Speaker 1: I found that was listed was that you take olive
Speaker 1: oil and you mix it with laurel berries and the
Speaker 1: corpses of several dozen flies. But they have to be
Speaker 1: flies that have fed on the foliage of aconite. So
Speaker 1: you have to have this brood ahead of time basically exactly,
Speaker 1: and you have to cultivate uh wolf spane in order
Speaker 1: to harvest the flies and therefore remain in fairly close
Speaker 1: contact with the poisonous substance exactly. Yeah, So it's not
Speaker 1: this is probably not going to be a remedy that's
Speaker 1: on the hand. Within the hour you've got to live basically,
Speaker 1: unless you've got like a uh you know, some kind
Speaker 1: of witch doctor medicine woman in town who just happens
Speaker 1: to have this concoction pre made. Yeah, or if you
Speaker 1: happen to have some some on the battlefield with you,
Speaker 1: because we see, for instance in Nepaul, where you have
Speaker 1: a particularly poisonous variety of wolf spaane um. Uh. There
Speaker 1: there was a long history of warriors using it, using
Speaker 1: the flower to tip their arrows or poison enemy wells.
Speaker 1: And interestingly enough, the Odyssey mentions Ulysses traveling to Eperos
Speaker 1: to collect arrow poison, and some people believe that some
Speaker 1: historians believe that this was aconite. Yeah, uh yeah, And
Speaker 1: I mean it's just been used throughout history in a
Speaker 1: lot of different way, is right. Obviously the Greeks have
Speaker 1: a history of you you mentioned Nepaul, China, but then
Speaker 1: there's also apparently the Nazis were looking at ways to
Speaker 1: use it to lace bullets. Yeah. This, uh, this comes
Speaker 1: out of the concentration camp experiments. So it's mentioned in
Speaker 1: the Nuremberg trial proceedings um quote. On eleventh of September,
Speaker 1: in the presence of ss uh Strum Bunfu, Dr Ding,
Speaker 1: Dr Woodman and the undersigned, experiments with aconite nitrate bullets
Speaker 1: were carried out on five persons who had been sentenced
Speaker 1: to death. The caliber of the bullets used was seven
Speaker 1: point sixty five millimeters and they were filled with poison
Speaker 1: and crystal form. Each subject of the experiment received one
Speaker 1: shot in the upper part of the left thigh while
Speaker 1: in a horizontal position. In the case of two persons,
Speaker 1: the bullets passed clean through the upper part of the thigh.
Speaker 1: Even later, no effect from the poison could be seen.
Speaker 1: These two subjects were therefore rejected, so essentially it was
Speaker 1: a failed experiment. It didn't seem to have anything. You
Speaker 1: hear about these Nazi like science experiments that were conducted
Speaker 1: on human prisoners and it's it's mind blowing, but this,
Speaker 1: this one in particular, I just can't imagine, I mean
Speaker 1: knowing even like from the nineteen eleven Britannica Encyclopedia that
Speaker 1: I was reading from her earlier, it pretty clearly understood
Speaker 1: the effects of it and how it worked. So filling
Speaker 1: a bullet with crystallized wolf spain seems like it wouldn't
Speaker 1: work to me, because how is it gonna come in
Speaker 1: contact with your your your skin, or your circulation, even
Speaker 1: if it's going through your body still protected by a
Speaker 1: metal casing. Yeah, I mean, you can say this for
Speaker 1: a lot of the experiments it took case that took
Speaker 1: place under these circumstances, though it seems very misguided because
Speaker 1: it's you're taking an old notion of of of poisoned
Speaker 1: weaponry and trying to apply it to modern ballistics in
Speaker 1: a way it doesn't really match it out. Like I know,
Speaker 1: there have been other experiments into poisoning bullets in various ways,
Speaker 1: but I can't think of a single one offhand where
Speaker 1: where there was any real level of success with poison munitions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it just sounds to me too like it was
Speaker 1: even something like they probably knew it wasn't going to work,
Speaker 1: but it was just sort of a sick way to
Speaker 1: torture these people, you know, slowly, but it's it's there there,
Speaker 1: It is on the record. It was absolutely used in
Speaker 1: the history books. Yeah, but again they were clearly inspired
Speaker 1: by the long use of aconite as a weapon, particularly
Speaker 1: in in Chinese botany where there were five different species
Speaker 1: that were particularly used for arrow poison. Right. It is
Speaker 1: a species of the of the plant itself. They're laced
Speaker 1: on the arrows, and apparently in ancient Greece they did
Speaker 1: the same thing. They would the shepherds would actually take arrows,
Speaker 1: lace them with this stuff and bait as well. Like
Speaker 1: I was talking about earlier, and again use them to
Speaker 1: kill wolves. So we see, like there's a lot of
Speaker 1: iterations of using this to kill wolves that trace back
Speaker 1: to that werewolf stuff we're talking about earlier. But it okay,
Speaker 1: I guess I can see like you coat it with
Speaker 1: an arrow, it goes in your body. That's gonna work, right,
Speaker 1: because the poison is coming into contact with with your
Speaker 1: internal organs. But the bullet transition is where I get lost.
Speaker 1: Nazi logic not not not not real tight. But you know,
Speaker 1: outside of the world of human warfare and human medicine
Speaker 1: and accidental human poisonings, you do have some organisms that
Speaker 1: regularly and in one case exclusively feed on wolf spain
Speaker 1: and and have a extremely high tolerance for aconite. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this gives you, like a I think this is a
Speaker 1: great example of just how different our biological systems work
Speaker 1: from from insects that like, Yeah, I talked about the
Speaker 1: US earlier and that the side effects made it a
Speaker 1: little lively as compared to like numbing and the dozen
Speaker 1: humans or or wolves, I guess, but uh, the tiger
Speaker 1: moths and uh certain kinds of bees, right, yeah, eating
Speaker 1: one one bee in particular, and Alco had mentioned this
Speaker 1: one first because this is a this is an example
Speaker 1: of you have you have, you have this plan, and
Speaker 1: it's it's highly toxic, as we've discussed, and it ends
Speaker 1: up being visited by a number of different bees, different pollinators,
Speaker 1: and it needs to be pollinated, so it it can't
Speaker 1: just be completely isolation. It's right, it can't just poison
Speaker 1: everything that comes near it. Keep the cows away, sure,
Speaker 1: but the bees need to get in and u And
Speaker 1: while the pollen has a fairly high levels of toxicity,
Speaker 1: the nectar itself has low levels of alkaloids, so it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's different, and it's difficult to acquire um that nectar
Speaker 1: without specialized mouthparts. So you end up with a situation
Speaker 1: where um, where the plant itself encourages specialist pollinators. And
Speaker 1: in this case, we see the so called Old world
Speaker 1: bumblebee or bumbus console brynus uh. And you see this uh,
Speaker 1: this uh, this particular bee throughout Eurasia and it has
Speaker 1: simply evolved into that niche where this is a very
Speaker 1: dangerous plant to to deal with, but it can deal
Speaker 1: with it delicately. And and as such as they they
Speaker 1: play a vital role in each other's life cycles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it sounds like the old world bumblebee and and
Speaker 1: these plants co evolved, right, so that they adapted uh,
Speaker 1: survival mechanisms together. I was looking at a study does
Speaker 1: a certain type of econome chemically protect floral rewards to
Speaker 1: the advantage of specialist bumblebees and the two thousand thirteen
Speaker 1: UM study from Ecological entomology and uh, and they were
Speaker 1: looking at like at the levels of aconite in the
Speaker 1: bodies of both the special bees and the journalist bees. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it really did seem to drive home that the
Speaker 1: the specialist is where it's at for this particular plan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's fascinating. So it's not just like it would
Speaker 1: be easy for me to say, oh, well, insects are
Speaker 1: fine with it, but but mammals are not or whatever.
Speaker 1: But it's a very particular kind of of be that
Speaker 1: can do this. But then there's also the moths, right,
Speaker 1: And and this is relatively recent. I think this study
Speaker 1: popped up on her radar this year, didn't it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a two thousand fifteen Russian study that came
Speaker 1: out and pointed out first that they're eighteen species of
Speaker 1: butterflies and moths that are known aconite fears as caterpillars
Speaker 1: of course, um, and this includes the rare many trees
Speaker 1: tiger moth and it feeds on the red aconite. So
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly from reading the press release that
Speaker 1: we saw when this story originally came out, this this
Speaker 1: moth is like when we say rare, it's extremely rare, right,
Speaker 1: Like it hasn't been in like twenty or thirty years,
Speaker 1: I think. And then like this recent sighting in not
Speaker 1: only did they see the moth, but they also saw
Speaker 1: it's young, like actually eating the flower. So that's why
Speaker 1: they know this now, is that like they know that
Speaker 1: they're kind of uh living in tandem. Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: theorize that the caterpillars are possibly consuming the alkaloids for
Speaker 1: protection of overwintering larva against fungal and bacterial diseases. And
Speaker 1: this is it's interesting to to look again at that
Speaker 1: bumble bee study where they pointed out that you see
Speaker 1: aconite levels not only in the bees that are actually
Speaker 1: visiting uh, the the the aconite laced plants, but also
Speaker 1: in their young. So there's like this residual level of
Speaker 1: aconite just in the species itself based on their primary
Speaker 1: food source. Okay, so here's my like totally unscientific, dumb
Speaker 1: question to ask of I don't know if you'll know
Speaker 1: the answer to this, but maybe somebody out in the
Speaker 1: audience knows. If an Old World bumblebee consumes enough aconite
Speaker 1: and then subsequently stings a human being, will that aconite
Speaker 1: be passed onto the human being and then would that
Speaker 1: be enough of a dosage to poison you? Based on
Speaker 1: what I read here, I would say no, because they
Speaker 1: didn't even get into stinging or anything. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know to what degree. For for all I know,
Speaker 1: this might be a non stinging species, but but they
Speaker 1: said that the level the toxicity levels within the creature
Speaker 1: itself was not significant, So I think it would just
Speaker 1: be like a little bit of numbness, maybe even if
Speaker 1: it was passed through the stinger, but it probably wouldn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get the sense that you you would not get
Speaker 1: any any sensation at all, aside from of course the stain. Yeah.
Speaker 1: All right, so there you have it. Wolf Spain, from
Speaker 1: werewolves to Nazis, from traditional Chinese medicine to poisoned arrows
Speaker 1: and Old World bumble That's that's the thing about this
Speaker 1: particular subject that I think is so interesting is it's
Speaker 1: just you know, you say, again, like I said at
Speaker 1: the top, you say wolf span and you go, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's in some like a goofy werewolf movie. But it's
Speaker 1: got this like fascinating history that just goes back hundreds
Speaker 1: and hundreds of years and it's not common knowledge, or
Speaker 1: maybe at least it's just not to us. I didn't
Speaker 1: I didn't learn this at any time in my education. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but based on the the accounts of poisoning still occurring
Speaker 1: both in North and North America and Europe and in Asia,
Speaker 1: people can stand to be a little more educated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe we need to add a wolf Span one oh
Speaker 1: one to the the hogworks of the syllabus. Indeed, all right,
Speaker 1: so there you have it again. If you want to
Speaker 1: check out more topics from Stuff to Blow your Mind,
Speaker 1: hand on over to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: That's where you'll find all the podcast episodes, uh, from
Speaker 1: the very ancient episodes up until than the newest. If
Speaker 1: you want to see just be right there on the
Speaker 1: cutting edge of what's coming out, that's the place to go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And like I said at the top of the episode,
Speaker 1: you know, we are going to start hopefully periscoping at
Speaker 1: the end of October, so you can find out more
Speaker 1: information about when we'll be doing those and where you
Speaker 1: can find those episodes. Obviously on Twitter, but also on
Speaker 1: our Facebook and Tumbler pages, which are blow the Mind. Uh.
Speaker 1: That's that's the handle that we use on all of those. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we've got videos as well, the Monster Science stuff
Speaker 1: that will be on all those channels, and they're already
Speaker 1: on our YouTube channel. Yeah, so check it out. And hey,
Speaker 1: in the meantime, where can people send those accounts of
Speaker 1: accidental and intentional aconite point? Yeah, yeah, definitely write us
Speaker 1: in if you've got some stories on this. So it's
Speaker 1: blow the Mind at how stuff Works dot com for
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com