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Speaker 1: Hey, are you welcome to stuff to blow your mind?

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And

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Speaker 1: it's Saturday, time for the Vault, and today we got bugs.

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Speaker 1: That's right. April is the cruelest month, and so here

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Speaker 1: we are with the first Vault episode of April, dealing

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Speaker 1: with imagine bugs under the skin and sometimes actual bugs

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Speaker 1: under the skin. That's right. So you know, if if

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Speaker 1: that makes you a little squeamish, maybe come back to

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Speaker 1: this one later. But if that makes you a little squeamish,

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Speaker 1: get over it and listen. Either way, we're gonna keep

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Speaker 1: going here. H stick with us if you have the guts.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to blow your mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, you welcome to stuff to blow

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Speaker 1: your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Robert,

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Speaker 1: what's the weirdest thing you ever got stuck up your nose?

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Speaker 1: I think I've been very fortunate. I know plenty of

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Speaker 1: other people who have tales of siblings getting odd objects

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Speaker 1: lodged up their nostrils, being a marble or I think

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Speaker 1: my brother in law had a piece of carpet stuck

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Speaker 1: up there something. You know, you hear all these stories,

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Speaker 1: and luckily, I don't think I've ever had anything, um,

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Speaker 1: anything stuck in my nose, So unfortunate in that regard.

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Speaker 1: You know, your mention of the marbles makes me think

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Speaker 1: about did you ever see that old episode of the

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Speaker 1: show Home Movies where they their take on the like

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Speaker 1: Judas pre supplemental messages. Thing is there's a rock band

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Speaker 1: who I think does a does a public service announcement

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Speaker 1: song called don't put Marbles in your nose, but it

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Speaker 1: also keeps saying put them in there now. I think

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Speaker 1: the worst, especially like childhood experience of anything going into

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Speaker 1: an unexpected orifice, would be um, when I had some

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Speaker 1: sort of small insect fly into my ear. Oh really, yeah,

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Speaker 1: which which the main distressing thing is that a little bug,

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Speaker 1: once it gets inside your ear, is extremely loud. So

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Speaker 1: I do. I do remember that quite clearly. It's looking

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Speaker 1: at the outside from the inside, it's a horrible feeling. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And I remember like my dad was there and he

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Speaker 1: jumped in and I guess it happened at the house

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Speaker 1: because they had some like rubbing alcohol and like they

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Speaker 1: poured a little bit of that into my ear. And

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Speaker 1: that took care of it. Well, that experience is going

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Speaker 1: to be a great jumping off point for our discussion today,

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Speaker 1: because I think we should start off by playing one

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Speaker 1: of my favorite games that we play on this show,

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Speaker 1: which is go into old medical journals and read some weirdness.

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Speaker 1: Oh yes, So I want to talk about a case

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Speaker 1: report that was published in December of eighteen thirty in

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Speaker 1: the medical journal The Lancet. This is a truly disturbing report.

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Speaker 1: So if you if you get picked out easily, you

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Speaker 1: know fair warning. So let us read from the Lancet.

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Speaker 1: A farmer's wife, twenty eight years of age, residing in

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Speaker 1: the neighborhood of Mets, had for a long time been

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Speaker 1: affected with an unpleasant itching sensation in the nose with

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Speaker 1: Cora's which means running nose, to which symptoms in the

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Speaker 1: year eighteen seven, violent headache exceeded so that she was

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Speaker 1: at length obliged to apply for medical aid. The headache

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Speaker 1: was irregularly intermittent, and generally began at the root of

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Speaker 1: the nose, in the middle of the forehead or at

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Speaker 1: the right frontal region, extending thence first to the right

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Speaker 1: side and then over the whole head. The attack was

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Speaker 1: accompanied by a great discharge of tears, and sometimes even

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Speaker 1: nausea and vomiting. The features were forcibly distorted, the jaws

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Speaker 1: firmly closed, and the eyes and ears so very sensible

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Speaker 1: that she could not bear the least light or any noise.

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Speaker 1: At other times she became delirious, pressed the head between

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Speaker 1: her hands, and ran about in a state of distraction.

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Speaker 1: The pain was, according to her statement, like the strokes

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Speaker 1: of a hammer, or as if something was perforating the skull,

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Speaker 1: and the fits generally returned about twelve times in twenty

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Speaker 1: four hours. Sometimes the headache continued uninterruptedly for several days.

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Speaker 1: The corsa or running nose again existed during the whole period,

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Speaker 1: and the discharge was occasionally very feted and mixed with blood. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so we're starting off pretty gross already. This poor woman

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Speaker 1: is suffering these terrible chronic symptoms. She's got the headache,

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Speaker 1: she's got the swelling, she's got the sensitivity and the

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Speaker 1: eyes and the nose and all that. Uh, and then

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Speaker 1: she's also got this discharge mixed with blood. It's always

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Speaker 1: distressing in any case to have fetid discharge. The idea

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Speaker 1: that it's fetted is very worrisome, Okay, so continuing, some

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Speaker 1: medicines were employed, but no regular plan of treatment was followed,

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Speaker 1: and it was not before a twelve month suffering that

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Speaker 1: this singular affection terminated after the expulsion of a worm

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Speaker 1: from the nose, which moved with rapidity and when placed

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Speaker 1: in water, remained alive for several days. It was afterwards

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Speaker 1: killed by being put in alcohol and then sent to

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Speaker 1: Monsieur Mareschal, who reported the case to the society. He

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Speaker 1: found the animal to be more than two inches in

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Speaker 1: length and one line in breadth. And I looked that up.

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Speaker 1: Apparently a line is a unit of measure that was

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Speaker 1: not very well standardized. It probably means like a tenth

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Speaker 1: of an inch or twelfth of an inch, so not

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Speaker 1: not very wide, um, but two inches in length. It

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Speaker 1: had too antenna. Was so not a not a proper worm, right,

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Speaker 1: not a proper worm. Was of yellowish color, flat, and

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Speaker 1: consisted of sixty four rings on each of which were

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Speaker 1: two legs, So definitely not a worm. Uh. Mr Marshall's

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Speaker 1: subsequently transmitted the insect to Messrs Holandra and Russel, who

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Speaker 1: ascertained that it was a skulla pendra Electrica. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: if it had two legs per segment, Yeah, that sounds

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Speaker 1: an awful lot like a centipede. Right, you are, Robert,

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Speaker 1: this is a centipede. We're talking about. This report alleges

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Speaker 1: that this woman had this chronic condition for more than

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Speaker 1: a year, which was alleviated when she finally blew a

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Speaker 1: centipede out of her nose. Still, that's got to be

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Speaker 1: pretty satisfied. Yeah. Yeah, talked about what is the is

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Speaker 1: there a word for that? The psychological thing where like

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Speaker 1: people are obsessed with like removing objects from their body,

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Speaker 1: the satisfaction people get from like picking a huge booker,

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Speaker 1: or from from pooping a large poop I don't know,

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Speaker 1: but or popping a pimple too. Yes, I thought about

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Speaker 1: this on and off for years, and I would love

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Speaker 1: to explore it in an episode if there is enough

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Speaker 1: material out there about it, because clearly it is an obsession.

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Speaker 1: Like their whole video channels on YouTube associated with with

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Speaker 1: this sort of thing. And um, yeah, And when I

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Speaker 1: hear people talk about, oh, imagine the virtual realms will't

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Speaker 1: happen in the future, and I'm thinking, well, yes, you're

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Speaker 1: gonna have your obvious sex and violence oriented uh experiences,

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Speaker 1: but they're gonna be like whole virtual realms, just just

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Speaker 1: devoted to the popping of of surrealistic pimples. Yeah, what

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Speaker 1: is the grand theft auto of like visceral body purging experiences? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Before I forget, I do want to give a hat

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Speaker 1: tip because I came across this story on the blog

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Speaker 1: of a British writer named Thomas Morris, who covers a

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Speaker 1: lot of horrifying medical history and is definitely worth following

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Speaker 1: if you're interested in this kind of stuff. So shout

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Speaker 1: out to Morris who what we will return to again

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Speaker 1: in a minute. But anyway, back to the centipede coming

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Speaker 1: out of the nose. So there are probably some good

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Speaker 1: reasons to question the details of this report. Right just

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Speaker 1: because it was published in a medical journal like the Lance,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't mean it's necessarily true, especially this far back

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Speaker 1: in history. But we can we can come back to that.

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Speaker 1: So the the insect alleged here, it's not actually an insect.

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Speaker 1: It is a centipede. It's the skull of Pendra electrica,

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Speaker 1: a reportedly bioluminescence centipede. According to a catalog by Bozard

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Speaker 1: in Nature in eight quote a well known luminous insect. Again,

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Speaker 1: not an insect, but well known luminous insect whose light

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Speaker 1: is but rarely seen owing to the insect living underground

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Speaker 1: and in manure heaps. Okay, so that's how it would

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Speaker 1: have seen what it was doing up in her sinus maybe,

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Speaker 1: or that's maybe that's how it ended up there, like

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Speaker 1: she was snorting manure. There you go. But the bottom

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Speaker 1: line is this, this report is that a woman had

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Speaker 1: a glowing centipede living in her nose for over a year,

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Speaker 1: which is a bit far fetched. Yeah, I think so,

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Speaker 1: but I mean, it's impossible to know for sure, but

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Speaker 1: I'm I have a lot of doubts. But yeah, so

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Speaker 1: I wanted to explore more and then later we'll get

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Speaker 1: into the more general territory. I think of creepy Crawley's

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Speaker 1: getting into body orifices, and I think we're going to

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Speaker 1: be focusing primarily not on things that are saying obligate parasites,

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Speaker 1: because that's a more trodden ground. Right, you might understand why,

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Speaker 1: like say leech could get into the human anus because

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Speaker 1: it's seeking that kind of environment, right, or or certainly

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Speaker 1: indo parasites that even if they're not certainly there are

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Speaker 1: plenty of human indo parasites, but they're also are indo

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Speaker 1: parasites of other species that can end up in our bodies.

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Speaker 1: And even though they are not at home here, um,

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Speaker 1: this home is very much like the home they desire. Right,

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Speaker 1: So we're not so much talking about like hookworms, tape worms,

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Speaker 1: human bot flies and all that, which we have discussed

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Speaker 1: in other episodes, but we're talking more today about creatures

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Speaker 1: that don't need to be in the human body and

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Speaker 1: wouldn't normally seek it out, but somehow they at least

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Speaker 1: reportedly end up there. So, coming back to the skull apendra,

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Speaker 1: centipedes of the genus skull Apendra can be truly awesome predators.

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Speaker 1: They tend to step over what is for me one

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Speaker 1: of the most shocking and unpleasant of lines, which is

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Speaker 1: when invertebrates prey on vertebrates, that something something about that

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Speaker 1: always feels backwards and scary and not okay, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I mean part of it perhaps is that. And I

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Speaker 1: feel like this is kind of an undercurrent to to

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Speaker 1: this earlier example, is that invertebrates. Invertebrates will undoubtedly feast

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Speaker 1: upon vertebrates. You know, they are they are somer. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're going to be some of the primary devours of

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Speaker 1: our of our deceased form, and and certainly older generations

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Speaker 1: that were more associated and more closely aligned with physical death,

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Speaker 1: they would have witnessed this more often, both in the

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Speaker 1: bodies of animals but also in the in in human

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Speaker 1: bodies from time to time. But I'm talking about predation.

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Speaker 1: You're talking about you outright killing, which seems like they're

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Speaker 1: it's it's like this is they have crossed a line,

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Speaker 1: like the line being you shall eat us when we

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Speaker 1: are dead, but shall not do the killing right. It's

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Speaker 1: supposed to be like humans eating lobster is not lobster

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Speaker 1: cousins eating human cousins. I mean, that is clearly verboten.

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Speaker 1: But it's just not It's just not verboten. It happens

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Speaker 1: in nature and there are examples of skull a pendra

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Speaker 1: that do this. So, according to a two thousand five

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Speaker 1: article in the Caribbean Journal of Science by Mulinary at

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Speaker 1: All quote, skull of pendrid centipedes prey on frogs and

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Speaker 1: toads up to nine millimeters long, small lizards, snakes up

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Speaker 1: to two dred and forty seven millimeters long, birds up

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Speaker 1: to the size of a sparrow, and both field and

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Speaker 1: house mice. So you've got some centipedes in this genus

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Speaker 1: that are getting down on birds. They're getting down on mice,

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Speaker 1: but presumably due to size restrictions. I think if there

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Speaker 1: are actually any cases of skollapendreds getting in people's noses,

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Speaker 1: it's it's going to be not the ones that twists

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Speaker 1: their many legged bodies around mice and sparrows and eat

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Speaker 1: their warm blooded mammal flesh. Right that those would have

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Speaker 1: probably be too big to end up in the nasal cavity.

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Speaker 1: Now back to Thomas Morris, the medical history writer who

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Speaker 1: brought this case to my attention on his blog. He

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Speaker 1: writes in his blog post that he thinks it's unlikely

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Speaker 1: that the centipede would have survived inside the woman's nasal

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Speaker 1: sinuses for as long as the report alleges, which is

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Speaker 1: more than a year. And I think that's I don't know,

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Speaker 1: It's one of those things where it's hard to know

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Speaker 1: for sure, but that does seem like a likely objection

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Speaker 1: to throw right right, It's like, what would it be

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Speaker 1: eating in there? Uh? Could it really like survive in

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Speaker 1: there that long without getting blown out or killed in

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Speaker 1: some other way. Yeah, it just doesn't seem sustainable. On

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Speaker 1: the other hand, the report is detailed, it's published in

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Speaker 1: a reasonably reliable source, it does seem to be reported

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Speaker 1: by a physician. It just seems sort of inherently unlikely.

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Speaker 1: Then again, you know, there are all kinds of things

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Speaker 1: we go to. We can talk in a minute about

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Speaker 1: the possibility of hoaxes of confusion. I mean, what if

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Speaker 1: just like a centipede happened to get up in her

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Speaker 1: nose during the last day or so of an otherwise

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Speaker 1: bad nose inflammation period. That also seems unlikely. But so um,

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Speaker 1: this is not the only reported case of a centipede

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Speaker 1: up the nose. In fact, I came across a totally

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Speaker 1: separate case from an old medical archive, also dug up

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Speaker 1: by Thomas Morris on his blog. This was several years ago. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This is from the first volume of Medical Essays and Observations,

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Speaker 1: published in seventeen sixty four. So here's this case quote.

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Speaker 1: A woman of good heal constitution, meaning she was healthy

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Speaker 1: about thirty six years old, began to complain of a

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Speaker 1: fixed pain in the lower and right side of her forehead.

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Speaker 1: During the last two years, this pain became continual, accompanied

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Speaker 1: with convulsions, often depriving her of both her reason and rest.

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Speaker 1: She was two or three times brought to death's door

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Speaker 1: by it. At the end of four years, after trying

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Speaker 1: several medicines to no purpose, and despairing of any relief,

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Speaker 1: and yet not knowing what to do, she took to

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Speaker 1: taking repeat snuff so it's like tobacco snuff. She had

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Speaker 1: not taken the snuff for a month when Behold seized

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Speaker 1: one morning with a fit of sneezing and blowing her

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Speaker 1: nose after to her great surprise, she found a worm

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Speaker 1: rolled up in a little blood. This worm, when stretched

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Speaker 1: to its full length, was six inches long and but

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Speaker 1: two When it contracted itself, it was two lines broad

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Speaker 1: and one and a half thick, of a coffee color,

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Speaker 1: convex on one side and flat on the other. It

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Speaker 1: was of the centipede kind and had fifty six feet

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Speaker 1: on each side. It had two eyes, and both its

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Speaker 1: head and ale were armed with two forks. It lived

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Speaker 1: eighteen hours in an empty bottle, and three or four

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Speaker 1: hours after brandy had been put to it. The egg

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Speaker 1: that produced this worm in all probability was sucked in

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Speaker 1: along with the air she breathed, and carried after to

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Speaker 1: the frontal sinus, where it met with a proper need us,

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Speaker 1: meaning nest, to give it both growth and increase. All right, well,

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Speaker 1: at least we have a on a hypothesis here of

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Speaker 1: how it could have wound up there. Right, Maybe, I

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Speaker 1: mean that seems well she sucked in the eggs somehow

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Speaker 1: and it hatched in there. That also, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: I'm not a centipede expert. That seems a little bit unlikely,

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Speaker 1: but it sounded like the the implication here was it

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Speaker 1: might the egg might have been in the snuff. At

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Speaker 1: any rate, there's there's at least a there's a there's

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Speaker 1: an attempt at explaining how it wound up in there.

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Speaker 1: It's not like, oh God has has put a centipede

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Speaker 1: in thy head. It is clearly a spontaneous generation of centipedes.

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Speaker 1: You clearly we have we have a theory about it.

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Speaker 1: We have an hypothesis about how it could have ended

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Speaker 1: up in there, and then the story of how it

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Speaker 1: ended up coming out. It's about to get weirder. Guess

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Speaker 1: what the reporting physician recommends as a treatment for centipede

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Speaker 1: sin us blowing blowing one's nose. Nope. Monsieur Letra, who

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Speaker 1: related the story, advises in all such stubborn cases as

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Speaker 1: will not submit to either external or internal means to

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Speaker 1: come to the trapan which may be employed with all safety.

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Speaker 1: That's right, trepanning if the insect won't come out. Now,

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Speaker 1: we've talked about trepanning on the podcast before. What what's

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Speaker 1: going on here? You bring out the drill, that's right,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about Usually usually the idea would be we're

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Speaker 1: going to drill a hole in the skull to relieve

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Speaker 1: pressure uh and to uh and and therefore a relieve

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Speaker 1: you of your symptoms. But I guess this is the

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Speaker 1: idea of like, okay, it needs that centipede needs out

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Speaker 1: of your head. It's not coming out through the naturally

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Speaker 1: occurring gateways. We shall make a new gateway in the

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Speaker 1: head for the centipede, right, I mean, this is almost

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Speaker 1: like the centipede is kind of taking the role of

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Speaker 1: the stone of madness in the medieval form here. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Though again I want to allow I feel this is unlikely.

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Speaker 1: It's not impossible lady had a centipede in her sinus uh.

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Speaker 1: He also recommends using oil and acrid plants to force

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Speaker 1: it out that maybe seems more reasonable. I would be like,

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Speaker 1: let's try that first. Yes, let's let's check those off

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Speaker 1: the list first. Okay, that's not all. I feel like,

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Speaker 1: who's the Who's the game show host who says that's

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Speaker 1: not all? You're gonna get more prizes? I don't know.

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Speaker 1: The cat in the hat says that, Okay, I might

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Speaker 1: a game show host. The cat in the hat, I'll

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Speaker 1: be the cat and hatn't say. That's not the last

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Speaker 1: of the centipedes up the noses, But we got more

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Speaker 1: for you, including with more tobacco association, so with the snuff.

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Speaker 1: Third case documented right alongside the first one in this

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Speaker 1: In this source from the eighteenth century, Monsieur Melowe reported

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Speaker 1: that one of the king's household troops complained for three

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Speaker 1: years of an acute pain in the left frontal sinus,

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Speaker 1: which extended to the eye of the same side, so

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Speaker 1: as to endange to his losing it. He had also

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Speaker 1: a buzzing noise in his ear to relieve which he

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Speaker 1: had some oil of sweet almonds put into it, and

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Speaker 1: in two days after he perceived in his left nostril,

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Speaker 1: and itching and stinging, as if something moved there which

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Speaker 1: he could not discharge, but by putting his finger into

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Speaker 1: his nose, when behold, he pulled out a worm, which

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Speaker 1: ran swiftly on the palm of his hand, though covered

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Speaker 1: with a viscous matter and snuff of which this gentleman

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Speaker 1: took plenty. This worm was put into a tobacco box

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Speaker 1: with snuff in it, where it lived five or six days.

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Speaker 1: All the patient's complaints ceased after this worm came away.

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Speaker 1: The only difference between this and the former is this

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Speaker 1: this worm was six lines only long and had but

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Speaker 1: one hundred feet, but there was this singular. In both cases.

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Speaker 1: The former was thought to be expelled by the use

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Speaker 1: of tobacco snuff, whereas this subsisted three years with a

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Speaker 1: plentiful use of the same weed, and after its expulsion,

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Speaker 1: lived five or six days on the same same Alright,

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Speaker 1: So the idea here is the centipede lived for years

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Speaker 1: in this guy's head because he kept putting snuff in there,

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Speaker 1: and it was eating the snuff. It seems to be

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Speaker 1: at least partially the implication. I don't know about eating

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Speaker 1: the snuff. There seemed to be multiple reasons to doubt

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Speaker 1: the story, especially if you're taking on that detail about

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Speaker 1: the last one, like surviving by eating tobacco. Tobacco, of course,

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Speaker 1: contains nicotine, which is a powerful poison. Like so many

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Speaker 1: of the drugs that humans consume on purpose recreationally, nicotine

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Speaker 1: is supposed to discourage animals from taking the from consuming

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Speaker 1: the plan and this is one of the reasons nicotine

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Speaker 1: can be used as a natural pesticide. However, I do

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Speaker 1: want to take a really brief digression just to point

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Speaker 1: out one fascinating creature I came across here that does

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Speaker 1: survive on tobacco and nicotine, and that is the men

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Speaker 1: Duca sexta. Robert, do you know about this one? I? No,

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Speaker 1: I wasn't familiar with the man Duca sexta. Oh, this

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Speaker 1: is great. So this is a moth of this finger

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Speaker 1: day family and in its larval stage, so meaning as

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Speaker 1: a caterpillar. This species is sometimes known as the tobacco hornworm.

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Speaker 1: So the tobacco hornworm eats the leaves of the tobacco plant,

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Speaker 1: and the horn hornworm has a special gene called c

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Speaker 1: yp six B forty six that allows it to metabolize nicotine.

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Speaker 1: And now there's a twist. It doesn't just metabolize the nicotine.

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Speaker 1: It uses this tobacco in its diet to produce a

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Speaker 1: chemical defense sometimes referred to in the literature as toxic halitosis.

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Speaker 1: It's killer tobacco breath. So when the hornworm is threatened

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Speaker 1: by a predator like a wolf spider, it can defend

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Speaker 1: itself by releasing nicotine through pores in its skin, which

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Speaker 1: drives away the predator. And this has been confirmed by

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Speaker 1: research that found that hornworms fed on low nicotine food

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Speaker 1: were more susceptible to being attacked by wolf spiders. But

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Speaker 1: at the same time, I do not think that a

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Speaker 1: tobacco hornworm was in the guy's sinus, right, Yeah, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's a big difference between the this this larva that

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Speaker 1: is you know, clearly it has evolved to feed on

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Speaker 1: the leaves of this plant versus the predator that is

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Speaker 1: the centipede. Okay, so we got doubts about all these reports,

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Speaker 1: but that that's three centipede in the nose reports. Now

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Speaker 1: you know what, I found one more old centipede in

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Speaker 1: the nose report. This one from the Journal of Laryngology

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Speaker 1: and Ontology by W. P. May m e y j

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Speaker 1: e s. I don't know how to pronounce that, but

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Speaker 1: I think this is a report from Amsterdam, and this

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Speaker 1: is from this report goes. A woman farm worker from

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Speaker 1: the countryside appeared to the physician with the complaint of

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Speaker 1: a headache over the right eye that had persisted for months,

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Speaker 1: combined with a chronic running nose. The doctor did not

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Speaker 1: immediately detect any major problems except for stuff like swelling

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Speaker 1: in the nasal cavity and conjunctivius or you know, inflammation

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Speaker 1: of the eyes. So to help less in the swelling

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Speaker 1: go down, the doctor ordered menthol with boric acid for

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Speaker 1: the woman to snuff up. Uh. Man, every time you

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Speaker 1: read these you're just like, wow, these old treatments are

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Speaker 1: boric acid. Um it. So she snuffed it up. A

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Speaker 1: few days later, the woman returned. Uh. After she has

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Speaker 1: snuffed up the menthol and the boric acid, she has

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Speaker 1: a fit of sneezing and quote found in her handkerchief

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Speaker 1: a small insects still alive. She had put it in

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Speaker 1: some brandy and took it to me. The insect, which

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Speaker 1: was about seven millimeters long, turned to be a centipede. Uh. Centipede,

389
00:21:21,640 --> 00:21:24,600
Speaker 1: of course, is not an insect. But uh, this report

390
00:21:24,640 --> 00:21:27,040
Speaker 1: says after the centipede was sneezed out, all the woman's

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Speaker 1: symptoms went away. So it's difficult to tell how much

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Speaker 1: stock we should put into these stories about centipedes and

393
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Speaker 1: the human body. Apparently like reported by physicians to real

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Speaker 1: medical journals and publications. Uh. And unfortunately, as we will

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Speaker 1: explore in the rest of this episode, it is not

396
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Speaker 1: in principle impossible for insects, centipedes and other small creatures

397
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Speaker 1: to get inside a person's cranial cavities. That does happen,

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Speaker 1: and we'll discuss more later. At the same time, these stories,

399
00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:58,199
Speaker 1: at least some of them, seem kind of suspicious for

400
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Speaker 1: the quality of how long the centipede was supposedly alive

401
00:22:02,040 --> 00:22:06,680
Speaker 1: inside the human Maybe not impossible, but it's definitely questionable.

402
00:22:07,280 --> 00:22:09,480
Speaker 1: They also to me, at least, I don't know if

403
00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:12,040
Speaker 1: you've got the same feeling, Robert. They called to mind

404
00:22:12,080 --> 00:22:15,800
Speaker 1: the story of Mary Toft, the eighteenth century englishwoman and

405
00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:20,120
Speaker 1: first class hoax artist who had doctors and surgeons convinced

406
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Speaker 1: that she was repeatedly giving birth to rabbits. Oh yes,

407
00:22:23,040 --> 00:22:26,119
Speaker 1: I remember this story, and apparently she really damaged some

408
00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:29,720
Speaker 1: medical reputations because she had some some guys on on

409
00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:32,199
Speaker 1: the line saying like, oh, yeah, I saw it. This

410
00:22:32,280 --> 00:22:34,680
Speaker 1: lady gave birth to like rabbit parts and like part

411
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Speaker 1: of an eel and parts of a cat, which if

412
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Speaker 1: nothing else shows you, like, here's an example, like somebody's

413
00:22:39,600 --> 00:22:45,200
Speaker 1: willing to go through the grossness of of producing um

414
00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:48,160
Speaker 1: to say, part of a rabbit from their body as

415
00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:51,639
Speaker 1: a hoax. So putting a centipede up your nose, really

416
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:54,119
Speaker 1: it's a lighter sentence or I mean, in some cases,

417
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Speaker 1: all you'd have to do is show up with the

418
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Speaker 1: centipede and a handkerchief and brandy and say this came

419
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Speaker 1: out my nose. Now. Why people would really be compelled

420
00:23:03,359 --> 00:23:06,240
Speaker 1: to do that, I don't know. But then again, people

421
00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:09,080
Speaker 1: have all kinds of crazy reasons for doing stuff. I mean,

422
00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:12,560
Speaker 1: people just like to make up weird stories. Sometimes, yeah,

423
00:23:13,280 --> 00:23:16,719
Speaker 1: could just be for for the sheer attention of the thing. Yeah. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Then again, I don't want to totally discount the full

425
00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:22,520
Speaker 1: nature of these stories, because there are also modern reports

426
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:25,720
Speaker 1: of centipedes and body cavities. Some tend to be reported

427
00:23:25,760 --> 00:23:28,840
Speaker 1: with like an air of sensationalism that kind of prejudices

428
00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:33,240
Speaker 1: me against just accepting them. For example, in k A

429
00:23:33,359 --> 00:23:36,560
Speaker 1: t V, a local news station in Arkansas reported a

430
00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:39,280
Speaker 1: fourteen year old boy and Selene County woke up with

431
00:23:39,359 --> 00:23:41,920
Speaker 1: terrible pain in one of his ears. He reached into

432
00:23:41,920 --> 00:23:44,760
Speaker 1: his ear pulled out a four inch long centipede. Uh.

433
00:23:44,880 --> 00:23:47,640
Speaker 1: The family reportedly put the centipede in a plastic bag

434
00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:50,119
Speaker 1: and took the boy to the emergency room. He was okay.

435
00:23:50,600 --> 00:23:53,480
Speaker 1: Uh in the hospital reported they never encountered a centipede

436
00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:56,600
Speaker 1: in an ear before. I guess nothing about that story

437
00:23:56,640 --> 00:23:59,680
Speaker 1: is really implausible, except that it always gets picked up

438
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:02,080
Speaker 1: I like the daily mail, and that's how you see

439
00:24:02,119 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 1: it um and so that sort of prejudices me against it.

440
00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:08,439
Speaker 1: But for the record, I tried to find recently documented

441
00:24:08,480 --> 00:24:12,160
Speaker 1: cases of centipedes in the nasal cavity and couldn't find anything,

442
00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:14,760
Speaker 1: though I did find reports of centipedes in the human ear.

443
00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:17,119
Speaker 1: So it seems like if centipedes do get up in

444
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:20,560
Speaker 1: the sinuses, up in the nose, that's it's much more

445
00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:23,880
Speaker 1: rare for that to happen than for other cranial invasions

446
00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:26,960
Speaker 1: such as say, cockroaches in the ear, which we'll get

447
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:28,919
Speaker 1: too later. All right. On that note, we're gonna take

448
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:34,040
Speaker 1: a quick break, but we'll be right back. Alright, we're back.

449
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:40,760
Speaker 1: So we've discussed centipedes crawling around in one's head allegedly. Uh,

450
00:24:40,800 --> 00:24:43,280
Speaker 1: where what parts of the human bodies are we going

451
00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:45,960
Speaker 1: to next? Joe? Well, I think we should. We should

452
00:24:46,119 --> 00:24:50,240
Speaker 1: take a foray into the oral cavity. So let's establish

453
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:53,159
Speaker 1: some basic facts here. Uh. First of all, the question

454
00:24:53,440 --> 00:24:56,240
Speaker 1: can bugs get inside your body cavities? The answer is yes,

455
00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:59,399
Speaker 1: that that can happen. It does sometimes happen, right, and anything,

456
00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:02,160
Speaker 1: we need more ugs in our mouths because we should

457
00:25:02,160 --> 00:25:04,880
Speaker 1: be eating more bugs. Oh that's a totally different question. Yeah,

458
00:25:04,880 --> 00:25:06,640
Speaker 1: I mean we're I think we're on the record being

459
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:10,040
Speaker 1: pro intomate feji here, but not talking about the mouth

460
00:25:10,119 --> 00:25:12,520
Speaker 1: cavity so much because that's less of a worry, right,

461
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:16,159
Speaker 1: unless the bug is poisonous, if you swallow it, you know,

462
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:19,359
Speaker 1: it's just protein. It's yeah, it's gonna be digested. The

463
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:21,720
Speaker 1: problem would really be if it's in a cavity that

464
00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 1: is not meant to accept incoming solid matter. So this

465
00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:28,880
Speaker 1: is where we're getting into the ear, Yes, exactly. And

466
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:31,960
Speaker 1: so it's started to talk about cockroaches, because cockroaches are

467
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:35,159
Speaker 1: apparently one of the most common animals to end up

468
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:38,679
Speaker 1: in human orifices in real documented cases. I was reading

469
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:42,080
Speaker 1: a National Geographic article about this by Erica Engel helped

470
00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:45,400
Speaker 1: h and she sites an interview with a North Carolina

471
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:49,360
Speaker 1: State University entomologists named Kobe Shawl a few of Shaw's

472
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:52,719
Speaker 1: quotes and insights. Of course, first of all, it's not

473
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:55,640
Speaker 1: uncommon for a cockroach to show up in the human ear.

474
00:25:56,320 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 1: That just does happen. People show up at hospitals all

475
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 1: the time with a cockroach law judged in their ear.

476
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:04,240
Speaker 1: Apparently the nose as much more unusual this This is

477
00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:07,920
Speaker 1: like a less common thing to find, but also not

478
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:13,160
Speaker 1: totally unknown why cockroaches, well Shall says, cockroaches are constantly

479
00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:16,159
Speaker 1: searching for food, and actually ear wax might be an

480
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:19,919
Speaker 1: attractive source of nutrition to them. Ear wax tends to

481
00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:24,959
Speaker 1: contain microbiota that emit a particular kind of volatile compound,

482
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:29,800
Speaker 1: volatile fatty acids, and these airborne compounds are similar to

483
00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:33,040
Speaker 1: what might be present in meat, so your ear wax

484
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:37,680
Speaker 1: might smell like meat to a hungry cockroach crawling into

485
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:41,399
Speaker 1: those meat caves. It's like that that meat wax straight

486
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:43,800
Speaker 1: to the butcher's shop gets you some some gabba google

487
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 1: in the ear. Earagoule anyway, Shall suggests it's possible that

488
00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:56,959
Speaker 1: secretions from the nasal passage might also be appealing as

489
00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:59,640
Speaker 1: a kind of food to cockroaches, and don't know for sure,

490
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:03,440
Speaker 1: but as possible. But it's also worth emphasizing that cockroaches

491
00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:06,280
Speaker 1: are not parasites. They're not like hookworms, they're not like

492
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 1: the human bot fly. It is not in their interest

493
00:27:09,080 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 1: to get stuck inside a human body cavity, right. That is,

494
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:16,359
Speaker 1: it's an extreme environment best left to the specialists. Right, So,

495
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:18,920
Speaker 1: when when a cockroach ends up in a human ear

496
00:27:19,080 --> 00:27:21,439
Speaker 1: or even in the nose, it is generally all just

497
00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:24,600
Speaker 1: a big misunderstanding. They didn't mean they didn't really want

498
00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 1: to get stuck in there. They don't want to be

499
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:29,600
Speaker 1: inside you, They'd rather be somewhere else. But it just happened.

500
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:32,160
Speaker 1: They were hungry. Now that that being said, one can

501
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:35,800
Speaker 1: well imagine that this could be a path, a long

502
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 1: path to parasitism in an organism um such as says

503
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:45,720
Speaker 1: say the the theories regarding of the emergence of vampire bats,

504
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 1: and they have once feasted on um, you know, in

505
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:52,359
Speaker 1: the larva that might be present at a at a

506
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 1: wound site on some sort of megafauna, and then over

507
00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: time that develops into a more strategic consumption of blood

508
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:03,960
Speaker 1: directly from the you know, the large herbivore, as opposed

509
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:07,440
Speaker 1: to drinking the blood eating the body of the parasites

510
00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:11,000
Speaker 1: that prey upon the larger before. So an evolutionary path

511
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:13,640
Speaker 1: over like millions of years, not over like a night

512
00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:16,199
Speaker 1: or a year. Nowhere we're going to get tomorrow and

513
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:19,120
Speaker 1: nowhere that we have arrived yet. Oh, that is an

514
00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:21,919
Speaker 1: interesting evolutionary path of the path from say like a

515
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:25,439
Speaker 1: cleaning mutual is um to parasitism. But it would have

516
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:27,280
Speaker 1: to be a situation like the thing about it is

517
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:31,439
Speaker 1: for the cockroach, especially in a human habitat, there's plenty

518
00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:33,239
Speaker 1: to eat. There's plenty of other things to eat, like

519
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:36,760
Speaker 1: the the ear wax. If it were you know, a

520
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 1: great source of of a sustenance, it's probably not the

521
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 1: best source of sustenance for the creature. Well even so,

522
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 1: it probably might just smell like sustenance. Uh So, almost

523
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:51,640
Speaker 1: all incursions of roach kind into human orifices happen while

524
00:28:51,680 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 1: the human is asleep. That almost never happened while the

525
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 1: persons awake, and they also almost always feature small specimens

526
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:00,800
Speaker 1: of the creature involved. You don't to get a giant

527
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:03,320
Speaker 1: cockroach in your ear. You get a little juvenile cockroach,

528
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:07,400
Speaker 1: one of those movie or zooch cockroaches. Movie ors, what

529
00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 1: do you what do you mean? Because you're watching a

530
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 1: movie or you go to the zoo, you're probably gonna

531
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 1: encounter one of those giant kissing cockroaches. And then likewise,

532
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 1: if it's a film about cockroaches, sometimes they'll throw one

533
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:20,479
Speaker 1: of those in just because some people keep them as

534
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:23,600
Speaker 1: pets in there more they're just grocery looking. There's a

535
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:26,360
Speaker 1: zero percent chance you'll get a giant hissing cockroach in

536
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 1: your ear. If you get one, it will be a

537
00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: little one, you know, not as big a deal. Um.

538
00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:35,280
Speaker 1: But also, wild bugs can get inside the human body sometimes.

539
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:38,560
Speaker 1: Most of the reports and images of this you see

540
00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 1: on the internet are fake. We want to emphasize this

541
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 1: all that. You know, you'll see this on social media.

542
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: You'll see reports in the tabloids, spiders crawling under people's skin,

543
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 1: burrowing into wounds and all that. It's pretty much all fake.

544
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:55,120
Speaker 1: In like cockroaches really do get into ears, but almost

545
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 1: every image you see on the internet is not real. Likewise,

546
00:29:58,680 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 1: a lot of the reports you read on the internet,

547
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 1: especially from kind of viral sources, they're not real either.

548
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:06,840
Speaker 1: One common example is, and I don't know, Robert, have

549
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:09,080
Speaker 1: you ever come across the story of like ants getting

550
00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:12,160
Speaker 1: in through the ear and eating the brain. I don't

551
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 1: think I have, but that does sound like the kind

552
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:17,640
Speaker 1: of thing you might read and forward from Grandma or something. Exactly,

553
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 1: they get through the gain in the ear and eat

554
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 1: the brain if you like, eat sweets before going to bed,

555
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:26,000
Speaker 1: or they crawl in one ear and crawl out the

556
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:29,360
Speaker 1: other ear. These things do not happen. There are no

557
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:32,520
Speaker 1: records in the medical literature of anything like this happening,

558
00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:34,800
Speaker 1: and it doesn't make sense on its face. Insects do

559
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 1: sometimes go in the ear, but they don't eat the brain.

560
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:40,720
Speaker 1: They don't infest the deeper cranium. That just doesn't happen.

561
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:44,080
Speaker 1: But it's easy to see why stories like this, the

562
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:48,000
Speaker 1: untrue stories, especially about like spiders crawling under the skin,

563
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:50,480
Speaker 1: or ants getting in through the ear and eating the brain,

564
00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:52,760
Speaker 1: and all that kind of thing, why they are very

565
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 1: popular and clicky and share able, and why they take

566
00:30:56,160 --> 00:31:00,640
Speaker 1: hold of the public consciousness, why they become entomological folklore,

567
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:05,959
Speaker 1: because I think they ping a very sensitive spot in

568
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 1: our in our you know, neurology, that like, there's a

569
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 1: certain part of human nature that seems very finely tuned

570
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 1: for recognizing parasitism and creepy crawley's and anything that might

571
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:20,960
Speaker 1: be getting on you. Because there are real parasites out there.

572
00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:24,080
Speaker 1: Uh So we're sort of hyper primed, I think, to

573
00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 1: make monsters within this category, right, and and and sometimes

574
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 1: we overtally make monsters of them too. It's not count

575
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 1: out the role that horror plays in all of this. Like,

576
00:31:34,160 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 1: in thinking of this, how many of you thought back

577
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:40,040
Speaker 1: to Stephen King's Creep Show and the scene where all

578
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 1: the cockroaches burst out of e. G. Marshall. That's a

579
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:45,000
Speaker 1: great one, Yeah, and in a whole bit that's about

580
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 1: like fear of creepy crawleys and cockroaches, you know. And

581
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:50,120
Speaker 1: we have all these stories too, have like vampires dying

582
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 1: and bursting into you know, a wave of cinipedes and

583
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:56,440
Speaker 1: uh bugs. Well, E G. Marshall, I think he plays

584
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 1: like a Howard Hughes type character. Right, he's got he's

585
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 1: like a rich guy who keeps himself secluded because he's

586
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 1: afraid of like bugs and germs and everything. Right. And

587
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:08,040
Speaker 1: there's also I think with this innate like this innate

588
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 1: fear of our body being a habitat for something and

589
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 1: our body, our bodies are habitats. We learn more about

590
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:18,480
Speaker 1: that essential nature of our being every day. Uh, but

591
00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 1: it's part of the horrors of the grave, and the

592
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 1: idea that we would they would things would be living

593
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:26,320
Speaker 1: within us while we were alive is grotesque, Yeah, exactly.

594
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 1: But I mean, your body needs to be a habitat

595
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:31,040
Speaker 1: for your microbiome. You don't want it to be a

596
00:32:31,080 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 1: habitat for other larger creatures. And so while it is

597
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:38,000
Speaker 1: not impossible for bugs to get inside human body cavities, like,

598
00:32:38,040 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 1: there are cases where it definitely happens. Oh yes, we

599
00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 1: will discuss more before this episode is over. Many, and

600
00:32:43,240 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 1: I'd say probably the vast majority of cases in which

601
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: someone is convinced they have bugs inside their body are

602
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:53,719
Speaker 1: cases of what's known as delusional infestation, also known as

603
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:58,920
Speaker 1: delusional parasitosis or sometimes as eckbombs syndrome. Yeah, name for

604
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:03,680
Speaker 1: Swedish neurola just Carl Axel Eckbomb, who published siminar accounts

605
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 1: of the disease in and basically the idea here is that, um,

606
00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:13,040
Speaker 1: you know, one comes to believe that parasites are infesting

607
00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:19,200
Speaker 1: your home, your surroundings, your clothing, and ultimately your body. Now,

608
00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:22,280
Speaker 1: of course, these reports are not isolated to real actual

609
00:33:22,360 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 1: parasites like hookworms and you know that kind of thing.

610
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:29,360
Speaker 1: It it also includes delusional ideas about insects and other

611
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:32,640
Speaker 1: creatures that are not actually parasites. Right, and and very

612
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:35,520
Speaker 1: often the way it ends up going is someone feels

613
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 1: that they are infested by something, you know, they feel

614
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:41,520
Speaker 1: that they have uh, parasites inside their body and their

615
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:46,040
Speaker 1: bows under their skin, there's some sort of an itching sensation, etcetera.

616
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:48,040
Speaker 1: And then they go to the doctor and the doctor

617
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:50,840
Speaker 1: looks at them and says, no, there's nothing, there's nothing there.

618
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 1: But they know they feel that they believe it, and

619
00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:56,520
Speaker 1: they begin going down this road of trying to figure

620
00:33:56,520 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: out what's wrong. Um. But of worse, ultimately it is

621
00:34:01,040 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 1: not a problem. It's not a dermatological problem, it's not

622
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 1: a it's not a medical biological problem. It is a

623
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 1: psychological problem. It is an illusion. So you see this

624
00:34:12,680 --> 00:34:17,800
Speaker 1: sometimes in the cases of stimulant abuse, especially methamphatamine abuse

625
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:21,960
Speaker 1: can result in delusional parasites. Uh. Sometimes you've seen these

626
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:24,720
Speaker 1: referred to as cocaine bugs, or you know the ideas

627
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:27,279
Speaker 1: of tweakers who pick up their skin in search of

628
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 1: the bugs that they feel in their skin. Um. The

629
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 1: Bohart Museum of Entomology points out that high fevers and

630
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 1: severe alcohol withdrawal can also produce these symptoms, along with

631
00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:43,040
Speaker 1: visual hallucinations of the bugs in question. UM. I should

632
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 1: also point out there's a there's a wonderful I don't

633
00:34:45,239 --> 00:34:47,279
Speaker 1: know if wonderful as the word for it. There's a

634
00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:51,520
Speaker 1: very uh. There, there's a there's a there's a play, powerful,

635
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:55,480
Speaker 1: powerful play by Tracy Letts that I actually got to

636
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:58,399
Speaker 1: see performed locally here in Atlanta is really really good

637
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:01,719
Speaker 1: called bug uh. And it was later made into a

638
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:05,680
Speaker 1: two thousand and six film by William Friedkin, starring Ashley Judd,

639
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:09,360
Speaker 1: Michael Shannon, and Harry Connick Jr. Harry Connick Jr. Yeah,

640
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:11,560
Speaker 1: I don't know who he played. I haven't seen the

641
00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 1: film version, um, but I know that the two main

642
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:17,879
Speaker 1: characters are Judd and Shannon in the film, Um, but

643
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: but it's quite good. There's a lot of skin in it,

644
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:23,520
Speaker 1: a lot of bug delusions. Uh. And it begins with

645
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:26,200
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories about the infestation of the room or the

646
00:35:26,719 --> 00:35:29,160
Speaker 1: apartment that they're staying in, and then they end up

647
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:32,279
Speaker 1: having the shared delusion of their bodies being infested by

648
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: some sort of a parasite. Anyway, that's the that's the fiction.

649
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:38,879
Speaker 1: But the fiction that the does line up reasonably well

650
00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:41,720
Speaker 1: with some of the realities. The delusion can ultimately result

651
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:44,760
Speaker 1: in self mutilation is one attempts to remove the bugs,

652
00:35:45,080 --> 00:35:49,919
Speaker 1: or is one it excessively scratches at the skin. There's

653
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 1: actually a wonderful article that came out about this couple

654
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:55,040
Speaker 1: of years ago from Eric Boudman, and he actually won

655
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:58,759
Speaker 1: a two thousand eighteen Science and Society Journalism Award for

656
00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:03,320
Speaker 1: his article Acts Sidental Therapists for insect detectives. The trickiest

657
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:06,799
Speaker 1: cases involved the bugs that aren't really there, published in

658
00:36:07,040 --> 00:36:10,560
Speaker 1: UH in S T A t UH, he describes an

659
00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:15,719
Speaker 1: individual suffering from this delusion who consulted an exterminator. UH.

660
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:18,120
Speaker 1: Then they consulted their doctor, and then they went to

661
00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:22,080
Speaker 1: a dermatologist and each time, they weren't getting the answers

662
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 1: that they wanted and then they needed they were they

663
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 1: each time they were told, you know, there's no bugs

664
00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:28,000
Speaker 1: in your house, there are no bugs in your skin.

665
00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:32,440
Speaker 1: Uh Like. Ultimately they took to uh filling a bathtub

666
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 1: up with insecticide and climbing into it. And but even

667
00:36:36,560 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 1: that they didn't solve it. They got out and they

668
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:41,120
Speaker 1: still felt the presence of the bugs. And that's where,

669
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:44,359
Speaker 1: as A. Boudman explains in his article, that's where Dr

670
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:48,479
Speaker 1: Gail Ridge entered the scenario. A public entomologists meaning people

671
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:50,759
Speaker 1: come to her with specimens and questions to the tune

672
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:53,400
Speaker 1: of like twenty three people a day. She works at

673
00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:58,239
Speaker 1: the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. So this individual came to

674
00:36:58,280 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 1: her and she tried to explain to look, this is

675
00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 1: how insects actually interact with your skin. This is how

676
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:06,920
Speaker 1: you know actual parasites work. Um. And she ended up

677
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 1: seeing the individual handful of times before she learned that

678
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:14,000
Speaker 1: they died. UM. So in this case, in others, uh,

679
00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:17,400
Speaker 1: doctor Ridge here often has to weigh in on cases

680
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:21,920
Speaker 1: that are far more psychological than entomological. That makes sense, now.

681
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 1: Budman's paper is is a great read. I'll try to

682
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:25,560
Speaker 1: include a link to it on the landing page for

683
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:28,359
Speaker 1: this episode at at the website I stuff to bling

684
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:30,960
Speaker 1: your mind dot com. But it makes a number of

685
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:35,120
Speaker 1: very interesting points. First of all, these patients are really suffering,

686
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 1: even though doctors tend tend to in many cases dismissed

687
00:37:38,520 --> 00:37:40,439
Speaker 1: them and send them away. Right, Like if you show

688
00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:42,439
Speaker 1: up at a doctor's office and you say I've got

689
00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:45,800
Speaker 1: bugs inside my body and then the doctor just checks

690
00:37:45,840 --> 00:37:48,400
Speaker 1: and says, no, there are no bugs in there, that

691
00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 1: that shouldn't be case closed, right, That should be like,

692
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:53,719
Speaker 1: there should be a sign that something is wrong, that

693
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:55,400
Speaker 1: you do need help in a way, even if there

694
00:37:55,440 --> 00:37:59,360
Speaker 1: aren't physically insects. But it's it's a difficult scenario because

695
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:02,840
Speaker 1: the best tree for their suffering is usually an antipsychotic.

696
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:05,960
Speaker 1: But there, there, you there. But generally the problem that

697
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:08,920
Speaker 1: the struggle is getting them to accept that their problem

698
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 1: is psychological and that they need to see a mental

699
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,360
Speaker 1: health professional because they're coming in here they believe that

700
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 1: only a powerful anti parasitic is going to do the trick. Uh,

701
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 1: and or that an insect specialist is required. Quote Ridge

702
00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:26,719
Speaker 1: sees as many as two hundred of these cases a year.

703
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:29,880
Speaker 1: She isn't the only one with this unintentional expertise. A

704
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:33,799
Speaker 1: whole network of entomologists, a universities, research stations and even

705
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:38,000
Speaker 1: at natural history museums is all too familiar with these requests.

706
00:38:38,520 --> 00:38:40,959
Speaker 1: So they come in, they bring scabs, samples of skin

707
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:44,480
Speaker 1: is proof. One of the individuals that Budeman talks to

708
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 1: is Nancy Hinkel from the University of Georgia at Athens.

709
00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 1: So close by here and uh. Hinkel says that inquiries

710
00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:55,680
Speaker 1: like this take up twenty percent of her time and

711
00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:59,319
Speaker 1: that every state has quote somebody like Gael or Meat.

712
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:02,839
Speaker 1: There's body in there that that this is becoming increasingly

713
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:07,759
Speaker 1: their work. In other words, cases of delusional parasitosis are

714
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:10,200
Speaker 1: rare in the medical field, but far more common in

715
00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:14,840
Speaker 1: the intomol entomological world. Extreme cases may end in severe

716
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:18,560
Speaker 1: alteration of one's life, even suicide or death. Um. Here's

717
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 1: one more quote from the article. Quote. Even when an

718
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:25,000
Speaker 1: entomologist notices the tailtell signs of DP, there is little

719
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:27,799
Speaker 1: that can be done over the phone. Biologists estimate that

720
00:39:27,840 --> 00:39:30,839
Speaker 1: there are some six point eight million anthropod species on Earth.

721
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:34,000
Speaker 1: Even the most fanciful description could at its root to

722
00:39:34,040 --> 00:39:36,480
Speaker 1: be a real insect. Well, that's sort of like what

723
00:39:36,520 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 1: we're running into with, UH, with the cases of the

724
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:43,440
Speaker 1: centipedes up earlier, Like we didn't we're not there to

725
00:39:43,560 --> 00:39:45,680
Speaker 1: see it, so we don't really know for sure. We're

726
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 1: just reading these accounts, and so we're stuck with saying like,

727
00:39:49,120 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't think this likely happened, but

728
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 1: we can't be sure. I mean, you can't roll it outright.

729
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:58,000
Speaker 1: So part part of the problem identified in this article

730
00:39:58,120 --> 00:40:02,279
Speaker 1: is that what's needed here are psycho dermatology outposts in

731
00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:05,360
Speaker 1: the medical world where where the connection between the science

732
00:40:05,360 --> 00:40:08,360
Speaker 1: of the mind and signs of the skin is more established,

733
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:12,760
Speaker 1: so there's greater ease and finesse moving patients toward proper

734
00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:16,319
Speaker 1: psychological treatments. And there apparently are a few places in

735
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:18,719
Speaker 1: the United States and some in the Netherlands that have

736
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:21,880
Speaker 1: begun to do this. UH. One of the accounts that

737
00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 1: the author includes here mentions a doctor in Amsterdam that

738
00:40:26,800 --> 00:40:29,800
Speaker 1: that deals with patients and they've they sort of figured

739
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:32,200
Speaker 1: out how to, you know, first form a relationship of

740
00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:36,120
Speaker 1: trust with the patient and then at the appropriate time,

741
00:40:36,239 --> 00:40:38,360
Speaker 1: you know, let them know, like this is something you

742
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:42,640
Speaker 1: need to see a psychiatrist about, and and sometimes sweetening

743
00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:45,080
Speaker 1: the deal by pointing out, pointing to a two thousand

744
00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:49,719
Speaker 1: fourteen paper about how some drugs that treat delusional disorders

745
00:40:49,760 --> 00:40:53,360
Speaker 1: also happened to kill kill parasites. So I think that's interesting,

746
00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:55,799
Speaker 1: you know, pointing figuring out there, like like, they are

747
00:40:55,840 --> 00:40:59,319
Speaker 1: more of these cases occurring than one might think. And

748
00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 1: if we just if if medical professionals, entomologists, uh, etcetera.

749
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:09,080
Speaker 1: Are are better positioned to move them towards encourage them

750
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:12,520
Speaker 1: to go seek appropriate help, uh, everyone's going to be

751
00:41:12,520 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 1: better off. Yeah. Absolutely, though, I mean, this is such

752
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:17,880
Speaker 1: a hard problem, and it's also part of a broader

753
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:20,640
Speaker 1: problem which is present in the medical and mental health

754
00:41:20,719 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 1: communities where it's um it just tends to be a

755
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:30,320
Speaker 1: fact that people who are experiencing delusions and psychosis another

756
00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:33,360
Speaker 1: you know, most of the conditions that cause them to

757
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:38,160
Speaker 1: experience delusions and psychosis also tend to entail ideation patterns

758
00:41:38,160 --> 00:41:41,920
Speaker 1: that made people resistant to correct diagnosis. So like if

759
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:44,799
Speaker 1: you tell a person that, Okay, you know, what you

760
00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:47,719
Speaker 1: think you're experiencing is not physically the case, and you know,

761
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:51,520
Speaker 1: like antipsychotic medication could help you. Uh, it just tends

762
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:54,120
Speaker 1: very often to be the case that people don't respond

763
00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:56,719
Speaker 1: well to being told that, and that they say no,

764
00:41:56,840 --> 00:42:00,600
Speaker 1: that's not right. Right, And oftentimes there's just a stigma

765
00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:03,960
Speaker 1: against a seeking professional help for for mental problems or

766
00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:07,000
Speaker 1: having any kind of mental disorder or delusion. Uh. And

767
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:09,640
Speaker 1: then again back to just the nature of insects and

768
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:14,000
Speaker 1: infesting our homes, like how hard are are fleas to see?

769
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:17,439
Speaker 1: How hard are chiggers to see? Um, you know, without

770
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:22,240
Speaker 1: getting into just the whole list of various parasitic organisms

771
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:26,440
Speaker 1: that are basically invisible to us. So again, it doesn't

772
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:30,359
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're one is presented with the option like, well,

773
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:33,600
Speaker 1: either other people just can't see this creature because it's small,

774
00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 1: or other people can't see this creature because it is

775
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:38,759
Speaker 1: a delusion of your mind. You can see why people

776
00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:41,319
Speaker 1: are more inclined to believe that it's just something that

777
00:42:41,360 --> 00:42:43,959
Speaker 1: they just haven't found the right entomologists, they haven't found

778
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:46,600
Speaker 1: the right dermatologists to identify the problem. Yeah. Well, I

779
00:42:46,600 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: guess we'd certainly hope that by like establishing procedures like

780
00:42:50,239 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 1: this where you've got sort of a chain of people

781
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:54,240
Speaker 1: to talk to where you established trust with the patient

782
00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:58,319
Speaker 1: and by trying to remove stigma from seeking mental health help.

783
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 1: Uh that maybe maybe this kind of thing could get better.

784
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:03,760
Speaker 1: I don't know, I would hope, so yeah, yeah, because

785
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:06,960
Speaker 1: according to what I've read, the anti psychotic medications do

786
00:43:07,120 --> 00:43:10,479
Speaker 1: help the individuals. So like you know, there there, there is,

787
00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:13,600
Speaker 1: there is a treatment. It's not one of these because

788
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:17,280
Speaker 1: there are certain mental conditions We've discussed, various delusions where

789
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 1: there is not really an exit, you know, where things

790
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:23,239
Speaker 1: are are pretty dire. But this seems to be something

791
00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:26,360
Speaker 1: that is in many cases very treatable again if proper

792
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:29,360
Speaker 1: treatment is found. And again I get the sense, I

793
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:31,800
Speaker 1: don't know if this lines up with what you you're reading,

794
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:34,799
Speaker 1: but I get the sense that the vast majority of

795
00:43:34,840 --> 00:43:36,680
Speaker 1: the people who show up and say I've got a

796
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:39,359
Speaker 1: bug in me do not actually have a bug in them.

797
00:43:39,440 --> 00:43:43,560
Speaker 1: Like the psychological cause of these symptoms. I mean, the

798
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:46,879
Speaker 1: symptoms are real in both cases, but psychological causes are

799
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:51,120
Speaker 1: far more prevalent than the entomological causes. Absolutely, all right,

800
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:53,200
Speaker 1: We're gonna take another break, give you a few minutes

801
00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:55,399
Speaker 1: to listen to an advertisement and maybe feel your skin

802
00:43:55,440 --> 00:43:57,880
Speaker 1: a little bit and see see how you're feeling. But

803
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 1: we'll be right back with more more tales of of

804
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:03,600
Speaker 1: of bugs in the skin and bugs of the mind.

805
00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 1: All right, we're back. So, as we were just discussing,

806
00:44:08,239 --> 00:44:11,479
Speaker 1: it's clear that the majority of cases where people think

807
00:44:11,640 --> 00:44:14,960
Speaker 1: they've got like a bug inside a body cavity or

808
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 1: under their skin or something. And if you think you've

809
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:19,120
Speaker 1: got bugs under your skin, you're pretty much always going

810
00:44:19,160 --> 00:44:20,839
Speaker 1: to be wrong. If you think you have a bug

811
00:44:20,840 --> 00:44:23,879
Speaker 1: in the body cavity, even then you're probably mistaken. There.

812
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 1: There's probably not a bug in there, but we can't

813
00:44:26,560 --> 00:44:29,600
Speaker 1: say that's the case always because sometimes bugs do get

814
00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:31,280
Speaker 1: in there. So I think it's time to talk about

815
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:33,440
Speaker 1: that a little more and about UH, and maybe get

816
00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:35,880
Speaker 1: to talking about what to do if there actually is

817
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:38,560
Speaker 1: a bug in a body cavity. Um so I came

818
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:43,080
Speaker 1: across the nine article from the Oxford University Press Journal

819
00:44:43,120 --> 00:44:46,279
Speaker 1: of the Entomological Society of America, and the piece is

820
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:49,759
Speaker 1: by the American biologist and entomologist and National Medal of

821
00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:53,640
Speaker 1: Science Laureate May Baron Baum. Just a few interesting facts

822
00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:56,440
Speaker 1: about baron Baum I found UH in addition to being

823
00:44:56,480 --> 00:45:00,200
Speaker 1: a renowned entomologist, I think she sounds very much like

824
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:03,239
Speaker 1: our kind of people. She created an event at the

825
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:07,680
Speaker 1: University of Illinois called the Insect Fear Film Festival, which,

826
00:45:07,719 --> 00:45:10,800
Speaker 1: according to its website, is an opportunity to quote watch

827
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:15,279
Speaker 1: insect themed horror movies, handle live insects at our petting zoo,

828
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:19,200
Speaker 1: learn about insects you fear, and then get t shirts, stickers,

829
00:45:19,239 --> 00:45:22,320
Speaker 1: balloon insects, and your face painted. This sounds like my

830
00:45:22,480 --> 00:45:24,239
Speaker 1: kind of event. I would love to go to that.

831
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:26,720
Speaker 1: This sounds great. Yeah, we'll have to look up creature

832
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:30,400
Speaker 1: features and then touching real insects. That sounds wonderful. It

833
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:35,319
Speaker 1: sounds like she's very comfortable, um marrying, you know, sort

834
00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:38,960
Speaker 1: of like the pop culture, the insect myths and all that,

835
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:41,640
Speaker 1: using that as a window to share real knowledge about

836
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:44,399
Speaker 1: entomology and the role of insects in our lives with people.

837
00:45:44,480 --> 00:45:46,560
Speaker 1: Let's look at the fear, let's look at the sensationalism,

838
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:48,239
Speaker 1: and then let's look at the reality. Yeah, and so

839
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 1: she seems very cool. She's also apparently had a character

840
00:45:51,320 --> 00:45:54,239
Speaker 1: named after her in the classic X Files episode War

841
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:56,160
Speaker 1: of the Copper Phages, which is one of the best

842
00:45:56,200 --> 00:45:59,960
Speaker 1: episodes in the entire series. Quite relevant to Today's Top

843
00:46:00,040 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 1: Bake because it discusses cockroaches, ideas about cockroach infestation and

844
00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:09,200
Speaker 1: a delusional infestation or delusional parasitosis, which is a big

845
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:11,880
Speaker 1: big thing in the episode. The character named after her

846
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:14,960
Speaker 1: is apparently it's named and I did remember this character

847
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:19,640
Speaker 1: uh named Bambi. Baronbaum recalls she's sort of like a

848
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:23,960
Speaker 1: weird entomologist who Molder develops a crush on and Scully

849
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:27,920
Speaker 1: gets jealous of over the phone, and I recall she

850
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:31,200
Speaker 1: also has some theory that UFO sightings are actually caused

851
00:46:31,239 --> 00:46:33,760
Speaker 1: by swarms of insects. But that's the X Files character,

852
00:46:33,840 --> 00:46:37,040
Speaker 1: not the real Dr baron Baum. So this article, by

853
00:46:37,040 --> 00:46:39,560
Speaker 1: the way, if you can look it up, it's really

854
00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:44,200
Speaker 1: pretty great, the one from so she collects references from

855
00:46:44,239 --> 00:46:47,760
Speaker 1: the medical literature, including an interesting study from nineteen eighty

856
00:46:47,800 --> 00:46:50,680
Speaker 1: seven by Baker which found a hundred and thirty four

857
00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:54,200
Speaker 1: cases of foreign objects found in children's ears. Of those

858
00:46:54,480 --> 00:46:57,880
Speaker 1: d and thirty four objects, twenty seven were insects, and

859
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 1: of those twenty one were cock roaches. So that the

860
00:47:02,239 --> 00:47:04,560
Speaker 1: others you ask, well, I actually looked up and study

861
00:47:04,640 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 1: to find out what the others were. The other six

862
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:11,200
Speaker 1: of those twenty seven where one ant, one fly, three spiders,

863
00:47:11,200 --> 00:47:13,480
Speaker 1: and one tick. Only one of those has any business

864
00:47:13,480 --> 00:47:15,480
Speaker 1: being in there. The tick you can only blame so

865
00:47:15,560 --> 00:47:17,800
Speaker 1: much because you know that's it's a tick. It's gross,

866
00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:20,840
Speaker 1: it's it's there to suck skin. The ticks actually the

867
00:47:20,840 --> 00:47:23,080
Speaker 1: worst one. I don't really bear a lot of ill

868
00:47:23,120 --> 00:47:25,800
Speaker 1: will to cockroaches. I don't love having them in my house.

869
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:30,000
Speaker 1: But you know, ticks, I just you know, just the newcomb. Yeah,

870
00:47:30,120 --> 00:47:32,600
Speaker 1: like we discussed in our our episode on ticks, h

871
00:47:33,320 --> 00:47:35,239
Speaker 1: certainly everyone should go back and listen to if you

872
00:47:35,239 --> 00:47:37,960
Speaker 1: want to feel gross about the woods. Um, you know

873
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:41,000
Speaker 1: that they are out to get us. They are out

874
00:47:41,040 --> 00:47:43,440
Speaker 1: to get us. Most of the these other cases there

875
00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:46,520
Speaker 1: are just mistakes. But the tick wants you, and it's

876
00:47:46,520 --> 00:47:49,719
Speaker 1: seeking you, and if you venture into its abode, it

877
00:47:49,800 --> 00:47:53,000
Speaker 1: will find you. So. Baron Bomb mentions that a common

878
00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:56,120
Speaker 1: method for removing cockroaches from the ear is to drown

879
00:47:56,160 --> 00:47:59,880
Speaker 1: a cockroach in liquid of some kind before removal. It

880
00:47:59,920 --> 00:48:02,320
Speaker 1: is much like my dad did with the bug that

881
00:48:02,400 --> 00:48:04,279
Speaker 1: flu into my ear. I think that was that was

882
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:07,440
Speaker 1: a good good thing to do. And now ideally I'm

883
00:48:07,440 --> 00:48:10,000
Speaker 1: not gonna say people should usually try to deal with

884
00:48:10,080 --> 00:48:13,359
Speaker 1: bugs and body cavities on their own, because there are

885
00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:16,279
Speaker 1: cases where having like a medical opinion is important, but

886
00:48:16,840 --> 00:48:19,040
Speaker 1: that does seem to be a pretty pretty reliable way

887
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:21,720
Speaker 1: to deal with it. Drowning liquids throughout a medical history

888
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:28,800
Speaker 1: of included benzicne, sucinal coline, isoperoble alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, ether, water,

889
00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:32,160
Speaker 1: vegetable oil, mineral oil. Want to be clear, I'm not

890
00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:35,839
Speaker 1: recommending all of those, especially since things like ether are flammable.

891
00:48:36,280 --> 00:48:39,480
Speaker 1: A more recent technique that's been used in clinics, pioneered

892
00:48:39,600 --> 00:48:43,279
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty is the use of lytocane spray. This is

893
00:48:43,360 --> 00:48:46,200
Speaker 1: usually used as a topical anesthetic, right you know, they

894
00:48:46,239 --> 00:48:49,000
Speaker 1: sprayed on you to to numb the skin, but when

895
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:52,840
Speaker 1: applied to a quote inter intro, sorry not inter intra

896
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:57,040
Speaker 1: aural cockroach, uh, it tends to paralyze the insects, so

897
00:48:57,080 --> 00:49:00,239
Speaker 1: the insect can be safely removed or even bet are.

898
00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:03,840
Speaker 1: The initial application of light acaine solution spray sometimes causes

899
00:49:03,880 --> 00:49:06,799
Speaker 1: the problem to resolve itself, as in the case of

900
00:49:06,800 --> 00:49:10,239
Speaker 1: one intervention by O'Toole at All published in nineteen eighty five,

901
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:14,000
Speaker 1: in which after the light decayne application quote, the roach

902
00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:17,239
Speaker 1: exited the canal at a convulsive rate of speed and

903
00:49:17,280 --> 00:49:20,640
Speaker 1: attempted to escape across the floor, presumably with a road

904
00:49:20,719 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 1: run er asque sound effect me be uh. And then

905
00:49:23,719 --> 00:49:27,080
Speaker 1: Baron Boum notes that quote the simple crush method was

906
00:49:27,160 --> 00:49:30,120
Speaker 1: quote ultimately responsible for the demise of the cock row.

907
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:32,960
Speaker 1: But now I got a dead cockroach in my ear. No,

908
00:49:33,120 --> 00:49:35,200
Speaker 1: it wasn't in the ear, it was on the floor. Okay,

909
00:49:36,000 --> 00:49:38,000
Speaker 1: that's that's that's fine. No, no, no, I want to

910
00:49:38,040 --> 00:49:40,520
Speaker 1: be very clear. Don't try to step on a cockroach

911
00:49:40,560 --> 00:49:43,800
Speaker 1: in somebody's ear. That is not That doesn't work at all.

912
00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:47,479
Speaker 1: That method was then improved upon in nineteen eighty nine

913
00:49:47,520 --> 00:49:50,280
Speaker 1: with the addition of a metal suction tip to vacuum

914
00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:54,720
Speaker 1: the cockroach out. Reportedly, after one case, the lydocaine spray

915
00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:58,759
Speaker 1: was was applied and then the patient suddenly exhorted the

916
00:49:58,800 --> 00:50:01,200
Speaker 1: doctor to quote, get that sucker out of my ears.

917
00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:04,359
Speaker 1: So they used the vacuum to get it out. Um.

918
00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:08,000
Speaker 1: But then also she relays some reports about fly larva

919
00:50:08,160 --> 00:50:11,520
Speaker 1: or maggots colonizing the orifices of humans, such as the

920
00:50:11,560 --> 00:50:13,960
Speaker 1: nose or the euro genital tract. Though she seems a

921
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:17,000
Speaker 1: little skeptical about the case report that that that was

922
00:50:17,040 --> 00:50:20,280
Speaker 1: about the euro genital tract. One of the medical reports

923
00:50:20,280 --> 00:50:23,759
Speaker 1: she discusses are relayed by Battia and Lund in the

924
00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:28,920
Speaker 1: Journal of Laryngology and Otology in n concerns this thirty

925
00:50:28,920 --> 00:50:31,759
Speaker 1: five year old man in London who had an infestation

926
00:50:31,880 --> 00:50:36,920
Speaker 1: of oestrus ovis a sheep nasal bot fly in his

927
00:50:37,040 --> 00:50:40,240
Speaker 1: nose in the thirty five year old man's nose. Apparently

928
00:50:40,280 --> 00:50:43,000
Speaker 1: this happens more commonly in shepherds and people who deal

929
00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 1: directly with sheep. Makes sense. It's a little perplexing how

930
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:48,680
Speaker 1: this guy in London got one. Uh he claimed he

931
00:50:48,719 --> 00:50:52,200
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with sheep, but who knows. According

932
00:50:52,239 --> 00:50:55,320
Speaker 1: to the report, he had been quote sneezing out several

933
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:59,560
Speaker 1: maggots during the preceding six weeks before he called a doctor,

934
00:51:00,120 --> 00:51:02,720
Speaker 1: and Baron Bomb points out that it's kind of odd

935
00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:05,360
Speaker 1: that it took him that long to call a doctor

936
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:08,239
Speaker 1: after sneezing out maggots. I would also think if you

937
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:10,760
Speaker 1: if you seem to be consistently sneezing out matt maggots,

938
00:51:10,800 --> 00:51:13,799
Speaker 1: you do have a small window to really succeed on

939
00:51:13,800 --> 00:51:17,200
Speaker 1: the sideshow circuit. You know, like like the second it

940
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:20,480
Speaker 1: starts happening. Books some appearances and uh and and do

941
00:51:20,520 --> 00:51:23,439
Speaker 1: it as fast as possible while the magic is still there.

942
00:51:23,520 --> 00:51:28,400
Speaker 1: Come see the amazing maggot gig uh And perhaps the

943
00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:30,799
Speaker 1: most troubling recent case and don't worry, it has a

944
00:51:30,840 --> 00:51:33,560
Speaker 1: happy ending. Of a cockroach in a body cavity that

945
00:51:33,560 --> 00:51:36,600
Speaker 1: I came across was this one. So on February one

946
00:51:37,120 --> 00:51:42,520
Speaker 1: seen a doctor m In Shankar of Stanley Medical College

947
00:51:42,560 --> 00:51:46,880
Speaker 1: Hospital in Chennai, India removed a cockroach from a woman's

948
00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:49,600
Speaker 1: skull and this one was in her sinus cavity. So

949
00:51:49,680 --> 00:51:52,400
Speaker 1: here's a definite like this is this is this is

950
00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:55,120
Speaker 1: earlier centipede territory. Right. We don't know if there were

951
00:51:55,120 --> 00:51:58,160
Speaker 1: ever really centipedes in there, but definitely a cockroach can

952
00:51:58,200 --> 00:52:00,759
Speaker 1: get in there. It was inner side, this cavity in

953
00:52:00,800 --> 00:52:04,040
Speaker 1: between her eyes and it had apparently crept up her

954
00:52:04,040 --> 00:52:07,360
Speaker 1: nose while she was asleep. And fortunately Dr Shankar was

955
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:11,400
Speaker 1: able to remove the insects successfully with an endoscopic procedure

956
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:14,480
Speaker 1: and the woman was fine. If you've got a strong stomach,

957
00:52:14,600 --> 00:52:17,960
Speaker 1: there's a video of this you can watch on the internet. Uh. Well, no,

958
00:52:18,120 --> 00:52:20,719
Speaker 1: thank you. But but but secondly, it does make me

959
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:22,480
Speaker 1: think of the little woman who lived in the shoe.

960
00:52:22,880 --> 00:52:26,120
Speaker 1: So if centipedes are not naturally occurring and naturally crawling

961
00:52:26,120 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 1: into people's sinus cavities, buddy of occasionally a cockroach may

962
00:52:30,800 --> 00:52:33,600
Speaker 1: then perhaps the centipede is just that that individual's initial

963
00:52:33,640 --> 00:52:36,760
Speaker 1: attempt to deal with the problem. Uh, that doesn't work,

964
00:52:37,080 --> 00:52:38,480
Speaker 1: and then they have to go to the doctor, and

965
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:40,239
Speaker 1: they don't you know, you know, it's it's like if

966
00:52:40,239 --> 00:52:43,080
Speaker 1: you try and you know, work on your own weight

967
00:52:43,200 --> 00:52:45,359
Speaker 1: toenail or something, or do your own dynastry, and then

968
00:52:45,360 --> 00:52:48,839
Speaker 1: you go finally and seek professional help. You don't want

969
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:50,120
Speaker 1: to tell them, oh, yeah, I tried to do this

970
00:52:50,239 --> 00:52:52,879
Speaker 1: stupid thing of my own first. Uh. And now I'm

971
00:52:52,920 --> 00:52:54,920
Speaker 1: here with you. No, you just say, I guess there's

972
00:52:54,960 --> 00:52:57,160
Speaker 1: a cockroach up there. Did you say the old lady

973
00:52:57,160 --> 00:52:59,200
Speaker 1: who lived in the shoe? I think you meant the

974
00:52:59,200 --> 00:53:01,560
Speaker 1: old lady who's followed a fly. Yeah, it might be

975
00:53:01,640 --> 00:53:04,000
Speaker 1: the same one. She swallowed a centipede to catch the flush.

976
00:53:04,239 --> 00:53:08,400
Speaker 1: She snorted a centipede to catch the cockroach that wriggled

977
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:12,239
Speaker 1: and jiggled and wiggled in side. Roach. Perhaps you'll die, yes,

978
00:53:12,840 --> 00:53:15,000
Speaker 1: but she didn't. Well no, wait, I'm not saying this

979
00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:16,799
Speaker 1: woman actually did that. But the woman in the case

980
00:53:17,320 --> 00:53:21,960
Speaker 1: very clear did not die. I don't remember what happened

981
00:53:21,960 --> 00:53:26,160
Speaker 1: to her. I think I don't know. Well, uh so

982
00:53:26,280 --> 00:53:28,719
Speaker 1: I think we should end here with a discussion of

983
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:31,560
Speaker 1: what to do if you actually think there's a bug

984
00:53:31,560 --> 00:53:33,560
Speaker 1: in one of your body cavities, if you think you've

985
00:53:33,560 --> 00:53:35,800
Speaker 1: got a centipede or a cockroach up your nose or

986
00:53:35,840 --> 00:53:38,680
Speaker 1: in your ear or whatever, what's your plan of action. So,

987
00:53:38,760 --> 00:53:42,160
Speaker 1: first of all, we want to emphasize again even if

988
00:53:42,200 --> 00:53:44,720
Speaker 1: you feel very convinced, there is a very good chance

989
00:53:44,760 --> 00:53:47,440
Speaker 1: you're mistaken, and that should be good news, right like

990
00:53:47,520 --> 00:53:50,680
Speaker 1: people feel creepy Crawley sensations for all kinds of reasons,

991
00:53:51,120 --> 00:53:53,920
Speaker 1: and animals actually getting inside the body cavities. Though there

992
00:53:53,960 --> 00:53:57,120
Speaker 1: are a lot of stories collected of it over the time,

993
00:53:57,160 --> 00:54:00,120
Speaker 1: the chances of it happening to you are pretty rare,

994
00:54:00,239 --> 00:54:03,359
Speaker 1: especially if you don't live in a tropical climate. Right now,

995
00:54:03,400 --> 00:54:05,839
Speaker 1: I do want to stress everything we said earlier about

996
00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:09,920
Speaker 1: delusional parasitosis. If you do, if you do have substance

997
00:54:09,960 --> 00:54:12,600
Speaker 1: abuse issues, that could be part of the problem. But

998
00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:16,160
Speaker 1: but you shouldn't be afraid to see a doctor over

999
00:54:16,200 --> 00:54:18,960
Speaker 1: the symptoms if that's the case. But your symptoms could

1000
00:54:19,040 --> 00:54:21,680
Speaker 1: be quite unrelated to any kind of substance abuse issues,

1001
00:54:21,680 --> 00:54:24,440
Speaker 1: and in this case, it's it's really important to realize

1002
00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:28,160
Speaker 1: that it is treatable with antipsychotic medication, and cases like

1003
00:54:28,239 --> 00:54:30,759
Speaker 1: this are not as rare as you might think. Though obviously,

1004
00:54:30,800 --> 00:54:32,920
Speaker 1: again I can see where that could be a struggle

1005
00:54:33,080 --> 00:54:35,480
Speaker 1: to to realize, you know, okay, it's not a situation

1006
00:54:35,560 --> 00:54:38,920
Speaker 1: of of an insect crawling into my skin or into

1007
00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:43,399
Speaker 1: my body. It's a it's a more elusive concept. It's

1008
00:54:43,480 --> 00:54:46,440
Speaker 1: there's something, there's an illusion in my mind that has

1009
00:54:46,480 --> 00:54:49,359
Speaker 1: to be addressed. If the causes are psychological, there is

1010
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:53,319
Speaker 1: not shame in seeking treatment. Seeking treatment will help you, absolutely,

1011
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:55,600
Speaker 1: So that's what you should do, right, What should you

1012
00:54:55,680 --> 00:54:59,040
Speaker 1: not do? Oh? Okay, Well, if you even if whatever

1013
00:54:59,080 --> 00:55:01,839
Speaker 1: the real cause is, if you think something is in

1014
00:55:01,880 --> 00:55:04,239
Speaker 1: your ear, say, or in your nose, first piece of

1015
00:55:04,280 --> 00:55:07,360
Speaker 1: advice is do not try to kill or crush it,

1016
00:55:08,160 --> 00:55:11,719
Speaker 1: because if there actually is an insect in there, you're

1017
00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:14,520
Speaker 1: not seriously in danger of a bug inside your nose

1018
00:55:14,600 --> 00:55:17,120
Speaker 1: or your ear eating your brain. That's not gonna happen.

1019
00:55:17,640 --> 00:55:20,200
Speaker 1: You should seek medical attention as soon as possible, but

1020
00:55:20,280 --> 00:55:23,120
Speaker 1: it's not gonna like, you know, eat the contents of

1021
00:55:23,120 --> 00:55:25,920
Speaker 1: your skull. What you're actually in greater danger of is

1022
00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:29,880
Speaker 1: bacterial infection in the cavity. Uh. And I mentioned earlier

1023
00:55:29,960 --> 00:55:33,560
Speaker 1: that article that interviews the entomologist Kobe shawl Shall points

1024
00:55:33,560 --> 00:55:35,279
Speaker 1: out that one of the worst ways you can put

1025
00:55:35,360 --> 00:55:37,960
Speaker 1: yourself at risk of infection with a roach in your

1026
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:41,560
Speaker 1: orifice is to crush it, because this could release its

1027
00:55:41,680 --> 00:55:45,279
Speaker 1: mighty legions of gut bacteria into your own body, and

1028
00:55:45,320 --> 00:55:47,720
Speaker 1: that can lead to an infection. And there's a wonder,

1029
00:55:47,920 --> 00:55:51,960
Speaker 1: wonderful historic example of this. Yeah, So I want to

1030
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:55,200
Speaker 1: talk about the English explorer and British Indian Army officer

1031
00:55:55,320 --> 00:55:59,319
Speaker 1: John Hanning Speak who was famous for exploring the Nile

1032
00:55:59,400 --> 00:56:01,560
Speaker 1: River to mind what was believed to be its source

1033
00:56:01,600 --> 00:56:04,600
Speaker 1: in the eighteen fifties. And there's this story I related

1034
00:56:04,640 --> 00:56:07,239
Speaker 1: and Speaks diaries that one night he's resting in his

1035
00:56:07,320 --> 00:56:10,399
Speaker 1: tent and the tent quote became covered with a host

1036
00:56:10,520 --> 00:56:14,279
Speaker 1: of small black beetles, evidently attracted by the glimmer of

1037
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:16,920
Speaker 1: the candle. And then he went to sleep even though

1038
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:19,000
Speaker 1: all these beetles were around, and he later woke up

1039
00:56:19,040 --> 00:56:22,120
Speaker 1: with one of the beatles crawling in his ear. Quote.

1040
00:56:22,400 --> 00:56:25,399
Speaker 1: He began with exceeding vigor, like a rabbit in a hole,

1041
00:56:25,480 --> 00:56:29,319
Speaker 1: to dig violently away at my tympanum. The queer sensation

1042
00:56:29,440 --> 00:56:33,200
Speaker 1: this amusing measure excited in me is past description. What

1043
00:56:33,320 --> 00:56:36,239
Speaker 1: to do? I knew, not so speak. Tried to get

1044
00:56:36,239 --> 00:56:38,880
Speaker 1: it out by washing his ear canal with melted butter.

1045
00:56:39,120 --> 00:56:41,560
Speaker 1: This didn't work. Uh. Then he tried to dig it

1046
00:56:41,560 --> 00:56:43,799
Speaker 1: out with a knife, and this was a bad move.

1047
00:56:43,920 --> 00:56:47,400
Speaker 1: He only killed and presumably crushed or cut up the

1048
00:56:47,440 --> 00:56:50,600
Speaker 1: insect and wounded his own ear, And then the ear

1049
00:56:50,640 --> 00:56:54,000
Speaker 1: became infected quote for many months. The tumor made me

1050
00:56:54,080 --> 00:56:57,239
Speaker 1: almost deaf, and aid a hole between the ear and

1051
00:56:57,280 --> 00:57:00,399
Speaker 1: the nose, so that when I blew it, my ear

1052
00:57:00,440 --> 00:57:03,959
Speaker 1: whistled so audibly that those who heard it laughed. Six

1053
00:57:04,040 --> 00:57:07,280
Speaker 1: or seven months after this accident happened, bits of the beatle,

1054
00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:10,359
Speaker 1: a leg, a wing, or parts of the body came

1055
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:13,799
Speaker 1: away in the wax. Uh. And I should just mention

1056
00:57:13,880 --> 00:57:16,160
Speaker 1: that I actually found the story related in that classic

1057
00:57:16,160 --> 00:57:19,080
Speaker 1: Snopes article about bugs eating through the ear into the brains.

1058
00:57:19,280 --> 00:57:21,280
Speaker 1: That's where I got the quotes from. But they're originally

1059
00:57:21,360 --> 00:57:24,960
Speaker 1: from uh, I guess speaks diaries, as passed along in

1060
00:57:24,960 --> 00:57:29,640
Speaker 1: a book about Sir Sir Richard Francis Burton, right, Uh yeah, yeah,

1061
00:57:29,680 --> 00:57:32,200
Speaker 1: this is just one of many amazing incidents from the

1062
00:57:32,240 --> 00:57:35,160
Speaker 1: travels of John Hanning Speak and Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton,

1063
00:57:35,640 --> 00:57:38,600
Speaker 1: with whom he sought the source of the nile and

1064
00:57:38,680 --> 00:57:41,440
Speaker 1: the bug incident here is actually depicted in the n

1065
00:57:42,320 --> 00:57:45,320
Speaker 1: film The Mountains of the Moon, which starred Patrick Bergen

1066
00:57:45,400 --> 00:57:50,000
Speaker 1: as as Richard Francis Burton and Ian Glenn most people

1067
00:57:50,080 --> 00:57:53,960
Speaker 1: know as uh Sir Mormont from A Game of Thrones

1068
00:57:54,320 --> 00:57:57,200
Speaker 1: or The End All. Yeah, he played John Hanning Speak.

1069
00:57:58,160 --> 00:58:00,240
Speaker 1: It's uh, I haven't seen it in forever. I when

1070
00:58:00,240 --> 00:58:03,000
Speaker 1: as a kid and and loved it. But it also

1071
00:58:03,120 --> 00:58:07,440
Speaker 1: stars Richard E. Grant, Fiona shap Peter Vaughan, Delroy Lindo,

1072
00:58:07,560 --> 00:58:10,560
Speaker 1: Bernard Bernard Hill, Omar sha Reef. So it had a

1073
00:58:10,560 --> 00:58:14,640
Speaker 1: great cast and I remember being a quite an interesting

1074
00:58:14,720 --> 00:58:17,400
Speaker 1: film and a great introduction to two just fascinating characters

1075
00:58:17,400 --> 00:58:19,880
Speaker 1: from history. Yeah. Well, I just wanted to mention quickly

1076
00:58:20,120 --> 00:58:22,720
Speaker 1: that Uh, it's impossible to be sure, Like we don't

1077
00:58:22,800 --> 00:58:26,240
Speaker 1: know what actually caused Speaks infection, but it seems very

1078
00:58:26,280 --> 00:58:29,960
Speaker 1: likely that simultaneously crushing the insect and cutting his own

1079
00:58:29,960 --> 00:58:32,960
Speaker 1: ear with the knife made the problem much worse than

1080
00:58:33,000 --> 00:58:34,840
Speaker 1: it would have been if he just let the beetle

1081
00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:37,960
Speaker 1: try to get out, and then that probably may have

1082
00:58:38,040 --> 00:58:41,600
Speaker 1: led to an infection. Yeah, after you brought this up,

1083
00:58:41,600 --> 00:58:46,160
Speaker 1: I popped out Edward Rice's biography of Burton, and he

1084
00:58:46,200 --> 00:58:49,600
Speaker 1: mentions that that Burton sometimes criticized Speak for a bit

1085
00:58:49,640 --> 00:58:53,320
Speaker 1: of like reckless ambition, especially in the African wilds. But

1086
00:58:53,440 --> 00:58:55,480
Speaker 1: then again the two clashed at times and had like

1087
00:58:55,520 --> 00:58:59,120
Speaker 1: a tremendous falling out and somewhat hated each other later

1088
00:58:59,160 --> 00:59:01,840
Speaker 1: on in life. But at any rate, one one assumes

1089
00:59:01,880 --> 00:59:05,640
Speaker 1: that Burton was not tremendously easy to get along with either. Um.

1090
00:59:05,680 --> 00:59:07,280
Speaker 1: But at any rate, if you want to see of

1091
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:11,840
Speaker 1: a cinematic depiction of this this beetle in the ear incident,

1092
00:59:12,120 --> 00:59:14,880
Speaker 1: it is it is in that movie The Mountains of

1093
00:59:14,920 --> 00:59:17,440
Speaker 1: the Moon, along with one of the other more harrowing

1094
00:59:17,520 --> 00:59:21,400
Speaker 1: encounters they had. Also is also depicted in which Somali

1095
00:59:21,520 --> 00:59:26,240
Speaker 1: spearmen tie up and stab speak numerous times with their spears,

1096
00:59:26,680 --> 00:59:30,440
Speaker 1: and then a throne spear skewers Burton through the cheeks

1097
00:59:30,480 --> 00:59:34,400
Speaker 1: through it, so through one cheek and out the other. Yeah, yeah,

1098
00:59:34,440 --> 00:59:36,600
Speaker 1: you see. And you see all these like later portraits

1099
00:59:36,760 --> 00:59:39,160
Speaker 1: of Burton, and you can often see the scar on

1100
00:59:39,240 --> 00:59:42,120
Speaker 1: each each side of the face. That's like a gearmu

1101
00:59:42,200 --> 00:59:45,200
Speaker 1: Deltro movie injury. It's like what is Oh, it's in

1102
00:59:45,280 --> 00:59:48,320
Speaker 1: Pan's Labyrinth where the guy gets cheek trauma. Oh yeah,

1103
00:59:48,320 --> 00:59:51,120
Speaker 1: well this was This is a classic case of cheek

1104
00:59:51,160 --> 00:59:53,480
Speaker 1: trauma and a cheek trauma, but also dental trauma because

1105
00:59:53,480 --> 00:59:57,000
Speaker 1: the spear damnit like took out teeth and damaged the jaw,

1106
00:59:57,360 --> 00:59:58,960
Speaker 1: but he was able to They both traveled back to

1107
00:59:59,000 --> 01:00:02,800
Speaker 1: England after the incident and both had had lots of

1108
01:00:02,840 --> 01:00:06,439
Speaker 1: medical care attend to their wounds. Well yeah, so part

1109
01:00:06,560 --> 01:00:08,280
Speaker 1: I guess the moral of the story here is don't

1110
01:00:08,280 --> 01:00:11,040
Speaker 1: be like speak. If you actually do think you have

1111
01:00:11,200 --> 01:00:13,360
Speaker 1: a cockroach or an insect in your ear or whatever,

1112
01:00:14,240 --> 01:00:16,480
Speaker 1: don't crush it, don't kill it, do your best to

1113
01:00:16,520 --> 01:00:19,720
Speaker 1: stay calm, seek medical attention as soon as possible. A

1114
01:00:19,800 --> 01:00:22,960
Speaker 1: doctor can examine you and tell if something is actually

1115
01:00:22,960 --> 01:00:25,000
Speaker 1: in there or not, and if there is, they can

1116
01:00:25,000 --> 01:00:27,400
Speaker 1: try to remove the animal if it's actually there. If

1117
01:00:27,400 --> 01:00:30,320
Speaker 1: there's not something in there, you should seek medical attention

1118
01:00:30,320 --> 01:00:32,520
Speaker 1: to They can try to help figure figure out what's

1119
01:00:32,560 --> 01:00:36,200
Speaker 1: going on and possibly prescribe medication to alleviate your symptoms.

1120
01:00:36,400 --> 01:00:37,960
Speaker 1: All right, So there you have it. Obviously, if you

1121
01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:41,040
Speaker 1: have any experience with any of these scenarios yourself, or

1122
01:00:41,360 --> 01:00:44,200
Speaker 1: or if you just have heard some folk tales of

1123
01:00:44,280 --> 01:00:48,960
Speaker 1: such things, or you have a favorite cinematic u uh

1124
01:00:49,120 --> 01:00:52,440
Speaker 1: intrabody bug threat you want to share, let us know.

1125
01:00:52,960 --> 01:00:55,479
Speaker 1: You can reach us in the in the normal ways.

1126
01:00:55,640 --> 01:00:57,800
Speaker 1: First of all, go to our our mothership, stuff about

1127
01:00:57,800 --> 01:00:59,760
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. That's where you'll find all the

1128
01:01:00,080 --> 01:01:01,840
Speaker 1: so that's what we'll find. Links out to various social

1129
01:01:01,840 --> 01:01:03,960
Speaker 1: media accounts where you can interact with us. And if

1130
01:01:03,960 --> 01:01:07,160
Speaker 1: you're on Facebook, try joining the Facebook group the stuff

1131
01:01:07,200 --> 01:01:09,280
Speaker 1: to Bow your Mind discussion module. It's a great place

1132
01:01:09,560 --> 01:01:13,280
Speaker 1: to chat with other listeners and sometimes with us. Hey,

1133
01:01:13,320 --> 01:01:15,800
Speaker 1: and if you haven't subscribed to our other podcast yet,

1134
01:01:16,000 --> 01:01:18,840
Speaker 1: it's called Invention, you should definitely go check that out.

1135
01:01:18,880 --> 01:01:21,520
Speaker 1: You can get it wherever your podcasts are found. And

1136
01:01:21,600 --> 01:01:23,800
Speaker 1: if you like this show, you'll probably like that one is.

1137
01:01:23,840 --> 01:01:26,560
Speaker 1: We bring the same kind of curiosity and approach that

1138
01:01:26,560 --> 01:01:28,320
Speaker 1: we take to stuff to blow your mind, we apply

1139
01:01:28,400 --> 01:01:31,120
Speaker 1: it to techno history, looking at one invention at a time.

1140
01:01:31,720 --> 01:01:34,520
Speaker 1: So check it out, subscribe if you haven't. Huge thanks

1141
01:01:34,560 --> 01:01:38,320
Speaker 1: as always to our wonderful audio producers Alex Williams and

1142
01:01:38,360 --> 01:01:40,720
Speaker 1: Tory Harrison. If you would like to get in touch

1143
01:01:40,760 --> 01:01:42,840
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

1144
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:45,560
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, just to say hello,

1145
01:01:45,600 --> 01:01:47,960
Speaker 1: you can email us at blow the Mind at how

1146
01:01:48,000 --> 01:02:00,920
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands

1147
01:02:00,960 --> 01:02:26,080
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com?

1148
01:02:08,560 --> 01:02:14,120
Speaker 1: Every believe