Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 2: My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick,
Speaker 2: and it's Saturday. Time to go into the vault for
Speaker 2: an older episode of the show. This is part two
Speaker 2: of the series that began airing on last Saturday's Vault episode.
Speaker 2: This is Washing of the Waters, Part two, originally published
Speaker 2: March sixteenth, twenty twenty three. I Hope you enjoy.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert.
Speaker 4: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part
Speaker 4: two in our series about healing waters. The belief held
Speaker 4: by many people throughout history that you could heal your
Speaker 4: body from illness and restore your health by bathing or
Speaker 4: by immersing yourself, sometimes just in hot or cold waters,
Speaker 4: sometimes in the waters of a special spring or location. Now,
Speaker 4: in the last episode, we discussed the prehistoric origins of bathing,
Speaker 4: as well as some evidence of ideas that became attached
Speaker 4: to bathing in the ancient world, for example, ritual and
Speaker 4: religious ideas about purity. You can see this in the
Speaker 4: ritual bathing by priests in ancient Egypt, or as ritual
Speaker 4: washing and bathing procedures outlined in the Bible.
Speaker 2: And then also the segue into the belief that became
Speaker 2: especially popular among the physicians of ancient Greece and Rome
Speaker 2: that you could cure diseases by immersing the body in
Speaker 2: hot or cold water, often though not always connected to
Speaker 2: explanations based on the theory of the four humors. In
Speaker 2: today's episode, I wanted to kick things off by returning
Speaker 2: to talk about a few more aspects of a paper
Speaker 2: we discussed in the previous episode. This was the paper
Speaker 2: Water and Spas in the Classical World the Journal Medical
Speaker 2: History nineteen ninety by Ralph Jackson, who was at the
Speaker 2: time a scholar working for the Department of Prehistoric and
Speaker 2: Romano British Antiquities at the British Museum in London. Now,
Speaker 2: as this paper addresses not only beliefs about the healing
Speaker 2: powers of bathing and water, but also of specific dedicated
Speaker 2: spa locations, I got interested in the origins of the
Speaker 2: English word spa, and it seems to me that the
Speaker 2: most commonly accepted etymology of the word today is that
Speaker 2: spa is derived from the name of a particular curative
Speaker 2: mineral spring resort in eastern Belgium, which is called Spa.
Speaker 2: So Spa the common noun derives from Spa, the proper
Speaker 2: now in the name of the place, which by the way,
Speaker 2: is a city that still exists today. You can go
Speaker 2: to Spa, Belgium. And I saw on their Wikipedia page
Speaker 2: that one of the violinists on the Titanic was from Spa, Belgium.
Speaker 2: But the proper noun seems in turn derived from a
Speaker 2: common noun in the Walloon language, which is a Romance
Speaker 2: language spoken in eastern Belgium, and the original noun there
Speaker 2: would have been espa, meaning a fountain or perhaps also
Speaker 2: referring to a spring. Now, another thing we talked about
Speaker 2: in the previous episode was a number of names for
Speaker 2: healing by immersion in water and related practices. So you
Speaker 2: have the idea of balneotherapy, that is, healing by bathing,
Speaker 2: often in mineral springs. Hydrotherapy a more general term referring
Speaker 2: to all kinds of water based treatments for disease, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to add to that another one that is
Speaker 2: mentioned in this paper. This is a phrase taken from
Speaker 2: what the Caesar Augustus did when he was practicing some balneotherapy,
Speaker 2: he did a practice called taking the waters. So in
Speaker 2: most cases that seems to refer to, yeah, just immersion
Speaker 2: like bathing in waters, but also maybe some in some
Speaker 2: cases drinking the waters. And so I like that because
Speaker 2: it sounds kind of like you're taking the waters, almost
Speaker 2: like you take a pill. But it also makes me
Speaker 2: think of the competitive aspect referenced by Plenty of the
Speaker 2: Elder when he talks about people bragging about how much
Speaker 2: of the thermal springs they can take, either like you know,
Speaker 2: I can soak in this way too long, I can
Speaker 2: soak in there so long, and then also by allegedly
Speaker 2: drinking so much from the sulfur of springs that you
Speaker 2: could no longer see their jewelry because their skin would
Speaker 2: close over their rings. Sounds like an exaggeration to me,
Speaker 2: or at least I hope. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've seen this pop up with various springs. We've been
Speaker 1: looking at it in our research, where there will be
Speaker 1: traditions of bathing or soaking in the waters, but also
Speaker 1: of drinking the waters. So it seems like these two
Speaker 1: are easily cos it's good enough for the epidermis is
Speaker 1: good enough for the digestive track.
Speaker 2: I guess. Yeah. It invites kind of gross questions, like
Speaker 2: in what order do you do those two things?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, these are the sources of questions one
Speaker 1: always has to have about one's water supply.
Speaker 2: I guess, well, I guess in the sense that, yes,
Speaker 2: every glass of water you drink contains water that was
Speaker 2: poop and pee and everything else. The water cycle just
Speaker 2: continues around the world, but at least we hope today
Speaker 2: that water goes through some kind of purification process before
Speaker 2: you can drink it. I'm just imagining, I know, people
Speaker 2: soaking in sulfur springs and then just scooping that right
Speaker 2: up on and.
Speaker 1: Like a child in a bath. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you have that one to look forward to as well.
Speaker 1: Don't drink the bath water. See how many times you
Speaker 1: get to say that? Real quick though, I was thinking
Speaker 1: about this, I think a lot of this, what we're
Speaker 1: talking about here, it kind of comes down to a
Speaker 1: few different realities that are worth pointing out. One, we
Speaker 1: need water, and two sources of water in the world
Speaker 1: are not all equal. There are better sources than others,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the human experiences has had to
Speaker 1: do with trying to figure out what are the best sources,
Speaker 1: and so a lot of this you could maybe even
Speaker 1: look at as just kind of like a human overcomplication
Speaker 1: of that basic scenario, like I want the best water
Speaker 1: for me, the water that's not going to make me sick,
Speaker 1: the water that's going to ensure my continued life, and
Speaker 1: then we kind of build up everything on top of that.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that's exactly right. And this brings us back
Speaker 2: to the next thing from this paper I wanted to
Speaker 2: talk about, which is when we discussed Jackson last time,
Speaker 2: we were talking about more general ancient Greek and Roman
Speaker 2: beliefs about the healing powers of bathing, but I mentioned
Speaker 2: there were also beliefs about the medicinal virtues of specific
Speaker 2: water sources, either for bathing or drinking, or sometimes both,
Speaker 2: and Jackson lists a number of examples of this, and
Speaker 2: of course plenty talked about specific waters in the sense
Speaker 2: of waters with specific properties, so maybe a sulfur springs
Speaker 2: versus alum springs and the different ailments that those could address.
Speaker 2: But here you can actually get into specific lowcalum so
Speaker 2: a few mentioned in Jackson's paper. One is the the
Speaker 2: aqui Cutili, which is a mineral spring northeast of the
Speaker 2: city of Rome. Both Plenty and Kelsus mentioned the cold
Speaker 2: waters of the spring as having the power to cure
Speaker 2: stomach disorders. In particular, Jackson also mentions the sulfur springs
Speaker 2: of Aquiabuli. This is near the town of Tivoli, also
Speaker 2: northeast of Rome, and Jackson writes quote described by Vitruvius,
Speaker 2: Strabo and Marshall, recommended by Plenty for the healing of wounds,
Speaker 2: and frequented by Augustus when he was troubled with rheumatism.
Speaker 2: But one of the most famous locations in the ancient
Speaker 2: Roman world for bathing was the facilities in the city
Speaker 2: of bay Ye, which is near Naples, famous for its
Speaker 2: baths fed by hot springs, and Jackson writes quote Kelsus
Speaker 2: recommended the sulfurous sw wet baths in the myrtle groves
Speaker 2: above bay Strabo characterized the place by its hot springs
Speaker 2: that were quote suited both to the taste of the
Speaker 2: fastidious and to the cure of disease. And Plenty believe
Speaker 2: that quote nowhere is water more bountiful than in the
Speaker 2: bay of Baye, or with more variety of relief, meaning
Speaker 2: relief from disease. However, Baye and its hot baths interestingly
Speaker 2: combined multiple reputations, so it was a place of healing
Speaker 2: from disease, but it also had a reputation as sort
Speaker 2: of a vice magnet or a party town. So imagine
Speaker 2: what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But for ancient Rome,
Speaker 2: which was already had, you know, sort of a kind
Speaker 2: of baseline vegaciness to it, you get hints of this
Speaker 2: reputation in the writings of ancient authors. For example, Marshall
Speaker 2: described a story of a virtuous woman who went to
Speaker 2: Baye and while she was there, she know she hung
Speaker 2: out in the baths and then ended up deciding to
Speaker 2: leave her husband for a youth that she met there.
Speaker 2: And Marshall rights quote she arrived at Penelope and departed
Speaker 2: a Helen, which is very judgy, but gives you an
Speaker 2: idea of what they thought.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, and this strikes to something that's
Speaker 1: kind of key to the overall history of certainly baths
Speaker 1: and spas in European history, like that at times they
Speaker 1: become morally suspect, and that can of course lead to
Speaker 1: the downfall of various bath and spot cultures in different areas.
Speaker 2: Sure, and of course it was also a place. This
Speaker 2: is another aspect of the kind of the vagas equality
Speaker 2: of it. It was a place of opulence and extravagance
Speaker 2: for the rich, hosting private villas of emperors, fancy spa
Speaker 2: facilities that had a lot of amenities. Jackson writes quote. Nevertheless,
Speaker 2: a vast sector of baths, imposing buildings to enclose the
Speaker 2: hot springs and sulfurous vapors. Grandiose rooms and extensive loggia
Speaker 2: and porticos have all been identified in the multi level
Speaker 2: complex terraced into the volcanic slope above the bay and Gulf,
Speaker 2: and the paper goes on to describe a number of
Speaker 2: sort of individual buildings here, one misleadingly named the Temple
Speaker 2: of Mercury, misleading because it appears to not actually have
Speaker 2: been a temple, but a place for soaking in hot
Speaker 2: spa waters. And this was this gigantic rotunda that was
Speaker 2: again built up up on the volcanic slope, and it
Speaker 2: had these big windows to let light in from the top,
Speaker 2: but also to ventilate the sulfurous fumes. And it was
Speaker 2: said to in some ways resumable the design of Hadrian's Pantheon.
Speaker 2: Another interesting thing about the area of Bay is that
Speaker 2: there have been found artifacts from the time which are
Speaker 2: glass bottles that have engravings on them that are supposed
Speaker 2: to depict this area, the region of baye. Like, there
Speaker 2: was one example sighted in the paper and included on
Speaker 2: a plate that has all these engravings on the glass
Speaker 2: that's described as a quote bulbous glass bottle that was
Speaker 2: found in North Africa and it has like these drawings
Speaker 2: that are supposed to represent this area near Naples. And
Speaker 2: it's thought that maybe these were glass bottles where the
Speaker 2: water from Bay was bottled so people could take it
Speaker 2: away as a souvenir and I don't know, maybe just
Speaker 2: hang on to it or drink it later or something.
Speaker 1: That's fascinating. And of course we still see that today
Speaker 1: with various waters that even if they're not considered sacred,
Speaker 1: and in many cases they are still considered sacred at
Speaker 1: the very least, it's some sort of a curio you
Speaker 1: take home with you, some sort of keepsake of a trip.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, though most were not as luxurious as the
Speaker 2: facilities of Bay, which were for the rich and powerful.
Speaker 2: Many regions of the Roman Empire had their own spa facilities,
Speaker 2: even kind of far flung regions that were far away
Speaker 2: from the imperial center. Jackson mentions especially regions where the
Speaker 2: locals practiced Celtic religions. So this would have included parts
Speaker 2: of Gaul, which is sort of modern day France and
Speaker 2: Germany because water deities in Celtic mythology held a special importance.
Speaker 2: And this also brings up an association between the development
Speaker 2: of Roman baths or spas and the presence of the
Speaker 2: Roman military in places far away from Rome itself, from
Speaker 2: the imperial core. When the legion moved in, this would
Speaker 2: often lead to the development of a spa resort at
Speaker 2: a natural thermal spring, and a spa would become a
Speaker 2: place for wounded soldiers to heal or place for recreation
Speaker 2: and sort of maintenance of good health among the ranks.
Speaker 2: And Jackson mentions that, so you know, the Romans come in,
Speaker 2: their military comes in, and they build a spa. That
Speaker 2: this was not done out of a sense of kind
Speaker 2: heartedness to the locals, like look what we're doing for you.
Speaker 2: It was out of self interest, because it was for
Speaker 2: the Roman troops or at least for their benefit, even
Speaker 2: if it was also open to locals.
Speaker 1: But certainly it does speak to the value that the
Speaker 1: Romans placed on this spa culture.
Speaker 2: Yes, and it's also interesting how that cultural importance means
Speaker 2: it gets sort of wrapped up in religious ideas as well,
Speaker 2: because Jackson writes that under Roman rule, in one of
Speaker 2: these areas of the Empire, you build a spa, and
Speaker 2: a deity of the local religion would usually be conflated
Speaker 2: with a Greco Roman deity that had similar powers or patronage,
Speaker 2: and thus you'd get situations like you had in the
Speaker 2: German city of Achen, where the local Celtic deity Granus
Speaker 2: was combined with the Greco Roman figure of Apollo the Healer,
Speaker 2: and thus the composite cult figure Apollo Granas is born
Speaker 2: and rules over the local hot springs the spa there.
Speaker 2: And this is interesting because it helps give you a
Speaker 2: sense on the ground how these spas were used. Jackson
Speaker 2: includes an image from an early second century votive altar
Speaker 2: found near Achen appearing to depict Apollo Granis. Here this
Speaker 2: composite figure of the Greco Roman and the Celtic deity,
Speaker 2: and in describing it, Jackson writes quote, the enthroned God
Speaker 2: holds a liar and a plectrum to musical instruments, and
Speaker 2: carries his bow and quiver of arrows over his right shoulder.
Speaker 2: An inscription records that the altar was dedicated in fulfillment
Speaker 2: of a vow by l Latinius Masser, a native of
Speaker 2: Verona and senior officer or Prefectus castororum of the ninth Legion,
Speaker 2: who may have been restored to health at the spa.
Speaker 2: So you get healed to the spa, that may mean
Speaker 2: that you have to now make a donation there. Maybe
Speaker 2: you made a vow to the local deity and said, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: if these waters heal my wound or heal my sickness,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna be the sponsor of
Speaker 2: this altar or something. Now, this paper also gets into
Speaker 2: another major SPA location, a very historically important and interesting
Speaker 2: one at Bath in England. But I think I'm going
Speaker 2: to save that one for the next episode in the
Speaker 2: series because that brings up its own fascinating mysteries and histories.
Speaker 2: So we'll come back to Bath.
Speaker 1: Now for the next example. We're going to look at here.
Speaker 1: I wanted to hit on something from Irish tradition, in
Speaker 1: part because the week this episode is coming out, it's
Speaker 1: the week of Saint Patrick's Day, and I like to
Speaker 1: spend my research time a little bit on something Ireland related.
Speaker 1: And I found a great example in the waters of
Speaker 1: Leak Slip Spa. Now you'll find numerous thermal springs in Ireland,
Speaker 1: and you also find this tradition of healing wells and
Speaker 1: holy wells that you also see throughout England. You know,
Speaker 1: you'll find sacred wells in Ireland as well, different wells
Speaker 1: and different springs or attributed different healing properties for different maladies.
Speaker 1: And you'll also findly connected to such figures as Saint Patrick,
Speaker 1: but also to older gods and goddesses of Irish tradition.
Speaker 1: But at any rate, balneo therapeutic medicine in Ireland was
Speaker 1: especially big in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and at least the
Speaker 1: early nineteenth centuries.
Speaker 2: Yes, And this sort of correlates with how it seems
Speaker 2: that after the Roman so you know Greco Roman world,
Speaker 2: medical treatments involving bathing or immersion were very popular, and
Speaker 2: it seems that kind of declined later in the Roman Empire.
Speaker 2: And was again comparatively rare through the early Middle Ages.
Speaker 2: But then there was sort of a resurgence and interest
Speaker 2: in bath culture and in medicine involving bathing in the
Speaker 2: late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and then there was
Speaker 2: another big rush for it, I think maybe in the
Speaker 2: eighteenth and nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so a lot of this, you see the fads
Speaker 1: come and go right now, specifically with leak Slip here.
Speaker 1: This is located near the town of leak Slip in
Speaker 1: northeast Ireland. Its spelled le ei x LP, and I
Speaker 1: understand that this area in general is a major Irish
Speaker 1: water source, or at least there are various videos online
Speaker 1: about the importance of the various water operations located in
Speaker 1: this region. This particular SPA, however, was apparently it's not
Speaker 1: one that has like a deep history in and of itself,
Speaker 1: or at least that doesn't seem to be the case
Speaker 1: based on the research I was looking at. Apparently the
Speaker 1: spa was uncovered in seventeen ninety three by workmen digging
Speaker 1: the Royal Canal. They discovered the spring, and then as
Speaker 1: they were developing everything, they ended up building it out
Speaker 1: into kind of a Romanesque spa, and it was apparently
Speaker 1: quite popular for a good run there, but then it
Speaker 1: fell out of use steering the early nineteenth century, and
Speaker 1: based on what I was reading, it was like for
Speaker 1: a while it was just kind of in ruins. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I think this probably lines up with just sort of
Speaker 1: a general dip in the popularity of bounteotherapeutic medicine. Now,
Speaker 1: when you initially start reading about the Leak Slip Spa,
Speaker 1: you know, it basically sounds like any other spa situation
Speaker 1: you might be looking at, you know, sulfurous waters that
Speaker 1: were thought to have healing properties, Romanesque baths catering to
Speaker 1: folks in search of such healing. But what really caught
Speaker 1: my attention is that in this particular story anyway, there
Speaker 1: is also a worm.
Speaker 2: A worm.
Speaker 1: Yes, So as we move into this, I'd like to
Speaker 1: turn to the writings of Caesar Otway, who live seventeen
Speaker 1: eighty through eighteen forty two. He talks about this in
Speaker 1: his eighteen thirty nine book A Tour in Connate, and
Speaker 1: he describes Leak Slip Spa as follows. And I have
Speaker 1: to warn this is all just part of a gigantic
Speaker 1: run on sentence that I guess was just the style
Speaker 1: in those days. All right, Please, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I can summon the energy to give it proper justice.
Speaker 2: I have faith.
Speaker 1: Od Way writes, it is not only a beautiful but
Speaker 1: an extraordinary spring. For if you believe all the neighbors,
Speaker 1: not a fish or frog will live in its waters.
Speaker 1: And though there be a floculent, rusty, colored, ochroous matter
Speaker 1: constantly rising to the surface of the well, exactly similar
Speaker 1: to that which is found in springs strongly impregnated with iron,
Speaker 1: yet no test, either gallic acid or pruseate of potash,
Speaker 1: can identify any iron. But in the center of this
Speaker 1: floculent matter is found a very red little worm, about
Speaker 1: half an inch long, which all those who still who
Speaker 1: have still faith in the celebrity of the well say,
Speaker 1: is the sovereignist remedy alive for a sore leg? Nay more,
Speaker 1: let anyone who has drank over night from fifteen to
Speaker 1: twenty tumblers of punch, and whose head is so hot
Speaker 1: that it makes the water fizz into which it is plunged,
Speaker 1: Let him, I say, but take a quart or two
Speaker 1: of the water of this spring. On the following morning,
Speaker 1: and he will lose all his whiskey fever and walk
Speaker 1: home as cool as a cucumber. I assure you, gentle reader,
Speaker 1: I have seen Sundry making the experiment, and I actually
Speaker 1: saw them afterwards sober.
Speaker 2: WHOA, I want to read the rest of this guy's book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I say, it has a great energy to it,
Speaker 1: so to refresh. Otway is telling us that nothing else
Speaker 1: lives in these waters, but they seem like iron infused
Speaker 1: waters despite negative testing, and that floculation occurs, creating a
Speaker 1: kind of wool like coagulation on top of the water
Speaker 1: in which you'll find tiny red worms. These waters will
Speaker 1: cure you of your sore leg or your punch inflicted hangover. Either.
Speaker 2: That is a great story. And this did make me
Speaker 2: look up floculent. Okay, So floculent means kind of like coagulant.
Speaker 2: It means making particles clump together. Didn't a new word
Speaker 2: for the vocab.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think you know sometimes I guess you
Speaker 1: see it with like the kind of foaminess on top
Speaker 1: of of like flowing waters where they kind of like
Speaker 1: get kind of dead ended in a particular part of
Speaker 1: the stream. That kind of thing or at least that's
Speaker 1: what I'm picturing in my head.
Speaker 2: Okay, but when he's talking about the worm, I can't
Speaker 2: tell does he mean literally a worm, like a biological
Speaker 2: organism a worm, or does he mean like a worm
Speaker 2: like clump of something.
Speaker 1: He appears to mean an actual worm, because I found
Speaker 1: plenty of other references to it. These details that I'm
Speaker 1: about to read are from a twenty twenty one source
Speaker 1: survey of the heritage of Holy Wells and County, killed
Speaker 1: there by Laughlin at Ulf for Ireland's Archaeology Plan Heritage Solutions.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 1: A small worm lived in the scum on the top
Speaker 1: of the pond, and people used to put it between
Speaker 1: two pieces of cloth and rub it to their eyes
Speaker 1: as a cure for weak eyes. Some people left the
Speaker 1: pieces of cloth on the briars beside the well, but
Speaker 1: others didn't as there was no saint associated with the well.
Speaker 2: So what there's no saint there to scold you into
Speaker 2: leaving the pieces of cloth on the briers beside the well,
Speaker 2: so you would just what's steal the cloth?
Speaker 1: I'm less sure about what they're getting at with that,
Speaker 1: but okay, it's hard for me to get past the
Speaker 1: idea that Okay, not only yes, are there tiny red
Speaker 1: worms in these thermal springs, but you also are going
Speaker 1: to essentially squeeze them into your eyeballs or something like that,
Speaker 1: something way too close to that to initially said, well
Speaker 1: with me.
Speaker 2: So you're what, You're squeezing out the little red worm
Speaker 2: juice into your eyes, and that cures their weakness.
Speaker 1: I guess, And it's maybe going through the cloth a
Speaker 1: little bit. I couldn't find much in the way of
Speaker 1: other references to that particular process, but still it seems
Speaker 1: to be the case that there are multiple accounts of
Speaker 1: the red worms here. So setting aside any actual curative
Speaker 1: effects of the worms, you know what might they be. Obviously,
Speaker 1: to live in such an environment, you need some matter
Speaker 1: of thermophile or extremomophile organism, and we know that there
Speaker 1: are plenty of examples of those sorts of organisms, creatures
Speaker 1: that are able to thrive in heated waters, for example.
Speaker 1: But I was looking around and there there are plenty
Speaker 1: of accounts of red worms and also things described as
Speaker 1: worms living in thermal spring environments around the world, with
Speaker 1: some certainly endemic to particular springs or immediate environments, and
Speaker 1: others more sort of widespread. For example, cet Brews and
Speaker 1: Animal Life in Hot Springs, published in nineteen twenty seven
Speaker 1: in the Quarterly Review of Biology. Rites of the blood
Speaker 1: worms that are found in particular waters understood at least
Speaker 1: by this author, to be the larval form of various midges,
Speaker 1: and that while they might occur in various waters, the
Speaker 1: author described having encountered them in a shallow thermal pool
Speaker 1: at yellow Stone National Park.
Speaker 2: Oh Okay, so it may so, this so called worm
Speaker 2: may have not been permanently a worm, but one of
Speaker 2: the stages of life of another organism, maybe the larval form,
Speaker 2: like a of a type of fly exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you can look up images of this like
Speaker 1: these are well documented. But they're yeah, they're not true worms.
Speaker 1: They have legs there, they're a larvae now there. But
Speaker 1: still that doesn't solve everything because there are also Sulfur
Speaker 1: cave worms to consider. There was a recent study of
Speaker 1: these creatures at Sulfur Cave and Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Thousands
Speaker 1: of these worms live in the waters there, and Aaron
Speaker 1: Scott at All for NPR described them as follows in
Speaker 1: September of twenty twenty two. Quote the worm blobs look
Speaker 1: like dark red sea an enemies wriggling in the stream bed.
Speaker 1: The individual worms are around one inch long, then is
Speaker 1: pencil led and live off the bacteria in the cave,
Speaker 1: which in turn lives off the sulfur. See that's already
Speaker 1: checking off some boxes there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, the worms in this case, dubbed LiMnO drillis sulfur insists,
Speaker 1: seem endemic to this particular thermal spring, but one of
Speaker 1: its relatives, LiMnO drillis Hoffman history, is also red in
Speaker 1: color and is very tough, able to live in polluted
Speaker 1: waters that other organisms can't handle. And it's very widespread
Speaker 1: and is found in Ireland.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so another candidate right right now. Interesting.
Speaker 1: In either case, the red coloration of the worm or
Speaker 1: larva is due to hemoglobin molecules in the organism. Both
Speaker 1: midge larva and in the worms in question here are
Speaker 1: sometimes called bloodworms. They're both referred to as bloodworms, and
Speaker 1: I found an article about this with the Missouri Department
Speaker 1: of Conservation pointing out, hey, if you're talking about blood worms,
Speaker 1: you might be talking about a larva. You might be
Speaker 1: talking about a particular type of worm.
Speaker 2: Both good for weak guys.
Speaker 1: In either case, though, I would say, don't go finding
Speaker 1: tiny red worms or larva and squeezing them into your eyeballs.
Speaker 1: I looked around to try to find any details on
Speaker 1: folk remedies or folk medicine traditions that involved squeezing red
Speaker 1: worms into your eyes and or in any way really
Speaker 1: using them medicinally, and I could not find anything. Granted,
Speaker 1: that's exactly the sort of thing that in some cases
Speaker 1: maybe lost to history.
Speaker 2: Though Yeah, I think there are tons of fulk remedies
Speaker 2: that never or only barely make it into print. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, I did run across one article concerning mysterious cattle
Speaker 1: diseases kind of a throwback to our Halloween episodes.
Speaker 2: Oh. I had to think for a second, but yes,
Speaker 2: in past October we did a couple of different livestock
Speaker 2: malady series. We did the stuff on the cattle mutilation
Speaker 2: panic of the nineteen seventies and on the traditional beliefs
Speaker 2: about elfshot, where people thought that the sort of subtle
Speaker 2: folk were using spiritual weapons to harm their livestock.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I found in this case, it was an article
Speaker 1: from nineteen fourteen titled the cattle disease called Canog and
Speaker 1: its traditional cure by amulets and charms, and this was
Speaker 1: by William F. D. Vismus Kane, published in the Journal
Speaker 1: of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland nineteen fourteen.
Speaker 1: So the author here notes that the actual symptoms of
Speaker 1: the disease vary, and it's basically one of these situations
Speaker 1: where you have kind of a catch all term that's
Speaker 1: referring to probably different ailments in different species, and at
Speaker 1: least in some cases it was attributed to some sort
Speaker 1: of biting insect, but also to the consumption of some
Speaker 1: sort of worm. Now the worm that is blamed, it
Speaker 1: seems like accounts vary. There's like one account saying it's
Speaker 1: some sort of a black worm, which obviously isn't what
Speaker 1: we're talking about here. But there's at least some cases
Speaker 1: where they refer to a tiny red worm as being
Speaker 1: a potential cause of the ailment. And so the author
Speaker 1: here is citing one of these accounts. There's a discussion
Speaker 1: of quote, a very small worm is red as scarlet
Speaker 1: and found in the height of summer and never found
Speaker 1: at the time of the year when the canog is seen.
Speaker 1: The sighted source indicates that the scarlet worm does not
Speaker 1: cause canog. Canog he stresses is treated via blood letting,
Speaker 1: But the illness caused by ingesting the scarlet worm is
Speaker 1: said to cause the head to swell, and then you
Speaker 1: cure it by reaching inside the cow's mouth and squeezing
Speaker 1: or popping a bladder that has grown at the root
Speaker 1: of the tongue. And I was just kind of nodding
Speaker 1: my head to this. I was like, Okay, I guess
Speaker 1: that's the thing that happens. But the author here cites
Speaker 1: a Professor Mason of Dublin quote, I think the scarlet
Speaker 1: tiny worm of the writer is with little doubt, the
Speaker 1: well known blood worm frequent in shallow water in summer,
Speaker 1: and is the larva of the cheronomus, a kind of
Speaker 1: crane fly, a perfectly noc with animal. And then Mason
Speaker 1: seems to just dismiss this bladder bursting cure as a
Speaker 1: quack cure, similar to one that was done by quack
Speaker 1: doctors that would cure an animal by bursting internal bladders
Speaker 1: on the spine. So some sort of, you know, some
Speaker 1: sort of like a fake healing technique. I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is a solid accusation that the professor is
Speaker 1: making or if there maybe there was some sort of
Speaker 1: folk remedy in play and some sort of like swelling
Speaker 1: on the back of the tongue. But Professor Mason seems
Speaker 1: to be saying like, no, no, no, that's just some
Speaker 1: quack trying to you know, cheat you out of a
Speaker 1: few coins by reaching down your cow's throat.
Speaker 2: So this might be more akin to curing your cattle
Speaker 2: of elf shop by having them like eat fairy crabs
Speaker 2: and then poking them with a special knife or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of interesting to think about again this paper,
Speaker 1: it deals in part with the use of amulets to
Speaker 1: cure mysterious ailments, but there are other ways to supernaturally
Speaker 1: address a particular ailment. Another note about the bloodworm midge larvae. Here,
Speaker 1: they're consumed all the time by trout so and I
Speaker 1: believe you can actually get them as bait as well.
Speaker 1: So perhaps some of our anglers out there have some
Speaker 1: experience with these blood.
Speaker 2: Worms floculent fly fishures let us know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they seem harmless. I think some people can
Speaker 1: have allergic reactions to them. I saw a twenty thirteen
Speaker 1: paper about this, but again I wasn't able to turn
Speaker 1: up anything about their use in folk medicine, or the
Speaker 1: use of the other type of organism that is sometimes
Speaker 1: referred to as a bloodworm having any kind of role
Speaker 1: in folk medicine. So again, don't go squirting worms into
Speaker 1: your eyes. But I think it is fascinating because we
Speaker 1: have a situation here where, yeah, there's the more traditional
Speaker 1: sort of sulfur springs scenario going on, but then this
Speaker 1: added level of, oh, there's something about the things that
Speaker 1: live in the spring water, there's something about the organisms
Speaker 1: in it that have some reputed beneficial health effect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I certainly haven't read anything about that in
Speaker 2: the ancient Roman context or anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it did end up reminding me of another
Speaker 1: example of supposed therapeutic waters with organisms that live in them,
Speaker 1: in which in cases where at least some traditions value
Speaker 1: the presence of the organisms themselves, which leads us to
Speaker 1: the world of fish. So, and some of you may
Speaker 1: know exactly where this is going, But my earliest exposure
Speaker 1: to anything out there about this about there being fish
Speaker 1: in therapeutic waters and the fish or the therapeutic part
Speaker 1: of the immersion experience. I mean, the most I think
Speaker 1: that it ever happened is I've maybe been occasionally nibbled
Speaker 1: by a fish in a lake or at the beach.
Speaker 1: But back in two thousand and nine, my wife and
Speaker 1: I visited Arawona National Park in Thailand and toward Erawan Falls.
Speaker 1: These are beautiful waters, So basically you have just like
Speaker 1: a whole system of waterfalls with these very clear pools
Speaker 1: in between them that have kind of like this blue appearance,
Speaker 1: very beautiful, and there are fish in those pools, and
Speaker 1: you were encouraged to, you know, come up, dip your feet,
Speaker 1: take your shoes off, get your feet in those waters,
Speaker 1: and then the fish will come up and nibble on
Speaker 1: the dead skin of your feet, which tickles.
Speaker 2: But in some cases you're saying, some people believe there
Speaker 2: to be health consequences of this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Right right now, I don't know specifically about the tie scenario,
Speaker 1: if there if there's any kind of like traditional thaie
Speaker 1: medicinal understanding of these fish. If memory serves the guides
Speaker 1: on this particular trip, they just made reference to it
Speaker 1: being a pedicure. I don't remember there being any kind
Speaker 1: of medical argument made for it. But I know this
Speaker 1: is probably ringing about with a number of people out
Speaker 1: there because there is this wider spread use of supposed
Speaker 1: fish pedicure services, where you've got go to some sort
Speaker 1: of a pedicure business and you will put your feet
Speaker 1: into a tank that has fish in it, and the
Speaker 1: fish will eat the dead skin off your feet.
Speaker 2: Once again, it seems like a thing that's unusual and
Speaker 2: interesting enough that a lot of people, I bet would
Speaker 2: do it just for the novel experience, even if it
Speaker 2: doesn't do much better than a pumice stone for getting
Speaker 2: dead skin off your foot.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, I'm not sure exactly what species of fish
Speaker 1: this was that I encountered in Thailand. Again, it's a
Speaker 1: while back, and I didn't take notes at the time.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if they mentioned a specific species, but
Speaker 1: I see some references online and these are like not
Speaker 1: papers or anything, but just like reviews and so forth,
Speaker 1: referring to it being a gara rufa or a gara rufa.
Speaker 1: I guess more accurately, And this is a particular This
Speaker 1: is the fish that is often encountered in these supposed
Speaker 1: fish pedicure services that you'll encounter some places. They're illegal
Speaker 1: in some places, and I'm not recommending you go out
Speaker 1: and try them. And we'll come back to why in
Speaker 1: a minute here, But yeah, I saw some references to
Speaker 1: it being this Gara rufa, but those are at least
Speaker 1: I understand to be native to Western Asia, and I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if this could be a situation where they
Speaker 1: could potentially even be invasive there, because I was reading
Speaker 1: on the US Fish and Wildlife Service website that they're
Speaker 1: rated as like a low uncertain invasive risk. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if this could even conceivably be the
Speaker 1: same species, But research indicates that there are definitely are
Speaker 1: other Gara species, and there are Gara species in Thailand.
Speaker 1: There are at least three. There's one that's called Gara
Speaker 1: Fluvia tillis, and this seems to reside in the same
Speaker 1: general area that I'm talking about here. So if I
Speaker 1: had to just guess at all of this and we
Speaker 1: ultimately all this is would be a gas based on
Speaker 1: some of the things I was reading, I would say
Speaker 1: maybe it's that species, but I just don't know for sure.
Speaker 1: But the gar Ufa has certainly traveled around the globe
Speaker 1: via the fish pedicure industry, and I know a number
Speaker 1: of you have probably caught wind of this one way
Speaker 1: or another. The idea being that you go to this business,
Speaker 1: to a business, you immerse your feet into a tank
Speaker 1: full of these fish, and they nibble away at the
Speaker 1: dead skin on your feet, like revealing like a brighter
Speaker 1: or more vibrant skin.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I thought you were going to
Speaker 2: say the face of God.
Speaker 1: You know, it's we talked many and we've just spoken
Speaker 1: many times on the show about situations where there's some
Speaker 1: sort of like especially in oceanic environments, where there's some
Speaker 1: sort of a grooming species that helps out another animal.
Speaker 1: I mean, most recently we talked about the whale lice
Speaker 1: on whales and how they're essentially doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: But to be clear, when we're talking about it being
Speaker 1: a pedicure service that you're encountering like in a tank
Speaker 1: under a table, that is not a natural environment scenario.
Speaker 1: This is a very augmented scenario, and there are various
Speaker 1: issues to be had with it. Yeah, definitely, Yeah, on
Speaker 1: one hand, potential sanitation concerns, but then also ethical concerns
Speaker 1: as well concerning the fish. And as a result, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's banned in many places. So yes, there are other garafish,
Speaker 1: but the Gara rufa is native to the Middle East,
Speaker 1: particularly parts of Jordan, Syria, and Turkey, and in the
Speaker 1: wild they feed on detritus, algae and tiny animals, but
Speaker 1: in the absence of better food sources, they will feed
Speaker 1: on dead skin. So the alleged origin of the fish
Speaker 1: pedicure is most in most of the literature we're looking
Speaker 1: at is the Kangle hot spring in Turkey. Now, again
Speaker 1: we're talking about hots in an area long known to
Speaker 1: human beings, so it's likely that these springs were known
Speaker 1: and utilized for all the reasons humans have visited thermal
Speaker 1: springs throughout their history. And while the fish were certainly here,
Speaker 1: they were certainly present in this location. It seems things
Speaker 1: have changed in the last one hundred years or so,
Speaker 1: one hundred years plus. So there's a two thousand and
Speaker 1: seven Scientific American paper. This is one I think you
Speaker 1: turned up and sent me Joe, titled fish that Go
Speaker 1: Skin Deep. And I guess it's not so much an article.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a short bit.
Speaker 2: It was just a short, little snippet article, but it
Speaker 2: had a very interesting detail in it.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it adds a little bit of historical detail
Speaker 1: that I was having trouble finding in other studies quote
Speaker 1: these fish have acquired a taste for humans, largely because
Speaker 1: they have little choice. The spring is too hot to
Speaker 1: sustain enough algae and plankedon to feed them all. In
Speaker 1: the past, the fish were able to move between the
Speaker 1: spring and a creek that runs nearby, but after learning
Speaker 1: of a story about a local shepherd who's wounded legs
Speaker 1: healed after being dipped into the spring in nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: builders walled off the spring from the creek. In the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties to preserve a captive school. A Turkish family
Speaker 1: has now constructed a hotel, villas and a playground, and
Speaker 1: markets the resort to Sorias's patients.
Speaker 2: Now, I came across this short Siam article because we
Speaker 2: were looking at papers that seem to be focused on
Speaker 2: the question of is this treatment actually effective or not
Speaker 2: for pariasis. It seems obviously this is a form of
Speaker 2: alternative medicine. So I don't know if I have an
Speaker 2: opinion or not on whether there's any evidence this is
Speaker 2: actually useful for siriasis. I guess I would have my doubts.
Speaker 2: But the fascinating thing to me was the thing about
Speaker 2: like enclosing this fish population that used to go back
Speaker 2: and forth, but apparently now is stuck in the pool.
Speaker 1: Yes, and would otherwise maybe not eat dead skin off
Speaker 1: of people's feet, but given that it is an altered environment,
Speaker 1: they are encouraged to do so due to the lack
Speaker 1: of other food sources. Still, I think the basic scenario
Speaker 1: here wrote what it reveals about the natural environment that
Speaker 1: has been augmented. This does kind of line up with
Speaker 1: the Thailand scenario where again, in that Thailand scenario you
Speaker 1: had various clear pools that were connected by multiple cascading waterfalls.
Speaker 1: So sort of these kind of like traps of small
Speaker 1: aquatic habitats that are connected. But you can see why
Speaker 1: you might end up with the population of fish in
Speaker 1: a given pool that are hungry, that have maybe exhausted
Speaker 1: what they can eat, and are then happy to check
Speaker 1: out anything that is introduced. So advocates of this treatment
Speaker 1: sometimes called ichthiotherapy, they toubt it is either a general
Speaker 1: cosmetic pedicure sort of procedure or is a treatment for
Speaker 1: skin ailments such assiriasis. Again, we're not going to weigh
Speaker 1: in too much on the ups and downs of this.
Speaker 1: This is getting into the area of alternative medicine. But
Speaker 1: certainly when you're dealing with the fish take environment version
Speaker 1: of it, there are some definite reasons to stay clear
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 1: In both of these cases, we have the blood worms,
Speaker 1: we have these little fish that nipple at your toes.
Speaker 1: These are both situations where we have spring waters that
Speaker 1: are noted for their health benefits in part or entirely
Speaker 1: due to the organisms that live in them, the animals
Speaker 1: that live in them. And I think it leads at
Speaker 1: least worth noting that thermal springs continue to be of
Speaker 1: interest to scientists because of potential extremophile organisms that might
Speaker 1: live there that also might reveal some sort of unique
Speaker 1: antibiotic discoveries. Though I don't think this is the sort
Speaker 1: of thing that they merely bathing in the waters would unlock.
Speaker 2: For a person, right. It would be more that, like
Speaker 2: the organisms there are useful for research on antibiotics, not
Speaker 2: that like you going to cure your diseases, but just
Speaker 2: by getting in the water.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that I don't think anybody's making those claims. But
Speaker 1: then against the exact sort of claims that could end
Speaker 1: up being made about a given spring, like bathe in
Speaker 1: the extremophile waters of extremophile springs, unlock the unknown antibiotics
Speaker 1: for your own well being, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Well, the hot spring blood worms and the hot spring fish.
Speaker 2: I did not imagine this at all as an angle
Speaker 2: we would end up going down. But this has been fascinating,
Speaker 2: and our series on the Healing Waters will have to
Speaker 2: continue with at least one more episode, maybe a couple
Speaker 2: more next week. There's a lot more interesting stuff to
Speaker 2: talk about, of course, with a lot of the alleged
Speaker 2: cures we've been talking about up to this point, probably
Speaker 2: the majority of them. If there was an effect, it
Speaker 2: may have been a placebo effect, but there may actually
Speaker 2: be some cases where there's pretty good evidence of balneotherapy
Speaker 2: of various kinds, even in particular spring waters, having an actual,
Speaker 2: direct mechanistic effect on healing certain illnesses. And if that
Speaker 2: is the case, we're gonna talk about some examples of
Speaker 2: that next time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so be sure to join us for that discussion.
Speaker 1: There's more strange stuff in the Healing waters.
Speaker 2: It'll be floculent, yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, don't drink the floculent waters.
Speaker 2: Don't drink the bathwater. All right.
Speaker 1: Well, as we close out here, to want to remind
Speaker 1: everybody that our core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: You'll find them on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind podcast feed. On Mondays, we do
Speaker 1: listener mail, on Wednesdays we do a short form artifactor
Speaker 1: Month to Factor, and on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: That's our time to set aside most serious concerns and
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird film.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to our audio producer JJ Posway. If you
Speaker 2: would like to get in touch with us with feedback
Speaker 2: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic
Speaker 2: for the future, or just to say hello, you can
Speaker 2: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
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