Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2: And I am Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. We're going
Speaker 2: into the vault. Going down to the vault. This is
Speaker 2: part four of our series called The Washing of the Waters.
Speaker 2: This episode originally published on March twenty third, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: and I think it closes out this series, so we
Speaker 2: hope you enjoy.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert.
Speaker 2: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with the
Speaker 2: fourth and final part of our series on the Healing Waters,
Speaker 2: the belief held by many throughout history that you could
Speaker 2: cure your illnesses and improve your health by bathing or
Speaker 2: immersing yourself in water, often water with special properties, maybe
Speaker 2: water of a certain temperature like hot baths or cold baths,
Speaker 2: or water from a special source such as a particular
Speaker 2: warm mineral spring. Now. In previous episodes, as a brief refresher,
Speaker 2: we talked about the prehistoric emergence of bathing culture and
Speaker 2: the ancient religious associations between bathing and spiritual purity in
Speaker 2: the realm of healing. We talked about ancient Greek and
Speaker 2: Roman theories of medicine, such as humoral theory, which sometimes
Speaker 2: had the consequence of recommending bathing as a cure for
Speaker 2: all sorts of health problems, and we also talked about
Speaker 2: the importance of baths and spas in the culture and
Speaker 2: civic infrastructure of the Roman Empire. We discussed some interesting
Speaker 2: and strange examples of spas with alleged healing powers that
Speaker 2: contain living organisms such as blood worms or fish, that
Speaker 2: are themselves thought to in some way be a mechanism
Speaker 2: of healing. And in the episode just previous to this one,
Speaker 2: we discussed and I thought fascinating medical history paper from
Speaker 2: a few decades back analyzing records of treatment that made
Speaker 2: use of the thermal waters of Bath, England, and this
Speaker 2: paper argued that while yeah, most of the conditions people
Speaker 2: thought could be cured by bathing in hot springs throughout
Speaker 2: history were probably just benefiting from the placebo effect, there
Speaker 2: is pretty decent evidence for thinking that the immersion treatments
Speaker 2: at Bath were genuinely directly effective at curing paralysis caused
Speaker 2: by chronic lead poisoning. Because according to the author, sitting
Speaker 2: up to your neck in warm water increases the rate
Speaker 2: in which your body purges lead content through urine. Anyway,
Speaker 2: after all that, we're back today to finish off this
Speaker 2: series with a few more interesting tidbits. Now, one of
Speaker 2: the things I did want to briefly talk about is
Speaker 2: that a lot of the mineral springs with alleged healing
Speaker 2: powers that we've mentioned so far have been in places
Speaker 2: that were formerly part of the Roman Empire. And I
Speaker 2: think this should not be surprising, given the importance of
Speaker 2: bathing in Roman culture in general, but especially in the
Speaker 2: Greek and Roman theories of medicine we discussed in the
Speaker 2: previous parts of the series, and in fact you can
Speaker 2: still see the lingering effects of this. There are alleged
Speaker 2: healing spas all throughout Europe that go way way back
Speaker 2: that can be traced back to Roman times. But I
Speaker 2: don't think we should assume that the association of some
Speaker 2: forms of bathing with healing is just like an odd
Speaker 2: unique belief contingent on some amount of Roman cultural heritage,
Speaker 2: because I think it seems that people in many places
Speaker 2: around the world, at various times, have come to think
Speaker 2: that they can be healed by bathing, by bathing in
Speaker 2: general or through the specific waters of some particular mineral spring.
Speaker 2: And so you can find examples of this from around
Speaker 2: the world. There was one that I ended up doing
Speaker 2: kind of a deep dive on. I was reading about
Speaker 2: the Kittigata Hot Springs of Uganda. So the Kittigata Hot
Speaker 2: Springs are They're a system of geothermal springs in southwest Uganda.
Speaker 2: I've seen the name Kittygata translated as both warm water
Speaker 2: and as warm place or good place. And there is
Speaker 2: a town of the same name located about two kilometers
Speaker 2: northwest of the springs. And these waters are said to
Speaker 2: collect in two side by side pools, and they are
Speaker 2: believed by many to have healing properties, so much so
Speaker 2: that they are or at least they were, as of
Speaker 2: the sources I was reading, which were some Uganda newspaper
Speaker 2: articles from roughly ten years ago or so. At that time,
Speaker 2: they were being visited by hundreds of people every day,
Speaker 2: both locals and tourists, tourists from within Uganda and tourists internationally.
Speaker 2: And I was reading about the springs in a series
Speaker 2: of articles from a Ugandan English language newspaper called new Vision,
Speaker 2: which is based out of Kampala. So one of the
Speaker 2: articles is called the Healing Hot Springs. It was published
Speaker 2: in February twenty fourteen by Chris Mugasha. And in this
Speaker 2: article the author actually describes a visit he had to
Speaker 2: the springs and describes some basic facts about them and
Speaker 2: sort of how they're used by the people. So Rabbi
Speaker 2: attached them pictures of the Kiddy Gotta Springs. You can
Speaker 2: see that they are surrounded by some very interesting rock formations.
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly what sort of geology forms the
Speaker 2: rocks like this, but you can see that all around
Speaker 2: the pools there are these strange, beautiful, interesting kind of
Speaker 2: like crags poking up in all directions.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, the sense of the rocks being burst
Speaker 1: out by swelling from beneath.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, according to Mugasha's article here, the springs are
Speaker 2: divided into a section that's used by men, and then
Speaker 2: a section used by women and children. And then also
Speaker 2: there are some people who don't actually want to stay
Speaker 2: and bathe in person with everybody else. And he says
Speaker 2: they bring jerry cans and fill them up with hot
Speaker 2: spring water to carry back home, and the thermal pools
Speaker 2: also vary by temperature. There's one area that apparently has
Speaker 2: comfortably warm water, while the other has water that the
Speaker 2: author describes as hot enough to prepare porridge or cook
Speaker 2: an egg.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a feature of various hot springs that
Speaker 1: I was reading about, just because as the hot spring
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you can or should get into it. There's
Speaker 1: some very dangerous hot springs out there in the world,
Speaker 1: and you should definitely obey any signage or rules and
Speaker 1: regulations surrounding them. But then there are also plenty of
Speaker 1: complexes where if you know the right place to go
Speaker 1: in a spring complex, then you'll be all right because
Speaker 1: that's where the water will be warm and not hot
Speaker 1: enough to cook eggs.
Speaker 2: Right, And it seemed from what I was reading that
Speaker 2: the area with water hot enough to cook an egg
Speaker 2: may still be used for some things, but I doubt
Speaker 2: people are like getting in in that water and hanging
Speaker 2: out there for a long time, because you don't want
Speaker 2: to be the egg.
Speaker 1: Though this is in this topic, this is not something
Speaker 1: I researched, but this might be something we might have
Speaker 1: to put a pin in to come back to in
Speaker 1: discussing like the history of cooking, you know, because we've
Speaker 1: talked about the importance of natural springs, both hot and cold,
Speaker 1: to ancient peoples. I wonder how this factors or doesn't
Speaker 1: factor into the history of boiling as a cooking method.
Speaker 2: I have no idea, but that is an interesting question. Yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe before we had fire, did anybody ever try to
Speaker 2: like boil their food in a hot spring? I don't
Speaker 2: know what evidence of that there would be left over.
Speaker 1: If they did. Yeah, that would be the thing, right anyway.
Speaker 2: So the author here says that people visit the springs
Speaker 2: for multiple reasons. So some people it's it seems to
Speaker 2: be just recreational. People come for pleasure and relaxation and
Speaker 2: the hot waters. Maybe they come after work to chill out,
Speaker 2: or they come to admire the area's natural beauty. But
Speaker 2: he says that the majority of people there are looking
Speaker 2: for healing of some kind. And an earlier article in
Speaker 2: the same newspaper I read in New Vision. This article
Speaker 2: was by Ali Wasswa from August twenty thirteen, mentions people
Speaker 2: coming to the springs hoping for cures to a wide
Speaker 2: range of health issues, both minor and severe. So this
Speaker 2: includes everything from acne to cancer and While many people
Speaker 2: claim to have experienced improvements after bathing in the water,
Speaker 2: Wasswa's article cites some doubts about the efficacy of these
Speaker 2: cures from a researcher named Moses Kakaya who was affiliated
Speaker 2: with an organization called Save for Health Uganda that appears
Speaker 2: to be a Ugandan public health Inngo, and the article
Speaker 2: says that this team investigated the springs and said they
Speaker 2: found the waters had no special healing properties. Mugasha's article
Speaker 2: mentions that to the extent the waters do have any
Speaker 2: healing properties, if they do, those could possibly be based
Speaker 2: in specific mineral contents of the water. We've discussed some
Speaker 2: possibilities of those kinds with other springs, but also the
Speaker 2: claims of healing could simply be from the heat of
Speaker 2: the water, feeling good, alleviating pain and swollen joints and
Speaker 2: things like that, or just from easing stress, you know,
Speaker 2: helping people relax and other quote psychotherapeutic effects. Now, this
Speaker 2: article and another article also by Mugasha from the month
Speaker 2: before mention threats to the springs, which is something I
Speaker 2: think we haven't really thought about that much yet, but
Speaker 2: that hot springs are not necessarily an eternal phenomenon or
Speaker 2: even a semi eternal phenomenon, because even though they are
Speaker 2: heated by the rocks from deep down below they you know,
Speaker 2: they still are subject to hydrodynamic effects and so like
Speaker 2: changes of what's going on where water drains, where water
Speaker 2: goes can affect how a hot spring works. And so
Speaker 2: these two articles mention some threat to the springs. So
Speaker 2: the article from a month before by the same author
Speaker 2: reports complaints from locals that construction from a nearby highway
Speaker 2: has had negative effects on the springs. Basically, it seems
Speaker 2: that they're claiming water from a nearby wetland system was
Speaker 2: diverted because of roadwork and this has led to flooding
Speaker 2: of the spring. And of course flooding of the spring
Speaker 2: is like mixing water from other sources, which causes the
Speaker 2: water to become tepid.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to travel to a tepid spring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the later article by Mugasha also mentions changes
Speaker 2: in weather patterns due to climate change possibly having an
Speaker 2: effect because changing rain patterns mean that the increased flooding
Speaker 2: of the nearby river also means that it runs over
Speaker 2: into the spring, and this results. I think if I'm
Speaker 2: understanding right once again with the river water coming into
Speaker 2: the spring water and you know, kind of like diluting it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely to your point of these springs like those
Speaker 1: are environmental conditions and they can be altered either intentionally
Speaker 1: or accidentally exactly.
Speaker 2: And so this article describes people who were local people
Speaker 2: who were trying to protect the spring having to like
Speaker 2: stack up essentially sort of sandbags, like bags of gravel
Speaker 2: to try to block the flow, the inflow of water
Speaker 2: from other sources into the spring.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: Now I was trying to find a scientific paper directly
Speaker 2: testing the alleged healing properties of this spring in particular
Speaker 2: because again, you know, one of the articles mentions an
Speaker 2: investigation by that Ugandan public Health NGO about its medical properties.
Speaker 2: I didn't come across anything, so I can't comment with
Speaker 2: any confidence about whether these springs would have any health
Speaker 2: effects other than placebo. But especially since that paper we
Speaker 2: read in the last episode arguing that that SPA therapy
Speaker 2: could have actual effects on chronic lead poisoning in particular,
Speaker 2: and again that was the art, was that it worked
Speaker 2: by increasing the rate at which lad as purge from
Speaker 2: the body through urine. I wonder, you know, I wonder
Speaker 2: if there are other conditions where people might be getting
Speaker 2: some health improvements through a surprising mechanism other than just maybe, say,
Speaker 2: you know, the very real effects of relaxing in nice
Speaker 2: warm water.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you always have to at least keep the door
Speaker 1: open to such a possibility, even if in many cases
Speaker 1: it seems perhaps unlikely based on what we understand currently. Now,
Speaker 1: as long as we're speaking about, you know, other international
Speaker 1: examples of healing waters, I felt like we should at
Speaker 1: least acknowledge that the River Ganges in India and Bangladesh
Speaker 1: has long been held as a traditional place of healing
Speaker 1: via immersion. Again, not a natural you know, spring, hot
Speaker 1: spring and could spring, et cetera, but a great river.
Speaker 2: Yeah. This is actually a subtopic that I became very
Speaker 2: interested in when we first started looking at the series.
Speaker 2: But then I got kind of overwhelmed, and I like, oh,
Speaker 2: it seems like the Ganges would have to be an
Speaker 2: entire series on its own.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, there's just so much to it. You've got
Speaker 1: glacier snow and permafrost melt. You've got discussions of supposedly
Speaker 1: beneficial bacteriophages, antibiotic resistant bacteria that are not beneficial. Then
Speaker 1: you have to deal with topics such as pollution as
Speaker 1: well as all of this on top of a rich
Speaker 1: tradition of religious significance. So yeah, I think it's something
Speaker 1: we'd have to come back to and cover in more
Speaker 1: depth in the future. But at the same time, we
Speaker 1: didn't want to give the impression that we were just
Speaker 1: overlooking it right now. Another example of spring and spa
Speaker 1: culture I wanted to bring up, just briefly, is, of
Speaker 1: course Japan. Japan has a very rich tradition of spas
Speaker 1: and thermal springs, and I believe we previously alluded to
Speaker 1: the Japanese macaques who famously immersed themselves in hot springs
Speaker 1: and also do so communally. So that's a great example
Speaker 1: non human primates engaging in this very activity that humans
Speaker 1: have enjoyed for so long. So I've read that they're
Speaker 1: somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty five thousand hot spring
Speaker 1: sources or on sen throughout Japan. I got an email
Speaker 1: recently about a tour of hot springs in Japan eighteen
Speaker 1: days long. Looked amazing, but just you know, it basically
Speaker 1: shows that, yeah, you can travel to Japan and largely
Speaker 1: just do hot springs and it'll be enough to fill
Speaker 1: eighteen days worth of travel. Now, one in particular that
Speaker 1: I thought was pretty interesting, and I have to stress
Speaker 1: this is not actually an example of a spring system
Speaker 1: where you can do much or really any bathing. But
Speaker 1: it's called Chinoki Jigoku, and it's in Bepou, Japan. And
Speaker 1: here you'll find the aid Hells of Bepu. I think
Speaker 1: I've sometimes seen the count of seven, but I believe
Speaker 1: eight is the right count. There's and these are translated,
Speaker 1: of course from the Japanese. There's sea hell, white pond hell,
Speaker 1: devil mountain hell, mountain Hell, alligator hell, cooking pot hell,
Speaker 1: which this is actually the case cooking pod hell. These
Speaker 1: are all thermal springs and is the and as the
Speaker 1: name implies, many of them are really hot. Cooking pot
Speaker 1: hell is where you can actually cook food, and there
Speaker 1: there's a long standing tradition of cooking food in this
Speaker 1: particular thermal spring. There's tornado Hell, and then there is
Speaker 1: blood pond hell or bloody hell. Pond.
Speaker 2: Is it red?
Speaker 1: It is very red. Yeah, you can look up pictures
Speaker 1: of this. It's it's it's too hot to get into.
Speaker 1: It's it's basically hot enough to cook food in itself.
Speaker 1: It has a deep red color that I believe is
Speaker 1: due to both like clay content and iron oxide.
Speaker 2: I would have assumed red bacteria.
Speaker 1: All of these these hells, all these ponds, these are
Speaker 1: tourist destinations. You can go and visit them, and I
Speaker 1: think they have if I'm understanding correctly from the information
Speaker 1: I was looking at, they have smaller pools for like
Speaker 1: soaking your feet in as a visitor. So even though
Speaker 1: you can't stick your feet directly into many of these hells,
Speaker 1: and I think Alligator hell As actually has alligators in it,
Speaker 1: and you don't want to stick your feet in there either,
Speaker 1: But at any rate, they do have some smaller pools
Speaker 1: that I guess are fed or partially fed by the
Speaker 1: actual spring waters that you can get your feet wet in.
Speaker 2: I had no idea that were alligators in Japan.
Speaker 1: They might be important. I'm not sure what their status is.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, they're definitely alligators here, no matter where they
Speaker 1: came from. I don't care.
Speaker 2: Where your alligators come from. I just want there to
Speaker 2: be alligators. They've got to be alligators in Alligator hell.
Speaker 1: Yes, I believe they come through on that front. All right, well,
Speaker 1: let's get back into the healing waters though away from
Speaker 1: the alligator waters and the egg boiling waters. So we've
Speaker 1: already talked a bit in these episodes of about traditional
Speaker 1: healing waters potentially having something specific in them, something in
Speaker 1: the contents of the waters that enable healing in human bathers.
Speaker 1: And in some cases these springs end up having something
Speaker 1: in them that in some cases where a particular element
Speaker 1: in the water is also utilized in modern medical treatments
Speaker 1: one way or the other. So it's tempting to wonder, well,
Speaker 1: if these springs maybe offer the same benefits for those
Speaker 1: who simply immerse themselves in the water or drink of
Speaker 1: the waters.
Speaker 2: Okay, so not that this would happen, but for example,
Speaker 2: it would be like, you know, a seedaminifen is the
Speaker 2: is the active ingredient in thaileanol, And then maybe we discover, oh,
Speaker 2: there is a spring that naturally has a seedamenifen content
Speaker 2: in it, and you wonder if we're people like getting
Speaker 2: their pretailenol thailanol from this spring.
Speaker 1: Well, that would that would be a bad idea for
Speaker 1: number obvious reasons there, thinking about you know, controlled dosages
Speaker 1: of something in a general medication versus how much are
Speaker 1: you getting out of the water, how much you can
Speaker 1: if you're drinking it or potentially absorbing it through your skin.
Speaker 2: Yes, calibration of dosage would would seem to be a
Speaker 2: big problem with this, So.
Speaker 1: So definitely something to keep in mind as we go
Speaker 1: into a couple of specific examples, and I think they're
Speaker 1: both pretty fun specific examples too, in that they both
Speaker 1: have connections to our home state of Georgia. Here in
Speaker 1: the United States, we don't often get to cover things
Speaker 1: that are that are present in Georgia or Georgia history.
Speaker 1: So we're going to start with lithia water. This is
Speaker 1: mineral water marked by the presence of lithium salts. Now,
Speaker 1: to be clear, most of what we're talking about with
Speaker 1: lithia water concerns its consumption, though I have read that
Speaker 1: sweet Water Park Hotel this is a luxury resort which
Speaker 1: operated in Lithiu's Rings, Georgia during the heyday of lithium
Speaker 1: water tourism. In Georgia's Douglas County also offered lithia vapor bats,
Speaker 1: which we're said to be very popular. I included an
Speaker 1: old illustration of what this I guess may have consisted
Speaker 1: of for you here, Joe.
Speaker 2: Okay, so what we're looking at here up here to
Speaker 2: be wooden boxes in which men are situated with their
Speaker 2: heads poking out of a hole in a wooden plank,
Speaker 2: so it's like they're in a pillory, but well, I
Speaker 2: guess without the wrists poking out, so it's just the
Speaker 2: head poking out of the pillory. And then there is
Speaker 2: steam shooting out of the edges of the box, so
Speaker 2: you can you can tell it must be quite warm
Speaker 2: and moist on the inside.
Speaker 1: Yes, now none of this is going on today, but
Speaker 1: I don't know. Do you ever make it up to
Speaker 1: Sweetwater Creek State Park, Joe, this is the same area.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a great place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, beautiful, beautiful place. But back in the day, back
Speaker 1: at the like the the end of the eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: beginning of the nineteen hundreds, this was a very popular
Speaker 1: destination for well to do folks such as the Vanderbilts
Speaker 1: such as Mark Twain. This particular Sweetwater Park Hotel was
Speaker 1: again luxury resort. People came from all over to partake
Speaker 1: of the of the healing powers of Lithia waters. The
Speaker 1: hotel burned down in nineteen twelve, so you know it's
Speaker 1: not even there as a historical location anymore.
Speaker 2: This is funny that you mentioned Mark Twain, because he
Speaker 2: also came up in a in a research tangent that
Speaker 2: I ended up not including. But he he wrote a
Speaker 2: piece about a place like a spa. He went to
Speaker 2: somewhere in Europe. I think it was in France, and
Speaker 2: it's called I don't even know how to pronounce the
Speaker 2: name of this place. The name it was called ai X.
Speaker 2: Do you know how you say that?
Speaker 1: I do not.
Speaker 2: Let's call it I. He went to I in I
Speaker 2: think it's France, and he wrote a piece about it
Speaker 2: called I Paradise of the Rheumattics. So I guess Twain
Speaker 2: was into veryvarious kinds of like hot wet healing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and he was very well traveled for the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I was reading a little bit more about this
Speaker 1: whole fad around lithio waters, and I was reading a
Speaker 1: paper titled Lithium Treatment in Clinical Medicine History, Current Status
Speaker 1: in Future Use, published in the Journal of Cell Science
Speaker 1: and Therapy in twenty seventeen by Duval and Galachio. And
Speaker 1: this was interesting point out that lithia water became a
Speaker 1: health fad around eighteen fifty and was especially big and
Speaker 1: again the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. It
Speaker 1: was thought to treat gout, anxiety, various nervous conditions, and
Speaker 1: a whole slew of other ailments. So a similar situation
Speaker 1: that we found, you know, discussing any of these healing waters.
Speaker 1: What does it treat? Well? What you got going on? Right?
Speaker 2: A lot of things. So it's interesting they mentioned gout
Speaker 2: because that did come up in the paper about Bath,
Speaker 2: specifically as one of the lead poisoning associated conditions that
Speaker 2: the physicians at Bath thought could be cured by long
Speaker 2: periods of immersion. But another thing about gout at Bath
Speaker 2: was one of the purposes of like recording all this
Speaker 2: data at the charity hospital there to say, you know,
Speaker 2: we really can prove that these waters are providing a benefit,
Speaker 2: was to try to attract rich patients who had gout.
Speaker 1: Well. It is often referred to as the disease of kings, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: disease of the upper class clientele. Yeah. Now, the author's
Speaker 1: note here that though even though there was you know,
Speaker 1: this boom in Lithia water and the healing powers of lithium.
Speaker 1: The authors know that there was almost no mention of
Speaker 1: lithium in psychiatry papers of the time, so bottling lithia
Speaker 1: waters became big business. But it took a serious dive
Speaker 1: in the US when the US government got involved. So
Speaker 1: the US Bureau of Chemistry, this was a precursor to
Speaker 1: the FDA. They examined the waters on the market, the
Speaker 1: lithio waters, and there was lithio waters coming from Lithium
Speaker 1: springs and Georgia, but also from other places. And they
Speaker 1: tested these waters out and they found that they contained
Speaker 1: little to know lithium, and it was concluded that whatever
Speaker 1: results people were experiencing were mainly due to just drinking water.
Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which kind of goes back to what we were
Speaker 1: talking about earlier, like earlier in the last episode, like
Speaker 1: even if the treatment itself is doing nothing else, then
Speaker 1: perhaps you're drinking more water than usual, you're drinking less
Speaker 1: beer or what have you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So when this happened, when the US Bureau of
Speaker 1: Chemistry chimed in, well lithium proponents, they pivoted more to
Speaker 1: the use of lithium tablets, which the authors here point
Speaker 1: out could be properly measured, you know, you could be
Speaker 1: a little more certain about how much lithium you're giving people.
Speaker 1: But then there was kind of like a power creep
Speaker 1: with the lithium tablets. The concentrations increased and the dangers
Speaker 1: of lithium toxicity became more appair, all while the actual
Speaker 1: therapeutic properties of lithium consumption seemed just unverifiable. So therapeutic
Speaker 1: use of lithium eventually just went out of fashion. I
Speaker 1: found a couple of the original scathing reviews of lithio
Speaker 1: water from the time period collected in The Checkered History
Speaker 1: of Lithium and Medicine by Stroe, Bush and Jefferson in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties Pharmacy and History, Volume twenty two, number two.
Speaker 2: Let's hear these reviews.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they're good, so the US Bureau of Chemistry
Speaker 1: said at the time, in a review by Charles Harrington, MD. Quote,
Speaker 1: this water claims to be a cure for almost all
Speaker 1: ills to which flesh is air, and to contain over
Speaker 1: fourteen grains of lithium salts per gallon. It proves to
Speaker 1: be an exceedingly hard water, practically free from organic matter,
Speaker 1: absolutely free from lithia, but rich and undesirable lime salts.
Speaker 2: Priceless.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really brings the hammer down. And then there's
Speaker 1: another case. The Supreme Court of the District of Columbia
Speaker 1: had this to say concerning waters from Buffalo Lithia Springs,
Speaker 1: Virginia at the time. Quote, for a person to obtain
Speaker 1: a therapeutic dose of lithium by drinking Buffalo lithia water,
Speaker 1: he would have to drink from one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand to two hundred and twenty five thousand gallons of
Speaker 1: water per day. It was further testified without contradiction that
Speaker 1: Potomac River water contains five times as much lithium per
Speaker 1: gallon as the water in controversy.
Speaker 2: Oh amazing. So like, the one thing you can be
Speaker 2: sure about with lithium water is that it doesn't really
Speaker 2: have any lithium.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Again, these were these were the findings at the time.
Speaker 2: Now, it's interesting that you mentioned lithium went out of
Speaker 2: fashion as a health treatment or a mood treatment, because
Speaker 2: while I'm certainly not on the cutting edge of a psychopharmacology,
Speaker 2: I do believe that lithium has been used in the
Speaker 2: modern era as a psychiatric treeatment, hasn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, And that's the thing that I guess can
Speaker 1: for us, like retroactively, can be kind of confusing about
Speaker 1: all this because because lithium does become an important treatment,
Speaker 1: specifically for bipolar disorder, this wasn't discovered until nineteen forty nine.
Speaker 1: That's when American psychiatrist John Kade discovered that it could
Speaker 1: be used as a mood stabilizer for bipolar disorder, as
Speaker 1: opposed to resorting to lobotomy or electroconvulsive therapy, which were
Speaker 1: kind of the standards of the day. So that was
Speaker 1: nineteen forty nine. The treatment became more prominent and more
Speaker 1: covered by I believe nineteen fifty two, and it was
Speaker 1: approved by the FDA in the nineteen seventies. And I've
Speaker 1: read that it remains an effective treatment, though the authors
Speaker 1: of this particular paper about the history of lithium as
Speaker 1: a treatment, they point out that it still remains in
Speaker 1: some circles somewhat controversial due to toxicity and side effects.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's I guess with all say case
Speaker 1: with a lot of medications, you know, it's like there's
Speaker 1: it has a definite usage, but you also have to
Speaker 1: be aware of the potential side effects to it, and
Speaker 1: some discussion still remains. Yeah, So to come back to
Speaker 1: wondering if lithio water springs could have offered relief to
Speaker 1: individual suffering from specific neurological maladies, I don't know. Again,
Speaker 1: you know, no expert on any of this, but it
Speaker 1: seems iffy based on what we've looked at, mainly because
Speaker 1: of concentration issues with the water itself and the risk
Speaker 1: of toxicity and side effects if higher quantities were obtained
Speaker 1: from the water, which it doesn't seem like is necessarily
Speaker 1: the case with any of these naturally occurring lithia spring waters.
Speaker 2: I mean, it seems like from what you've been talking
Speaker 2: about that carefully managing dosage of lithium is one of
Speaker 2: the crucial factors in modern prescriptions, and so like, if
Speaker 2: you're just gulping down water that has some questionable amount
Speaker 2: of lithium content, that seems like you're either maybe not
Speaker 2: getting enough for it to make much of a difference,
Speaker 2: or you risk getting too much and that is highly toxic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I just I don't think the concentrations in
Speaker 1: just out there in the natural occurring spring waters would
Speaker 1: be high enough to even really register for you. Now
Speaker 1: you can still buy and drink lithia waters from different springs,
Speaker 1: though it's not held up as I think the miracle
Speaker 1: cure at once was, though I don't know. It kind
Speaker 1: of depends on branding and fads. I guess from what
Speaker 1: I can tell, it contains lithium by the micrograms, though,
Speaker 1: rather than the milligrams which would be involved in therapeutic doses.
Speaker 1: So I think you'd find yourself, even with definite lithio
Speaker 1: water that you might purchase, you'd still have to drink
Speaker 1: those gallons of it, those hundreds of thousands of gallons
Speaker 1: of it per day to get the levels that would
Speaker 1: reach anything like a therapeutic dosage. Now on this count
Speaker 1: of concerned lithia springwater. Thanks to our listener Sean for
Speaker 1: writing in on this concerning a particular Irish well, the
Speaker 1: well at glenn Nannialt. I've read that this area is
Speaker 1: also called Valley of the Mad and may date back
Speaker 1: to the twelfth century. I don't know what the lithium
Speaker 1: levels are this well. I can't find any data on that,
Speaker 1: but I don't know based on what we've looked at.
Speaker 1: I think it's a safe bet that it did not
Speaker 1: contain or does not contain therapeutic amounts of lithium, and
Speaker 1: that the connection here is just a coincidence. And also
Speaker 1: worth noting that lithium springs in North America likewise tend
Speaker 1: to predate any modern medical or scientific understanding, and we're
Speaker 1: utilized by indigenous peoples long before the arrival of westerners.
Speaker 2: Well that was very interesting digression. What else have you
Speaker 2: got for me?
Speaker 1: Oh? Well, we should also talk about potentially radioactive spring waters.
Speaker 2: Nothing better for your gout than radioactive spring waters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, specifically radium springs, So tarifer. We've talked about radium
Speaker 1: on the show before, but radium is a highly radioactive
Speaker 1: alkaline earth metal discovered in eighteen ninety eight by Pierre
Speaker 1: and Marie Curie. They discovered it by noting the radioactivity
Speaker 1: in pitch blend radioactive uranium rich mineral relative to the
Speaker 1: uranium it actually contains. They refined several tons of the
Speaker 1: stuff of residues down to zero point one grams of
Speaker 1: pure radium by nineteen oh two, and the isolated radium
Speaker 1: in nineteen ten. Now, radium is important historically, you know,
Speaker 1: tying into the work of the cures here, but its
Speaker 1: commercial uses have long been very limited. So formerly it
Speaker 1: was used in the creation of radio luminescent devices, and
Speaker 1: it was also formally used in the medical treatment of cancer,
Speaker 1: but has largely been replaced by stronger and less costly
Speaker 1: artificial radioisotopes. One particular example of the radioluminescent topic here
Speaker 1: there was a luminous paint known as Undark, created by
Speaker 1: the United States Radium Corporation, noted for its connection to
Speaker 1: the so called radium girls factory workers who contracted radiation
Speaker 1: poisoning from painting with the stuff.
Speaker 2: Yes, and that is a ghastly story if you want
Speaker 2: to go read more about it. The luminescent radium paints
Speaker 2: were used to like maybe illuminate the watch hands on,
Speaker 2: you know, the dials on little clocks and watches and stuff,
Speaker 2: for other glow in the dark purposes. And it was
Speaker 2: glowing because the phosphorescent elements in the paint were being
Speaker 2: bombarded by radiation from the radium content. So yeah, obviously
Speaker 2: that was not good for humans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but at the time this was we have to
Speaker 1: put things in context. In the early twentieth century, there
Speaker 1: was a great deal of radium fever going on, and
Speaker 1: there was also not much in the way of regulation
Speaker 1: of the stuff, so there were more than a few
Speaker 1: medical quacks out there, you know, jumping in to make
Speaker 1: some money off of the radium craze. So you saw
Speaker 1: products like ratathor salts for supposed medicinal use, or the
Speaker 1: radium or revigator. This would it was a radium lined
Speaker 1: water vessel for your drinking water. But then on the
Speaker 1: same count you also saw various products that either couldn't
Speaker 1: or just didn't actually put radium into the product, but
Speaker 1: really wanted a slice of the pie, so they included
Speaker 1: radium in the brand name, such as Radium Brand Creamery butter.
Speaker 1: This is an actual nineteen thirties product. I included the
Speaker 1: label here for you, Joe, with this beautiful image of
Speaker 1: these cattle drinking from some sort of a pond or
Speaker 1: perhaps naturally occurring spring. The sun is rising or setting
Speaker 1: in the background, and it says Radium Brand Creamery Butter.
Speaker 2: Now, can I hope that this butter had just as
Speaker 2: much radium content as the bottled lithium water actually had
Speaker 2: lithium content means.
Speaker 1: None, right right? Yeah? This apparently had no actual radium
Speaker 1: in it, But it was just getting in on the excitement,
Speaker 1: like radium equals health and therefore, you know, there was
Speaker 1: nobody to say you couldn't shouldn't do this. And there
Speaker 1: are numerous examples of this sort of marketing, including the
Speaker 1: non radioactive radium neutex condoms of the day.
Speaker 2: Oh but again not actually made with radium, right.
Speaker 1: And there are other examples of actually radioactive quack products
Speaker 1: from the twentieth century, including the German door mud radioactive
Speaker 1: toothpaste that was made using thorium. This was an actual
Speaker 1: product and you can see some alarming looking like you know,
Speaker 1: poster promotional art for this product as well. Now, all
Speaker 1: of these quackery uses of radium are bad ideas because
Speaker 1: it has no beneficial role in the human body. It's radioactive,
Speaker 1: it's toxic. You don't need to be consuming radium.
Speaker 2: Salts, right, There's not like a hidden upside.
Speaker 1: Right. But again, given the enthusiasm for radium during the
Speaker 1: first half of the twentieth century, it should also come
Speaker 1: as no surprise that people were also game to bathe
Speaker 1: in the stuff. So the big one here is not
Speaker 1: in Georgia. It is in what is now the Czech
Speaker 1: Republic Radium Palace, which opened in nineteen twelve. It replaced
Speaker 1: a smaller spa on the property and cashed in hard
Speaker 1: on radium enthusiasm. Alice Obscure refers to the palace as
Speaker 1: the birthplace of radio balneology. It ignited a fad in
Speaker 1: spas around the world, anywhere where they were already naturally
Speaker 1: occurring springs. If you found that there was any kind
Speaker 1: of radium content to the waters, well, lo and behold,
Speaker 1: you have a new way to market your spa new
Speaker 1: way to market your spring water. Radium Palace and its
Speaker 1: waters fell out of fashion after the Second World War,
Speaker 1: but the hotel was apparently refurbished in the nineteen nineties
Speaker 1: and it's rather stunning looking building, and it still offers
Speaker 1: radium based treatments, though they're apparently limited by a contemporary
Speaker 1: maximum permitted levels of radiation doses. But on the same level,
Speaker 1: this looks like a very attractive resort, so we kind
Speaker 1: of have to take It's kind of like going back
Speaker 1: to their discussion of bath, like, is it you know,
Speaker 1: the communal factors, the placebo factors of everything, the full scenario,
Speaker 1: So I don't know, But coming back to our home
Speaker 1: State of Georgia. Georgia also got in on the action
Speaker 1: with radium springs radium. This is still called Radium Springs Georgia.
Speaker 1: The spa here was already a retreat destination in the
Speaker 1: early twentieth century, offering gambling and naturally occurring hot spring waters.
Speaker 1: So you had a lot of folks who had come
Speaker 1: down from the colder northern states during the winter and
Speaker 1: they'd enjoy like the pleasant temperatures of just southern Georgia
Speaker 1: during the winter, but also these hot springs. It was
Speaker 1: known as Blue Springs at the time, but then in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty five they discovered radium in the water and
Speaker 1: they rebranded thus radium Springs. And you can still visit it.
Speaker 1: I actually looked it up and I was thinking, well,
Speaker 1: maybe I could go down there, but then a rows
Speaker 1: it was like a four hour drive one way, and
Speaker 1: so maybe maybe it wouldn't fit into the work week
Speaker 1: all that well, But you can still visit the grounds
Speaker 1: here and it looks looks rather beautiful. So the supposed
Speaker 1: health benefits of radium spring soaking of radium spring spa water,
Speaker 1: I think in general is pretty dubious, though I suppose
Speaker 1: it's conceivably safe if one is still below the maximal
Speaker 1: permissible level of exposure. But yeah, otherwise I don't suppose
Speaker 1: you'd really get much out of the experience, again, other
Speaker 1: than just the set and setting of the whole thing.
Speaker 1: It's worth noting that, of course, there are multiple springs
Speaker 1: at Ramsar in Iran containing radium and thorium, and this
Speaker 1: area is known as the most naturally radioactive place on Earth.
Speaker 1: The springs here are also used as spas, and I
Speaker 1: think we again have to put them in a larger
Speaker 1: historic context. People have been coming here for a very
Speaker 1: long time and continue to come to to Remsar in
Speaker 1: order to enjoy these spring waters. So yeah, they're these
Speaker 1: are these are places that were special and important again
Speaker 1: before modern science came along to determine exactly what was
Speaker 1: going on in the contents of the water. I'd be
Speaker 1: very interested to hear from anyone out there who's had
Speaker 1: experiences in a in a radium spring what you thought
Speaker 1: of it, what what the sort of sell on it was,
Speaker 1: what the grounds were like. I think it's it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: I've not had the experience myself.
Speaker 2: Yes, same here, but it's interesting how this has just
Speaker 2: kind of like opened up a door into this world
Speaker 2: of all the strange, little quirky local thermal springs all
Speaker 2: all over the world. So it makes me think we're
Speaker 2: maybe going to get some really good listener mail about
Speaker 2: this series.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I want to.
Speaker 2: Hear about your your strange local thermal springs and spas
Speaker 2: and what what's the backstory? What goes on there?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, because a lot of them have some
Speaker 1: very rich traditions behind them, perhaps some quirky history and places,
Speaker 1: and some alleged healing properties. So yeah, we've already heard
Speaker 1: from at least a few listeners, so certainly keep it coming.
Speaker 1: We'd love to dive into these over the next several
Speaker 1: listener mail episodes. All right, Well, on that note, we're
Speaker 1: going to go and close it out for today, but
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from everyone out there, so you know,
Speaker 1: definitely write in just a reminder that Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: Your Mind publishes its core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays
Speaker 1: we have a short form artifactor Monster Fact episode and
Speaker 1: Wednesdays on Mondays we do the listener mail, and on
Speaker 1: Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just talk
Speaker 1: about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
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 topic for
Speaker 2: the future, or just to say hello, you can email
Speaker 2: us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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