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