Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Despite their intelligence and friendly nature,
Speaker 1: rats are often hated by the public. Their role in
Speaker 1: spreading the plague has been greatly exaggerated. It was the
Speaker 1: fleas on the rats that actually carried the disease, and
Speaker 1: they've been considered a nuisance for probably a lot longer
Speaker 1: vermin to be exterminated with prejudice. But did you know
Speaker 1: that rats can detect gunpowder residue. That's how they're used
Speaker 1: in the Netherlands because they're cheaper and easier to train
Speaker 1: than dogs. Even more amazing, the Gambian pouched rat of
Speaker 1: Africa has been trained to detect landines and tuberculosis, all
Speaker 1: thanks to their incredible sense of smell. Regardless of their
Speaker 1: occupations or contributions to society, rats are still animals. They
Speaker 1: have basic needs like all of us, like food and shelter.
Speaker 1: In the wild, they scavenge for food wherever they can
Speaker 1: find it, often going to places where they aren't welcome
Speaker 1: in search of their next meal. But in fifteen hundreds
Speaker 1: of France. Their disregard for farmers crops gave the people
Speaker 1: of Auton so much trouble the town went to unbelievable
Speaker 1: lengths to remove them. All manner of exterminations were exacted
Speaker 1: on the rat population at the time, but no matter
Speaker 1: what they did, they always kept coming back. They destroyed
Speaker 1: plants and infested homes and businesses. It was an epidemic.
Speaker 1: Even the Catholic Church got involved and decried them as
Speaker 1: creatures of the devil. The Pope attempted to exercise them,
Speaker 1: while a bishop officially excommunicated them out of the country,
Speaker 1: but it didn't stick. The rats kept coming and the
Speaker 1: crops continued to get eaten, so the town turned to
Speaker 1: more medieval methods. Rats were subjected to all kinds of
Speaker 1: torture and abuse simply for existing within the borders of
Speaker 1: the city. But there was one method that people hadn't tried.
Speaker 1: It didn't require burning or stretching them out on a rack,
Speaker 1: or even drowning them. Instead, the town served the rats
Speaker 1: with a summons to appear before the court their crime
Speaker 1: destroying the local barley crops. Of course, the trial was
Speaker 1: to be conducted within the cathedral, but for a proper
Speaker 1: trial there needed to be two sides. The town would
Speaker 1: be the plaintiffs, tired of fighting an unwinnable problem, while
Speaker 1: the rats were the defendants, and any defendant, no matter
Speaker 1: their crime, deserved proper representation. The town turned to a
Speaker 1: local pro bono lawyer named Bartolomy the Cassineus to argue
Speaker 1: on behalf of the rats. Yes, the rats were given
Speaker 1: their own lawyer, and a particularly clever one too. Cassin
Speaker 1: News had studied under the finest legal ds of the
Speaker 1: day and perform work from major figures. At the time.
Speaker 1: He had already served the Duchy of Milan and Pope
Speaker 1: Julius the Second, and now he had been tasked with
Speaker 1: representing the unrepresentable, a group of feral, disliked rodents, causing
Speaker 1: havoc for farmers all over the town. Unsurprisingly, on the
Speaker 1: day they were supposed to appear, the rats didn't show up.
Speaker 1: Cassa News argued that the original summons couldn't be honored
Speaker 1: because rats were not pack animals, they were solitary creatures,
Speaker 1: and each rodent would need to be served individually. The
Speaker 1: court actually complied and reissued one new summons per rat.
Speaker 1: It didn't help, though, and they failed to appear on
Speaker 1: the second scheduled day. Cassin News pointed out that the
Speaker 1: roads leading to the courthouse were hazardous for rats, given
Speaker 1: the presence of larger creatures like cats and dogs along
Speaker 1: the route. Once again, the lawyer had made a valid
Speaker 1: argument before the court. According to the law, if a
Speaker 1: defendant could not travel to court with a guarantee of safety,
Speaker 1: they were not obligated to attend the hearing and the
Speaker 1: summons could be ignored. No one knows what the final
Speaker 1: outcome of the trial was, but it's probably safe to
Speaker 1: say that all charges against the rats were dropped. Bartolemey
Speaker 1: Ducassa News had won his case and inadvertently became the
Speaker 1: first ever legal defender of animals. Twins are special, identical
Speaker 1: or fraternal. Their biology is unique, and they can be
Speaker 1: emotionally closer to each other than any other kind of sibling.
Speaker 1: Twins have been known to invent their own languages, a
Speaker 1: phenomenon known as cryptophagia. They sometimes develop ways of walking
Speaker 1: and sync with each other too. They're different people, but
Speaker 1: often seem like they're living the same life. Twins Lazarus
Speaker 1: and Johannes Baptista Colorado were like that lived in Italy
Speaker 1: in the early sixteen hundreds and toward Europe, demonstrating their
Speaker 1: unique talents. However, they weren't identical twins or even fraternal. No,
Speaker 1: they were something entirely different. The pair were described by
Speaker 1: Thomas Bartolinus, a Danish anatomist, as being vastly different in size.
Speaker 1: Lazarus was twenty eight years old and a full grown man.
Speaker 1: His younger brother, Johannes, however, was much smaller. His features
Speaker 1: were underdeveloped, with many of them having not developed at all.
Speaker 1: Both of his hands only had three fingers, and his
Speaker 1: left foot hung down. His right foot seemed to have
Speaker 1: disappeared entirely. On top of that, the younger man's underdeveloped
Speaker 1: lungs made breathing difficult. He almost never opened his eyes,
Speaker 1: which was hard to do given the abnormally large size
Speaker 1: and shape of his head. But despite all of that,
Speaker 1: he was pretty attached to his brother. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that they were close. I mean that Johannes was physically
Speaker 1: attached to Lazarus. To spectators, it appeared as though he
Speaker 1: was growing from his brother's chest. Though he lived and breathed,
Speaker 1: he couldn't eat, he gained nourishment from the food inside
Speaker 1: his older brother's stomach. The Colorado twins were parasitic twins,
Speaker 1: also known as asymmetrical or unequal conjoined twins. It happens
Speaker 1: when a fertilized egg doesn't fully split and one embryo
Speaker 1: completely develops while the other does not. They may have
Speaker 1: been among the first known cases of parasitic twins, but
Speaker 1: they certainly weren't the last. During the eighteen hundreds, a
Speaker 1: sideshow performer by the name of Laalu made his living
Speaker 1: exhibiting his twin. His sibling had developed with both hands
Speaker 1: and feet, even though he was sticking out of La
Speaker 1: Lou's chest. Decades later, a woman named Betty Lou Williams
Speaker 1: also made a career out of showing off her parasitic twin,
Speaker 1: which had been born with both legs but only one
Speaker 1: full arm. Betty Lou was the youngest of twelve children
Speaker 1: and became a sideshow performer when she was still a toddler.
Speaker 1: Her years of success allowed her to buy an enormous
Speaker 1: ranch for her family and then send her eleven other
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters to college. Doctors told her that her
Speaker 1: siblings head had developed inside her own abdomen, which could
Speaker 1: have pushed all her other organs out of place or
Speaker 1: severely impeded her own growth. But they weren't concerned. They
Speaker 1: told Betty lu she had a long, healthy life ahead
Speaker 1: of her, with just a few extra appendages along for
Speaker 1: the journey. Eventually, the child star grew into a young woman,
Speaker 1: and she gained the admiration of several local suitors. One
Speaker 1: man in particular captured her attention, and it wasn't long
Speaker 1: before the two got engaged. However, when they should have
Speaker 1: been planning for a wedding, he was planning for something else.
Speaker 1: Soon enough, it became clear that her fiance had stolen
Speaker 1: more than her heart. He'd taken most of her money too.
Speaker 1: Betty lu couldn't believe that her true love would do
Speaker 1: something like that. She was hurt and she was furious.
Speaker 1: But worse than that, the anger and panic he caused
Speaker 1: her had developed into an asthma attack so strong that
Speaker 1: Betty Lou couldn't handle it. She died of asphyxiation in
Speaker 1: her New Jersey home a short while later. She was
Speaker 1: only twenty three years old. I hope you've enjoyed today's
Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
Speaker 1: visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by
Speaker 1: me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
Speaker 1: make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
Speaker 1: about it over at the World of Lore dot com.
Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.