1
00:00:01,840 --> 00:00:07,480
Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio Hey brain Stuff

2
00:00:07,560 --> 00:00:12,320
Speaker 1: laurin volgeban in here. In two thousand and eight, a

3
00:00:12,400 --> 00:00:15,560
Speaker 1: middle aged couple decided to spice things up by eating

4
00:00:15,640 --> 00:00:19,760
Speaker 1: raw honey gathered from near Turkey's Black Sea, and then

5
00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:23,120
Speaker 1: ended up in the hospital with symptoms that mimiced heart attacks.

6
00:00:23,960 --> 00:00:28,240
Speaker 1: The culprit mad honey poisoning a little known ailment that

7
00:00:28,280 --> 00:00:32,080
Speaker 1: has brought down ancient armies and in modern times been

8
00:00:32,159 --> 00:00:36,080
Speaker 1: rumored to have a hallucinogenic effect that increases sexual performance.

9
00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:41,800
Speaker 1: So called mad honey is produced by bees that ingest

10
00:00:41,840 --> 00:00:46,400
Speaker 1: the nectar of poisonous plants, specifically ones that contain gray anatoxins.

11
00:00:47,120 --> 00:00:50,159
Speaker 1: These are neurotoxins that are found in various species in

12
00:00:50,200 --> 00:00:54,920
Speaker 1: the heather family, like rhododendrons azalias and mountain laurels. The

13
00:00:55,040 --> 00:00:59,080
Speaker 1: naturally toxic syrup reportedly tastes more bitter than normal honey,

14
00:00:59,360 --> 00:01:02,120
Speaker 1: and the toxic city is stronger in fresh honey gathered

15
00:01:02,160 --> 00:01:05,840
Speaker 1: in the springtime. Variants on mad honey have been found

16
00:01:05,880 --> 00:01:09,679
Speaker 1: in parts of Japan, Nepal, Brazil, North America, Europe, and

17
00:01:09,920 --> 00:01:14,959
Speaker 1: the Eastern Black Sea region of Turkey. Mad honey is

18
00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:18,319
Speaker 1: a razor's edge substance that can go from intoxicating to

19
00:01:18,440 --> 00:01:22,840
Speaker 1: lethal in just a few tablespoons, and because potency varies

20
00:01:22,840 --> 00:01:25,600
Speaker 1: from hive to hive, there's no sure way to tell

21
00:01:25,680 --> 00:01:29,199
Speaker 1: when enough is enough. In the case of the couple

22
00:01:29,240 --> 00:01:32,840
Speaker 1: who wound up in the emergency room, increasingly large doses

23
00:01:32,880 --> 00:01:37,440
Speaker 1: of the toxically tinged honey caused acute inferior myocardial infarctions

24
00:01:37,800 --> 00:01:43,560
Speaker 1: aka heart irregularities. While typically not fatal, mad honey poisoning

25
00:01:43,760 --> 00:01:48,040
Speaker 1: doesn't sound fun with symptoms like nausea, vomiting, excessive sweating,

26
00:01:48,160 --> 00:01:52,440
Speaker 1: and dizziness. In rare cases, you could be looking at convulsions,

27
00:01:52,560 --> 00:01:58,360
Speaker 1: low blood pressure, shock, and yes, heart trouble. Documentation of

28
00:01:58,400 --> 00:02:01,920
Speaker 1: this goes all the way back to four once, when

29
00:02:01,960 --> 00:02:05,760
Speaker 1: the ancient Greek commander Xenophon, returning with an army from Persia,

30
00:02:05,920 --> 00:02:10,799
Speaker 1: wrote of his men experiencing an accidental poisoning. Before the

31
00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:13,280
Speaker 1: article this episode is based on, has Stuffworks spoke with

32
00:02:13,320 --> 00:02:16,600
Speaker 1: Adrian Mayer, a research scholar in classics and history of

33
00:02:16,639 --> 00:02:20,400
Speaker 1: science at Stanford University with a specialization in ancient biological

34
00:02:20,440 --> 00:02:26,360
Speaker 1: and chemical warfare. She said Xenophon prided himself on choosing

35
00:02:26,440 --> 00:02:30,760
Speaker 1: healthy and safe campsites in hostile territory. He noted nothing

36
00:02:30,840 --> 00:02:33,600
Speaker 1: unusual about the campsite in Pontus, on the Black Sea

37
00:02:33,680 --> 00:02:36,640
Speaker 1: coast on northeast Turkey, but he did note quote an

38
00:02:36,680 --> 00:02:40,639
Speaker 1: extraordinary number of swarming bees, and said that his men

39
00:02:40,760 --> 00:02:43,600
Speaker 1: soon discovered the hives and gorged on the sweet treat

40
00:02:43,639 --> 00:02:47,320
Speaker 1: of wild honey. He was appalled when a soldier suddenly

41
00:02:47,360 --> 00:02:51,640
Speaker 1: behaved like crazed madmen and collapsed in mass. His entire

42
00:02:51,800 --> 00:02:56,000
Speaker 1: army was paralyzed and incapacitated for days, totally vulnerable to

43
00:02:56,120 --> 00:03:00,959
Speaker 1: possible enemy attack. Luckily for them and this was again

44
00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:05,000
Speaker 1: accidental and Xenophon's army recovered before they could be discovered.

45
00:03:05,800 --> 00:03:08,680
Speaker 1: But ancient armies did use mad honey as a weapon,

46
00:03:08,960 --> 00:03:15,440
Speaker 1: and quite effectively at that. Around sixty five BCE, King Mithriddes,

47
00:03:15,520 --> 00:03:18,440
Speaker 1: the sixth of Pontus set a trap for the invading

48
00:03:18,520 --> 00:03:22,079
Speaker 1: Roman army led by Pompy the Great. The Romans were

49
00:03:22,080 --> 00:03:24,240
Speaker 1: moving along the coast of the Black Sea in present

50
00:03:24,320 --> 00:03:27,440
Speaker 1: day northeast Turkey, the same area that Xenophon had been

51
00:03:27,440 --> 00:03:31,880
Speaker 1: traveling through a few hundred years before. Mithriddeses troops set

52
00:03:31,880 --> 00:03:35,920
Speaker 1: out poisonous mad honeycombs along the route. The Romans fell

53
00:03:35,920 --> 00:03:38,760
Speaker 1: for the tasty trap, and meth Briddes's army attacked and

54
00:03:38,920 --> 00:03:41,040
Speaker 1: killed about a thousand of them once they had been

55
00:03:41,080 --> 00:03:45,920
Speaker 1: rendered helpless by the honey. Eventually, Pompey defeated him and

56
00:03:46,080 --> 00:03:50,200
Speaker 1: ended his expanse into Rome's territories. Supposedly, mith Briddes died

57
00:03:50,200 --> 00:03:53,400
Speaker 1: after being overthrown by his son under guard. He tried

58
00:03:53,400 --> 00:03:55,920
Speaker 1: to kill himself with poison, but was inured to it.

59
00:03:56,040 --> 00:03:59,480
Speaker 1: After years of mild preventive doses, he finally had to

60
00:03:59,480 --> 00:04:04,000
Speaker 1: ask a garb to run them through. There are also

61
00:04:04,120 --> 00:04:07,240
Speaker 1: instances of mad honey being used to make mead as

62
00:04:07,280 --> 00:04:10,960
Speaker 1: a way of stalling encroaching forces. A mead, also called

63
00:04:10,960 --> 00:04:14,320
Speaker 1: honey wine, is made by fermenting honey with water and

64
00:04:14,400 --> 00:04:18,080
Speaker 1: often flavoring the mixture with fruits or spices. A two

65
00:04:18,240 --> 00:04:21,560
Speaker 1: notable occurrences of mad mead as a biological weapon took

66
00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:25,080
Speaker 1: place in the same region we've been talking about. In

67
00:04:25,320 --> 00:04:29,200
Speaker 1: nine forty six, ce Olga of Kiev had his allies

68
00:04:29,279 --> 00:04:33,520
Speaker 1: sneakily offer mead to his Russian foes, then slaughtered all

69
00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:36,960
Speaker 1: five thousand of them once they had collapsed, and in

70
00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:40,240
Speaker 1: fourteen eighty nine a Russian army left behind casks of

71
00:04:40,279 --> 00:04:42,960
Speaker 1: poisoned mead when they abandoned the camp in the face

72
00:04:42,960 --> 00:04:46,479
Speaker 1: of an incoming Potter army then swept back through and

73
00:04:46,600 --> 00:04:52,200
Speaker 1: killed some ten thousand of them. The armies of antiquity

74
00:04:52,279 --> 00:04:55,799
Speaker 1: may have fallen for these literal honey traps because sugar

75
00:04:55,920 --> 00:05:00,640
Speaker 1: wasn't widespread until the seventeen hundred see before the technology

76
00:05:00,880 --> 00:05:03,560
Speaker 1: and enslaved labor that brought the price down for sugar.

77
00:05:03,600 --> 00:05:06,839
Speaker 1: Around that time, the sweeteners were rare and expensive in

78
00:05:06,880 --> 00:05:11,320
Speaker 1: most places, limited to things like maple syrup, dates, and honey.

79
00:05:12,800 --> 00:05:16,960
Speaker 1: So mad honey was a delicious but deadly trojan horse

80
00:05:17,600 --> 00:05:25,599
Speaker 1: or trojan hive. Today's episode is based on the article

81
00:05:25,720 --> 00:05:29,640
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History Ancient armies waged war with hallucinogenic honey on

82
00:05:29,680 --> 00:05:33,040
Speaker 1: HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Laurel Dove. Brain Stuff is

83
00:05:33,080 --> 00:05:35,960
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and

84
00:05:36,040 --> 00:05:39,320
Speaker 1: is produced by Tyler Klang. For more podcasts my heart Radio,

85
00:05:39,560 --> 00:05:42,640
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

86
00:05:42,720 --> 00:05:43,680
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.