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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lane, and I'm Joe McCormick. Robert.

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Speaker 1: What's the weirdest thing you ever got stuck up your nose? Oh?

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Speaker 1: I think I've been very fortunate. I know plenty of

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Speaker 1: other people who have tales of siblings getting odd objects

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Speaker 1: lodged up their nostrils, being a marble, or I think

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Speaker 1: my brother in law had a piece of carpet stuck

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Speaker 1: up there something. You know, you hear all these stories,

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Speaker 1: and luckily, I don't think I've ever had anything, um,

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Speaker 1: anything stuck in my nose. So unfortunate in that regard.

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Speaker 1: You know, your mention of the marbles makes me think

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Speaker 1: about did you ever see that old episode of the

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Speaker 1: show Home Movies where their take on the like judas

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Speaker 1: pre supplemental messages thing is. There's a rock band who

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Speaker 1: I think does a does a public service announcement song

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Speaker 1: called don't put Marbles in your nose, but it also

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Speaker 1: keeps put them in there. Now, I think that the worst,

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Speaker 1: especially like childhood experience of anything going into an unexpected

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Speaker 1: orifice would be um when I had some sort of

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Speaker 1: small insect fly into my ear. Oh really, yeah, which

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Speaker 1: which the main distressing thing is that a little bug

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Speaker 1: once it gets inside your ear is it's extremely loud.

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Speaker 1: So I do. I do remember that quite clearly. It's

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Speaker 1: looking at the outside from the inside, it's a horrible feeling. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And I remember like my dad was there and he

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Speaker 1: jumped in and I guess it happened at the house

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Speaker 1: because they had some like rubbing alcohol and like they

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Speaker 1: poured a little bit of that into my ear and

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Speaker 1: that took care of it. Well, that experience is going

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Speaker 1: to be a great jumping off point for our discussion today,

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Speaker 1: because I think we should start off by playing one

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Speaker 1: of my favorite games that we play on this show,

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Speaker 1: which is go into old medical journals and read some weirdness.

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Speaker 1: Oh yes, So I want to talk about a case

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Speaker 1: report that was published in December of eighteen thirty in

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Speaker 1: the medical journal The Lancet. This is a truly disturbing report.

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Speaker 1: So if you if you get picked out easily, you

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Speaker 1: know fair warning. So let us read from the Lancet.

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Speaker 1: A farmer's wife, twenty eight years of age, residing in

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Speaker 1: the neighborhood of mets had for a long time been

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Speaker 1: affected with an unpleasant itching sensation in the nose with corrisa,

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Speaker 1: which means running nose, to which symptoms. In the year

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Speaker 1: eighteen seven, violent headache exceeded so that she was at

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Speaker 1: length obliged to apply for medical aid. The headache was

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Speaker 1: irregularly intermittent, and generally began at the root of the nose,

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Speaker 1: in the middle of the forehead, or at the right

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Speaker 1: frontal region, extending thence first to the right side and

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Speaker 1: then over the whole head. The attack was accompanied by

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Speaker 1: a great discharge of tears, and sometimes even nausea and vomiting.

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Speaker 1: The features were forcibly distorted, the jaws firmly closed, and

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Speaker 1: the eyes and ears so very sensible that she could

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Speaker 1: not bear the least light or any noise. At other

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Speaker 1: times became delirious, pressed the head between her hands, and

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Speaker 1: ran about in a state of distraction. The pain was,

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Speaker 1: according to her statement, like the strokes of a hammer,

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Speaker 1: or as if something was perforating the skull, and the

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Speaker 1: fits generally returned about twelve times in twenty four hours.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes the headache continued uninterruptedly for several days. The corsa,

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Speaker 1: or running nose again existed during the whole period, and

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Speaker 1: the discharge was occasionally very feted and mixed with blood. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so we're starting off pretty gross already. This poor woman

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Speaker 1: is suffering these terrible chronic symptoms. She's got the headache,

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Speaker 1: she's got the swelling, she's got the sensitivity and the

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Speaker 1: eyes and the nose and all that. Uh, and then

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Speaker 1: she's also got this discharge mixed with blood. It's always

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Speaker 1: distressing in any case to have fetid discharge. The idea

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Speaker 1: that it's fetted is very worrisome. Okay, So continuing, some

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Speaker 1: medicines were employed, but no regular plan of treatment was followed,

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Speaker 1: and it was not before a twelve month suffering that

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Speaker 1: this singular affection terminated after the expulsion of a worm

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Speaker 1: from the nose, which moved with rapidity and when placed

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Speaker 1: in water, remained alive for several days. It was afterwards

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Speaker 1: killed by being put in alcohol and then sent to

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Speaker 1: Monsieur Mareschal, who reported the case to the society. He

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Speaker 1: found the animal to be more than two inches in

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Speaker 1: length and one line in breadth, and I looked that up.

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Speaker 1: Apparently a line is a unit of measure. That was

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Speaker 1: not very well standardized. It probably means like a tenth

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Speaker 1: of an inch or twelfth of an inch, so not

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Speaker 1: not very wide, um, but two inches in length. It

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Speaker 1: had too antenna, was so not not a proper worm, right,

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Speaker 1: not a proper worm. Was of yellowish color, flat, and

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Speaker 1: consisted of sixty four rings on each of which were

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Speaker 1: two legs. So definitely not a worm. Uh. Mr Marshal's

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Speaker 1: subsequently transmitted the insect to Messieurs Holandra and Roussel, who

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Speaker 1: ascertained that it was a skulla pendra electrica. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: if had two legs per segment. Yeah, that sounds an

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Speaker 1: awful lot like a centipede. Right, you are, Robert, this

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Speaker 1: is a centipede we're talking about. This report alleges that

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Speaker 1: this woman had this chronic condition for more than a year,

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Speaker 1: which was alleviated when she finally blew a centipede out

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Speaker 1: of her nose. Still, that's got to be pretty satisfied. Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Talked about what is the is there a word for that?

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Speaker 1: The psychological thing where like people are obsessed with, like

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Speaker 1: a removing objects from their body, the satisfaction people get

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Speaker 1: from like picking a huge booger, or from from pooping

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Speaker 1: a large poop I don't know, but or popping a

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Speaker 1: pimple too. Yes, I thought about this on and off

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Speaker 1: for years, and I would love to explore it in

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Speaker 1: an episode if there is enough material out there about it,

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Speaker 1: because clearly it is an obsession, like their whole video

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Speaker 1: channels on YouTube associated with with this sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: And um yeah, And when I hear people talk about

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Speaker 1: imagine the virtual realms willn't happen in the future, and

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Speaker 1: I'm thinking, well, yes, you're gonna have your obvious sex

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Speaker 1: and violence oriented uh experiences, but they're gonna be like

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Speaker 1: whole virtual realms, just just devoted to the popping of

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Speaker 1: of surrealistic pimples. Yeah, what is the grand theft auto

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Speaker 1: of like visceral body perching experiences? Yeah? Before I forget,

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Speaker 1: I do want to give a hat tip because I

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Speaker 1: came across this story on the blog of a British

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Speaker 1: writer named Thomas Morris, who covers a lot of horrifying

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Speaker 1: medical history and is definitely worth following if you're interested

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Speaker 1: in this kind of stuff, So shout out to Morris,

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Speaker 1: who we will return to again in a minute. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: back to the centipede coming out of the nose. So

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Speaker 1: there are probably some good reasons to question the details

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Speaker 1: of this report. Right, just because it was published in

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Speaker 1: a medical journal like the Lance, it doesn't mean it's

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Speaker 1: necessarily true, especially this far back in history. But we

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Speaker 1: can we can come back to that. So the the

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Speaker 1: insect alleged here, it's not actually an insect. It is

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Speaker 1: a centipede. It's the skull of Pendra electrica, reportedly bioluminescence centipede,

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Speaker 1: according to a catalog by Bozard in Nature in eight

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Speaker 1: quote a well known luminous insect. Again not an insect,

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Speaker 1: but well known luminous insect whose light is but rarely

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Speaker 1: seen owing to the insect living underground and in manure heaps. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so that's how it would have seen what it was

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Speaker 1: doing up in her sinuses maybe, or that's maybe that's

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Speaker 1: how it ended up there, like she was snorting manure.

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Speaker 1: There you go. But the bottom line is this, this

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Speaker 1: report is that a woman had a glowing centipede living

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Speaker 1: in her nose for over a year, which is a

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Speaker 1: bit far fetched. Yeah, I think so, but I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's impossible to know for sure, but I'm I have

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Speaker 1: a lot of doubts. But Yeah, so I wanted to

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Speaker 1: explore more and then later we'll get into the more

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Speaker 1: general territory. I think of Creepy Crawley's getting into body orifices,

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Speaker 1: and I think we're going to be focusing primarily not

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Speaker 1: on things that are saying obligate parasites, because that's a

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Speaker 1: more trodden ground. Right, you might understand why, like say

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Speaker 1: leech could get into the human anus because it's seeking

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Speaker 1: that kind of environment, right, or or certainly indo parasites

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Speaker 1: that even if they're not Certainly there are plenty of

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Speaker 1: human endo parasites, but they're also are indo parasites of

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Speaker 1: other species that can end up in our bodies. And

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Speaker 1: even though they are not at home here, um, this

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Speaker 1: home is very much like the home they desire. Right,

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Speaker 1: So we're not so much talking about like hookworms, tape worms,

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Speaker 1: human bot flies and all that, which we have discussed

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Speaker 1: in other episodes, but we're talking more today about creatures

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Speaker 1: that don't need to be in the human body and

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Speaker 1: wouldn't normally seek it out, but somehow they at least

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Speaker 1: reportedly end up there. So coming back to the skull

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Speaker 1: Apendra centipedes of the genus skullopendra can be truly awesome predators.

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Speaker 1: They tend to step over what is for me one

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Speaker 1: of the most shocking and unpleasant of lines, which is

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Speaker 1: when invertebrates prey on vertebrates. That's something something about that

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Speaker 1: always feels backwards and scary and not okay, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I mean part of it perhaps is that. And I

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Speaker 1: feel like this is a kind of an undercurrent to

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Speaker 1: to this earlier example is that invertebrates. Invertebrates will undoubtedly

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Speaker 1: feast upon vertebrates. You know they are there, They're going

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Speaker 1: to be some of the primary devours of our of

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Speaker 1: our deceased form, and and certainly older generations that were

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Speaker 1: more associated and more closely aligned with physical death, they

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Speaker 1: would have witnessed this more often, both in the bodies

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Speaker 1: of animals but also in the in in human bodies

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Speaker 1: from time to time. But I'm talking about predation. You're

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Speaker 1: talking about you outright killing, which seems like theyre It's

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Speaker 1: it's like this is they have crossed the line, like

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Speaker 1: the line being you shall eat us when we are dead,

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Speaker 1: but now shall not do the killing right. It's supposed

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Speaker 1: to be like humans eating lobster is not lobster cousins

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Speaker 1: eating human cousins. I mean, that is clearly verboting, but

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Speaker 1: it's just not it's just not verboting. It happens in

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Speaker 1: nature and there are examples of skull pender that do this. So,

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Speaker 1: according to a two thousand five article in the Caribbean

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Speaker 1: Journal of Science by Mulinary at All quote, Scullopendrid centipedes

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Speaker 1: prey on frogs and toads up to ninety five millimeters long,

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Speaker 1: small lizards, snakes up to two hundred and forty seven

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Speaker 1: millimeters long, birds up to the size of a sparrow,

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Speaker 1: and both field and house mice. So you've got some

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Speaker 1: centipedes in this genus that are getting down on birds,

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Speaker 1: they're getting down on mice, but presumably due to size restrictions.

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Speaker 1: I think if there are actually any cases of Sculla

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Speaker 1: Pendrid's getting in people's noses, it's it's going to be

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Speaker 1: not the ones that twists their many legged bodies around

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Speaker 1: mice and sparrows and eat their warm blooded mammal flesh.

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Speaker 1: Right that those would have probably be too big to

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Speaker 1: end up in the nasal cavity. Now back to Thomas Morris,

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Speaker 1: the medical history writer who brought this case to my attention.

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Speaker 1: On his blog. He writes in his blog post that

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Speaker 1: he thinks it's unlikely that the centipede would have survived

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Speaker 1: inside the woman's nasal sinuses for his long the report alleges,

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Speaker 1: which is more than a year. And I think that's

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Speaker 1: I don't know, It's one of those things where it's

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Speaker 1: hard to know for sure, But that does seem like

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Speaker 1: a likely objection to throw right right. It's like, what

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Speaker 1: would it be eating in there? Uh, could it really

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Speaker 1: like survive in there that long without getting blown out

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Speaker 1: or killed in some other way? Yeah, it just doesn't

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Speaker 1: seem sustainable. On the other hand, the report is detailed,

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Speaker 1: it's published in a reasonably reliable source, it does seem

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Speaker 1: to be reported by a physician. It just seems sort

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Speaker 1: of inherently unlikely. Then again, you know, there are all

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Speaker 1: kinds of things we go to. We can talk in

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Speaker 1: a minute about the possibility of hoaxes of confusion. I mean,

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Speaker 1: what if just like a centipede happened to get up

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Speaker 1: in her nose during the last day or so of

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Speaker 1: an otherwise bad nose inflammation period. That also seems unlikely.

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Speaker 1: But so um, this is not the only reported case

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Speaker 1: of a centipede up the nose. In fact, I came

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Speaker 1: across a totally separate case from an old medical archive,

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Speaker 1: also dug up by Thomas Morris on his blog. This

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Speaker 1: was years ago. Uh, this is from the first volume

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Speaker 1: of Medical Essays and Observations, published in seventeen sixty four.

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Speaker 1: So here's this case quote. A woman of good heel constitution,

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Speaker 1: meaning she was healthy about thirty six years old, began

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Speaker 1: to complain of a fixed pain in the lower and

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Speaker 1: right side of her forehead. During the last two years,

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Speaker 1: this pain became continual, accompanied with convulsions, often depriving her

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Speaker 1: of both her reason and rest. She was two or

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Speaker 1: three times brought to death's door by it. At the

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Speaker 1: end of four years, after trying several medicines to no purpose,

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Speaker 1: and despairing of any relief, and yet not knowing what

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Speaker 1: to do, she took to taking repeat snuff so it's

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Speaker 1: like tobacco snuff. She had not taken the snuff for

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Speaker 1: a month when behold seized one morning with a fit

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Speaker 1: of sneezing and blowing her nose. After to her great surprise,

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Speaker 1: she found a worm rolled up in a little blood.

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Speaker 1: This worm, when stretched to its full length was six

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Speaker 1: inches long and but two When it contracted itself, it

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Speaker 1: was two lines broad and one and a half thick,

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Speaker 1: of a coffee color, convex on one side and flat

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Speaker 1: on the other. It was of the centipede kind and

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Speaker 1: had fifty six feet on each side. It had two eyes,

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Speaker 1: and both its head and tail were armed with two forks.

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Speaker 1: It lived eighteen hours in an empty bottle, and three

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Speaker 1: or four hours after brandy had been put to it.

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Speaker 1: The egg that produced this worm, in all probability, was

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Speaker 1: sucked in along with the air she breathed, and carried

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Speaker 1: after to the frontal sinus, where it met with a

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Speaker 1: proper need us, meaning nest, to give it both growth

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Speaker 1: and increase. All right, Well, at least we have a

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Speaker 1: on a hypothesis here of how it could have wound

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Speaker 1: up there, right, Maybe, I mean that seem well, she

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Speaker 1: sucked in the eggs somehow and it hatched in there.

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Speaker 1: That also, I don't know. I'm not a centipede expert.

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Speaker 1: That seems a little bit unlikely, but it sounded like

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Speaker 1: the The implication here was that it might the egg

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Speaker 1: might have been in the snuff. At any rate, there's

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Speaker 1: there's at least a there's a there's an attempt at

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Speaker 1: explaining how it wound up in there. It's not like,

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Speaker 1: oh God has has put a centipede in thy head.

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Speaker 1: It is clearly a spontaneous generation of centipedes. Right, clearly

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Speaker 1: we have we have a theory about it. We have

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Speaker 1: an hypothesis about how it could have ended up in there,

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Speaker 1: and then the story of how it ended up coming out.

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Speaker 1: It's about to get weirder. Guess what the reporting physician

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Speaker 1: recommends as a treatment for centipede sinus blowing, blowing one's nose. Nope.

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Speaker 1: Monsieur Letra, who related the story, advises in all such

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Speaker 1: stubborn cases as will not submit to either external or

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Speaker 1: internal means, to come to the trapan which may be

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Speaker 1: employed with all safety. That's right, trepanning if the insect

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Speaker 1: won't come out. Now, we've talked about trepanning on the

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Speaker 1: podcast before. What what's going on here? You bring out

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Speaker 1: the drill, that's right, we're talking. Usually usually the idea

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Speaker 1: would be we're going to drill a hole in the

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Speaker 1: skull to relieve pressure into uh and and therefore a

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Speaker 1: relieve you of your symptoms. But I guess this is

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Speaker 1: the idea of like, Okay, it needs that centipede needs

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Speaker 1: out of your head. It's not coming out through the

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Speaker 1: naturally occurring gateways. We shall make a new gateway in

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Speaker 1: the head for the centipede. Right, I mean this is

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Speaker 1: almost like the centipede is kind of taking the role

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Speaker 1: of the stone of madness in the medieval form here. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Though again I want to allow I feel this is unlikely.

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Speaker 1: It's not impossible lady had a centipede in your sinus. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He also recommends using oil and acrid plants to force

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Speaker 1: it out. That maybe seems more reasonable. That would be like,

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Speaker 1: let's try that first. Yes, let's let's check those off

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Speaker 1: the list first. Okay, that's not all. I feel like,

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Speaker 1: who's the Who's the game show host who says that's

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Speaker 1: not all. You're gonna get more prizes? I don't know.

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Speaker 1: The cat in the hat says that, okay, I might

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Speaker 1: a game show host, the cat in the hat, I

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Speaker 1: will be the cat in the hat and said, that's

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Speaker 1: not the last of the centipedes up the noses, but

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Speaker 1: we got more for you, including with more tobacco associate ship.

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Speaker 1: So with the snuff third case documented right, alongside the

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Speaker 1: first one in this In this source from the eighteenth century,

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Speaker 1: Monsieur Malow reported that one of the king's household troops

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Speaker 1: complained for three years of an acute pain in the

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Speaker 1: left frontal sinus, which extended to the eye of the

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Speaker 1: same side, so as to endanger his losing it. He

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Speaker 1: had also a buzzing noise in his ear to relieve

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Speaker 1: which he had some oil of sweet almonds put into it,

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Speaker 1: And in two days after he perceived in his left

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Speaker 1: nostril and itching and stinging, as if something moved there,

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Speaker 1: which he could not discharge, but by putting his finger

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Speaker 1: into his nose, when behold, he pulled out a worm,

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Speaker 1: which ran swiftly on the palm of his hand, though

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Speaker 1: covered with a viscous matter and snuff of which this

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Speaker 1: gentleman took plenty. This worm was put into a tobacco

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Speaker 1: box with snuff in it, where it lived five or

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Speaker 1: six days. All the patients complaints ceased after this worm

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Speaker 1: came away. The only difference between this and the former

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Speaker 1: is this this worm was six lines only long, and

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Speaker 1: had but one hundred feet, but there was this singular

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Speaker 1: in both cases. The former was thought to be expelled

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Speaker 1: by the use of tobacco snuff, whereas this subsisted three

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Speaker 1: years with a plentiful use of the same weed, and

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Speaker 1: after its expulsion lived five or six days on the

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Speaker 1: same all right, So the idea here is that the

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Speaker 1: centipede lived for years in this guy's head because he

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Speaker 1: kept putting snuff in there, and it was eating the snuff.

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Speaker 1: It seems to be at least partially the implication. I

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Speaker 1: don't know about eating the snuff. There seemed to be

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Speaker 1: multiple reasons to doubt the story, especially if you're taking

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Speaker 1: on that detail about the last one, like surviving by

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Speaker 1: eating tobacco. Tobacco, of course, contains nicotine, which is a

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Speaker 1: powerful poison. Like so many of the drugs that humans

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Speaker 1: consume on purpose recreationally, nicotine is supposed to discourage animals

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Speaker 1: from taking the from consuming the plan and this is

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Speaker 1: one of the reasons nicotine can be used as a

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Speaker 1: natural pesticide. However, I do want to take a really

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Speaker 1: brief digression just to point out unfascinating creature I came

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Speaker 1: across here that does survive on tobacco and nicotine, and

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Speaker 1: that is the man Duca Sexta Robert do you know

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Speaker 1: about this one. I no, I wasn't familiar with the

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Speaker 1: man Duca sexta. Oh, this is great. So this is

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Speaker 1: a moth of this finger day family and in its

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Speaker 1: larval stage, so meaning as a caterpillar. This species is

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Speaker 1: sometimes known as the tobacco hornworm. So the tobacco hornworm

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Speaker 1: eats the leaves of the tobacco plant. And the horn

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Speaker 1: hornworm has a special gene called c yp six B

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Speaker 1: forty six that allows it to metabolize nicotine. And now

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Speaker 1: there's a twist. It doesn't just metabolize the nicotine. It

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Speaker 1: uses this tobacco in its diet to produce a chemical

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Speaker 1: defense sometimes referred to in the literature as toxic halitosis.

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Speaker 1: It's killer tobacco breath. And so when the hornworm is

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Speaker 1: threatened by a predator like a wolf spider, it can

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Speaker 1: defend itself by releasing nicotine through pores in its skin,

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Speaker 1: which drives away the predator. And this has been confirmed

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Speaker 1: by research that found that hornworm is fed on low

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Speaker 1: nicotine food were more susceptible to being attacked by wolf spiders.

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Speaker 1: But at the same time, I do not think that

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Speaker 1: a tobacco hornworm was in this guy's sinus, right, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's a big difference between this this larva that is

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Speaker 1: uh you know, clearly it has evolved to feed on

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Speaker 1: the leaves of this plant versus the predator that is

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Speaker 1: the centipede. Okay, so we got doubts about all these reports.

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Speaker 1: But that that's three centipede in the nose reports. Now

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Speaker 1: you know what. I found one more old centipede in

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Speaker 1: the nose report. This one from the Journal of Laryngology

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Speaker 1: and Ontology by W. P. May M E y j

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Speaker 1: E S. I don't know how to pronounce that, but

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Speaker 1: I think this is a report from Amsterdam. And this

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Speaker 1: is from and this report goes a woman farm worker

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Speaker 1: from the countryside appeared to the physician with the complaint

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Speaker 1: of a headache over the right eye that had persisted

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Speaker 1: for months, combined with a chronic running nose. The doctor

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Speaker 1: did not immediately detect any major problems except for stuff

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Speaker 1: swelling in the nasal cavity and conjunctivitis or you know,

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Speaker 1: inflammation of the eyes. So to help less in the

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Speaker 1: swelling go down, the doctor ordered menthol with boric acid

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Speaker 1: for the woman to snuff up. Uh. Man, every time

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Speaker 1: you read these You're just like, wow, these old treatments

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Speaker 1: are boric acid. Um. But so she snuffed it up.

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Speaker 1: A few days later, the woman returned. Uh. After she

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Speaker 1: has snuffed up the menthol and the boric acid, she

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Speaker 1: has a fit of sneezing and quote found in her

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Speaker 1: handkerchief a small insects still alive. She had put it

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Speaker 1: in some brandy and took it to me. The insect,

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Speaker 1: which was about seven millimeters long, turned to be a centipede. Uh. Centipede,

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Speaker 1: of course, is not an insect, but uh. This report

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Speaker 1: says after the centipede was sneezed out, all the woman's

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Speaker 1: symptoms went away. So it's difficult to tell how much

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Speaker 1: stock we should put into these stories about centipedes in

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Speaker 1: the human body, apparently like reported by physicians to real

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Speaker 1: medical journals and publications, uh and on. Fortunately, as we

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Speaker 1: will explore in the rest of this episode, it is

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Speaker 1: not in principle impossible for insects, centipedes, and other small

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Speaker 1: creatures to get inside a person's cranial cavities. That does happen,

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Speaker 1: and we'll discuss more later. At the same time, these stories,

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Speaker 1: at least some of them, seem kind of suspicious for

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Speaker 1: the quality of how long the centipede was supposedly alive

390
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Speaker 1: inside the human Maybe not impossible, but it's definitely questionable.

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Speaker 1: They also to me, at least, I don't know if

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Speaker 1: you've got the same feeling, Robert. They call to mind

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Speaker 1: the story of Mary Toft, the eighteenth century englishwoman and

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Speaker 1: first class hoax artists who had doctors and surgeons convinced

395
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Speaker 1: that she was repeatedly giving birth to rabbits. Oh yes,

396
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Speaker 1: I remember this story, and apparently she really damaged some

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Speaker 1: medical reputations because she had some some guys on on

398
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Speaker 1: the line saying like, oh, yeah, I saw it. This

399
00:21:51,520 --> 00:21:53,920
Speaker 1: lady gave birth to like rabbit parts and like part

400
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Speaker 1: of an eel and parts of a cat, which if

401
00:21:56,359 --> 00:21:58,840
Speaker 1: nothing else shows you like, here's an example, like somebody's

402
00:21:58,880 --> 00:22:04,480
Speaker 1: willing to go through the grossness of of producing um

403
00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:07,400
Speaker 1: to say, part of a rabbit from their body as

404
00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:10,919
Speaker 1: a hoax. So putting a centipede up your nose, really

405
00:22:10,960 --> 00:22:13,399
Speaker 1: it's a lighter sentence. Or I mean, in some cases,

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Speaker 1: all you'd have to do is show up with the

407
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:17,840
Speaker 1: centipede in a handkerchief in a bottle of brand yeah,

408
00:22:18,119 --> 00:22:20,920
Speaker 1: and say this came out of my nose. Now, why

409
00:22:21,119 --> 00:22:23,760
Speaker 1: people would really be compelled to do that, I don't know.

410
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Speaker 1: But then again, people have all kinds of crazy reasons

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Speaker 1: for doing stuff. I mean, people just like to make

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Speaker 1: up weird stories sometimes, Yeah, could just be for for

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Speaker 1: the sheer attention of the thing. Yeah. Uh. Then again,

414
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Speaker 1: I don't want to totally discount the full nature of

415
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Speaker 1: these stories, because there are also modern reports of centipedes

416
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Speaker 1: and body cavities. Some tend to be reported with like

417
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Speaker 1: an air of sensationalism that kind of prejudices me against

418
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Speaker 1: just accepting them. For example, in k A t V,

419
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Speaker 1: a local news station in Arkansas reported the fourteen year

420
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Speaker 1: old boy and Selene County woke up with terrible pain

421
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Speaker 1: in one of his ears. He reached into his ear

422
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Speaker 1: pulled out a four inch long centipede. Uh. The family

423
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Speaker 1: reportedly put the centipede in a plastic bag and took

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Speaker 1: the boy to the emergency room. He was okay. Uh.

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Speaker 1: In the hospital reported they never encountered a centipede in

426
00:23:12,960 --> 00:23:15,960
Speaker 1: an ear before. I guess nothing about that story is

427
00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:19,320
Speaker 1: really implausible, except that it always gets picked up by

428
00:23:19,359 --> 00:23:22,280
Speaker 1: like the daily mail, And that's how you see it um,

429
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:24,719
Speaker 1: and so that sort of prejudices me against it. But

430
00:23:24,800 --> 00:23:28,080
Speaker 1: for the record, I tried to find recently documented cases

431
00:23:28,080 --> 00:23:31,400
Speaker 1: of centipedes in the nasal cavity and couldn't find anything,

432
00:23:31,480 --> 00:23:34,040
Speaker 1: though I did find reports of centipedes in the human ear.

433
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:36,399
Speaker 1: So it seems like if centipedes do get up in

434
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:39,760
Speaker 1: the sinuses, up in the nose, that's it's much more

435
00:23:39,920 --> 00:23:43,120
Speaker 1: rare for that to happen than for other cranial invasions,

436
00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:46,199
Speaker 1: such as say, cockroaches in the ear, which we'll get

437
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:48,199
Speaker 1: too later. All right, on that note, we're gonna take

438
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:52,840
Speaker 1: a quick break, but we'll be right back. Thank Alright,

439
00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:58,159
Speaker 1: we're back. So we've discussed centipedes crawling around in one's

440
00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:01,840
Speaker 1: head allegedly. Uh where what parts of the human bodies

441
00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:04,600
Speaker 1: are we going to next? Ye? Well, I think we should.

442
00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:08,600
Speaker 1: We should take a foray into the oral cavity. So

443
00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:11,879
Speaker 1: let's establish some basic facts here. Uh. First of all,

444
00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:14,800
Speaker 1: the question can bugs get inside your body cavities? The

445
00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:18,160
Speaker 1: answer is yes, that that can happen. It does sometimes happen, right,

446
00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:21,040
Speaker 1: and anything, we need more bugs in our mouths because

447
00:24:21,080 --> 00:24:23,119
Speaker 1: we should be eating more bugs. Oh, that's a totally

448
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:25,320
Speaker 1: different question. Yeah, I mean we're I think we're on

449
00:24:25,359 --> 00:24:28,639
Speaker 1: the record being pro intomate Feji here, but not talking

450
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:31,080
Speaker 1: about the mouth cavity so much because that's less of

451
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 1: a worry, right, And unless the bug is poisonous, if

452
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:37,280
Speaker 1: you swallow it, you know it's just protein. It's yeah,

453
00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:40,000
Speaker 1: it's gonna be digested. The problem would really be if

454
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:42,760
Speaker 1: it's in a cavity that is not meant to accept

455
00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:46,440
Speaker 1: incoming solid matter. So this is where we're getting into

456
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 1: the ear, Yes, exactly. And so it's time to talk

457
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:52,439
Speaker 1: about cockroaches because cockroaches are apparently one of the most

458
00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:55,960
Speaker 1: common animals to end up in human orifices in real

459
00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:59,640
Speaker 1: documented cases. I was reading a National Geographic article about

460
00:24:59,640 --> 00:25:03,719
Speaker 1: this by Erica Ingleholped and she sites an interview with

461
00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:07,840
Speaker 1: a North Carolina State University entomologists named Kobe shawl a

462
00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:11,440
Speaker 1: few of Shaw's quotes and insights. Of course, first of all,

463
00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:14,240
Speaker 1: it's not uncommon for a cockroach to show up in

464
00:25:14,280 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 1: the human ear. That just does happen. People show up

465
00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:19,600
Speaker 1: at hospitals all the time with a cockroach lodged in

466
00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:23,200
Speaker 1: their ear. Apparently the no is as much more unusual this.

467
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 1: This is like a less common thing to find, but

468
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:31,720
Speaker 1: also not totally unknown why cockroaches. Well Shall says, cockroaches

469
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:35,120
Speaker 1: are constantly searching for food, and actually ear wax might

470
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:38,720
Speaker 1: be an attractive source of nutrition to them. Ear wax

471
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:42,960
Speaker 1: tends to contain microbiota that emit a particular kind of

472
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 1: volatile compound, volatile fatty acids, and these airborne compounds are

473
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 1: similar to what might be present in meat. So your

474
00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:55,560
Speaker 1: ear wax might smell like meat to a hungry cockroach

475
00:25:56,400 --> 00:25:59,720
Speaker 1: crawling into those meat caves. It's like that that meat

476
00:25:59,720 --> 00:26:02,399
Speaker 1: wax straight to the butcher's shop gets you some some

477
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:11,680
Speaker 1: gabba google in the ear. You're agool anyway. Shall suggests

478
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:15,359
Speaker 1: it's possible that secretions from the nasal passage might also

479
00:26:15,440 --> 00:26:18,040
Speaker 1: be appealing as a kind of food to cockroaches, and

480
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:20,879
Speaker 1: don't know for sure, but as possible. But it's also

481
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 1: worth emphasizing that cockroaches are not parasites. They're not like cookworms,

482
00:26:25,080 --> 00:26:27,360
Speaker 1: they're not like the human bot fly. It is not

483
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 1: in their interest to get stuck inside a human body cavity, right.

484
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:35,600
Speaker 1: That is, it's an extreme environment best left to the specialists. Right, So,

485
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:37,879
Speaker 1: when a when a cockroach ends up in a human

486
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:40,520
Speaker 1: ear or even in a nose. It is generally all

487
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:43,640
Speaker 1: just a big misunderstanding. They didn't mean they didn't really

488
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:45,679
Speaker 1: want to get stuck in there. They don't want to

489
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:48,200
Speaker 1: be inside you. They'd rather be somewhere else. But it

490
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:50,760
Speaker 1: just happened they were hungry. Now that that being said,

491
00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:54,399
Speaker 1: one can well imagine that this could be a path,

492
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:59,560
Speaker 1: a long path to parasitism in an organism um, such

493
00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 1: as to say, the the theories regarding of the emergence

494
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:08,399
Speaker 1: of vampire bats that they may have once feasted on um,

495
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 1: you know, in the larva that might be present at

496
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 1: a at a wound site on some sort of megafauna,

497
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:18,000
Speaker 1: and then over time that develops into a more strategic

498
00:27:18,040 --> 00:27:22,520
Speaker 1: consumption of blood directly from the you know, the large herbivore,

499
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:25,919
Speaker 1: as opposed to drinking the blood eating the body of

500
00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:29,120
Speaker 1: the parasites that prey upon the larger before. So an

501
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:32,399
Speaker 1: evolutionary path over like millions of years, not over like

502
00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:35,320
Speaker 1: a night or a year. Nowhere we're going to get tomorrow,

503
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:38,159
Speaker 1: and nowhere that we have arrived yet. Oh, that is

504
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 1: an interesting evolutionary path of the path from say like

505
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 1: a cleaning mutualism to parasitism, but it would have to

506
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: be a situation like the thing about it is. For

507
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:50,959
Speaker 1: the cockroach, especially in a human habitat, there's plenty to eat.

508
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:53,280
Speaker 1: There are plenty of other things to eat, like the

509
00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:56,000
Speaker 1: that the ear wax. If it were, you know, a

510
00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: great source of of a sustenance, it's probably not the

511
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 1: best source of sustenance for the creature. Well even so,

512
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 1: it probably might just smell like sustenance. Uh So, almost

513
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:10,920
Speaker 1: all incursions of roach kind into human orifices happen while

514
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:13,480
Speaker 1: the human is asleep. That almost never happened while the

515
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:17,960
Speaker 1: persons awake, and they also almost always feature small specimens

516
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:19,679
Speaker 1: of the creature involved. You don't tend to get a

517
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 1: giant cockroach in your ear. You get a little juvenile cockroach,

518
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:26,679
Speaker 1: one of those movie or zooch cockroaches. Movie ors, what

519
00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:29,399
Speaker 1: do you what do you mean? Because you're watching a

520
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:31,280
Speaker 1: movie or you go to the zoo, you're probably gonna

521
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 1: encounter one of those giant, kising cockroaches. And then likewise,

522
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 1: if it's a film about cockroaches, sometimes they'll throw one

523
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: of those in just because some people keep them as

524
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 1: pets in there more they're just grossery looking there's a

525
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 1: zero percent chance you'll get a giant, hissing cockroach in

526
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 1: your ear. If you get one, it will be a

527
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: little one, you know, not as big a deal. Um.

528
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 1: But also wild bugs can get inside the human body sometimes.

529
00:28:54,800 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 1: Most of the reports and images of this you see

530
00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 1: on the internet are fake. We want to phasize this

531
00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 1: all that. You know, you'll see this on social media.

532
00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:07,440
Speaker 1: You'll see reports in the tabloids, spiders crawling under people's skin,

533
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:10,720
Speaker 1: burrowing into wounds and all that. It's pretty much all fake.

534
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:14,360
Speaker 1: In like, cockroaches really do get into ears, but almost

535
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 1: every image you see on the internet is not real. Likewise,

536
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:19,800
Speaker 1: a lot of the reports you read on the internet,

537
00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:23,280
Speaker 1: especially from kind of viral sources, they're not real either.

538
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 1: One common example is, and I don't know, Robert, have

539
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 1: you ever come across the story of like ants getting

540
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 1: in through the ear and eating the brain. I don't

541
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 1: think I have, but that does sound like the kind

542
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 1: of thing you might read and forward from Grandma or something. Exactly.

543
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 1: They get through the gain in the ear and eat

544
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 1: the brain if you like, eat sweets before going to bed,

545
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:45,280
Speaker 1: or they crawl in one ear and crawl out the

546
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 1: other ear. These things do not happen. There are no

547
00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 1: records in the medical literature of anything like this happening,

548
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 1: and it doesn't make sense on its face. Insects do

549
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 1: sometimes go in the ear, but they don't eat the brain.

550
00:29:56,760 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 1: They don't infest the deeper cranium. That just doesn't happen.

551
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:03,360
Speaker 1: But it's easy to see why stories like this, the

552
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:07,240
Speaker 1: untrue stories, especially about like spiders crawling under the skin,

553
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:09,400
Speaker 1: or ants getting in through the ear and eating the

554
00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:11,680
Speaker 1: brain and all that kind of thing, why they are

555
00:30:11,840 --> 00:30:14,760
Speaker 1: very popular and clicky and share able, and why they

556
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 1: take hold of the public consciousness, why they become entomological folklore,

557
00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:25,200
Speaker 1: because I think they ping a very sensitive spot in

558
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 1: our in our you know, neurology, that like, there's a

559
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 1: certain part of human nature that seems very finely tuned

560
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 1: for recognizing parasitism and creepy Crawley's and anything that might

561
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 1: be getting on you, because there are real parasites out there.

562
00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 1: Uh So we're sort of hyper primed, I think, to

563
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:47,800
Speaker 1: make monsters within this category, right, and and and sometimes

564
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 1: we overtly make monsters of them too. It's not count

565
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 1: out the role that horror plays in all of this,

566
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 1: Like In thinking of this, how many of you thought

567
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 1: back to Stephen King's Creep Show and the scene where

568
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 1: all the cockroaches burst out of e. G. Marshall. That's

569
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:03,960
Speaker 1: a great one, Yeah, and in a whole bit that's

570
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 1: about like fear of creepy crawleys and cockroaches, you know.

571
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 1: And we have all these stories too, have like vampires

572
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 1: dying and bursting into you know, a wave of centipedes

573
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:15,400
Speaker 1: and uh bugs. Well, e G. Marshall, I think he

574
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:17,760
Speaker 1: plays like a Howard Hughes type character, right, He's got

575
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 1: he's like a rich guy who keeps himself secluded because

576
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:24,120
Speaker 1: he's afraid of like bugs and germs and everything. Right.

577
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:27,280
Speaker 1: And there's also I think with this innate, this innate

578
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 1: fear of our body being habitat for something, and our body,

579
00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: our bodies are habitats. We learn more about that essential

580
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 1: nature of our being every day. Uh. But it's part

581
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 1: of the horrors of the grave, and the idea that

582
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 1: we would they would things would be living within us

583
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 1: while we were alive is grotesque, yeah, exactly. But I

584
00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: mean your body needs to be a habitat for your microbiome.

585
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:51,200
Speaker 1: You don't want it to be a habitat for other

586
00:31:51,320 --> 00:31:54,880
Speaker 1: larger creatures. And so, while it is not impossible for

587
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:57,600
Speaker 1: bugs to get inside human body cavities like, there are

588
00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 1: cases where it definitely happens. Oh yes, we will discus

589
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: us more before this episode is over. Many, and I'd

590
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:06,320
Speaker 1: say probably the vast majority of cases in which someone

591
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:09,840
Speaker 1: is convinced they have bugs inside their body are cases

592
00:32:09,880 --> 00:32:13,600
Speaker 1: of what's known as delusional infestation, also known as delusional

593
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 1: parasitosis or sometimes as eck Bombs syndrome. Yeah, name for

594
00:32:18,400 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 1: Swedish neurologist Carl Axel Eckbomb, who published siminar accounts of

595
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 1: the disease in and basically the idea here is that, um,

596
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 1: you know, one comes to believe that parasites are infesting

597
00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:38,480
Speaker 1: your home, your surroundings, your clothing, and ultimately your body. Now,

598
00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 1: of course, these reports are not isolated to real actual

599
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 1: parasites like hookworms and you know that kind of thing.

600
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:48,600
Speaker 1: It it also includes delusional ideas about insects and other

601
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:51,920
Speaker 1: creatures that are not actually parasites. Right, and and very

602
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 1: often the way it ends up going is is someone

603
00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:56,640
Speaker 1: feels that they are infested by something, you know, they

604
00:32:56,680 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 1: feel that they have uh parasites inside their body and

605
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:03,320
Speaker 1: their bowels, under their skin, there's some sort of an

606
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:06,200
Speaker 1: itching sensation, et cetera. And then they go to the

607
00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:08,560
Speaker 1: doctor and the doctor looks at them and says, no,

608
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:12,280
Speaker 1: there's nothing, there's nothing there, but they know they feel

609
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:14,960
Speaker 1: that they believe it, and they begin going down this

610
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:18,800
Speaker 1: road of trying to figure out what's wrong. Um. But

611
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:21,840
Speaker 1: of course, ultimately it is not a problem. It's not

612
00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 1: a dermatological problem, it's not a it's not a medical

613
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:28,960
Speaker 1: biological problem. It is a psychological problem. It is a delusion.

614
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 1: So you see this sometimes in the cases of stimulant abuse,

615
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:40,560
Speaker 1: especially methamphetamine abuse, can result in delusional parasites. Uh. Sometimes

616
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:43,160
Speaker 1: you've seen these referred to as cocaine bugs, or you

617
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 1: know the ideas of tweakers who pick at their skin

618
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 1: in search of the bugs that they feel in their skin. UM.

619
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:53,120
Speaker 1: The Bohart Museum of Entomology points out that high fevers

620
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:56,719
Speaker 1: and severe alcohol withdrawal can also produce these symptoms, along

621
00:33:56,760 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 1: with visual hallucinations of the bugs and question. UM. I

622
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:04,320
Speaker 1: should also point out there's a there's a wonderful I

623
00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:06,480
Speaker 1: don't know if wonderful as the word for it. There's

624
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:10,799
Speaker 1: a very uh. There there's a there's a there's a play, powerful,

625
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:14,719
Speaker 1: powerful play by Tracy Letts that I actually got to

626
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:17,399
Speaker 1: see performed locally here in Atlanta, is really really, really

627
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:20,839
Speaker 1: good called Bug uh. And it was later made into

628
00:34:20,920 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 1: a two thousand and six film by William Friedkin, starring

629
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:28,600
Speaker 1: Ashley Judd, Michael Shannon, and Harry Connick Jr. Harry Connick Jr. Yeah,

630
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:32,360
Speaker 1: I don't know who he. I haven't seen the film version, um,

631
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:34,840
Speaker 1: but I know that the two main characters are Judd

632
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:37,879
Speaker 1: and Shannon in the film. Um. But but it's quite good.

633
00:34:37,920 --> 00:34:40,239
Speaker 1: There's a lot of skin in it, a lot of

634
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 1: bug delusions. Uh. And it begins with conspiracy theories about

635
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:46,799
Speaker 1: the infestation of the room or the apartment that they're

636
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:49,120
Speaker 1: staying in, and then they end up having the shared

637
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:52,040
Speaker 1: delusion of their bodies being infested by some sort of

638
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 1: a parasite. Anyway, that's the that's the fiction. But the

639
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 1: fiction that does line up reasonably well with some of

640
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:02,240
Speaker 1: the realities. The delusion can ultimately result in self mutilation

641
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:04,879
Speaker 1: is one attempts to remove the bugs, or as one

642
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:10,200
Speaker 1: excessively scratches at the skin. There's actually a wonderful article

643
00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 1: that came out about this couple of years ago from

644
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:15,360
Speaker 1: Eric Boudman, and he actually won a two thousand eighteen

645
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:20,400
Speaker 1: Science and Society Journalism Award for his article Accidental therapists

646
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:24,080
Speaker 1: for insect detectives. The trickiest cases involved the bugs that

647
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 1: aren't really there. Published in UH in s t a

648
00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:32,239
Speaker 1: t Uh, he describes an individual suffering from this delusion

649
00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:36,320
Speaker 1: who consulted an exterminator. Uh. Then they consulted their doctor,

650
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:39,359
Speaker 1: and then they went to a dermatologist. And each time

651
00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:42,879
Speaker 1: they weren't getting the answers that they wanted and then

652
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:44,759
Speaker 1: they needed they were they each time they were told,

653
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:46,279
Speaker 1: you know, there are no bugs in your house, there

654
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:49,200
Speaker 1: are no bugs in your skin. Uh Like. Ultimately they

655
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:53,319
Speaker 1: took to uh filling a bathtub up with insecticide and

656
00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:56,600
Speaker 1: climbing into it. And but even that they didn't solve it.

657
00:35:56,640 --> 00:35:58,880
Speaker 1: They got out and they still felt the presence of

658
00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:02,600
Speaker 1: the bugs. And that's where, as A. Boudman explains in

659
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:05,560
Speaker 1: his article, that's where Dr Gail Ridge entered the scenario.

660
00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:08,920
Speaker 1: A public entomologists, meaning people come to her with specimens

661
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:11,080
Speaker 1: and questions to the tune of like twenty three people

662
00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 1: a day and she works at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.

663
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:19,520
Speaker 1: So this individual came to her and she tried to explain, no, look,

664
00:36:19,560 --> 00:36:22,000
Speaker 1: this is how insects actually interact with your skin. This

665
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:25,799
Speaker 1: is how you know actual parasites work. Um. And she

666
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:28,720
Speaker 1: ended up seeing the individual a handful of times before

667
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 1: she learned that they died. Um. So in this case.

668
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:35,960
Speaker 1: In others, uh Dr Ridge here often has to weigh

669
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:39,160
Speaker 1: in on cases that are far more psychological than entomological.

670
00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:42,879
Speaker 1: That makes sense, now. Budman's paper is is a great read.

671
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:44,160
Speaker 1: I'll try to include a link to it on the

672
00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:47,400
Speaker 1: landing page for this episode at at the website stuff

673
00:36:47,440 --> 00:36:49,719
Speaker 1: to Bling your Mind dot com. But it makes a

674
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:53,360
Speaker 1: number of very interesting points. First of all, these patients

675
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:56,719
Speaker 1: are really suffering, even though doctors tend tend to in

676
00:36:56,760 --> 00:36:59,239
Speaker 1: many cases dismissed them and send them away. Right, Like

677
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:01,000
Speaker 1: if you show up at a doctor's office and you

678
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:03,759
Speaker 1: say I've got bugs inside my body and then the

679
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:06,680
Speaker 1: doctor just checks and says, no, there are no bugs

680
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:09,600
Speaker 1: in there. That that shouldn't be case closed, right, That

681
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:12,280
Speaker 1: should be like there should be a sign that something

682
00:37:12,400 --> 00:37:14,200
Speaker 1: is wrong that you do need help in a way

683
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:17,160
Speaker 1: even if there aren't physically insects. But it's it's a

684
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:20,400
Speaker 1: difficult scenario because the best treatment for their suffering is

685
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:24,360
Speaker 1: usually an antipsychotic. But there, there, you there. But generally

686
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:27,240
Speaker 1: the problem that the struggle is getting them to accept

687
00:37:27,400 --> 00:37:30,360
Speaker 1: that their problem is psychological and that they need to

688
00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:32,920
Speaker 1: see a mental health professional because they're coming in here

689
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 1: they believe that only a powerful anti parasitic is going

690
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 1: to do the trick. Uh and or that an insect

691
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:44,359
Speaker 1: specialist is required. Quote Ridge sees as many as two

692
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:47,080
Speaker 1: hundred of these cases a year. She isn't the only

693
00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:50,960
Speaker 1: one with this unintentional expertise. A whole network of entomologists,

694
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:54,520
Speaker 1: a universities, research stations and even at natural history museums

695
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:58,359
Speaker 1: is all too familiar with these requests. So they come in,

696
00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:01,759
Speaker 1: they bring scabs, samples of skin. Is proof. One of

697
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:05,560
Speaker 1: the individuals that Budeman talks to is Nancy Hinkel from

698
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 1: the University of Georgia at Athens, so close by here

699
00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:12,759
Speaker 1: and uh. Hinkel says that inquiries like this take up

700
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:16,680
Speaker 1: twenty percent of her time and that every state has

701
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:19,759
Speaker 1: quote somebody like Gael or meat like there's somebody in

702
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:23,520
Speaker 1: there that that this is becoming increasingly their work. In

703
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:27,560
Speaker 1: other words, cases of delusional parasitosis are rare in the

704
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:31,280
Speaker 1: medical field, but far more common in the intomol entomological world.

705
00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:35,399
Speaker 1: Extreme cases may end in severe alteration to one's life,

706
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:38,600
Speaker 1: even suicide or death. Um. Here's one more quote from

707
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:41,960
Speaker 1: the article. Quote. Even when an entomologist notices the tailtell

708
00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:45,000
Speaker 1: signs of DP, there is little that can be done

709
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:47,879
Speaker 1: over the phone. Biologists estimate that there are some six

710
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 1: point eight million anthropod species on Earth. Even the most

711
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:54,360
Speaker 1: fanciful description could at its root be a real insect.

712
00:38:54,640 --> 00:38:57,719
Speaker 1: Well that's sort of like what we're running into with, uh,

713
00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:01,799
Speaker 1: with the cases of the centipedes up earlier, Like we

714
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:03,839
Speaker 1: didn't we're not there to see it, so we don't

715
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:06,839
Speaker 1: really know for sure. We're just reading these accounts, and

716
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:09,319
Speaker 1: so we're stuck with saying like, I don't know, I

717
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:12,240
Speaker 1: don't think this likely happened, but we can't be sure.

718
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:15,399
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't roll it outright. So part part

719
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:17,799
Speaker 1: of the problem identified in this article is that what's

720
00:39:17,880 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 1: needed here are psycho dermatology outposts in the medical world

721
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:25,160
Speaker 1: where where the connection between the science of the mind

722
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:28,279
Speaker 1: and signs of the skin is more established, so there's

723
00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:33,440
Speaker 1: greater ease and finesse moving patients toward proper psychological treatments.

724
00:39:33,920 --> 00:39:36,000
Speaker 1: And there apparently are a few places in the United

725
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:38,400
Speaker 1: States and some in the Netherlands that have begun to

726
00:39:38,400 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 1: do this. Uh. One of the accounts that the author

727
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 1: includes here mentions a doctor in Amsterdam that that deals

728
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 1: with patients and they've they've sort of figured out how to,

729
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:52,319
Speaker 1: you know, first form a relationship of trust with the

730
00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:56,160
Speaker 1: patient and then at the appropriate time, you know, let

731
00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:58,120
Speaker 1: them know like this is something you need to see

732
00:39:58,160 --> 00:40:02,440
Speaker 1: a psychiatrist about, and and sometimes sweetening the deal by

733
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:05,960
Speaker 1: pointing out pointing to a two thousand fourteen paper about

734
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:09,800
Speaker 1: how some drugs that treat delusional disorders also happened to

735
00:40:09,880 --> 00:40:12,799
Speaker 1: kill kill parasites. So I think that's interesting, you know,

736
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:15,319
Speaker 1: pointing figuring out that, like, like they're they're more of

737
00:40:15,320 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 1: these cases occurring than one might think. And if we

738
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:24,880
Speaker 1: just if medical professionals, entomologists, uh, etcetera. Are are better

739
00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:29,200
Speaker 1: positioned to move them towards encourage them to go seek

740
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:33,279
Speaker 1: appropriate help, Uh, everyone's going to be better off. Yeah, absolutely, though,

741
00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:35,719
Speaker 1: I mean, this is such a hard problem and it's

742
00:40:35,719 --> 00:40:38,640
Speaker 1: also part of a broader problem which is present in

743
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:43,200
Speaker 1: the medical and mental health communities where it's um, it

744
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:45,960
Speaker 1: just tends to be a fact that people who are

745
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:51,120
Speaker 1: experiencing delusions and psychosis another you know, most of the

746
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 1: conditions that cause them to experience delusions and psychosis also

747
00:40:55,320 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 1: tend to entail ideation patterns that made people resistant to

748
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:03,160
Speaker 1: correct die gnosis. So like if you tell a person that, Okay,

749
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:05,920
Speaker 1: you know, what you think you're experiencing is not physically

750
00:41:05,960 --> 00:41:08,759
Speaker 1: the case, and you know, like anti psychotic medication could

751
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 1: help you, Uh, it just tends very often to be

752
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:14,640
Speaker 1: the case that people don't respond well to being told that,

753
00:41:14,719 --> 00:41:17,759
Speaker 1: and that they say, no, that's not right, right, And

754
00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:21,600
Speaker 1: then oftentimes there's a stigma against a seeking professional help

755
00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 1: for for mental problems or having any kind of mental

756
00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:27,680
Speaker 1: disorder or delusion. And then again back to just the

757
00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:31,400
Speaker 1: nature of insects and infesting our homes, like how hard

758
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:35,600
Speaker 1: are are fleas to see? How hard a chiggers to see? Um,

759
00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 1: you know, without getting into just the whole list of

760
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:45,160
Speaker 1: various parasitic organisms that are basically invisible to us. So again,

761
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:48,560
Speaker 1: it doesn't I mean, if you're one is presented with

762
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:51,719
Speaker 1: the option like, well, either other people just can't see

763
00:41:51,719 --> 00:41:53,879
Speaker 1: this creature because it's small, or other people can't see

764
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:56,200
Speaker 1: this creature because it is a delusion of your mind.

765
00:41:57,120 --> 00:41:59,160
Speaker 1: You can see why people are more inclined to believe

766
00:41:59,520 --> 00:42:01,640
Speaker 1: that it's is something that they just haven't found the

767
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:04,880
Speaker 1: right entomologists, they haven't found the right dermatologists to identify

768
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:06,880
Speaker 1: the problem. Yeah. Well, I guess we'd certainly hope that

769
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:10,319
Speaker 1: by like establishing procedures like this where you've got sort

770
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:12,120
Speaker 1: of a chain of people to talk to where you

771
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:15,160
Speaker 1: established trust with the patient, and by trying to remove

772
00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 1: stigma from seeking mental health help, uh, that maybe maybe

773
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 1: this kind of thing could get better. I don't know,

774
00:42:21,160 --> 00:42:23,759
Speaker 1: I would hope, so yeah, yeah, because according to what

775
00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:28,319
Speaker 1: I've read, the antipsychotic medications do help the individuals. So like,

776
00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:30,800
Speaker 1: you know, there there there is, there is a treatment.

777
00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:34,160
Speaker 1: It's not one of these because there are certain mental

778
00:42:34,200 --> 00:42:37,800
Speaker 1: conditions We've discussed various delusions where there is not really

779
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:40,800
Speaker 1: an exit, you know that where things are pretty dire.

780
00:42:41,400 --> 00:42:43,000
Speaker 1: But this seems to be something that is in many

781
00:42:43,040 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 1: cases very treatable. Again, if proper treatment has found and

782
00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 1: again I get the sense. I don't know if if

783
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:51,400
Speaker 1: this lines up with what you you're reading, but I

784
00:42:51,440 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 1: get the sense that the vast majority of the people

785
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:56,319
Speaker 1: who show up and say I've got a bug in

786
00:42:56,400 --> 00:42:58,799
Speaker 1: me do not actually have a bug in them, like

787
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:02,800
Speaker 1: the psychle logical cause of these symptoms. I mean, the

788
00:43:02,840 --> 00:43:06,160
Speaker 1: symptoms are real in both cases, but psychological causes are

789
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:10,560
Speaker 1: far more prevalent than the entomological causes. All right, we're

790
00:43:10,560 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 1: gonna take another break, give you a few minutes to

791
00:43:12,560 --> 00:43:14,719
Speaker 1: listen to an advertisement and maybe feel your skin a

792
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:17,439
Speaker 1: little bit. Let's see see how you're feeling. But we'll

793
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 1: be right back with more more tails of of of

794
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:25,400
Speaker 1: bugs in the skin and bugs of the mind. All right,

795
00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:28,000
Speaker 1: we're back. So, as we were just discussing, it's clear

796
00:43:28,080 --> 00:43:31,480
Speaker 1: that the majority of cases where people think they've got

797
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 1: like a bug inside a body cavity or under their

798
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:36,759
Speaker 1: skin or something. And if you think you've got bugs

799
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:38,879
Speaker 1: under your skin, you're pretty much always going to be wrong.

800
00:43:39,120 --> 00:43:41,000
Speaker 1: If you think you have a bug in the body cavity,

801
00:43:41,040 --> 00:43:44,480
Speaker 1: even then you're probably mistaken. There there's probably not a

802
00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: bug in there. But we can't say that's the case

803
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:49,360
Speaker 1: always because sometimes bugs do get in there. So I

804
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:51,239
Speaker 1: think it's time to talk about that a little more

805
00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:53,520
Speaker 1: and about UH, and maybe get to talking about what

806
00:43:53,600 --> 00:43:55,719
Speaker 1: to do if there actually is a bug in a

807
00:43:55,719 --> 00:44:00,200
Speaker 1: body cavity. Um. So I came across the article from

808
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:04,680
Speaker 1: the Oxford University Press, Journal of the Entomological Society of America,

809
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:07,879
Speaker 1: and the piece is by the American biologist and entomologist

810
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:11,839
Speaker 1: and National Medal of Science Laureate may Baron Baum. Just

811
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:14,640
Speaker 1: a few interesting facts about baron Baum I found. Uh.

812
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:18,000
Speaker 1: In addition to being a renowned entomologist, I think she

813
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 1: sounds very much like our kind of people. She created

814
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:24,759
Speaker 1: an event at the University of Illinois called the Insect

815
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:28,440
Speaker 1: Fear Film Festival, which, according to its website, is an

816
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:33,160
Speaker 1: opportunity to quote watch insect themed horror movies, handle live

817
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:36,400
Speaker 1: insects at our petting zoo, learn about insects you fear,

818
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:39,719
Speaker 1: and then get t shirt stickers, balloon insects, and your

819
00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:42,400
Speaker 1: face painted. This sounds like my kind of event. I

820
00:44:42,440 --> 00:44:44,439
Speaker 1: would love to go to that. This sounds great. Yeah,

821
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:47,279
Speaker 1: we'll have to look out creature features and then touch

822
00:44:47,360 --> 00:44:50,600
Speaker 1: in real insects. That sounds wonderful. It sounds like she's

823
00:44:50,840 --> 00:44:55,000
Speaker 1: very comfortable um marrying, you know, sort of like the

824
00:44:55,360 --> 00:44:58,759
Speaker 1: pop culture, the insect myths and all that, using that

825
00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:01,839
Speaker 1: as a window to share re all knowledge about entomology

826
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 1: and the role of insects in our lives with people.

827
00:45:03,719 --> 00:45:05,759
Speaker 1: Let's look at the fear, let's look at the sensationalism,

828
00:45:05,800 --> 00:45:07,520
Speaker 1: and then let's look at the reality. Yeah, and so

829
00:45:07,719 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 1: she seems very cool. She's also apparently had a character

830
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:13,480
Speaker 1: named after her in the classic X Files episode War

831
00:45:13,560 --> 00:45:15,439
Speaker 1: of the Copper Phages, which is one of the best

832
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:19,400
Speaker 1: episodes in the entire series, quite relevant to today's topic

833
00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:25,120
Speaker 1: because it discusses cockroaches ideas about cockroach infestation and delusional

834
00:45:25,200 --> 00:45:28,920
Speaker 1: infestation or delusional parasitosis, which is a big big thing

835
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:31,720
Speaker 1: in the episode. The character named after her is apparently

836
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:35,960
Speaker 1: it's named and I did remember this character, uh named Bambi.

837
00:45:36,120 --> 00:45:40,440
Speaker 1: Barrenbaum recalls she's sort of like a weird entomologist who

838
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:44,200
Speaker 1: Molder develops a crush on and Scully gets jealous of

839
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:47,880
Speaker 1: over the phone, and I recall she also has some

840
00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 1: theory that UFO sightings are actually caused by swarms of insects,

841
00:45:51,800 --> 00:45:53,879
Speaker 1: but that's the X Files character, not the real Dr

842
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:57,279
Speaker 1: Baron Baum. So this article, by the way, if you

843
00:45:57,320 --> 00:45:59,719
Speaker 1: can look it up, it's really pretty great, the one

844
00:45:59,760 --> 00:46:04,520
Speaker 1: from nine. So she collects references from the medical literature,

845
00:46:04,520 --> 00:46:07,960
Speaker 1: including an interesting study from nineteen eighty seven by Baker

846
00:46:08,440 --> 00:46:10,760
Speaker 1: which found a hundred and thirty four cases of foreign

847
00:46:10,840 --> 00:46:14,279
Speaker 1: objects found in children's ears. Of those undred and thirty

848
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:18,280
Speaker 1: four objects, twenty seven were insects, and of those twenty

849
00:46:18,320 --> 00:46:22,520
Speaker 1: one were cockroaches. So that the others you ask, well,

850
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:24,520
Speaker 1: I actually looked up to study to find out what

851
00:46:24,560 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 1: the others were. The other six of those twenty seven

852
00:46:27,680 --> 00:46:31,040
Speaker 1: where one ant, one fly, three spiders, and one tick.

853
00:46:31,360 --> 00:46:33,200
Speaker 1: Only one of those has any business being in there.

854
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:35,640
Speaker 1: The tick you can only blame so much because you

855
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:37,799
Speaker 1: know that's it's a tick. It's gross, it's it's there

856
00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:40,719
Speaker 1: to suck skin. The ticks actually the worst one. I

857
00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:43,320
Speaker 1: don't really bear a lot of ill will to cockroaches.

858
00:46:43,360 --> 00:46:47,000
Speaker 1: I don't love having them in my house, but you know, ticks,

859
00:46:47,040 --> 00:46:49,640
Speaker 1: I just you know, just newcomb. Yeah, I like we

860
00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:53,360
Speaker 1: discussed in our our episode on ticks. Uh, certainly everyone

861
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:54,719
Speaker 1: should go back and listen to if you want to

862
00:46:54,719 --> 00:46:57,600
Speaker 1: feel gross about the woods, Um, you know that they

863
00:46:57,640 --> 00:47:00,799
Speaker 1: are out to get us. They are out to get us.

864
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:04,160
Speaker 1: Most of these other cases there are just mistakes. But

865
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:07,319
Speaker 1: the tick wants you, and it's seeking you, and if

866
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:10,200
Speaker 1: you venture into its abode, it will find you. So

867
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:13,719
Speaker 1: baryon Bomb mentions that a common method for removing cockroaches

868
00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 1: from the ear is to drown a cockroach in liquid

869
00:47:16,719 --> 00:47:19,719
Speaker 1: of some kind before removal. It is much like my

870
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:22,440
Speaker 1: dad did with the bug that flew into my ear.

871
00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:24,799
Speaker 1: I think that was that was a good good thing

872
00:47:24,880 --> 00:47:27,560
Speaker 1: to do. And now ideally I'm not gonna say people

873
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:30,520
Speaker 1: should usually try to deal with bugs and body cavities

874
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:33,759
Speaker 1: on their own, because there are cases where having like

875
00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:36,759
Speaker 1: a medical opinion is important, but that does seem to

876
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:38,799
Speaker 1: be a pretty pretty reliable way to deal with it.

877
00:47:38,880 --> 00:47:42,720
Speaker 1: Drowning liquids throughout a medical history of included Ben's a cane,

878
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 1: sucinal coline, is superbole, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, ether, water, vegetable oil,

879
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:52,319
Speaker 1: mineral oil. Want to be clear, I'm not recommending all

880
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:55,640
Speaker 1: of those, especially since things like ether are flammable. A

881
00:47:55,680 --> 00:47:59,240
Speaker 1: more recent technique that's been used in clinics, pioneered nineteen

882
00:47:59,280 --> 00:48:03,000
Speaker 1: eighty is the use of lydocaine spray. This is usually

883
00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:05,840
Speaker 1: used as a topical anesthetic, right, you know they sprayed

884
00:48:05,840 --> 00:48:08,840
Speaker 1: on you to numb the skin. But when applied to

885
00:48:08,960 --> 00:48:14,200
Speaker 1: a quote inter intro, sorry not inter intra aural cockroach, uh,

886
00:48:14,239 --> 00:48:17,000
Speaker 1: it tends to paralyze the insects so the insect can

887
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:20,840
Speaker 1: be safely removed, or even better, the initial application of

888
00:48:20,920 --> 00:48:24,960
Speaker 1: light acaine solution spray sometimes causes the problem to resolve itself,

889
00:48:25,280 --> 00:48:27,759
Speaker 1: as in the case of one intervention by O'Toole at

890
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:30,719
Speaker 1: all published in nineteen five, in which after the light

891
00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:34,680
Speaker 1: decaine application quote, the roach exited the canal at a

892
00:48:34,719 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 1: convulsive rate of speed and attempted to escape across the floor,

893
00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:42,640
Speaker 1: presumably with a road runner esque sound effect. Me be uh.

894
00:48:42,680 --> 00:48:45,640
Speaker 1: And then Baron Boum notes that quote the simple crush

895
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:48,880
Speaker 1: method was quote ultimately responsible for the demise of the

896
00:48:48,920 --> 00:48:50,719
Speaker 1: cock row. But now I got a dead cockroach in

897
00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:53,400
Speaker 1: my ear. No, it wasn't in the ear, it was

898
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:56,880
Speaker 1: on the floor. Okay, that's that's that's fine. No, no, no,

899
00:48:56,920 --> 00:48:59,040
Speaker 1: I want to be very clear. Don't try to step

900
00:48:59,080 --> 00:49:01,840
Speaker 1: on a cockroach and somebody's ear. That is not That

901
00:49:01,960 --> 00:49:05,240
Speaker 1: doesn't work at all. Uh. That method was then improved

902
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:07,640
Speaker 1: upon in nineteen eighty nine, with the addition of a

903
00:49:07,680 --> 00:49:11,680
Speaker 1: metal suction tip to vacuum the cockroach out. Reportedly, after

904
00:49:11,800 --> 00:49:16,000
Speaker 1: one case the Lyda Kaine spray was was applied and

905
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:19,120
Speaker 1: then the patient suddenly exhorted the doctor to quote, get

906
00:49:19,160 --> 00:49:21,239
Speaker 1: that sucker out of my ear. So they used the

907
00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:25,120
Speaker 1: vacuum to get it out. Um. But then also she

908
00:49:25,320 --> 00:49:28,840
Speaker 1: relays some reports about fly larva or maggots colonizing the

909
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:31,759
Speaker 1: orifices of humans, such as the nose or the euro

910
00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:34,400
Speaker 1: genital tract, though she seems a little skeptical about the

911
00:49:34,440 --> 00:49:36,799
Speaker 1: case report that uh that that was about the euro

912
00:49:36,880 --> 00:49:40,800
Speaker 1: genital tract. One of the medical reports she discusses, relayed

913
00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:44,440
Speaker 1: by Battia and Lund in the Journal of Laryngology and

914
00:49:44,440 --> 00:49:48,920
Speaker 1: Otology in nineteen concerns this thirty five year old man

915
00:49:48,960 --> 00:49:53,400
Speaker 1: in London who had an infestation of oestrus ovis a

916
00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:57,240
Speaker 1: sheep nasal bot fly in his nose in the thirty

917
00:49:57,239 --> 00:50:00,640
Speaker 1: five year old man's nose. Apparently this happens more commonly

918
00:50:00,719 --> 00:50:03,360
Speaker 1: in shepherds and people who deal directly with sheep. That

919
00:50:03,440 --> 00:50:05,759
Speaker 1: makes sense. It's a little perplexing how this guy in

920
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:08,640
Speaker 1: London got one. He claimed he had nothing to do

921
00:50:08,680 --> 00:50:12,200
Speaker 1: with sheep, but who knows. According to the report, he

922
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:16,239
Speaker 1: had been quote sneezing out several maggots during the preceding

923
00:50:16,320 --> 00:50:20,440
Speaker 1: six weeks before he called a doctor, and Baron Bomb

924
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:22,480
Speaker 1: points out that it's kind of odd that it took

925
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:26,400
Speaker 1: him that long to call a doctor after sneezing out maggots.

926
00:50:26,520 --> 00:50:28,120
Speaker 1: I would also think if you, if you seem to

927
00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 1: be consistently sneezing out matt maggots, you do have a

928
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:34,440
Speaker 1: small window to really succeed on the sideshow circuit. You know,

929
00:50:34,800 --> 00:50:38,720
Speaker 1: like like the second it starts happening, books some appearances

930
00:50:38,760 --> 00:50:41,160
Speaker 1: and uh and and do it as fast as possible

931
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:43,880
Speaker 1: while the magic is still there. Come see the amazing

932
00:50:43,920 --> 00:50:49,120
Speaker 1: maggot gig uh And perhaps the most troubling recent case

933
00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:51,279
Speaker 1: and don't worry, it has a happy ending of a

934
00:50:51,320 --> 00:50:53,640
Speaker 1: cockroach in a body cavity that I came across was

935
00:50:53,719 --> 00:50:57,920
Speaker 1: this one. So on February one seen a doctor m

936
00:50:58,040 --> 00:51:03,960
Speaker 1: in Shankar uh Stanley Medical College Hospital in Chennai, India

937
00:51:04,120 --> 00:51:07,279
Speaker 1: removed a cockroach from a woman's skull and this one

938
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:09,880
Speaker 1: was in her sinus cavity. So here's a definite like

939
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:13,560
Speaker 1: this is this is this is earlier centipede territory. Right.

940
00:51:13,600 --> 00:51:15,879
Speaker 1: We don't know if there were ever really centipedes in there,

941
00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:18,680
Speaker 1: but definitely a cockroach can get in there. It was

942
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:22,600
Speaker 1: innercinus cavity in between her eyes, and it had apparently

943
00:51:22,640 --> 00:51:25,680
Speaker 1: crept up her nose while she was asleep. And fortunately

944
00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:29,160
Speaker 1: Dr Shankar was able to remove the insects successfully with

945
00:51:29,239 --> 00:51:32,680
Speaker 1: an endoscopic procedure and the woman was fine. If you've

946
00:51:32,680 --> 00:51:35,279
Speaker 1: got a strong stomach, there's a video of this you

947
00:51:35,320 --> 00:51:37,799
Speaker 1: can watch on the internet. Uh, well, no, thank you,

948
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:40,239
Speaker 1: but but but secondly, it does make me think of

949
00:51:40,280 --> 00:51:42,759
Speaker 1: the little woman who lived in the shoe. So if

950
00:51:42,760 --> 00:51:47,120
Speaker 1: centipedes are not naturally occurring naturally crawling into people's sinus cavities,

951
00:51:47,320 --> 00:51:51,160
Speaker 1: but of occasionally a cockroach may, then perhaps the centipede

952
00:51:51,160 --> 00:51:53,719
Speaker 1: is just that at individual's initial attempt to deal with

953
00:51:53,760 --> 00:51:56,840
Speaker 1: the problem, uh, that doesn't work, and then they have

954
00:51:56,840 --> 00:51:58,359
Speaker 1: to go to the doctor and they don't you know,

955
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:00,680
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's like if you try and you know,

956
00:52:00,719 --> 00:52:03,600
Speaker 1: work on your own weight toenail or something, or do

957
00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:06,240
Speaker 1: your own dynastry and then you go finally and seek

958
00:52:06,480 --> 00:52:08,839
Speaker 1: professional help. You don't want to tell them. Oh yeah,

959
00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:10,960
Speaker 1: I tried to do this stupid thing of my own first,

960
00:52:11,640 --> 00:52:13,439
Speaker 1: and now I'm here with you. No, you just say,

961
00:52:13,719 --> 00:52:15,919
Speaker 1: I guess there's a cockroach up there? Did you say

962
00:52:15,920 --> 00:52:17,680
Speaker 1: the old lady who lived in a shoe? I think

963
00:52:17,760 --> 00:52:20,840
Speaker 1: you meant who swallowed a fly? Yea, it might be

964
00:52:20,880 --> 00:52:23,280
Speaker 1: the same one. She swallowed a centipede to catch the flush.

965
00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:27,680
Speaker 1: She snorted a centipede to catch the cockroach that wriggled

966
00:52:27,680 --> 00:52:31,480
Speaker 1: and jiggled and wiggled and side roach. Perhaps she'll die, yes,

967
00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:34,239
Speaker 1: but she didn't. Well no, wait, I'm not saying this

968
00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:36,080
Speaker 1: woman actually did that. But the woman in the case,

969
00:52:36,600 --> 00:52:41,400
Speaker 1: very clear did not. I don't remember what happened to her.

970
00:52:41,480 --> 00:52:45,799
Speaker 1: I think I don't know. Well, uh so I think

971
00:52:45,840 --> 00:52:48,319
Speaker 1: we should end here with a discussion of what to

972
00:52:48,480 --> 00:52:51,040
Speaker 1: do if you actually think there's a bug in one

973
00:52:51,080 --> 00:52:53,040
Speaker 1: of your body cavities, if you think you've got a

974
00:52:53,040 --> 00:52:55,399
Speaker 1: centipede or a cockroach up your nose or in your

975
00:52:55,400 --> 00:52:58,279
Speaker 1: ear or whatever, what's your plan of action? So, first

976
00:52:58,320 --> 00:53:01,560
Speaker 1: of all, we want to size again. Even if you

977
00:53:01,600 --> 00:53:04,719
Speaker 1: feel very convinced, there is a very good chance you're mistaken,

978
00:53:04,760 --> 00:53:07,440
Speaker 1: and that should be good news, right Like people feel

979
00:53:07,440 --> 00:53:11,040
Speaker 1: creepy Crawley sensations for all kinds of reasons, and animals

980
00:53:11,080 --> 00:53:13,600
Speaker 1: actually getting inside the body cavities. Though there are a

981
00:53:13,640 --> 00:53:16,520
Speaker 1: lot of stories collected of it over the time, the

982
00:53:16,600 --> 00:53:19,840
Speaker 1: chances of it happening to you are pretty rare, especially

983
00:53:19,880 --> 00:53:22,600
Speaker 1: if you don't live in a tropical climate. Right now,

984
00:53:22,680 --> 00:53:25,120
Speaker 1: I do want to stress everything we said earlier about

985
00:53:25,160 --> 00:53:29,200
Speaker 1: delusional parasitosis. If you do, if you do have substance

986
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:32,399
Speaker 1: abuse issues, that could be part of the problem. But

987
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:35,399
Speaker 1: but you shouldn't be afraid to see a doctor over

988
00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:38,279
Speaker 1: the symptoms if that's the case. But your symptoms could

989
00:53:38,280 --> 00:53:40,919
Speaker 1: be quite unrelated to any kind of substance abuse issues.

990
00:53:40,960 --> 00:53:43,720
Speaker 1: And in this case, it's it's really important to realize

991
00:53:43,719 --> 00:53:47,440
Speaker 1: that it is treatable with antipsychotic medication, and cases like

992
00:53:47,480 --> 00:53:50,000
Speaker 1: this are not as rare as you might think. Though obviously,

993
00:53:50,040 --> 00:53:52,200
Speaker 1: again I can see where that could be a struggle

994
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:54,759
Speaker 1: to to realize, you know, okay, it's not a situation

995
00:53:54,840 --> 00:53:58,239
Speaker 1: of of an insect crawling into my skin, r into

996
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:02,640
Speaker 1: my body. It's a it's a more elusive concept. It's

997
00:54:02,719 --> 00:54:05,719
Speaker 1: there's something, there's an illusion in my mind that has

998
00:54:05,719 --> 00:54:08,600
Speaker 1: to be addressed. If the causes are psychological, there is

999
00:54:08,640 --> 00:54:11,839
Speaker 1: not shame in seeking treatment. Seeking treatment will help you.

1000
00:54:12,680 --> 00:54:14,840
Speaker 1: So that's what you should do, right, What should you

1001
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:18,320
Speaker 1: not do? Oh? Okay, well, if you even if whatever

1002
00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:21,879
Speaker 1: the real causes, if you think something is in your ear, say,

1003
00:54:21,960 --> 00:54:24,600
Speaker 1: or in your nose, first piece of advice is do

1004
00:54:24,719 --> 00:54:28,160
Speaker 1: not try to kill or crush it, because if there

1005
00:54:28,200 --> 00:54:31,960
Speaker 1: actually is an insect in there, you're not seriously in

1006
00:54:32,080 --> 00:54:34,359
Speaker 1: danger of a bug inside your nose or your ear

1007
00:54:34,480 --> 00:54:37,600
Speaker 1: eating your brain. That's not gonna happen. You should seek

1008
00:54:37,600 --> 00:54:40,319
Speaker 1: medical attention as soon as possible, but it's not gonna, like,

1009
00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:43,440
Speaker 1: you know, eat the contents of your skull. What you're

1010
00:54:43,440 --> 00:54:48,040
Speaker 1: actually in greater danger of is bacterial infection in the cavity. Uh.

1011
00:54:48,080 --> 00:54:51,319
Speaker 1: And I mentioned earlier that article that interviews the entomologists

1012
00:54:51,360 --> 00:54:53,800
Speaker 1: Kobe shawl Shall points out that one of the worst

1013
00:54:53,800 --> 00:54:56,319
Speaker 1: ways you can put yourself at risk of infection with

1014
00:54:56,360 --> 00:54:59,520
Speaker 1: a roach in your orifice is to crush it because

1015
00:54:59,560 --> 00:55:03,480
Speaker 1: this could release it's mighty legions of gut bacteria into

1016
00:55:03,520 --> 00:55:05,960
Speaker 1: your own body, and that can lead to an infection.

1017
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:10,560
Speaker 1: And there's a wonder, wonderful historic example of this. Yeah,

1018
00:55:10,600 --> 00:55:12,880
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about the English explorer and

1019
00:55:12,960 --> 00:55:17,320
Speaker 1: British Indian Army officer John Hanning Speak, who was famous

1020
00:55:17,360 --> 00:55:20,160
Speaker 1: for exploring the Nile River to find what was believed

1021
00:55:20,160 --> 00:55:22,719
Speaker 1: to be its source in the eighteen fifties. And there's

1022
00:55:22,760 --> 00:55:25,919
Speaker 1: this story related and Speaks diaries that one night he's

1023
00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:29,120
Speaker 1: resting in his tent and the tent quote became covered

1024
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:32,839
Speaker 1: with a host of small black beetles, evidently attracted by

1025
00:55:32,840 --> 00:55:35,440
Speaker 1: the glimmer of the candle. And then he went to

1026
00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:37,440
Speaker 1: sleep even though all these beetles are around, and he

1027
00:55:37,520 --> 00:55:40,000
Speaker 1: later woke up with one of the beatles crawling in

1028
00:55:40,120 --> 00:55:43,680
Speaker 1: his ear. Quote, He began, with exceeding vigor, like a

1029
00:55:43,800 --> 00:55:47,440
Speaker 1: rabbit in a hole, to dig violently away at my tympanum.

1030
00:55:47,480 --> 00:55:50,880
Speaker 1: The queer sensation this amusing measure excited in me is

1031
00:55:50,960 --> 00:55:54,960
Speaker 1: past description. What to do? I knew not so Speak

1032
00:55:55,000 --> 00:55:57,160
Speaker 1: tried to get it out by washing his ear canal

1033
00:55:57,239 --> 00:56:00,399
Speaker 1: with melted butter. This didn't work. Uh. Then he tried

1034
00:56:00,440 --> 00:56:02,279
Speaker 1: to dig it out with a knife, and this was

1035
00:56:02,320 --> 00:56:05,960
Speaker 1: a bad move. He only killed and presumably crushed or

1036
00:56:06,000 --> 00:56:09,319
Speaker 1: cut up the insect and wounded his own ear. And

1037
00:56:09,360 --> 00:56:12,480
Speaker 1: then the ear became infected quote for many months. The

1038
00:56:12,520 --> 00:56:15,920
Speaker 1: tumor made me almost deaf, and aid a hole between

1039
00:56:15,960 --> 00:56:19,000
Speaker 1: the ear and the nose, so that when I blew it,

1040
00:56:19,239 --> 00:56:22,640
Speaker 1: my ear whistled so audibly that those who heard it laughed.

1041
00:56:22,960 --> 00:56:26,040
Speaker 1: Six or seven months after this accident happened, bits of

1042
00:56:26,080 --> 00:56:28,719
Speaker 1: the beetle, a leg, a wing, or parts of the

1043
00:56:28,760 --> 00:56:32,640
Speaker 1: body came away in the wax. Uh. And I should

1044
00:56:32,680 --> 00:56:34,799
Speaker 1: just mention that I actually found the story related in

1045
00:56:34,840 --> 00:56:37,600
Speaker 1: that classic Snopes article about bugs eating through the ear

1046
00:56:37,640 --> 00:56:39,799
Speaker 1: into the brains. That's where I got the quotes from.

1047
00:56:39,800 --> 00:56:43,800
Speaker 1: But they're originally from I guess speaks diaries, as passed

1048
00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:48,879
Speaker 1: along in a book about Sir Sir Richard Francis Burton. Right. Uh, yeah, yeah.

1049
00:56:48,920 --> 00:56:51,480
Speaker 1: This is just one of many amazing incidents from the

1050
00:56:51,480 --> 00:56:54,440
Speaker 1: travels of John Hanning speaking captain Sir Richard Francis Burton,

1051
00:56:54,920 --> 00:56:57,880
Speaker 1: with whom he sought the source of the nile and

1052
00:56:57,920 --> 00:57:00,480
Speaker 1: the bug incident here is actually to picked it in

1053
00:57:00,480 --> 00:57:04,200
Speaker 1: the film The Mountains of the Moon, which starred Patrick

1054
00:57:04,239 --> 00:57:08,919
Speaker 1: Bergen as as Richard Francis Burton and Ian Glenn. Most

1055
00:57:08,960 --> 00:57:12,840
Speaker 1: people know as uh Sir Mormont from a Game of

1056
00:57:12,880 --> 00:57:16,440
Speaker 1: Thrones jor the end All. Yeah, he played John Hanning Speak.

1057
00:57:17,400 --> 00:57:19,320
Speaker 1: It's uh, I haven't seen it and forever. I saw

1058
00:57:19,320 --> 00:57:21,840
Speaker 1: when I was a kid and and loved it. But

1059
00:57:21,920 --> 00:57:25,680
Speaker 1: it also stars Richard E. Grant, Fiona shap Peter Vaughan,

1060
00:57:25,840 --> 00:57:29,520
Speaker 1: Delroy Lindo, Bernard Bernard Hill, Omar sha Reef. So it

1061
00:57:29,600 --> 00:57:33,160
Speaker 1: had a great cast, and I remember being a quite

1062
00:57:33,200 --> 00:57:35,760
Speaker 1: an interesting film and a great introduction to two just

1063
00:57:35,800 --> 00:57:38,440
Speaker 1: fascinating characters from history. Yeah. Well, I just wanted to

1064
00:57:38,440 --> 00:57:41,640
Speaker 1: mention quickly that, uh, it's impossible to be sure, like

1065
00:57:41,680 --> 00:57:44,840
Speaker 1: we don't know what actually caused Speaks infection, but it

1066
00:57:44,880 --> 00:57:48,880
Speaker 1: seems very likely that simultaneously crushing the insect and cutting

1067
00:57:48,920 --> 00:57:51,560
Speaker 1: his own ear with the knife made the problem much

1068
00:57:51,640 --> 00:57:53,720
Speaker 1: worse than it would have been if he just let

1069
00:57:53,720 --> 00:57:56,920
Speaker 1: the beatle try to get out, and then that probably

1070
00:57:57,000 --> 00:58:00,520
Speaker 1: may have led to an infection. Yeah, after you brought

1071
00:58:00,560 --> 00:58:04,080
Speaker 1: this up, I popped out Edward Rice's biography of Burton,

1072
00:58:04,640 --> 00:58:08,560
Speaker 1: and he mentions that that Burton sometimes criticized Speak for

1073
00:58:08,600 --> 00:58:11,880
Speaker 1: a bit of like reckless ambition, especially in the African wilds.

1074
00:58:12,520 --> 00:58:14,480
Speaker 1: But then again the two clashed at times and had

1075
00:58:14,680 --> 00:58:18,080
Speaker 1: like a tremendous falling out and somewhat hated each other

1076
00:58:18,160 --> 00:58:20,520
Speaker 1: later on in life. But at any rate, one of

1077
00:58:20,600 --> 00:58:23,080
Speaker 1: one assumes that Burton was not tremendously easy to get

1078
00:58:23,080 --> 00:58:25,840
Speaker 1: along with either. Um. But at any rate, if you

1079
00:58:25,840 --> 00:58:29,680
Speaker 1: want to see of a cinematic depiction of this, this

1080
00:58:29,960 --> 00:58:32,880
Speaker 1: beetle in the ear incident, it is. It is in

1081
00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:35,400
Speaker 1: that movie The Mountains of the Moon, along with one

1082
00:58:35,400 --> 00:58:38,560
Speaker 1: of the other more harrowing encounters they had. Also is

1083
00:58:38,600 --> 00:58:42,600
Speaker 1: also depicted in which Somali spearmen tie up and stab

1084
00:58:42,760 --> 00:58:46,840
Speaker 1: speak numerous times with their spears, and then a throne

1085
00:58:46,880 --> 00:58:50,640
Speaker 1: spear skewers Burton through the cheeks through it so through

1086
00:58:50,680 --> 00:58:54,000
Speaker 1: one cheek and out the other. Yeah, yeah, you see.

1087
00:58:54,000 --> 00:58:56,600
Speaker 1: And you see all these like later portraits of Burton,

1088
00:58:56,680 --> 00:58:59,240
Speaker 1: and you can often see the scar on each each

1089
00:58:59,280 --> 00:59:01,600
Speaker 1: side of the face. Oh that's like a Garma del

1090
00:59:01,680 --> 00:59:04,480
Speaker 1: Toro movie injury. It's like what is Oh it's in

1091
00:59:04,560 --> 00:59:07,560
Speaker 1: Pan's Labyrinth where the guy gets cheek trauma. Oh yeah,

1092
00:59:07,600 --> 00:59:10,680
Speaker 1: well this was. This is a classic case of cheek trauma,

1093
00:59:10,840 --> 00:59:13,520
Speaker 1: like cheek trauma, but also dental trauma because the spear

1094
00:59:14,040 --> 00:59:16,720
Speaker 1: damna like took out teeth and damage the jaw but

1095
00:59:16,800 --> 00:59:18,640
Speaker 1: he was able to. They both traveled back to England

1096
00:59:18,680 --> 00:59:22,480
Speaker 1: after the incident, and both had had lots of medical

1097
00:59:22,880 --> 00:59:25,880
Speaker 1: care attend to their wounds. Well yeah, so part I

1098
00:59:25,920 --> 00:59:27,640
Speaker 1: guess the moral of the story here is don't be

1099
00:59:27,720 --> 00:59:30,560
Speaker 1: like speak. If you actually do think you have a

1100
00:59:30,600 --> 00:59:33,760
Speaker 1: cockroach or an insect in your ear or whatever, don't

1101
00:59:33,800 --> 00:59:36,360
Speaker 1: crush it, don't kill it. Do your best to stay calm.

1102
00:59:36,800 --> 00:59:39,600
Speaker 1: Seek medical attention as soon as possible. A doctor can

1103
00:59:39,640 --> 00:59:42,520
Speaker 1: examine you and tell if something is actually in there

1104
00:59:42,600 --> 00:59:44,560
Speaker 1: or not, and if there is, they can try to

1105
00:59:44,560 --> 00:59:47,040
Speaker 1: remove the animal if it's actually there. If there's not

1106
00:59:47,160 --> 00:59:49,880
Speaker 1: something in there, you should seek medical attention to They

1107
00:59:49,920 --> 00:59:52,160
Speaker 1: can try to help figure it, figure out what's going on,

1108
00:59:52,520 --> 00:59:56,040
Speaker 1: and possibly prescribe medication to alleviate your symptoms. All right,

1109
00:59:56,080 --> 00:59:57,520
Speaker 1: So there you have it. Obviously, if you have any

1110
00:59:57,560 --> 01:00:00,880
Speaker 1: experience with any of these scenarios yourself, for or if

1111
01:00:00,920 --> 01:00:04,160
Speaker 1: you just have heard some folk tales of such things,

1112
01:00:04,560 --> 01:00:09,479
Speaker 1: or you have a favorite cinematic um uh intrabody bug

1113
01:00:09,520 --> 01:00:12,480
Speaker 1: threat you want to share, let us know you can

1114
01:00:12,840 --> 01:00:15,320
Speaker 1: reach us in in the normal ways. First of all,

1115
01:00:15,320 --> 01:00:17,360
Speaker 1: go to our our mothership Stuff to Blow your mind

1116
01:00:17,400 --> 01:00:19,600
Speaker 1: dot com that's where you'll find all the episodes. That's

1117
01:00:19,600 --> 01:00:21,720
Speaker 1: where we'll find links out to various social media accounts

1118
01:00:21,760 --> 01:00:24,080
Speaker 1: where you can interact with us. And if you're on Facebook,

1119
01:00:24,480 --> 01:00:26,800
Speaker 1: try joining the Facebook group the Stuff to Blow Your

1120
01:00:26,800 --> 01:00:30,280
Speaker 1: Mind discussion module. It's a great place to chat with

1121
01:00:30,400 --> 01:00:32,920
Speaker 1: other listeners and sometimes with us. Hey, and if you

1122
01:00:32,920 --> 01:00:36,640
Speaker 1: haven't subscribed to our other podcast yet, it's called Invention,

1123
01:00:36,760 --> 01:00:38,440
Speaker 1: you should definitely go check that out. You can get

1124
01:00:38,480 --> 01:00:41,320
Speaker 1: it wherever your podcasts are found. And if you like

1125
01:00:41,440 --> 01:00:43,480
Speaker 1: this show, you'll probably like that one. Is. We bring

1126
01:00:43,520 --> 01:00:46,080
Speaker 1: the same kind of curiosity and approach that we take

1127
01:00:46,080 --> 01:00:47,840
Speaker 1: to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. We apply it to

1128
01:00:47,840 --> 01:00:51,080
Speaker 1: techno history, looking at one invention at a time. So

1129
01:00:51,160 --> 01:00:54,000
Speaker 1: check it out, subscribe if you haven't. Huge thanks as

1130
01:00:54,040 --> 01:00:58,520
Speaker 1: always to our wonderful audio producers Alex Williams and Tory Harrison.

1131
01:00:58,880 --> 01:01:00,280
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us

1132
01:01:00,280 --> 01:01:02,760
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1133
01:01:02,800 --> 01:01:04,800
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1134
01:01:04,880 --> 01:01:07,200
Speaker 1: you can email us at blow the Mind at how

1135
01:01:07,280 --> 01:01:20,160
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands

1136
01:01:20,200 --> 01:01:45,360
Speaker 1: of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com