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Speaker 1: The earth pours forth a profusion of medicinal plants, and

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Speaker 1: is always producing something for the use of man. We

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Speaker 1: may even suppose that it is out of compassion to us,

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Speaker 1: that she has ordained certain substances to be poisonous, in

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Speaker 1: order that, when we are weary of life hunger, a

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Speaker 1: mode of death that most foreign to the kind disposition

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Speaker 1: of the earth, might not consume us by a slow decay.

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Speaker 1: That precipices might not laceerate our mangled bodies, that the

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Speaker 1: unseemly punishment of the halter may not torture us by

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Speaker 1: stopping the breath of one who seeks his own destruction,

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Speaker 1: or that we may not seek our death in the

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Speaker 1: ocean and become food for our graves, or that our

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Speaker 1: bodies may not be gashed by steel. On this account,

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Speaker 1: it is that nature has produced a substance which is

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Speaker 1: very easily taken, and by which life is extinguished, the

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Speaker 1: body remaining undefied child and retaining all its blood, and

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Speaker 1: only causing a degree of thirst. And when it is

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Speaker 1: destroyed by this means, neither bird nor beast will touch

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Speaker 1: the body. But he who has perished by his own hands,

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Speaker 1: he is reserved for the earth Welcome to Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey,

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Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Pliny the Elder. Actually I'm Christian Seger.

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Speaker 1: Today's episode was brought to you by a quote by

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Speaker 1: a good old Pliny. Oh yes, yes, that's from the

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Speaker 1: Natural History, one of our favorite Roman historians. As always,

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Speaker 1: you can't take everything that Pliny says um as the

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Speaker 1: as the complete truth. I always take it with a

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Speaker 1: certain grain of salt. But he's he he when we'll

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Speaker 1: get back to the grain of salt thing at the end, uh,

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Speaker 1: because that actually comes from the riding of Plenty. But

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Speaker 1: he always has such interesting inside and commentary on the

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Speaker 1: natural world, and in this case he's talking about the

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Speaker 1: wonders of poison. Yeah, it's a nice little poetic riff

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Speaker 1: on basically the idea that our bodies are essentially like

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Speaker 1: chemical machines, right, and that like think of it like

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Speaker 1: as in comparison to a car, Like instead of putting

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Speaker 1: gasoline in a car, if you filled it up with milk,

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Speaker 1: that's gonna really mess with the system, right, and the

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Speaker 1: exactly uh, And so basically we're focusing on how there

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Speaker 1: are these things in the natural world that if you

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Speaker 1: just put them into our system, boy does it really

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Speaker 1: mess things up. And for the longest time we didn't

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Speaker 1: really understand why. Right, there was all this mythology around

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Speaker 1: the reasons why we have a whole episode that's on

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Speaker 1: wolf Spain or actually aconite, uh, and the surrounding myths

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Speaker 1: around that and the science of how that poisons the

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Speaker 1: human body. But we thought, you know what, it's let's

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Speaker 1: pull out the handbook. Let's look at some of the

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Speaker 1: otter poisons that are out there. Uh, specifically natural ones

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Speaker 1: were not. I don't think we have any synthetic ones

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Speaker 1: in here. No, I think all of these tie into

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Speaker 1: a natural source. And and that's really that's really the

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Speaker 1: fascinating thing, right, is that these are all generally cases.

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Speaker 1: Generally speaking, these are cases where the natural world, specifically

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Speaker 1: that the world of of plants has produced various chemical

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Speaker 1: weapons for their defense, and humans are able to manipulate

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Speaker 1: those chemical weapons to our advantage. And I mean we

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Speaker 1: do that with things that aren't even poisons. We do

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Speaker 1: that with spices. But in this case, we're gonna be

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Speaker 1: looking at at at particular substances that that have been

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Speaker 1: used and are used as deadly poisons, yet not all

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Speaker 1: of these would necessarily be enough to fill up a

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Speaker 1: whole episode. And also if we were just going to

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Speaker 1: do an episode on poisons in general, that would fill

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Speaker 1: up probably the whole podcast. So we decided, let's boil

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Speaker 1: it down each of us take three that we're really

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Speaker 1: interested in talking about, do the research, and then bring

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Speaker 1: it to you all. Uh. And I had to be honest.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we've been talking about doing something like this

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Speaker 1: for a while, but good Old Game of Thrones has

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Speaker 1: definitely brought this to the forefront of my mind because

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Speaker 1: poisons are so common on that show. Uh, if you're

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Speaker 1: a fan, I'm going to refrain from or if you're

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Speaker 1: not a fan, rather, I'm gonna refrain from mentioning any specifics.

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Speaker 1: But George R. Martin has just created this entire world

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Speaker 1: of fictional poisons. He's got the Tears of is It Lists,

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Speaker 1: Tears of Lists, then there's the Strangler and the Long Farewell.

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Speaker 1: But then he actually uses some real ones as well.

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Speaker 1: In fact, Wolf Spaane isn't in the show has mentioned before. Uh,

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Speaker 1: he he distorts what their actual effects are. But we

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Speaker 1: any of the milk of a poppy as well, which

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Speaker 1: is a medicinal substance but can be overdosed on with

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Speaker 1: fairly easily. Yeah, exactly, And so it's like this thing

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Speaker 1: that I don't know. In present day, we don't usually

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Speaker 1: think about poison all that much because it's not common,

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Speaker 1: even though it could be right, especially like when we

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Speaker 1: go through these examples today, you realize like, oh wow,

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Speaker 1: it's actually not that hard to get ahold of something

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Speaker 1: that could absolutely kill my neighbor drop dead if I

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Speaker 1: put it in their Pooh. Yeah, I mean, and if

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Speaker 1: you have if you have a child, or even have

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Speaker 1: have pets though, you mean you're aware that there are

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Speaker 1: certain certain substances you do not want them to get

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Speaker 1: their their hands or their paws upon. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: So we decided to hit our favorites. Uh, and Robert,

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Speaker 1: you're going to start us off today. This one sounds interesting,

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Speaker 1: the Devil's Foot. Yes, so we're talking about you know,

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Speaker 1: where do we see our poisons use fictionally? Game of

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Speaker 1: Thrones to be sure, but so many different murder mysteries

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Speaker 1: in fiction revolve around a poison because it's always a

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Speaker 1: mysterious death has occurred, and we have to connect the dots.

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Speaker 1: It's like the classic answer to a locked room mystery

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Speaker 1: is poison. Yeah, so uh, indeed, uh, I'm gonna talk

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Speaker 1: a little bit about a fictional poison from the Tales

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Speaker 1: of Sherlock Holmes. Uh, Sir Rotha Conan Doyle's tales that

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Speaker 1: actually has a real world counterpart. Uh, it was actually

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Speaker 1: inspired by a particular poison. So some of my favorite

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Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes tales are the ones that did buck the

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Speaker 1: more famous cliches. They're the ones where say Holmes lets

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Speaker 1: the killer go free, or the ones where the narrative

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Speaker 1: seems to tread dangerously close to supernatural waters. And so

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Speaker 1: the perfect fit for both of these categories is nineteen

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Speaker 1: tens The Adventure of the Devil's Foot, And it's pretty

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Speaker 1: much my go to tail. And I'm particularly fond of

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Speaker 1: the nineteen eight Granada adaptation that started to uh, the

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Speaker 1: wonderful Jeremy Brett as homes. Are these the ones that

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Speaker 1: they used to play on PBS. Yeah, and this is

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Speaker 1: this is a wonderful episode because it really gets into

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Speaker 1: that kind of supernatural possibly supernatural territory and and even

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Speaker 1: some kind of psychedelic scenes. H I agree with you.

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Speaker 1: I think like some of the best home stuff is

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Speaker 1: where you're treading so close to something that's like a

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Speaker 1: paranormal phenomenon, but then there's like an actual explanation for it.

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Speaker 1: In fact, I know a lot of people don't love

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Speaker 1: this movie, but young Sherlock Holmes, that was one of

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Speaker 1: the things that always attracted me to it as a

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Speaker 1: kid was that it was like teetering on the brink

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Speaker 1: of being supernatural. Oh yeah, that that's one that I

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Speaker 1: only have a vague memory of from when I was

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Speaker 1: a kid. But I actually thought it was full on

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Speaker 1: supernatural woul until later that I realized that they were.

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Speaker 1: They had an hallucination plot. Yeah, I think that's it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So I am going to spoil the Adventure of the

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Speaker 1: Devil's Foot for you. Spoilers for a one seven year

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Speaker 1: old story. Yeah. And and if you are trying to

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Speaker 1: remain spoiler free on this, if you're like making your

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Speaker 1: way through the Granada television series or you're reading the books,

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Speaker 1: then I don't know. I guess skip forward like fifteen minutes,

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Speaker 1: ten fifteen minutes and you can move on to the

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Speaker 1: next one. Uh. But here's here's how it goes down.

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Speaker 1: The case concerns a famed explorer named Dr Leon Sterndale

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Speaker 1: and the feuding Trey Ginnis family. So Holmes and Watson

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Speaker 1: there on a seaside holiday for health reasons. Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: as you do, because Holmes has been taking too many

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Speaker 1: drugs again. He needs to clean him out. Yeah, it is,

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Speaker 1: well in the TV series it is, so it's I

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Speaker 1: don't think this is president in the in the actual

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Speaker 1: written tale, but Jeremy Brad especially wanted Holmes to kick

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Speaker 1: his m his addiction, so he consisted that this would

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Speaker 1: be a good episode for him to kick his cocaine

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Speaker 1: and morphine. Okay, Okay, I was just joking. I had. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well that's where I go to seaside towns for so.

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Speaker 1: So they're in the midst of this and Holmes is like,

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Speaker 1: you know, he's taken his syringe and buried it in

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Speaker 1: the sand. Uh. And then suddenly a local man, Mr.

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Speaker 1: Mortimer True Guinness, arrives with a vicar to report a

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Speaker 1: sudden case of insanity. So Trey Guinness's two brothers have

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Speaker 1: suddenly gone mad and that the sister is dead. They

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Speaker 1: find they find the two brothers disturbingly just stark raving

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Speaker 1: mad in their kitchen and the sister Brenda, sets opposite

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Speaker 1: the window and she's just completely dead. So Sherlock investigates,

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Speaker 1: and the early suspicion is that something terrifying appeared at

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Speaker 1: the window and he killed her with frightened just drove

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Speaker 1: them mad. So this, you know, just kind of potentially

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Speaker 1: supernatural encounter, like what was this being that appeared at

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Speaker 1: the window. But he starts looking at the evidence, and

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Speaker 1: the ground outside the window is not disturbed. The mystery remains,

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Speaker 1: but Holmes is is various. You know, he's gonna side

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Speaker 1: on the non supernatural explanation. But then Mortemurtregennis winds up

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Speaker 1: dead as well, and there's this lamp burning beside him

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Speaker 1: on the table. Now Here in the lamp home, Holmes

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Speaker 1: finds some unburnt powder, so he test this out on himself.

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Speaker 1: He burns it inhales the smoke and he nearly succumbs

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Speaker 1: to madness and death as well. And there's just fab

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Speaker 1: the sequence in the TV show where he has these

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Speaker 1: psychedelic visions of death. And then we we finally learn

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Speaker 1: through his investigation that what happened is that Mortimer stole

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Speaker 1: a sample of a deadly African poison from the local

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Speaker 1: home of the explorer Dr Leon Sterndale. Now Sterndale had

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Speaker 1: just left for a lengthy journey overseas. So more Mortimer

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Speaker 1: thought that he was going to be out of the picture,

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Speaker 1: you know, for virtually forever, because it was this is

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Speaker 1: going to consume the rest of his life. But he

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Speaker 1: had He ended up receiving word of the sisters death,

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Speaker 1: of Brenda's death, and Brenda he had loved her for years,

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Speaker 1: but he was unable to marry her, so he had

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Speaker 1: a deep connection to her. So he returns and he

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Speaker 1: kills mortimurtre Guinnis with the same deadly poison that was

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Speaker 1: used on his beloved. And the poison is that we're

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Speaker 1: told is radics pettus dialbolie the Devil's foot route. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so why do they give an explanation as to why

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Speaker 1: it's called that doesn't look like a little like demon foot,

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Speaker 1: like a red foot with some tonails. Uh kind of,

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Speaker 1: I mean sort of. It looks like a like a

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Speaker 1: root and has devilish effects and uh. And I also

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Speaker 1: remember in the Granada series, anytime they introduce it, they

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Speaker 1: have kind of lists up, you know, African drumbeat in

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Speaker 1: the background, which is really cool. Oh yeah, I'm recalling cheese.

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Speaker 1: Do you remember we talked about this in the Wolf

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Speaker 1: Spane episode I think, or maybe it was the Mushrooms episode.

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Speaker 1: I went to the dog park one time and there

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Speaker 1: was this weird fungus growing in the dog park. I

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Speaker 1: took a picture of it and put it on the

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind Facebook page, and immediately members

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Speaker 1: of our audience were like, oh, that is such and

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Speaker 1: such fungus, and it was like the devil's horn, I

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Speaker 1: believe the term for it. So that's why I'm sort

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Speaker 1: of imagining this this demon looking mushroom. I guess yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean certainly is an authentic sounding title. It is

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Speaker 1: a fictitious poison. However, there is a grounding and actual botany,

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Speaker 1: so this was This is really cool to learn. I

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Speaker 1: was not familiar with this story until until recently when

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Speaker 1: I started looking into it. So, according to two different sources,

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Speaker 1: I looked at Here Books Health, the book's Health and

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Speaker 1: History blog of the New York Academy of Medicine, and

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Speaker 1: as well as an article in the Guardian. According to them,

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Speaker 1: Holmes creator Sir Arthur Cornan Doyle did some self experimentation

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Speaker 1: of his own as a third year medical student at

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Speaker 1: the University of Edinburgh with a substance known as gil simium,

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Speaker 1: and he wrote about this in an in the in

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Speaker 1: an eighteen seventy nine issue of the British Medical Journal.

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Speaker 1: This is gonna turn out to be a common theme

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Speaker 1: I think today as people just trying stuff out on themselves. Well,

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Speaker 1: it kind of gets back to our Wolf Spain episode

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Speaker 1: where we talked about the mythical origins and Chinese traditional medicine,

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Speaker 1: that you had this one godlike being that kind of

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Speaker 1: went around trying these things and determining what was poised

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Speaker 1: because essentially that sort of trial and error and then

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Speaker 1: you know the knowledge you passed on. That's that's where

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Speaker 1: we learned that there are certain things you eat and

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Speaker 1: certain ones you don't, and there's this gray area of

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Speaker 1: stuff that you know exactly how much to apply and win.

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Speaker 1: I think I'm glad that we're at a point in history,

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Speaker 1: or I don't. I'm not in a situation where I'm like,

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Speaker 1: I guess I should just try that, try, try a

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Speaker 1: small amount of it and see what happens. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: especially with with the gil simium So there are three

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Speaker 1: varieties of this Two are found in Central America, in

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Speaker 1: one in southern China. It's a woody vine with bright

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Speaker 1: yellow flowers. And the Asian variety, gil Simium elegans, is

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Speaker 1: the most deadly of the three, and it's also known

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Speaker 1: as heartbreak grass. So gil Simium was actually once used

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Speaker 1: to treat migraines, but that but the key side effect

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Speaker 1: was loss of muscle control. So this is also a

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Speaker 1: common theme, which is that, like, the reason why we

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Speaker 1: know about a lot of this stuff is because we

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Speaker 1: used it to treat various ailments. Yeah right, but that

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Speaker 1: too much of it, too much, many things, bad thing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, too much of something from your spice rack

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Speaker 1: will will give you dire consequences in some cases. So,

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Speaker 1: prior to writing this paper and conducting the self experiment,

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Speaker 1: uh Doyle had taken a tincture of this stuff to

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Speaker 1: treat nerve pain. But for the experiment he took nine

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Speaker 1: million leaders and he reported quote severe frontal headache with

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Speaker 1: diarrhea and general lassitude. Okay, then he lassitude mean, I'm

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Speaker 1: not familiar with that, that loose bowell syndrome. Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: he's just kind of loose in the seat. I guess

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Speaker 1: you would say, okay, alright. So then he up the

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Speaker 1: dosage to twelve million leaders and at this point quote

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Speaker 1: that diarrhea was so persistent and prostrating that I must stop.

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Speaker 1: At twelve million leaders. I feel great depression and a

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Speaker 1: severe frontal headache. The pulse was still normal, but weak.

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Speaker 1: It's too bad he didn't write this into the Sherlock

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Speaker 1: Holmes story. It's just like this story about these big

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Speaker 1: these detectives having horrible diarrhea and headaches. Yeah, death death

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Speaker 1: by or with diarrhea um would have made it more

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Speaker 1: horrific in some ways, but he decided to sort of

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Speaker 1: you know, weird fiction. I think I think made a

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Speaker 1: classier so uh you know. The basic just here, though,

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Speaker 1: is that s arthocon and Doyle was something of a

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Speaker 1: poison enthusiast and he was a risk taker, so he

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Speaker 1: conducted this experiment on himself. We we know now with

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Speaker 1: the additional research into the matter, that an overdose of

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Speaker 1: this stuff would result in dizziness, nausea, blurred vision, and convulsions,

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Speaker 1: and higher doses could result in paralysis of the spinal

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Speaker 1: cord and this would lead to a near total loss

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Speaker 1: of muscular power and eventually asphyxia. Not a good way

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Speaker 1: to go. Yeah, it's not quite the madness and death

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Speaker 1: of the Devil's Foot, but it's pretty bad. So. Gil

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Speaker 1: Simium has been used as an analgesic and various homeopathic products,

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Speaker 1: but the toxicity limits its usefulness. At the dawn of

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Speaker 1: the twentieth century, was still being used in asthma and

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Speaker 1: respiratory remedies, and it also factors into traditional Chinese medicine

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Speaker 1: where it's used to treat pain. But it has allegedly

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Speaker 1: been used as a deadly poison. Uh. And this is

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Speaker 1: this is where we end up with a couple of

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Speaker 1: very recent cases of alleges to gyl simium poisoning, and

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Speaker 1: they both took place in two thousand twelve. So, according

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Speaker 1: to The Guardian, in two thousand twelve, the death of

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Speaker 1: Chinese forestry tycoon Long Leon was linked to a quote

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Speaker 1: poison cat stew containing gil simium. Is this a stew

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Speaker 1: made of cat or a stew forecats, well, in this

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Speaker 1: case made with cat and gil simium. Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: you occasionally find, you know, Chinese dishes that still have

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Speaker 1: these these meats with Yeah, I'm aware from the time

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Speaker 1: that I spent in Beijing. I remember that that kind

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Speaker 1: of stuff being on the menu occasionally, Okay, wanting to

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Speaker 1: make sure for our audience. So he definitely ordered it

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Speaker 1: with the cat. But if there is gil simium in it,

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Speaker 1: he definitely did not order that part. Didn't That was

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Speaker 1: some nefarious spice, right. So another case, and this one

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Speaker 1: again is uh is alleged the two thousand twelve death

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Speaker 1: of Russian businessman and whistleblower Alexander. This seems to be

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Speaker 1: like a common at least like in terms of like

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Speaker 1: news media where we're hearing about poisoning, the most is

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Speaker 1: Russian whistle blowers. Yeah, I mean probably we could do

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Speaker 1: we could do a whole episode just on espionage related poisoning. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: In fact, like as I was looking up like different

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Speaker 1: poisons to hit for this episode, so many of the

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Speaker 1: examples kept coming up. It was like, oh, in the

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Speaker 1: last ten years, you know, this Russian former diplomat was

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Speaker 1: poison this journalist was poison Jadiyata. Now and in this case,

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Speaker 1: as with some of these these others you're alluding to,

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Speaker 1: it's not certain. Uh. The gall simium link it comes

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Speaker 1: via a life insurance company ordered test two years after

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Speaker 1: his death, and based on that it has been suggested

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Speaker 1: that he was assassinated by Russian operatives. Wow. So, so

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Speaker 1: I think that's a fabulous poison to kick off here,

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Speaker 1: because we go from the fictional realm to uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: this tale of an author testing a real poison out

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Speaker 1: on himself, and then to uh, you know, recent alleged

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Speaker 1: poisonings in China and Russia. All right, well, I will

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Speaker 1: add that index card to my recipe book. Uh and

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Speaker 1: I will I will counter that with one to you.

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Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of Spanish fly before? This is

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Speaker 1: the kind of thing fourteen year old boys ask each other,

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Speaker 1: as people who've listened to the show for a while. No,

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Speaker 1: I actually grew up in Singapore, and you could kind

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Speaker 1: of buy substances over there that you wouldn't necessarily be

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Speaker 1: able to find in like American malls. Right, And there

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Speaker 1: were constantly students at my school talking about how they

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Speaker 1: had purchased Spanish fly while they were on a trip

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Speaker 1: to Malaysia or Indonesia or something like that. They'd like

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Speaker 1: pull like a weird little vial out and it would

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Speaker 1: just be some powder. And you know, fourteen year old boys,

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Speaker 1: what's what's Spanish fly? Oh, it's this magic love potion

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Speaker 1: and all you have to do is like, uh, put

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Speaker 1: it on somebody or make sure that they eat it

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Speaker 1: and they fall in love with you. That was the

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Speaker 1: urban myth of this when I was in high school.

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Speaker 1: Right Ironically, there's actually a bit of stand up from

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Speaker 1: Bill Cosby from his early years about childhood tales of

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Speaker 1: of Spanish Fly and how wonderful it was supposed to be.

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Speaker 1: So I'll just I'll just leave that there for everyone

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Speaker 1: to consider. It is it's like a really weird thing,

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Speaker 1: Like when I think back on it, that like we

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00:19:25,440 --> 00:19:27,639
Speaker 1: would sit around and kind of talk about this and

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Speaker 1: obviously there's no scientific marrit behind that, as I will

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00:19:30,560 --> 00:19:34,000
Speaker 1: get into, but talk about it as like, oh, this

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00:19:34,359 --> 00:19:36,520
Speaker 1: that's a really intriguing thing about the world that I

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Speaker 1: didn't realize that there's a substance that just makes somebody

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Speaker 1: fall in love with you, right like like, but in

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00:19:42,600 --> 00:19:45,720
Speaker 1: it's a wonderful way, I guess to rebrand a poison

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Speaker 1: for sexual assault. Well that's exactly it, right, Like I

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00:19:48,400 --> 00:19:50,560
Speaker 1: look back on that and I'm like, these these innocent

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Speaker 1: boys around like the lunch table in the cafeteria are

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00:19:53,760 --> 00:19:56,199
Speaker 1: talking about this and you don't really realize. Then you

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00:19:56,240 --> 00:19:59,399
Speaker 1: extrapolated it out to Bill Cosby levels and you realize, like,

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Speaker 1: oh my god, this is horrible. You know. Now, Spanish

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00:20:03,200 --> 00:20:05,479
Speaker 1: fly is a real thing, but it's not what I

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00:20:05,560 --> 00:20:09,280
Speaker 1: was told when I was fourteen living in Singapore. Actually,

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Speaker 1: what it is is something called can theridin and cam

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Speaker 1: theradin is a substance that is derived from a subgroup

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00:20:16,080 --> 00:20:19,719
Speaker 1: of blister beetles and it can cause the skin to blister.

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Speaker 1: This is where these bugs get their name. Specifically, the

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Speaker 1: blister beetle is known as the Spanish fly or the

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00:20:26,720 --> 00:20:32,200
Speaker 1: lighta Vesicatoria, and it's common to a South European species

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00:20:32,600 --> 00:20:37,360
Speaker 1: from which can't theorides is extracted and commercially prepared by

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00:20:37,400 --> 00:20:41,160
Speaker 1: crushing the wing covers on the adults. Now there's reportedly

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00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:45,520
Speaker 1: Spanish fly that is found in northern Mediterranean regions, not

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00:20:45,760 --> 00:20:51,400
Speaker 1: just in Spain. Basically, these bugs secrete cantoried and from

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Speaker 1: their mouths and there's in their joints. They have this

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00:20:56,640 --> 00:21:00,760
Speaker 1: milky substance that seeps out. It sounds really gross, but

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00:21:00,840 --> 00:21:04,439
Speaker 1: the male beetle uses this as a defense mechanism. And

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Speaker 1: then here here's an interesting point. That leads to the

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00:21:07,480 --> 00:21:12,040
Speaker 1: myth the male gives the female this substance as a

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00:21:12,160 --> 00:21:16,760
Speaker 1: copulatory gift before they mate, so that might be like

379
00:21:16,840 --> 00:21:21,119
Speaker 1: the origin of this whole thing. But it's actually quite poisonous.

380
00:21:21,520 --> 00:21:24,760
Speaker 1: But despite how poisonous it is, it's used as a

381
00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:29,879
Speaker 1: skin irritant and a diuretic, and yes, as an aphrodisiac

382
00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:34,639
Speaker 1: in some cultures. The lethal dosage for an adult human

383
00:21:34,720 --> 00:21:38,320
Speaker 1: of Spanish fly is about ten milligrams, and in fact,

384
00:21:38,680 --> 00:21:43,560
Speaker 1: one Jamma Dermatology article reviewed for this episode, it argued

385
00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:47,520
Speaker 1: that cantherdin should be re added to the medications that

386
00:21:47,600 --> 00:21:52,040
Speaker 1: doctors currently use in their office. Basically, it's used they

387
00:21:52,040 --> 00:21:56,600
Speaker 1: apply it topically to treat warts or something like molluscumb

388
00:21:56,760 --> 00:22:00,800
Speaker 1: skin infections. In nineteen sixty two, however, here in the

389
00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:05,719
Speaker 1: United States, it lost its FDA approval because manufacturers didn't

390
00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:10,960
Speaker 1: submit their data about its efficacy, and it's expected to

391
00:22:11,200 --> 00:22:14,000
Speaker 1: soon be back on what is called the f d

392
00:22:14,040 --> 00:22:19,000
Speaker 1: a's Bulk Substances List, which permits physicians to use it

393
00:22:19,080 --> 00:22:22,600
Speaker 1: in the office on individual patients. So presumably, if you

394
00:22:22,640 --> 00:22:24,639
Speaker 1: came in you had a bad case, awards or something

395
00:22:24,680 --> 00:22:27,359
Speaker 1: on your hand, your doctor would say well, you know it,

396
00:22:27,400 --> 00:22:29,080
Speaker 1: I'll pull some of this Kent therap in out of

397
00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:31,240
Speaker 1: the old cabinet here, We'll put it on there. It'll

398
00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:34,040
Speaker 1: blister away these warts and then your skin will be

399
00:22:34,080 --> 00:22:37,560
Speaker 1: free of this. Uh. The JAMMA article actually also says

400
00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:41,200
Speaker 1: that they could not find any reports of Kent therapy

401
00:22:41,240 --> 00:22:45,000
Speaker 1: and poisoning being caused by the application from a physician. Okay,

402
00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:49,120
Speaker 1: So while this is really poisonous and physicians use it,

403
00:22:49,119 --> 00:22:54,920
Speaker 1: it's also you know, traditionally being used safely by physicians now,

404
00:22:55,119 --> 00:22:57,119
Speaker 1: very much like the poison that you introduced us to.

405
00:22:57,520 --> 00:23:00,399
Speaker 1: It used to be used topically in Asian medicine, and

406
00:23:00,440 --> 00:23:03,960
Speaker 1: they would use it to treat piles ulcers, venomous worms,

407
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:09,840
Speaker 1: and tuberculosis. Orally it was used to treat abdominal masses, rabies,

408
00:23:09,880 --> 00:23:15,119
Speaker 1: and cancer. Huh. Yeah. It's also worth noting that this

409
00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:19,120
Speaker 1: is very poisonous to horses as well as humans. So

410
00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:22,960
Speaker 1: in fact, fields that are near horses are usually have

411
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:24,880
Speaker 1: to be surveyed to make sure that none of these

412
00:23:24,880 --> 00:23:27,280
Speaker 1: beetles are in them, because if they get a dose

413
00:23:27,359 --> 00:23:30,439
Speaker 1: of these, it can kill a horse. But where's this

414
00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:34,359
Speaker 1: reputation of this aphrodisiac come from? Where did this? How

415
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:38,040
Speaker 1: did this myth get to my cafeteria table in school?

416
00:23:39,119 --> 00:23:42,800
Speaker 1: It's still a mystery actually. Now, obviously I presented you

417
00:23:42,840 --> 00:23:45,919
Speaker 1: with the you know, idea that because this male beetle

418
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:48,320
Speaker 1: gives it to the female beetle, maybe there's something to that.

419
00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:52,240
Speaker 1: That's also thought to be because it causes a dilation

420
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:56,800
Speaker 1: of blood vessels, which allows an increased blood flow, and

421
00:23:56,920 --> 00:24:01,560
Speaker 1: that would be useful for one human organ through what's

422
00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:06,360
Speaker 1: known as priapism. This is essentially when the penis remains erect,

423
00:24:06,760 --> 00:24:10,639
Speaker 1: non sexually for hours without stimulation. This is a word

424
00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 1: that I learned for this episode. Yeah, I mean you

425
00:24:13,359 --> 00:24:16,000
Speaker 1: occasionally see this, Uh, this will come up in terms

426
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:20,880
Speaker 1: of say, a bicycle accident could Yeah, it's not it's

427
00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:24,480
Speaker 1: not a pleasant experience. That's like the medical term for something. Yeah,

428
00:24:24,480 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 1: like if you come into an emergency room and that

429
00:24:26,920 --> 00:24:30,159
Speaker 1: is going on, that's what they should refer to it as.

430
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:33,360
Speaker 1: So it's purported that Henry the Fourth and the Marquis

431
00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:37,600
Speaker 1: Dessade both used Spanish fly. In fact, it said that

432
00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:42,959
Speaker 1: the Marquis Desade poisoned prostitutes with candles that contained it

433
00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:47,399
Speaker 1: in order to increase their sexual response. So based on

434
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:50,639
Speaker 1: everything that I've read of and by the Marquis assad

435
00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:54,640
Speaker 1: that sounds right on point, but also sounds awful, right.

436
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:58,960
Speaker 1: So the way that this essentially works, the intense irritation

437
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:02,919
Speaker 1: and blistering it causes is incredibly unpleasant, and when you

438
00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:07,399
Speaker 1: ingest it, that same blistering effect happens in the intestinal track.

439
00:25:07,840 --> 00:25:11,480
Speaker 1: This causes severe hemorrhaging. It leads to the vomiting of blood,

440
00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:15,439
Speaker 1: darkened urine, and bloody stool. There is also a burning

441
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:20,640
Speaker 1: of the mouth, difficulty swallowing, nausea, seizures, and cardiac abnormalities.

442
00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:24,920
Speaker 1: There is no antidote to this, and death is painful

443
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:27,320
Speaker 1: and rapid. Do you Essentially it sounds like you're putting

444
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:29,600
Speaker 1: like battery acid in your throat. Yeah. Yeah, there's nothing

445
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:33,040
Speaker 1: sexy about this at all, no camp therodin has no

446
00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:36,360
Speaker 1: odor and it's colorless. So this is like the perfect

447
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:38,480
Speaker 1: kind of thing to use as a poison, right. It

448
00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:42,240
Speaker 1: also with stains degradation by heat or drying, so it's

449
00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 1: difficult to remove it, Like if you spilt it on something,

450
00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 1: it's not that easy to get rid of. Now, there's

451
00:25:47,720 --> 00:25:51,240
Speaker 1: this story about a guy named Arthur Ford and he

452
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:55,320
Speaker 1: worked at a chemical manufacturer in London, and he really

453
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:58,240
Speaker 1: wanted to get one of his employees to fall in

454
00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:00,760
Speaker 1: love with him. He wanted to leave his life, and

455
00:26:00,800 --> 00:26:03,199
Speaker 1: I think that this was like an administrative assistant who

456
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,520
Speaker 1: worked for him or something like that. So he took can'

457
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:11,480
Speaker 1: theradin from the chemical manufacturer's storage area and he spiked

458
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:14,639
Speaker 1: coconut ice with it, and then he gave it to

459
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 1: all his office employees. So this is this is where

460
00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:21,120
Speaker 1: like these urban legends come from and then go horribly awry.

461
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 1: Two women died, including the one he was trying to

462
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:25,840
Speaker 1: get to fall in love with him, and he himself

463
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:30,199
Speaker 1: was hospitalized but then recovered. When they investigated this, they

464
00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 1: found up to ten times the lethal dose of km'

465
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:38,680
Speaker 1: theradin in the victims. Guess what punishment he got for this? Oh,

466
00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:40,360
Speaker 1: I mean, I should hope they just really put him

467
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:44,639
Speaker 1: away for two murders would be a horrible poison five years,

468
00:26:45,119 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 1: you got five years. It's actually thought by medical researchers

469
00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:53,640
Speaker 1: that cam therapin poisoning may actually be a more common

470
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: cause of morbidity than is generally recognized, So we basically

471
00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:02,560
Speaker 1: aren't equipped to recognize this in all situations. So it's possible,

472
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:07,320
Speaker 1: like maybe some of these uh vials of supposed Spanish

473
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:10,680
Speaker 1: fly that people are buying actually have some kan theratin

474
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:14,200
Speaker 1: in them and could least lead to poisoning events. Okay,

475
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:17,440
Speaker 1: so here's another story based around this. In nineteen two,

476
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: a doctor in the United Kingdom tried using kantheratin on

477
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:25,960
Speaker 1: children and he wanted to use it to test against

478
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 1: rheumatic fever to see what would happen. It had previously

479
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 1: been thought to work as a treatment for rheumatic fever,

480
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:37,720
Speaker 1: especially when like as a symptom of that the liquid

481
00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:40,720
Speaker 1: would build up around a human heart. So this doctor

482
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 1: he would use the substance to blister the skin on

483
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:47,600
Speaker 1: these children's torsos, and then he would snip away this

484
00:27:47,680 --> 00:27:51,359
Speaker 1: blistered skin, uh and he dressed the wound and he

485
00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:53,679
Speaker 1: would note, oh, well, the wound would heal in a

486
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 1: few days. He tested around forty children in this experiment

487
00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:00,879
Speaker 1: without their consent or knowledge. So like he would just

488
00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 1: I guess say like, okay, well we're gonna try this

489
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:07,480
Speaker 1: medicine now, and it would burn them, cause these horrible blisters,

490
00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 1: and he would cut the blisters off, and essentially that

491
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 1: was as far as he got with his research. Yeah,

492
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:17,960
Speaker 1: so okay, As I said before, there's no antidote for this.

493
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 1: It can be treated topically with acetone ether, fatty soap,

494
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:26,960
Speaker 1: or alcohol, and essentially these help dissolve and dilute it.

495
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 1: So you know, you spill some of this stuff on

496
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:31,439
Speaker 1: you before it starts blistering you. You you put that on.

497
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:34,639
Speaker 1: Hopefully it helps dissolve it. But if you ingest it,

498
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 1: there's only support measures available. So look, hopefully none of

499
00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 1: you out there are rushing out to go buy this stuff.

500
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 1: It is an entire urban myth. I you know, I'm

501
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:48,040
Speaker 1: glad I never got my hands on any of this stuff.

502
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:51,479
Speaker 1: I never heard of any poisoning incidents in my school

503
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:53,760
Speaker 1: and this was going on. I think mainly like what

504
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 1: these guys were selling down at the market was probably

505
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: just like they would literally take like a household fly,

506
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:00,680
Speaker 1: grind it up into dust and sell it to some

507
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 1: duction for five bucks. You know, Um, they would dry

508
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 1: it out first, I would assume. But if there's any

509
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 1: point where, for whatever reason, you think that like there's

510
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 1: a danger that either you or somebody around you has

511
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: ingested this, you're supposed to swallow generous amounts of water

512
00:29:18,640 --> 00:29:21,640
Speaker 1: and avoid fatty foods like milk, And the reason why

513
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 1: is because fatty foods will increase the absorption of the

514
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:29,960
Speaker 1: cantheritin in your system. You also don't want to induce vomiting.

515
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 1: So some people think like, well, oh, you swallowed this,

516
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 1: just vomited back. But what happens if you do that

517
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 1: is it will further damage the esophagus on its way out,

518
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 1: So it goes down, it causes this blistering effect, and

519
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:44,040
Speaker 1: then if you try to vomit it back out, it

520
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: causes the burning all over again. Yeah, this is really

521
00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 1: nasty stuff, and it somehow has this reputation as like

522
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 1: this bizarre love drug. Well again, we can't. We can't

523
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:03,959
Speaker 1: stress strongly enough do not obtain Spanish fly and certainly

524
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:08,000
Speaker 1: do not administer a Spanish fly. Yeah. Absolutely an urban legend,

525
00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:11,960
Speaker 1: but it seems to be an extremely effective way to

526
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 1: poison somebody. All Right, we're gonna take a quick break

527
00:30:14,720 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 1: and when we come back, we're going to explore two

528
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:25,240
Speaker 1: more of our six deadly poisons. All Right, we're back.

529
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 1: So you have a word written down here and it

530
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: looks like goo, yes, Google, which is in this case,

531
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:36,120
Speaker 1: it is a a Chinese poison of sort of mythic

532
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:40,480
Speaker 1: and folkloric origin. I like the like, if you extrapolate

533
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:43,600
Speaker 1: that to our word goo g o o, it's kind

534
00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:46,959
Speaker 1: of like the perfect name for a poison, you know, like, yeah, oh,

535
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:50,080
Speaker 1: would you use just some Google Well, you know this, uh,

536
00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:53,000
Speaker 1: this whole episode that I'm going to discuss here reminds

537
00:30:53,040 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 1: me a bit of the comic that you turned me onto.

538
00:30:56,440 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 1: Orc Stain. Oh. Yeah, there's a lot of poisons. Yeah,

539
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 1: there's like a whole ride that lives in I think

540
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:03,840
Speaker 1: they live in the mountains or the jungle deep Jungles,

541
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 1: and they have this fantastic abilities with poison. They're able

542
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:10,960
Speaker 1: to shoot the orc assassins with a poison that makes

543
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:13,480
Speaker 1: their head explode, that sort of thing. Yeah. If if

544
00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 1: you're unfamiliar with this and you're curious about it, it's

545
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 1: a comic series by a guy named James Stoko, and

546
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:22,720
Speaker 1: Orc Stain is essentially like a I guess high fantasy,

547
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:25,640
Speaker 1: but pretty much all the characters in it are orcs. Yeah,

548
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:28,440
Speaker 1: and it has a very almost kind of gonzo style

549
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 1: to it that reminds me a little bit of I mean,

550
00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 1: it has kind of that sort of heavy metal energy

551
00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:35,400
Speaker 1: to it. It's a little bit a bit of that

552
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 1: sort of uh, you know, what is a two thousand

553
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 1: a d kind of sensibility. I think that's the kind

554
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:42,920
Speaker 1: of stuff that influenced him. Yeah, you know, I should

555
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:45,200
Speaker 1: mention this to you, but I'll tell our audience about

556
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:47,479
Speaker 1: it while we're here too. He has since gone on

557
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: to do Godzilla mini series that I highly recommend. Imagine

558
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 1: that guy doing god and then he just started doing

559
00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:58,720
Speaker 1: an Aliens mini series. It's called Aliens Dead Orbit and man,

560
00:31:58,840 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 1: his take on the Aliens is so bizarre. Yeah, I

561
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 1: mean he his uh use of body are and biology

562
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 1: is wonderful, So I imagine that is as well. Keep

563
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:10,080
Speaker 1: that in mind as we roll forward here. So I

564
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:14,080
Speaker 1: found this, uh, this excellent source on Google in this

565
00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 1: article by A Norma Diamond that was published in an

566
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:23,520
Speaker 1: edition of Ethnology. It's titled The Meal and Poison Interactions

567
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:27,080
Speaker 1: on China's Southwest Frontier, and it does a fabulous job

568
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:31,000
Speaker 1: just breaking down this concept of goo. So a lot

569
00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:35,640
Speaker 1: of it concerns folk tales and superstitions surrounding poison and

570
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:39,840
Speaker 1: in the use of these superstitions against frontiers people and

571
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:44,320
Speaker 1: when women in particular, So we're talking about Han Chinese

572
00:32:44,360 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 1: tales of the male people. The male are one of

573
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 1: China's fifty five recognized ethnic groups, and these this would

574
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:54,960
Speaker 1: be mostly in the mountains of southern China. Now, the frontier,

575
00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 1: Diamond points out, was this was a frightening place for

576
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 1: frontiers tend to be on the edges of of empire.

577
00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:04,320
Speaker 1: So there was periodic unrest because it was a frontier

578
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:06,880
Speaker 1: after all, and this was there were there's also a

579
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 1: place where one encountered a different ethnic people with seemingly

580
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 1: barbaric ways. And finally, she points out there were a

581
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:20,200
Speaker 1: number of endemic diseases such as encephalitis, meningitis, dysentery, leprosy.

582
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:22,720
Speaker 1: So people, you know, would travel out to the frontier

583
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:24,360
Speaker 1: and they would come back with tales or oh the

584
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:28,640
Speaker 1: people were hostile and strange and they're all these weird diseases.

585
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:32,400
Speaker 1: They're horrible things happening to people's bodies there, and uh

586
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 1: and and so you end up with a superstitious tradition

587
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:41,800
Speaker 1: that is very much grounded in um xenophobia really and

588
00:33:41,840 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 1: also in in in a good bit of misogyny. As

589
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 1: we'll explore man these poisons already, we're just just on

590
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:52,200
Speaker 1: our third poison, we're already in some really dangerous social

591
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:55,960
Speaker 1: and cultural cultural territory. Yeah, because they would get into this, uh,

592
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 1: this line of thinking to where the Meal were not

593
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:03,080
Speaker 1: only a people they used poison, but they themselves were

594
00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:06,240
Speaker 1: poisonous and like they had to poison people to keep

595
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 1: the poison from like eating them up. Wow, what a

596
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:13,759
Speaker 1: what an odd form of demonization. So you had two

597
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:16,640
Speaker 1: main forms of the Google folk tail, and these are

598
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:19,760
Speaker 1: from the Tang dynasty and this is around six eighteen

599
00:34:20,280 --> 00:34:23,799
Speaker 1: uh CE and onward. Uh. The first of these is

600
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:27,360
Speaker 1: the SoC idea of the five poisonous creatures. So in

601
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:31,840
Speaker 1: this one, Google was simply a quasi magical poison that

602
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 1: was created by sealing the five poisonous creatures a snake,

603
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 1: a centipede, a toad, a scorpion, and a lizard inside

604
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:41,840
Speaker 1: of a jar. And you keep it this jar in

605
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:44,880
Speaker 1: a dark place for a year. Sounds reasonable, all right.

606
00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:48,240
Speaker 1: Then you you open up that jar and you find

607
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:51,800
Speaker 1: that essentially there's a battle royale in that jar, but

608
00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:54,880
Speaker 1: the creatures eating each other until there's only one creature left.

609
00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:58,120
Speaker 1: And then if it of course dies and withers in

610
00:34:58,120 --> 00:35:01,799
Speaker 1: in the container and So the ideas that you open

611
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:04,279
Speaker 1: the jar up and then you take the contents and

612
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: you ground them down, you make a powder, and this

613
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 1: is the goo poison that causes sickness and death. Holy cow,

614
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:15,120
Speaker 1: Yeah that sounds vile. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out

615
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:17,919
Speaker 1: who would come out on top of this, uh, five

616
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 1: poisonous creatures jar. I guess. I mean, my gut instinct

617
00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 1: is to say the scorpion, but uh, maybe the snake.

618
00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:28,439
Speaker 1: I guess the snake if it's gonna actually eat everything. Yeah, right,

619
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:32,319
Speaker 1: but I don't you know, a lot of logistical concerns coming.

620
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:34,400
Speaker 1: You open it up and there's just this happy snake

621
00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:39,200
Speaker 1: with a full belly. So um. So that's one version

622
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:41,400
Speaker 1: of it. But then there there there are other variants

623
00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:45,120
Speaker 1: as well. There's this idea of the goose spirit. So

624
00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 1: in this variant, you have a woman of the male

625
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:51,480
Speaker 1: and she takes, she keeps a snake, a toad or tortoise,

626
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:53,439
Speaker 1: or a bird. She gets it in a secret chest

627
00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:56,680
Speaker 1: or a wall compartment, she feeds it. And the idea

628
00:35:57,120 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 1: is that if her husband or lover deserts her for another,

629
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:03,120
Speaker 1: then goose spirit, maintained by this practice, goes forth and

630
00:36:03,160 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 1: poison him. So it's used to ensure faithfulness or to

631
00:36:06,960 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 1: seek revenge. And Diamond also explains that there's this idea

632
00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 1: that the use of a goose spirit is away for

633
00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: the poisonous figure of the male female to purge herself

634
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:20,320
Speaker 1: of her own inner poison. The woman it was said

635
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:23,400
Speaker 1: she would she had read, she would would have reddened eyes,

636
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:26,040
Speaker 1: and she would become john too swollen and lose her

637
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 1: appetite if she didn't use her poisonous powers. So if

638
00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:32,319
Speaker 1: she were to use it to blight a tree, then

639
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 1: she'd be protected for three months. If she used it

640
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:37,120
Speaker 1: on an ox or a pig, she'd be protected for

641
00:36:37,160 --> 00:36:39,319
Speaker 1: a year, and if she used it on a human being,

642
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:44,400
Speaker 1: three years. Okay, So this is essentially, uh, this section

643
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:49,120
Speaker 1: of China's version of witchcraft and familiars. It's like their

644
00:36:49,200 --> 00:36:53,680
Speaker 1: cultural version of demonizing women. Yeah, it's a it's ay. Essentially,

645
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:58,320
Speaker 1: we're talking about poison themed witches here. Yeah, she's okay. Now,

646
00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:02,920
Speaker 1: if we set aside witchcraft offten xenophobia and so forth, uh,

647
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:06,960
Speaker 1: we still do have some accounts that point to believable

648
00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 1: use of poisons by the Mayo. So, according according to Diamond,

649
00:37:10,719 --> 00:37:13,720
Speaker 1: we have we have the following candidates to consider, because

650
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:15,840
Speaker 1: again there are they do seem to be accounts of

651
00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:20,720
Speaker 1: them actually using poisons as in their you know, in combat,

652
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:24,840
Speaker 1: et cetera. So arsenic was readily available, and this is

653
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:27,359
Speaker 1: the so called king of poisons, and it's long head

654
00:37:27,360 --> 00:37:31,040
Speaker 1: of place in traditional Chinese medicine, imagining like arsenic in

655
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:36,880
Speaker 1: like an aluminum can, like beer of poisons, uh and

656
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:39,759
Speaker 1: and poisons. Various poisons were used in hunting by the meal.

657
00:37:40,239 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 1: So you had the one particularly's really interesting, the sap

658
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:49,799
Speaker 1: of an atterriss toxiccaria, a tree that's found in southern

659
00:37:49,960 --> 00:37:54,719
Speaker 1: yunn and in Guangzi. And this is uh. This is

660
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:57,680
Speaker 1: known as poison mother. And what you have here is

661
00:37:57,719 --> 00:38:01,600
Speaker 1: a brownish red dried juice sometimes mixed with snake venom.

662
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:04,880
Speaker 1: And it was widely traded in the area around Nanning

663
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:07,520
Speaker 1: of where and I've I've been. I've been to Nanning,

664
00:38:07,560 --> 00:38:09,879
Speaker 1: That's one of the places I've visited a few years

665
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:12,360
Speaker 1: years back. But I did not go to the poison

666
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:16,400
Speaker 1: You drink any snake, but did not drink snake. Um.

667
00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:18,640
Speaker 1: I didn't have any occasion when I lived in China

668
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: to have just any poisons either. But it seems like

669
00:38:21,440 --> 00:38:23,040
Speaker 1: this is one of those things though, right. It's like

670
00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:25,520
Speaker 1: it's really easy from a Western perspective to hear this

671
00:38:25,520 --> 00:38:27,759
Speaker 1: stuff and be like, oh my gosh, like there's just

672
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:30,080
Speaker 1: poisons all over the place there, but we've got our

673
00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 1: own version. Oh yeah, there are plenty of poisons around here. Now.

674
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:36,080
Speaker 1: This does remind me of, particularly of a Thai tradition

675
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:38,880
Speaker 1: of their being like a whiskey with us with a poison,

676
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 1: like a cobra or poisonous snake. Okay, yeah, it's sort

677
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 1: of like the idea of what is it with tequila

678
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:47,239
Speaker 1: and you've got the worm? Yeah, and isn't there another one?

679
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 1: It's not tequila, but there's another one with a scorpion.

680
00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:51,960
Speaker 1: I think you can tell. I'm not a drinker, but

681
00:38:51,960 --> 00:38:53,880
Speaker 1: but it's reminiscent of what we're talking about with the

682
00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 1: with the google here. Yeah, yeah, now that anitarrist toxicaria.

683
00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:01,480
Speaker 1: It's also known as the Boys an Arrow Tree in China.

684
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:03,879
Speaker 1: It's because it's saying it's so deadly that they had

685
00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 1: this saying seven up, eight down, nine death. Because bear

686
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:11,239
Speaker 1: with me here, once you're hit with it, you can

687
00:39:11,280 --> 00:39:14,560
Speaker 1: only take seven steps uphill. Eight downhill or nine on

688
00:39:14,719 --> 00:39:19,359
Speaker 1: even terrain before you fall dead. That's a great like

689
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:22,560
Speaker 1: a movie for for like a martial arts movie or

690
00:39:22,560 --> 00:39:25,120
Speaker 1: so yeah like that, or or like a video game,

691
00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: or or even like a band themes fan indeed, So

692
00:39:31,320 --> 00:39:34,640
Speaker 1: what happens here with with this particular poison is that

693
00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 1: the sap from this tree, the poison arrow tree, seems

694
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 1: to affect the activity of muscle membrane and heart muscle contraction.

695
00:39:42,239 --> 00:39:45,879
Speaker 1: So you end up with death by cardiac arrest. So

696
00:39:45,920 --> 00:39:50,080
Speaker 1: Diamond says, quote, a fatal dose causes a falling heart rate,

697
00:39:50,280 --> 00:39:55,080
Speaker 1: respiratory difficulties, muscular weakness, paralysis, convulsions, and finally death within

698
00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:58,320
Speaker 1: a short period of time. A sub lethal dose passes

699
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:03,440
Speaker 1: out of the body fairly quickly. The victim may experienced nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headaches,

700
00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 1: and visual disturbances. So the problem here is that that

701
00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:12,200
Speaker 1: doesn't match up with some of the descriptions of Google, right, Yeah,

702
00:40:12,280 --> 00:40:17,040
Speaker 1: the symptoms are different. Yeah, so other things to consider here.

703
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 1: The meal can obtain the commercial strychnine around the dawn

704
00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:23,880
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, but before that they had access

705
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:28,560
Speaker 1: to our old friend asinite or wolfs bang oh, okay, okay, yeah,

706
00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:31,319
Speaker 1: And I remember us talking about that in that episode two,

707
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:33,719
Speaker 1: that there was some thought that they were using that

708
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:38,480
Speaker 1: actually wasn't it on arrowheads? Yeah yeah, Uh, So it's

709
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:42,000
Speaker 1: possible that they were using that for goo. However, it

710
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:45,040
Speaker 1: was a pretty common aspect of traditional medicine at the

711
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:48,840
Speaker 1: time and remains so. And again the symptoms don't necessarily

712
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:51,960
Speaker 1: match up with all the tales. It's also possible that

713
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:55,160
Speaker 1: there was some unknown herb that was that factored into

714
00:40:55,239 --> 00:40:59,360
Speaker 1: these poisonings. Uh, you know, something that historians, especially Western historians,

715
00:40:59,360 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 1: have missed or I mean, and maybe easy even been forgotten,

716
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:05,760
Speaker 1: But I don't know. It seems it seems more likely

717
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:09,200
Speaker 1: that we're looking at one of those earlier examples, you know,

718
00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:12,879
Speaker 1: the idea of the poison arrow tree coming into play,

719
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:18,800
Speaker 1: for instance. So I think it's fascinating how human beings

720
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:22,279
Speaker 1: over history take these things as simple as like a

721
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 1: being or a tree or a mushroom, and we create

722
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:32,200
Speaker 1: these entire systems of like morality around them, right, like

723
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:35,919
Speaker 1: in this instance, like this witchcraft idea, right, and then

724
00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 1: in my next example, my next poison one, this is

725
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:43,359
Speaker 1: like an entire way of of judging wrongdoing. It's called

726
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:47,440
Speaker 1: the ordeal being and uh it is known by the

727
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:52,840
Speaker 1: Latin term phiso stigma venenosum sounds very hairy, potter a.

728
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:58,440
Speaker 1: It's an actual thing. So numerous West African tribes used

729
00:41:58,840 --> 00:42:01,759
Speaker 1: they used to depend on something that's called the caliber

730
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:04,719
Speaker 1: being and this was in something called a trial by

731
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:09,240
Speaker 1: ordeal and it basically it attempted to determine people's guilt

732
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 1: or innocence in an ordeal that they left to divine control.

733
00:42:15,200 --> 00:42:17,839
Speaker 1: And so this was subsequently known as the ordeal being

734
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:22,320
Speaker 1: or also as the lie detector being for this reason. Essentially,

735
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 1: what would happen is the tribes would feed numerous poison

736
00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:29,560
Speaker 1: seeds to the accused to determine if they were witches,

737
00:42:29,800 --> 00:42:34,680
Speaker 1: sound familiar murderers, or possessed by evil spirits. And if

738
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:38,400
Speaker 1: they were quote innocent, then God would allow them to

739
00:42:38,520 --> 00:42:42,239
Speaker 1: live and they would vomit the beans back up. If not,

740
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 1: the sentence of death was immediately carried out by the beans.

741
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:49,120
Speaker 1: So essentially, here's this poison being. If it kills you,

742
00:42:49,600 --> 00:42:53,600
Speaker 1: then you deserved it. Uh. If it doesn't, then well

743
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:57,200
Speaker 1: that's God telling us that you're innocent. Basically, we have

744
00:42:57,239 --> 00:42:59,759
Speaker 1: the same scenario as like push the witch off a

745
00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:02,319
Speaker 1: clip for put the witch under the water. Yeah, and

746
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:04,920
Speaker 1: if she lives, well, then I guess God thinks you're okay.

747
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:08,799
Speaker 1: Exactly Now. The administration of this was known locally as

748
00:43:09,160 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 1: chopnut and it was discovered by the rest of the

749
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:16,440
Speaker 1: world when missionaries from Scotland arrived in eighteen forty six.

750
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:20,120
Speaker 1: Then the bean made its way back to Scotland, where

751
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 1: it was studied. A reverend there discovered that the local

752
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:28,360
Speaker 1: king had actually ordered the destruction of the vine that

753
00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:31,680
Speaker 1: these seeds were grown on so that he could maintain

754
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:35,600
Speaker 1: a monopoly on the administration of justice. So he essentially

755
00:43:35,640 --> 00:43:40,280
Speaker 1: made it so that only his area could obtain these beans,

756
00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:43,719
Speaker 1: so everybody had to come to him to decide whether

757
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:46,520
Speaker 1: or not somebody was innocent or guilty based on whether

758
00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:48,319
Speaker 1: they could use the beans or not. You know, this

759
00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:50,719
Speaker 1: is fascinating because it makes me think of Sir Arthur

760
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:54,200
Speaker 1: Conan Doyle because it's the time period, is right, Uh

761
00:43:54,239 --> 00:43:56,560
Speaker 1: he was he And we mentioned that the University of

762
00:43:56,680 --> 00:44:01,000
Speaker 1: Edinburgh and this has an African you know, like tribal

763
00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:05,560
Speaker 1: ritual origin, where as the Gylsimium did not what the

764
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:08,279
Speaker 1: gylsimium was tied to South America or China, so I

765
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 1: can't help, but wonder I mean, he he would have

766
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:13,319
Speaker 1: being if he was truly a poison nut, probably been

767
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:15,600
Speaker 1: aware of this. Yeah, well, let's let's learn a little

768
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:17,480
Speaker 1: bit more about it and then maybe we can we

769
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:20,040
Speaker 1: can see if it's connected more to that Sherlock Holmes

770
00:44:20,080 --> 00:44:23,640
Speaker 1: story than the gyl simium was. It's also said that

771
00:44:23,680 --> 00:44:26,279
Speaker 1: there was a form of dueling that was used with

772
00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:28,759
Speaker 1: these beans, and apparently what they would do is two

773
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 1: opponents would divide a bean and each of them would

774
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:37,279
Speaker 1: eat one half of it, and the quantity was essentially,

775
00:44:37,360 --> 00:44:40,960
Speaker 1: you know, the only was known it could kill either

776
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:43,799
Speaker 1: of the adversaries, So even half a bean was enough

777
00:44:43,800 --> 00:44:46,759
Speaker 1: to kill a man. So sometimes they would both die,

778
00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:49,520
Speaker 1: sometimes one of them would die, sometimes neither of them

779
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:52,400
Speaker 1: would die. But more often than not, these beans just

780
00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:56,879
Speaker 1: killed you. So it's like a really high stakes drinking gang. Yeah. Yeah,

781
00:44:57,000 --> 00:45:00,160
Speaker 1: So the calibar bean is actually the seed of a

782
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:04,759
Speaker 1: climbing lugaminous plant that's known as phiso Stigma venanos um,

783
00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:07,840
Speaker 1: and it is poisonous to human beings when it's chewed.

784
00:45:08,239 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 1: But hold on, if the whole being is swallowed intact,

785
00:45:12,040 --> 00:45:14,600
Speaker 1: it might prevent the release of its toxins. So this

786
00:45:14,640 --> 00:45:16,799
Speaker 1: is apparently like the trick right like, if you ever

787
00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:19,560
Speaker 1: find yourself in this situation with the ordeal being just

788
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:22,680
Speaker 1: don't chew and then you've got like a better chance.

789
00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:24,719
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that you're gonna live through it, but

790
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:27,560
Speaker 1: it's a it's more likely to release its toxins if

791
00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:31,240
Speaker 1: you chew it up. Interesting. So these can be found

792
00:45:31,360 --> 00:45:35,759
Speaker 1: in the coastal area of southeastern Nigeria that's known as Calibar,

793
00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:38,040
Speaker 1: and like I said, they were first noticed in eighteen

794
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:41,440
Speaker 1: forty six. It took actually until eighteen sixty one for

795
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:44,160
Speaker 1: botanists to name it, and they named it for the

796
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:47,840
Speaker 1: snooping beak like solid appendage that's at the end of

797
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:51,120
Speaker 1: the stigma on these vines. And it isn't until the

798
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:54,680
Speaker 1: rainy season there, which lasts from June through September, that

799
00:45:54,760 --> 00:45:59,040
Speaker 1: the plant produces it's it's best most toxic beans. And

800
00:45:59,080 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 1: the first medical student who investigated its effects on himself

801
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:06,799
Speaker 1: was a guy named Robert Christensen, and he's the one

802
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 1: who actually named it too. There's nothing in the external

803
00:46:10,719 --> 00:46:13,399
Speaker 1: aspect of this being whether it's its taste or its

804
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:18,960
Speaker 1: smell to distinguish it from other harmless legume seeds. In fact,

805
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:22,600
Speaker 1: it's known to have been eaten by children accidentally and

806
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:26,399
Speaker 1: killed them. So this is again like seems it's got that,

807
00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:29,520
Speaker 1: you know, qualifications for great poison. Right, it's odorless, it's

808
00:46:29,560 --> 00:46:33,279
Speaker 1: hard to detect. Uh, it's we're about to find out

809
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:35,760
Speaker 1: like how it kills people. It's part of a religious

810
00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:39,640
Speaker 1: right as well. Yeah, So the reason why it's poisonous

811
00:46:39,719 --> 00:46:42,480
Speaker 1: is because there there's a presence in it of something

812
00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:47,680
Speaker 1: called phiso stigmine alkaloid, and this acts on the human

813
00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:50,879
Speaker 1: nervous system pretty much the same way nerve gas does.

814
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:56,360
Speaker 1: It disrupts communication between the nervous system and our organs.

815
00:46:56,400 --> 00:47:02,799
Speaker 1: This subsequently leads to contraction of the pupils, profew salivation, convulsions, seizures,

816
00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:08,000
Speaker 1: spontaneous urination and defecation, loss of control of the respiratory system,

817
00:47:08,040 --> 00:47:11,319
Speaker 1: and finally death bi asphyxiation. This seems to be like

818
00:47:11,640 --> 00:47:16,200
Speaker 1: the common and result of these poisons as asphyxiation. It

819
00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:20,000
Speaker 1: also affects the reflex functions of our spinal cords, and

820
00:47:20,080 --> 00:47:24,320
Speaker 1: in fatal cases it's going to paralyze the sensory columns

821
00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:27,319
Speaker 1: in your spinal cord as well. Now it should be

822
00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:32,200
Speaker 1: noted that this has no action on unbroken skin. Right,

823
00:47:32,239 --> 00:47:35,400
Speaker 1: so if you unlike the Spanish fly stuff that I

824
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:38,240
Speaker 1: was talking about earlier, doesn't cause like a blistering effect

825
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:40,400
Speaker 1: if you just put one of these on your skin. Okay,

826
00:47:40,680 --> 00:47:45,560
Speaker 1: But ophthalmologists used to use small doses of this. They

827
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 1: would derive phiso stig mine out of these beans, and

828
00:47:49,520 --> 00:47:53,400
Speaker 1: they would use it to make patients pupils contract. Yeah.

829
00:47:53,520 --> 00:47:56,800
Speaker 1: So like essentially they would really you know, boil this

830
00:47:56,880 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 1: down to its essence, use a tiny, tiny amount and

831
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:01,720
Speaker 1: then drop it into your eyes. Well, just another case.

832
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:03,680
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm on most of these examples. The

833
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:07,440
Speaker 1: you know, one one individual's medicine as another's poison, depending

834
00:48:07,480 --> 00:48:10,799
Speaker 1: on the dosage. Yeah. Yeah, So in recent years, the

835
00:48:10,840 --> 00:48:14,440
Speaker 1: chemical has actually been applied to helping paralyzed men who

836
00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:16,960
Speaker 1: want children. Now, this is where it gets interesting, especially

837
00:48:17,160 --> 00:48:20,279
Speaker 1: in comparison to the Spanish fly we talked about earlier. So,

838
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:25,520
Speaker 1: because this being affects the autonomic nervous system, it allows

839
00:48:25,719 --> 00:48:30,720
Speaker 1: men who are otherwise paralyzed to ejaculate when they normally can't.

840
00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 1: So this allows them to become fathers. Like normally, you know,

841
00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:37,399
Speaker 1: if they're married, they they're you know, concerned like, oh,

842
00:48:37,440 --> 00:48:39,600
Speaker 1: I'm never going to be able to be a father,

843
00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:42,960
Speaker 1: you know, to my partner's child. But with this being

844
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:47,319
Speaker 1: if it's applied correctly, they can. So they see strange

845
00:48:48,120 --> 00:48:52,160
Speaker 1: derivations off of this thing that has this cultural history

846
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:55,320
Speaker 1: of being used for dueling or judging whether somebody is

847
00:48:55,360 --> 00:48:59,680
Speaker 1: a witch or not. Now scientists today are actually conducting

848
00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:03,120
Speaker 1: at ease to see if the alkaloid here can aid

849
00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:08,120
Speaker 1: in reversing things like Alzheimer's disease because it affects neurotransmitters

850
00:49:08,120 --> 00:49:12,359
Speaker 1: in the brain. And weirdly, it's also an effective antidote

851
00:49:12,680 --> 00:49:15,360
Speaker 1: for another poison, and this is like one of the

852
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:19,160
Speaker 1: more more common poisons, a tropa belladonna also known as

853
00:49:19,320 --> 00:49:22,680
Speaker 1: night shade essence of nightshade, So this is actually a

854
00:49:22,760 --> 00:49:27,759
Speaker 1: cure for poisoning by belladonna. Finally, it's being studied to

855
00:49:27,760 --> 00:49:31,000
Speaker 1: see if phiso stigmine could be used as a way

856
00:49:31,040 --> 00:49:35,200
Speaker 1: to block nerve gas, so like saren. For instance, if

857
00:49:35,239 --> 00:49:38,359
Speaker 1: you're in a situation where you're surrounded by saren, if

858
00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:41,160
Speaker 1: you take this it might be able to bind to

859
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:44,840
Speaker 1: the same kind of enzymes that saren binds too, So

860
00:49:44,880 --> 00:49:47,680
Speaker 1: it's hoped that the right dosage will block the worst

861
00:49:47,680 --> 00:49:51,720
Speaker 1: effects of the saren without causing lasting damage to the victim.

862
00:49:52,360 --> 00:49:55,480
Speaker 1: This is just fascinating, all these apparent ways that you

863
00:49:55,600 --> 00:49:59,439
Speaker 1: could use this thing that is essentially like an evil being.

864
00:50:00,239 --> 00:50:01,920
Speaker 1: And it makes me think of our small Bard episode

865
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:05,400
Speaker 1: talking about the importance of gene uh and particularly seed banks,

866
00:50:05,880 --> 00:50:09,960
Speaker 1: because any any number of these uh, these uh, these

867
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:14,040
Speaker 1: biological specimens out there, uh, they may have hidden properties

868
00:50:14,280 --> 00:50:17,359
Speaker 1: that we haven't quite exploited, you know, oh definitely, yeah.

869
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:20,399
Speaker 1: I mean you think about it like this was didn't

870
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:23,359
Speaker 1: even start being explored really into like a hundred and

871
00:50:23,360 --> 00:50:28,799
Speaker 1: fifty hundred and seventy years ago by Scottish uh missionaries essentially, right,

872
00:50:28,840 --> 00:50:34,080
Speaker 1: So there's like potentially decades of research that could go

873
00:50:34,120 --> 00:50:37,040
Speaker 1: into something that's just this ordeal being, and we could

874
00:50:37,040 --> 00:50:40,560
Speaker 1: find all of these medicinal ways to use them. All right, Well,

875
00:50:40,560 --> 00:50:42,480
Speaker 1: on that note, let's take one final break and when

876
00:50:42,520 --> 00:50:45,760
Speaker 1: we come back, two more poisons and really that should

877
00:50:45,800 --> 00:50:53,440
Speaker 1: do yet. All right, we're back. So if you decided, um,

878
00:50:53,560 --> 00:50:58,839
Speaker 1: how which poison you're gonna use yet by myself. Well, hey,

879
00:50:58,880 --> 00:51:02,120
Speaker 1: man on whom I don't know, I guess I still

880
00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:04,799
Speaker 1: want that one plenty was talking about that's just gonna

881
00:51:04,840 --> 00:51:09,239
Speaker 1: be so uh, this one, I'm not sure this is

882
00:51:09,280 --> 00:51:12,480
Speaker 1: the this is the one necessarily, but uh, but it's

883
00:51:12,480 --> 00:51:15,759
Speaker 1: one that definitely pops up on other TV shows, that

884
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:18,120
Speaker 1: being rice and if I don't know, if you watched

885
00:51:18,280 --> 00:51:21,359
Speaker 1: Breaking Bad, but rison shows up quite a bit. YEA.

886
00:51:22,719 --> 00:51:27,680
Speaker 1: So ricin is derived from the castor being plant rice

887
00:51:27,800 --> 00:51:32,239
Speaker 1: Cinnus communists the same the same species that's responsible for

888
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:34,920
Speaker 1: all that castor oil in our medicine and even our

889
00:51:34,960 --> 00:51:38,319
Speaker 1: food products. You grind the beans into oil and then

890
00:51:38,320 --> 00:51:41,160
Speaker 1: you're left with a mash byproduct, and that's where you

891
00:51:41,200 --> 00:51:45,200
Speaker 1: find the toxin. It's not a fast acting toxin, so

892
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:48,279
Speaker 1: symptoms here take between four and twenty four hours to

893
00:51:48,320 --> 00:51:52,120
Speaker 1: set in. But ricin is highly lethal to humans. A

894
00:51:52,200 --> 00:51:57,319
Speaker 1: single milligram of the stuff is deadly evenhaled or ingested. Now,

895
00:51:57,360 --> 00:52:00,520
Speaker 1: long before Walter White plotted to poison you know, half

896
00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:03,160
Speaker 1: the cast of Breaking Bad with this stuff, the U. S.

897
00:52:03,239 --> 00:52:07,320
Speaker 1: Military actually patented a method to purify rice and toxin

898
00:52:07,880 --> 00:52:10,680
Speaker 1: for the coming Great War. For the First World War.

899
00:52:10,840 --> 00:52:13,440
Speaker 1: Really yeah, okay, but but here's the thing. How do

900
00:52:13,480 --> 00:52:15,880
Speaker 1: you deploy it on a battlefield. Yeah. It's not like

901
00:52:15,920 --> 00:52:17,560
Speaker 1: you can just mash up a bunch of beans and

902
00:52:17,600 --> 00:52:19,879
Speaker 1: throw them at your enemies. Yeah, you can't. You can't

903
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:22,560
Speaker 1: have like a you know, a secret agent can only

904
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:25,080
Speaker 1: poison so many people. You can't do that to take

905
00:52:25,120 --> 00:52:29,240
Speaker 1: out an entire you know, groove of soldiers. The Hague

906
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:34,440
Speaker 1: Convention of e ended up stepping in and prohibiting the

907
00:52:34,560 --> 00:52:38,080
Speaker 1: use of rice and as a projectile coding, uh, plus

908
00:52:38,160 --> 00:52:44,600
Speaker 1: other dispersal methods that ultimately proved ineffective, because that's one

909
00:52:44,600 --> 00:52:46,279
Speaker 1: of the things that you encounter with with a lot

910
00:52:46,320 --> 00:52:51,160
Speaker 1: of potential bioweapons is Okay, the the substance itself is

911
00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:54,399
Speaker 1: deadly under certain circumstances, but that doesn't mean it can

912
00:52:54,560 --> 00:52:59,640
Speaker 1: really effectively be weaponized and deployed against, especially against like

913
00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:03,760
Speaker 1: a man troops situation or you know, or a major

914
00:53:03,800 --> 00:53:08,840
Speaker 1: center of population. Wow. Okay, So I'm thinking by projectile coating,

915
00:53:08,920 --> 00:53:12,280
Speaker 1: we're talking about bullets. So you literally coat bullets and ricing.

916
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:17,319
Speaker 1: That's that is what is specifically banned. Yeah, Now, as

917
00:53:17,320 --> 00:53:20,640
Speaker 1: you might imagine rice and occasionally pops up in small

918
00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:24,000
Speaker 1: acts of terrorism, but that it makes it an ineffective

919
00:53:24,360 --> 00:53:26,879
Speaker 1: mass terror weapon as well. According to a study from

920
00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:31,240
Speaker 1: the New Zealand National Poison Center, terrorists would need several

921
00:53:31,320 --> 00:53:34,080
Speaker 1: metric tons of rice and in order to in order

922
00:53:34,120 --> 00:53:37,120
Speaker 1: to target a large population. So it's a lot of beans. Yeah,

923
00:53:37,160 --> 00:53:39,600
Speaker 1: that's a lot of beans. And it's again it's an

924
00:53:39,600 --> 00:53:42,400
Speaker 1: example of this is a poison that can be used

925
00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:46,920
Speaker 1: with deadly efficiency on an individual basis, but it's not

926
00:53:46,960 --> 00:53:48,840
Speaker 1: the kind of thing you would necessarily be able to

927
00:53:48,920 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 1: dump into the water. So this isn't what we refer

928
00:53:51,080 --> 00:53:55,239
Speaker 1: to as a chemical of mass destruction necessarily. Now, um.

929
00:53:55,640 --> 00:53:59,319
Speaker 1: There there is one case though, that's pretty interesting, where

930
00:53:59,400 --> 00:54:03,480
Speaker 1: it was effective in an assassination poisoning. Uh and this

931
00:54:03,719 --> 00:54:07,759
Speaker 1: occurred in nineteen sixty nine when an assassin fired a

932
00:54:07,920 --> 00:54:11,520
Speaker 1: rice and laced pellet much less like our our above

933
00:54:11,560 --> 00:54:19,480
Speaker 1: example into the leg of defected Bulgarian writer uh Gegory Markovy. Wow. Okay,

934
00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:23,560
Speaker 1: so like, h this is just blowing my mind, Like

935
00:54:23,600 --> 00:54:26,280
Speaker 1: the idea obviously, like you see this in fantasy stuff

936
00:54:26,280 --> 00:54:28,120
Speaker 1: like Game of Thrones, right, like, oh, I'll coat my

937
00:54:28,160 --> 00:54:32,040
Speaker 1: sword with a poison or actually I think, doesn't um,

938
00:54:32,160 --> 00:54:34,080
Speaker 1: one of the guys from Dorn he puts like some

939
00:54:34,120 --> 00:54:38,200
Speaker 1: poison on his spear or something like that. Yeah, but

940
00:54:38,280 --> 00:54:42,000
Speaker 1: like I don't know, I just never thought that would

941
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:45,800
Speaker 1: work on high velocity projectiles. A poison bullet, but a

942
00:54:45,960 --> 00:54:48,840
Speaker 1: poison pellet in this case. But we have examples to

943
00:54:49,000 --> 00:54:51,920
Speaker 1: run through just what happens with rice and poisoning. If

944
00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:56,400
Speaker 1: you inhale it, there's a respiratory distress, fever, cough, nausea,

945
00:54:56,719 --> 00:54:59,200
Speaker 1: a tightness in the chest, and it's gonna lead to

946
00:54:59,200 --> 00:55:02,600
Speaker 1: a heavy breathing, low blood blood pressure, and respiratory failure.

947
00:55:02,920 --> 00:55:08,080
Speaker 1: If it's ingested, then you get vomiting, bloody diarrhea, severe dehydration,

948
00:55:08,239 --> 00:55:12,560
Speaker 1: low blood pressure, seizures, organ failure, central nervous system problems, etcetera.

949
00:55:12,680 --> 00:55:15,160
Speaker 1: So either way, you shake it. And then of course,

950
00:55:15,200 --> 00:55:17,799
Speaker 1: if you if you get shot into your leg as well, Um,

951
00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:21,160
Speaker 1: some some bad stuff happens to your body, and it

952
00:55:21,200 --> 00:55:23,200
Speaker 1: will happen between you know, in a four and a

953
00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:27,000
Speaker 1: twenty four hour on set period. Wow. So pretty much

954
00:55:27,160 --> 00:55:29,600
Speaker 1: of the six that we've chosen here today, most of

955
00:55:29,640 --> 00:55:32,400
Speaker 1: them have derived from some kind of whether it's a

956
00:55:32,400 --> 00:55:35,880
Speaker 1: beetle or a bean, something that's just kind of crawling

957
00:55:35,920 --> 00:55:39,440
Speaker 1: around in our natural environment, something that grows naturally in

958
00:55:39,480 --> 00:55:41,759
Speaker 1: the world and exists. Yeah, they're all organic. You can

959
00:55:41,800 --> 00:55:44,480
Speaker 1: feel good and and have and using an organic poison,

960
00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:47,319
Speaker 1: but they just don't write exactly. Yeah, you can sell

961
00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:50,920
Speaker 1: them at whole Foods, but they don't mix with our

962
00:55:50,960 --> 00:55:56,000
Speaker 1: body chemistry, like just the science basically turns your body

963
00:55:56,040 --> 00:56:01,000
Speaker 1: against you. Right. This next one though, is and I

964
00:56:01,080 --> 00:56:03,799
Speaker 1: have to say part of my reason for choosing this

965
00:56:03,920 --> 00:56:08,000
Speaker 1: was because of the term heavy metal. So it's actual.

966
00:56:08,520 --> 00:56:11,440
Speaker 1: It's an actual element that can can kill you. And

967
00:56:11,440 --> 00:56:13,680
Speaker 1: the reason I found out about this was because of

968
00:56:13,719 --> 00:56:16,919
Speaker 1: a movie called The Young Poisoner's Handbook. And I don't

969
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:19,200
Speaker 1: know if you haven't seen it. We talked about this,

970
00:56:19,239 --> 00:56:21,640
Speaker 1: but if anybody out there has seen, it's this interesting

971
00:56:21,640 --> 00:56:24,440
Speaker 1: indie movie from the nineties. I want to say, Okay,

972
00:56:24,440 --> 00:56:26,239
Speaker 1: so when you mentioned earlier, I had no idea like

973
00:56:26,280 --> 00:56:28,360
Speaker 1: where to place in the timeline. Yeah, I want to

974
00:56:28,400 --> 00:56:31,040
Speaker 1: say I saw it in the late nineties. Uh. And

975
00:56:31,239 --> 00:56:33,319
Speaker 1: it is a true story about a guy named Graham Young.

976
00:56:33,400 --> 00:56:36,000
Speaker 1: He was a British teenager in nineteen sixty two, and

977
00:56:36,080 --> 00:56:40,160
Speaker 1: he used thallium to kill his stepmother and then sickened

978
00:56:40,239 --> 00:56:43,800
Speaker 1: several other of his family members. And then he was

979
00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:46,120
Speaker 1: found guilty of that. He was placed in an institution.

980
00:56:46,440 --> 00:56:49,680
Speaker 1: Then he got released from that institution in nineteen seventy one,

981
00:56:49,719 --> 00:56:52,080
Speaker 1: and you know what he did. He promptly went and

982
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:55,560
Speaker 1: killed two of his co workers with the same poisoning.

983
00:56:55,680 --> 00:56:58,880
Speaker 1: He seriously injured two more with thallium poisoning. So this

984
00:56:58,920 --> 00:57:01,719
Speaker 1: is a guy who was like essed with thallium and

985
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:05,080
Speaker 1: he died in nine himself from a heart attack while

986
00:57:05,080 --> 00:57:09,440
Speaker 1: he was in prison for his second term. Now, thallium

987
00:57:09,719 --> 00:57:13,239
Speaker 1: is a heavy metal. This means it's a member of

988
00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:16,160
Speaker 1: a group of elements that have similar chemistry to one another.

989
00:57:16,200 --> 00:57:21,960
Speaker 1: This includes lead, arsenic in timany, mercury, and cadmium. All

990
00:57:22,000 --> 00:57:25,840
Speaker 1: of these are toxic and they tend to accumulate inside

991
00:57:25,920 --> 00:57:30,680
Speaker 1: human tissues when they're digested. Furthermore, they pass along up

992
00:57:30,720 --> 00:57:33,920
Speaker 1: the food chain when they're consumed. Right, So, uh, let's

993
00:57:33,920 --> 00:57:38,120
Speaker 1: say a rabbit gets arsenic poisoning and then you eat

994
00:57:38,160 --> 00:57:42,760
Speaker 1: the rabbit, you're then ingesting the arsenic yourself. To write, so,

995
00:57:42,880 --> 00:57:47,320
Speaker 1: thallium is a known poisonous substance and it's commonly found

996
00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:52,600
Speaker 1: in rat poison and insecticides, and it's nicknamed the poisoner's poison,

997
00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:58,520
Speaker 1: and the other nickname it has is inheritance powder. Uh. Yeah,

998
00:57:58,560 --> 00:58:02,000
Speaker 1: But since the nineteen seventy is it's been strictly controlled

999
00:58:02,120 --> 00:58:06,000
Speaker 1: because of how toxic it is. It's colorless, it's odorless,

1000
00:58:06,200 --> 00:58:10,240
Speaker 1: and it's tasteless as well as being soluble in water.

1001
00:58:10,760 --> 00:58:15,120
Speaker 1: It's essentially a soft gray metal that resembles tin, and

1002
00:58:15,160 --> 00:58:17,760
Speaker 1: it's so soft, in fact, that you can cut it

1003
00:58:17,800 --> 00:58:22,680
Speaker 1: with a knife. Now, thallium attacks the human nervous system

1004
00:58:22,760 --> 00:58:27,280
Speaker 1: and our internal organs, and this causes hair loss, vomiting,

1005
00:58:27,440 --> 00:58:29,960
Speaker 1: and diarrhea. I think all six of these poisons. Of

1006
00:58:30,000 --> 00:58:32,640
Speaker 1: diarrhea is a common denominator. And yeah, I guess it's

1007
00:58:32,640 --> 00:58:35,160
Speaker 1: a pretty good symptom of your your body just giving

1008
00:58:35,240 --> 00:58:38,920
Speaker 1: up the ghost. Yeah, it's easy to confuse the symptoms

1009
00:58:38,960 --> 00:58:42,760
Speaker 1: of thallium poisoning with viral diseases like influence of For instance,

1010
00:58:43,320 --> 00:58:46,400
Speaker 1: only a dose of one gram can lead to death.

1011
00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:49,840
Speaker 1: So three days after you poison a victim, they'll start

1012
00:58:49,880 --> 00:58:53,680
Speaker 1: suffering headaches, muscle problems, convulsions, they might go into a coma,

1013
00:58:54,120 --> 00:58:58,040
Speaker 1: they might experience delirium or dementia, maybe even psychosis. It

1014
00:58:58,160 --> 00:59:00,880
Speaker 1: acts slowly compared to a lot of the other poisons

1015
00:59:00,920 --> 00:59:04,000
Speaker 1: we've been talking about today, and it's very painful. It's

1016
00:59:04,120 --> 00:59:09,120
Speaker 1: especially attractive to poisoners because the symptoms resemble other illnesses

1017
00:59:09,160 --> 00:59:12,520
Speaker 1: and conditions, so you can usually get away with saying like, well,

1018
00:59:12,560 --> 00:59:14,440
Speaker 1: it looks like somebody has the flu, and then they

1019
00:59:14,520 --> 00:59:19,200
Speaker 1: dropped dead a day later. Other symptoms include alteration of

1020
00:59:19,240 --> 00:59:23,480
Speaker 1: the brain, a fast beating heart that doesn't effectively pump blood,

1021
00:59:23,920 --> 00:59:29,320
Speaker 1: skin eruptions, swelling and sores in the mouth, skin atrophy,

1022
00:59:29,400 --> 00:59:33,200
Speaker 1: and something that's referred to as knees lines. This is

1023
00:59:33,440 --> 00:59:37,360
Speaker 1: m e E. These are when on your nails you

1024
00:59:37,440 --> 00:59:41,360
Speaker 1: get these like white lines across your fingernails. I've never

1025
00:59:41,400 --> 00:59:44,680
Speaker 1: heard of this before, but apparently that's a symptom of

1026
00:59:44,880 --> 00:59:48,800
Speaker 1: thallium poisoning. Uh. And you can also have just a

1027
00:59:48,840 --> 00:59:54,280
Speaker 1: general physical sensitivity from your skin. There's also degenerative changes

1028
00:59:54,320 --> 00:59:57,360
Speaker 1: in the heart, liver, and kidneys, as well as bone

1029
00:59:57,560 --> 01:00:03,360
Speaker 1: marrow depression. The gastro intestinal phase of this poisoning that

1030
01:00:03,400 --> 01:00:07,600
Speaker 1: comes before the neurological phase, so that occurs anywhere from

1031
01:00:07,600 --> 01:00:10,640
Speaker 1: twenty four to forty eight hours after ingestion, then the

1032
01:00:10,680 --> 01:00:14,080
Speaker 1: neurological symptoms. Those can take up to two to five days.

1033
01:00:14,760 --> 01:00:17,640
Speaker 1: The big sign that it's thallium and not something else

1034
01:00:17,800 --> 01:00:21,080
Speaker 1: is alopecia, meaning hair loss when your hair starts falling out,

1035
01:00:21,360 --> 01:00:23,920
Speaker 1: and this can occur up to two to three weeks later,

1036
01:00:24,560 --> 01:00:27,480
Speaker 1: but death actually can occur within five to seven days.

1037
01:00:27,560 --> 01:00:30,360
Speaker 1: It just depends the body and the dosage it's within

1038
01:00:30,400 --> 01:00:33,160
Speaker 1: it based on you know whether or not your hair

1039
01:00:33,240 --> 01:00:37,080
Speaker 1: is gonna fall out before you die. Essentially. Now, thallium

1040
01:00:37,360 --> 01:00:41,720
Speaker 1: was isolated independently by two chemists in eighteen sixty one.

1041
01:00:41,720 --> 01:00:46,200
Speaker 1: We're talking about William Crooks and Claude august LeMay. But

1042
01:00:46,680 --> 01:00:50,720
Speaker 1: it was technically discovered by Crooks, and it's found naturally

1043
01:00:51,120 --> 01:00:55,560
Speaker 1: in things like crook site, laurendite, hutch In site, some pyrites,

1044
01:00:55,680 --> 01:00:58,680
Speaker 1: and manganese nodules that are found on the ocean floor.

1045
01:00:59,120 --> 01:01:01,920
Speaker 1: It can be recovered heard by taking the oars and

1046
01:01:02,120 --> 01:01:06,480
Speaker 1: roasting them in connection with the production of sulfuric acid,

1047
01:01:06,760 --> 01:01:11,160
Speaker 1: or by smelting lead and zinc ores at the same time. Now,

1048
01:01:11,200 --> 01:01:15,520
Speaker 1: thallium has been used to poison people through their tea

1049
01:01:15,840 --> 01:01:19,600
Speaker 1: and other consumables, so this against is why it is

1050
01:01:19,840 --> 01:01:23,520
Speaker 1: the poisoner's poison. Uh. This actually happened in nineteen fifty

1051
01:01:23,560 --> 01:01:27,720
Speaker 1: three when Australian Caroline Grills killed three of her family

1052
01:01:27,760 --> 01:01:32,280
Speaker 1: members and a family friend by dosing their tea with thallium.

1053
01:01:32,320 --> 01:01:35,880
Speaker 1: In two thousand and six, a seventeen year old Japanese

1054
01:01:35,920 --> 01:01:39,560
Speaker 1: girl poisoned her mother's tea and then kept a blog

1055
01:01:39,800 --> 01:01:42,800
Speaker 1: about how her condition developed. So she essentially, over the

1056
01:01:42,880 --> 01:01:46,400
Speaker 1: days was tracking how the thallium was affecting her mother.

1057
01:01:46,600 --> 01:01:48,200
Speaker 1: But it's just that just goes to show. Even in

1058
01:01:48,240 --> 01:01:50,440
Speaker 1: two thousand six, people were so hard pressed for some

1059
01:01:50,520 --> 01:01:52,560
Speaker 1: sort of angle for their blog. I mean, you had

1060
01:01:52,560 --> 01:01:55,040
Speaker 1: to try. She had. She was looking to get those

1061
01:01:55,280 --> 01:01:58,000
Speaker 1: CPMs from her Google ad Sense. I guess I don't know. No,

1062
01:01:58,120 --> 01:02:00,440
Speaker 1: it's horrible to make jokes about this. I think her

1063
01:02:00,440 --> 01:02:04,120
Speaker 1: mother lived, so luckily it turned out okay. Thallium was

1064
01:02:04,240 --> 01:02:08,120
Speaker 1: reportedly plotted actually as a means to also kill Nelson

1065
01:02:08,160 --> 01:02:11,520
Speaker 1: Mandela when he was in prison, and then in two

1066
01:02:11,560 --> 01:02:17,560
Speaker 1: thousand four, Russian soldiers accidentally mixed thallium together with their tobacco.

1067
01:02:17,640 --> 01:02:21,360
Speaker 1: They were like handmaking tobacco cigarettes. They actually mix it

1068
01:02:21,400 --> 01:02:25,040
Speaker 1: together and then we're treated for poisoning after they smoked it,

1069
01:02:25,320 --> 01:02:27,680
Speaker 1: and then they used it as a talcum powder for

1070
01:02:27,720 --> 01:02:31,480
Speaker 1: their feet as well. Yeah, yeah, So this just goes

1071
01:02:31,520 --> 01:02:33,440
Speaker 1: to show you be careful about what you put in

1072
01:02:33,480 --> 01:02:37,320
Speaker 1: your cigarettes, I guess, yeah, or what you put on

1073
01:02:37,360 --> 01:02:42,120
Speaker 1: your feet. Investigators from the World Health Organization also say

1074
01:02:42,200 --> 01:02:45,600
Speaker 1: that thallium was something that Saddam Hussein used to kill

1075
01:02:45,720 --> 01:02:50,120
Speaker 1: hundreds of dissidents. So this stuff has a long history.

1076
01:02:50,200 --> 01:02:54,080
Speaker 1: It's it's it's a nasty bit of business. Fortunately it

1077
01:02:54,200 --> 01:02:57,840
Speaker 1: can be treated. It's treated with something called Prussian blue,

1078
01:02:57,920 --> 01:03:00,840
Speaker 1: and this is a blue chemical pigment uh in a

1079
01:03:00,840 --> 01:03:05,720
Speaker 1: combination of potassium chloride. It's actually thought that Prussian blue

1080
01:03:06,080 --> 01:03:10,800
Speaker 1: binds with thallium when it's inside our intestinal tracks, and

1081
01:03:10,840 --> 01:03:14,200
Speaker 1: this is more effectively than something that's called activated charcoal,

1082
01:03:14,200 --> 01:03:17,960
Speaker 1: which is often used to help the spell these poisons.

1083
01:03:18,000 --> 01:03:20,440
Speaker 1: So it binds better with it that it keeps it

1084
01:03:20,480 --> 01:03:22,640
Speaker 1: from being absorbed and then passed through the rest of

1085
01:03:22,640 --> 01:03:26,520
Speaker 1: your body. Activated charcoal, though, is recommended in the absence

1086
01:03:26,520 --> 01:03:28,880
Speaker 1: of Prussian blue. So like most people's first aid kits

1087
01:03:28,880 --> 01:03:31,560
Speaker 1: don't have Prussian blue in it, right, But but you

1088
01:03:31,640 --> 01:03:34,480
Speaker 1: might have these charcoal capsules now you can buy charcoal

1089
01:03:34,520 --> 01:03:39,680
Speaker 1: capsules that your local health store. Yeah, so thallium's derivatives,

1090
01:03:39,760 --> 01:03:43,840
Speaker 1: they're actually really common in just everyday items that we use,

1091
01:03:44,000 --> 01:03:50,520
Speaker 1: like medical scanners, electronic components, optical lenses, imitation jewelry, thermometers.

1092
01:03:50,560 --> 01:03:54,360
Speaker 1: And here's a weird one. Green colored fireworks specifically have

1093
01:03:54,480 --> 01:03:57,160
Speaker 1: thallium in them. Well, this is this makes the Russian

1094
01:03:57,200 --> 01:03:59,880
Speaker 1: account make more sense because I mean, do accidentally get

1095
01:03:59,880 --> 01:04:02,880
Speaker 1: it into your cigarettes. It has to be around, you know,

1096
01:04:03,320 --> 01:04:06,560
Speaker 1: around in some quantity. Maybe they were grinding up imitation

1097
01:04:06,640 --> 01:04:10,280
Speaker 1: jewelry and smoking. I hope they weren't smoking green fireworks,

1098
01:04:10,320 --> 01:04:13,320
Speaker 1: but yeah, I'm not quite sure. It sounded to me

1099
01:04:13,400 --> 01:04:16,640
Speaker 1: like it was something that was like available on whatever

1100
01:04:16,680 --> 01:04:18,919
Speaker 1: base they were stationed at, and I think they thought

1101
01:04:18,960 --> 01:04:22,200
Speaker 1: it was just something that would help bind their tobacco together.

1102
01:04:22,920 --> 01:04:26,280
Speaker 1: Now here's the thing. Thallium, because it emits gamma rays,

1103
01:04:26,720 --> 01:04:29,960
Speaker 1: it can actually help doctors tell whether a heart is

1104
01:04:30,000 --> 01:04:34,280
Speaker 1: receiving enough blood and oxygen. So you essentially injected into

1105
01:04:34,320 --> 01:04:37,320
Speaker 1: a patient and you can you know, use a combination

1106
01:04:37,320 --> 01:04:40,080
Speaker 1: of gamma rays and thallium to see what's going on

1107
01:04:40,120 --> 01:04:43,160
Speaker 1: with a patient's heart. And medically it used to be

1108
01:04:43,280 --> 01:04:47,200
Speaker 1: used to treat ring worm and other skin infections, but

1109
01:04:47,280 --> 01:04:50,800
Speaker 1: now we consider it way too toxic to chance that.

1110
01:04:51,320 --> 01:04:54,240
Speaker 1: So there's other better ways to treat your ring worm

1111
01:04:54,320 --> 01:04:57,960
Speaker 1: now than than thallium poisoning. So that's thallium. That is

1112
01:04:58,080 --> 01:05:01,920
Speaker 1: one of just a few heavy metals that can be

1113
01:05:02,000 --> 01:05:05,480
Speaker 1: used to poison a human being. Yeah, well, I think

1114
01:05:05,480 --> 01:05:08,320
Speaker 1: we we covered six really good ones here. It is

1115
01:05:08,360 --> 01:05:11,080
Speaker 1: one of those situations where we could always come back

1116
01:05:11,120 --> 01:05:13,560
Speaker 1: and cover six more at some point. Yeah, if those

1117
01:05:13,600 --> 01:05:15,440
Speaker 1: of you out there found this interesting you want us

1118
01:05:15,440 --> 01:05:18,000
Speaker 1: to do more, please let us know. You can get

1119
01:05:18,040 --> 01:05:22,160
Speaker 1: in touch with us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler,

1120
01:05:22,680 --> 01:05:27,360
Speaker 1: and Instagram. We also have our new Facebook discussion module

1121
01:05:27,440 --> 01:05:31,280
Speaker 1: where we have sort of more uh I guess, smaller

1122
01:05:31,400 --> 01:05:35,160
Speaker 1: intimate conversations about topics from the podcast. Yeah, it's a

1123
01:05:35,200 --> 01:05:38,040
Speaker 1: good place for longer form discussion as well. Yeah, so

1124
01:05:38,080 --> 01:05:41,880
Speaker 1: if you want to confess to any poisonings that you've committed,

1125
01:05:42,280 --> 01:05:43,920
Speaker 1: you know, you can go on there and let us know.

1126
01:05:44,080 --> 01:05:46,760
Speaker 1: And rather than letting a million of our Facebook page

1127
01:05:46,760 --> 01:05:49,919
Speaker 1: followers know, you'll probably be letting like two hundred Yeah.

1128
01:05:50,960 --> 01:05:53,800
Speaker 1: Oh um, uh, take it with a pinch of salt

1129
01:05:53,920 --> 01:05:56,200
Speaker 1: like a grain of salt. I meant to uh to

1130
01:05:56,320 --> 01:05:58,720
Speaker 1: expand on that, so real quick before we close out

1131
01:05:59,200 --> 01:06:03,440
Speaker 1: um plenty of the elder wrote about this. He used

1132
01:06:03,440 --> 01:06:05,439
Speaker 1: to he used the term grain taking with a grain

1133
01:06:05,480 --> 01:06:09,320
Speaker 1: of salt in the natural history, because he was quite

1134
01:06:09,360 --> 01:06:12,960
Speaker 1: obsessed with antidotes for poisons as well as the poisons themselves.

1135
01:06:13,160 --> 01:06:15,840
Speaker 1: And he shared the following. After the defeat of that

1136
01:06:15,960 --> 01:06:20,640
Speaker 1: mighty monarch, Maritha dots Neis, Pompeius found in his private

1137
01:06:20,640 --> 01:06:24,320
Speaker 1: cabinet a recipe for an anecdote in his own handwriting,

1138
01:06:24,640 --> 01:06:28,320
Speaker 1: it was to the following effect. Take two dried walnuts,

1139
01:06:28,360 --> 01:06:31,440
Speaker 1: two figs and twenty leaves of rue, pound them all

1140
01:06:31,480 --> 01:06:34,560
Speaker 1: together with the addition of a grain of salt. If

1141
01:06:34,560 --> 01:06:37,840
Speaker 1: a type person takes this mixture fasting, he will be

1142
01:06:37,880 --> 01:06:41,480
Speaker 1: proof against all poisons for that day. So take that

1143
01:06:41,640 --> 01:06:43,680
Speaker 1: with a grain of salt. But this is one of

1144
01:06:43,760 --> 01:06:47,000
Speaker 1: this is often attributed as being where we get that

1145
01:06:47,120 --> 01:06:50,440
Speaker 1: for etymological origin of the grain of salt. That's interesting.

1146
01:06:50,600 --> 01:06:52,360
Speaker 1: I don't know the grain of salt would help you

1147
01:06:52,360 --> 01:06:57,720
Speaker 1: against thalium poison. I don't do not think it would. Okay,

1148
01:06:57,760 --> 01:07:01,480
Speaker 1: all right, well, hey, once again there go six deadly poisons,

1149
01:07:01,520 --> 01:07:03,040
Speaker 1: and if you have you want to get in touch

1150
01:07:03,080 --> 01:07:06,960
Speaker 1: with this directly, you can send your least poisonous comments

1151
01:07:07,000 --> 01:07:09,640
Speaker 1: to us at blow the Mind at how stuff works

1152
01:07:09,800 --> 01:07:22,000
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

1153
01:07:22,120 --> 01:07:46,400
Speaker 1: Does it how stuff works dot com