WEBVTT - I Drink Your Blood 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.720 Works dot com. Hey, wasn't the Stuff to Blow your Mind? 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.919 My name is Robert Lamb and dot Joe McCormick, and hey, 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:21.319 it's Halloween season. Today's episode is kind of HALLOWEENI we 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:23.239 also want to remind you to feature to check out 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:25.640 Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That is, uh, 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:28.640 the main site. That's where you find all of the podcast, 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:31.240 all the videos of various blog posts. And we have 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:34.839 a two interesting things going on this month. Monster Science, 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:38.040 the video series that I've been doing in the past 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:40.760 here is coming back these last two weeks of October 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.599 four new episodes with the sort of vhs leyden Um 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:49.400 horror cinema themed explorations of science. All right, so let's 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:51.040 get rolling with this. I want to kick off by 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:53.720 just asking you. It's just a very basic question here, Joe. 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.600 Do you see yourself as you eventually enter old age? 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:00.840 Do you see yourself drinking the blood of the young 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:06.039 in order to sustaining your unnatural life? M Now, are 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:08.240 we're talking about the blood of the young human or 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:11.279 the blood of any young animal? I mean, I assume 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:13.560 the young deman. I mean that's where the vitality is. 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:15.560 That's what human life force is. If I'm going to 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:18.560 keep my own human life force going, that's a good 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:20.720 place to go, right it could be. But then again, 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.920 if we follow our our magical intuitions and the history 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.679 of our practices, I think animal blood rituals have been 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:29.600 fairly common in human history, right, yeah, and certainly not 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:34.040 only animal blood rights, but even into early pseudo scientific 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:39.760 ideas of of taking elements from particularly virile seeming specimens 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:42.800 and and using those tissues in our own body. You know, 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:45.760 I think I would feel rude drinking the blood of 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:48.640 young humans. But what I might do is a kind 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:53.120 of mithraic ritual where I would get into some contraption 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:55.800 and have a bull on a grate above me and 0:01:55.840 --> 0:02:00.960 then just bathe in its showering blood as it is butchered. Okay, well, yeah, 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:02.880 that that was that way. It's not like the direct 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:05.320 bathing or the direct consumption of the blood. There's a 0:02:05.400 --> 0:02:07.880 there's a buffer, a mythic buffer zone there. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:09.639 And then of course you get all of the all 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.480 of the wonderful attributes to the bull, right, the strength, 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:17.120 the power, the virility, it's good stuff. Yeah, Or potentially 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:22.000 just like a bull Testies young person blood smoothie, that 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:25.160 that might end up being my like vampiric morning ritual 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.959 when I'm an old person. Now, Robert, obviously you brought 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:31.480 this up for a reason. Are are you thinking about 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:34.120 drinking blood anytime soon? Well? I can't help but think 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:36.040 about it a little bit, just based on some of 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:39.360 our the research we've been doing here, uh, some some 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:43.880 mythic research and historical research, and most importantly some modern 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:49.320 scientific research into the advantages of taking another individual's blood 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.960 into your own body. That that sounds like you're hedging there, 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:57.040 you know, so, so not necessarily always just drinking blood, 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:02.079 but but at least some way taking blood, taking someone's blood, Yeah, 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.560 I mean, because certainly there are various ways of of 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:09.000 of taking another individual's blood and gaining some sort of 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:13.160 life essence from it. Right, Probably the most notable mythological, 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:18.720 folkloric example of this, if not actual historical fact, is 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:24.280 that of Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathing Right, the blood Countess. Right, 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:28.520 So she was one according to the historical record, I mean, 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:31.079 we can never really know. She was apparently one of 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:34.960 the most prolific serial killers in human history. Yes, I mean, 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:37.920 we're talking to like six fifty victims during her reign, 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:40.920 and the charges level against we're pretty out there, right, 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:43.040 I mean, and that's one of the problems looking back 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:45.840 at it. To what extent are these uh, these charges 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:48.960 in Bellish, To what extent are they outright slander? Right? Right? 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:51.240 But at least what she was charged with was the 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:55.960 murder of hundreds of I think it was mostly young girls. Yes, Yeah, 0:03:55.960 --> 0:04:01.280 there were charges that that young virsion girls were favorite victim. Yeah. 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:05.880 And the story goes that Countess Bathie feared aging, that 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:09.760 she didn't want to become old and shriveled and and 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:13.080 see her youth to evaporate before her eyes, and she 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:16.200 got a pretty interesting idea in her head what if 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:21.200 she could maintain her youth with the blood of the young. Again, 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:23.839 we we don't know to what extending Any of this 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:26.120 is history. A lot of it's probably just made up 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.279 legend about her. It is pretty certain, I think, I 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:32.080 think most historians think that she did really or was 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:35.599 involved in the killing of lots of young girls. But 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:39.919 you know, her motivations for it, and whether she actually 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:42.679 bathed in their blood or consume their blood or anything 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:45.440 like that that. I think that's a lot shakier. Yeah, 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:48.279 you don't really see many of any historians say yeah, 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:50.719 I think she actually bathed in the blood of virgins. 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.320 More likely they tend to run the gannet between she 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:57.640 was just a victim of conspiracy, uh, but was also 0:04:57.680 --> 0:04:59.800 a part of a bread and murderous, an awful family 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.440 who Yeah, she was a really awful ruler who probably 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:05.480 got what was coming to her. So you can sort 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:08.320 of pick and choose and decide where you're gonna fall 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:12.440 in there. But the the idea, the myth of the 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:17.239 thing that the folkloric idea of this evil, rich ruler 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:20.640 uh bathing in a young person's blood in order to 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:23.039 stay young, that continues to resonate, and and of course 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:27.640 it also has various um racist and sexist qualities to 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:31.920 it as well. And besides from this, you know sort 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:36.320 of out the outskirts of Europe, Yeah, Eastern European. She's exotic, 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:40.960 she's dangerous, uh, And of course all she wants to 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:44.560 do is is a peer young. She's so vain and 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:47.640 so hateful towards those who actually have beauty and youth 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:49.920 that she would murder them and bathe in their blood. 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.599 Now there's a tangent about Elizabeth Bathory that I cannot resist. 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:56.320 It's not really related, but I remember back when I 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:59.640 was in high school, coming across it was either a 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.839 seat or a tape of a metal band called Bathory 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:05.640 that I thought was the funniest CD cover I've ever 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:09.159 seen because the bad calligraphy on the name Bathory made 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:12.880 it look like it said bat Lord. Wouldn't that be 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.400 a great metal band? That Lord sounds good too? And 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:20.640 also you know, vampirick and also so I like it. Uh. Now, 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:24.320 when we get into mythology and folklore, of course, there 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:29.560 are way too many examples of blood drinkers and vampireic creatures. 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:32.560 They're far too many examples of blood rituals to even 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:36.719 go into right there. Just it's a common trope throughout 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:39.840 human history. Um, we even had and we have so 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:43.000 many examples even of our own culture. One that came 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:44.360 to mind when we were talking the other day was 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:47.880 the nineteen seventies TV show called The Immortal. I've never 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:50.320 seen this. I only saw it because there was a 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:53.120 brief time in the late nineties, I think maybe the 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.880 early two thousands where they were showing reruns on the 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:58.240 Sci Fi Channel, and it was one of these shows 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:00.480 where it was like it was an ABC it was 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:02.520 an ABC Movie of the Week and then a very 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:06.080 brief television show that didn't take off, And it was 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:09.440 kind of from The Incredible Hulk mold. So you have 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.440 this going from town to town. Yeah, somebody's chasing him. 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:15.080 There's something this overarching plot of these people who are 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:17.120 after him. But then from in each town that he 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:19.680 goes to, he has this ability to help people or 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:22.400 their new sub villains to deal with. Also, like The 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.120 Incredible Hulk, he's got a power that's both a blessing 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:27.840 and a curse. Yes, So his his whole deal in 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:31.240 this show is that his blood uh is essentially kind 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:34.280 of magic, right, It's this wonderful, wonderful blood. In a 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:37.720 transfusion of this blood will basically wipe out any of 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:40.880 your illnesses and it can allow you to live longer. 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:44.800 So it's a it's it's it's a longevity uh drug 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:49.440 in this man's veins. It's like a biological anti virus program. Yeah. 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:53.600 And so of course there's a particular rich old dude 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:57.040 who wants nothing more than to just keep him closed 0:07:57.160 --> 0:07:59.680 up in his mansion to himself, so he can just 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:01.320 have as much of his blood as he needs to 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:03.680 keep going and make him the mad Max blood bag 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:06.080 on the front of his car. Yeah yeah, right there 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:08.040 in the front of his limo. Uh so, but of 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:10.520 course the hero doesn't doesn't dig that, so he escapes, 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:12.840 he's on the run, and uh you know, it's a 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:17.120 it's a very nineteen seventies kind of an incredible Hulk delivery, 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:19.200 but it's kind of a cool idea and it definitely 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:21.960 ties in with a lot of the actual science we're 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:24.920 going to discuss later in the episode. Well, there there 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:28.480 are multiple ways that I think people would imagine blood 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:32.199 could have a power to rejuvenate, to invigorate, to give 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:35.199 you the strength of the young, and I think they 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:38.680 sort of occur along a scale of magical thinking. Like 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:42.120 on one hand, there's a much more straightforward, I think 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:44.880 material kind of approach to it, where you'd think, well, 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:48.720 there's something about young people's blood that gives them their 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:51.720 body strength, and so it must be nutritious in a way. 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:54.480 You know, you can imagine people wanting to consume it 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:56.880 with a with a fairly secular mindset, as long as 0:08:56.880 --> 0:09:00.559 they don't know much about modern medicine. Um. But then 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.960 there's also the magical end where you start getting into 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:09.960 magical associative thinking, where where properties of a thing can 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:14.280 be absorbed by coming into contact with its essence. And 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:18.240 then you get into some of these funeral cannibal rights 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:21.200 where an individual will partake of the flesh of a 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:24.520 loved one after they have died in order to absorb 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:28.160 part of them. And then there's the whole realm of 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:32.360 what James Frasier called homeopathic magic, where light cures likes 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:34.960 and the thinking here would go that the blood of 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:37.480 the young must cure the old and turned back the clock, 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:40.600 because that's just that's what it is. That's the the 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:45.080 inherent nature of how how different properties interact with each other. Yeah, 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:49.440 So throughout the history of using homeopathic magical medicine, the 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:53.040 idea might be that you take a thing associated with 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:57.040 another thing to cure that second thing. So, you know, 0:09:57.120 --> 0:10:00.720 if you had problems with your hand, you might consume 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:03.560 the paw of an animal or the hand of a 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.040 person or something like that, you know, or a problem 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:09.480 if you had headaches, you might consume ground up skull 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:12.439 or something like that. So yeah, if your if your 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:16.680 problem is aging, you can consume youth. And what is 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:20.120 the essence of youth more than the juice of young people? 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:23.720 Young people's blood. And another influence I can also think 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:27.400 of that might have made people over the centuries want 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:31.120 to imbibe the blood of the young in order to 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.760 avoid aging or to restore vigor and vitality, is the 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:38.400 sort of bodily humor thinking. You know that you had 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:41.839 the four temperaments that went along with the bodily humors theory, 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:47.600 and in that traditional order of temperaments, the sanguine temperament, 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:50.640 the one that's associated with blood is the one that's 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:55.240 like positive and excitable and high energy and playful. It's 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:57.559 still there in our language, like to be sanguine about 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:01.120 something is to be optimistic or positive about it. So 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:03.840 I don't know if that association within the body Humor's 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:07.960 theory is a symptom of this underlying association we have 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:12.080 between blood and then youth and vigor and vitality, or 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.440 if the association between blood and youth and vigor comes 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:19.440 from the bodily humor's theory. Yeah, that's that's an interesting take. 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:21.600 I hadn't thought about that. You know, another thing that 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.679 comes to mind, at least for the modern era, is 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:26.920 that since we we talked before about how we can't 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:29.800 help but think of ourselves and think of reality in 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:33.360 terms of whatever our technology is. So uh, you know, 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:36.800 for a while, certainly in the industrial age, we've we've 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:40.319 looked at the body as biomechanical, and here we're having 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:42.280 to deal with all our automobiles, and what do you 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:44.040 have to do with your automobile? You have to take 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:46.040 out the old oil, right and get some new oil 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:49.800 in there. So maybe on a subliminal level, even a 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:54.359 subconscious level, rather we end up thinking of of ourselves 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:56.839 as an automobile and like, well, maybe I'm just filled 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:58.960 with all this old oil, and what if I could 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:01.360 get that old oil out and get a you know, 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:06.000 a a transfusion of new oil. Yeah, So I could 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:09.040 see where we might buy into the concept, um, Yeah, 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:11.840 at a subconscious level, just based on our technology. And 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:14.200 it's also of course easy to to think of it 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:18.960 just as pure metaphor, right, because we're we're surrounded by 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.600 you know, largely youth obsessed culture. You see plenty of 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:26.400 examples of of middle age and older individuals who is 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.880 grasping after that youth right made sometimes quite literally in 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:34.280 the form of rich old men with very young romantic partners. Now, 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:36.320 I can't remember where I read this. I think it 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:38.320 was in one of our sources, maybe let me know, 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:43.760 But there was a suggestion that the idea of grasping 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:47.920 back after youth might also be a fairly recent thing 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:51.400 in the history of humanity, because it's only recently that 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:55.040 humans have begun to regularly live to old age. In 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:57.880 some parts of the world, I mean, more often there 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:01.160 was high infant mortality, more people side in middle age 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.240 or younger. Uh, And now it's pretty common that if 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.520 you have access to good, high quality medical care, you 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:11.079 can usually live to a decently long age. Well, that's 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:13.840 that's an interesting take on it there too. Yeah. Yeah, 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.199 so maybe that is kind of something we should have 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:20.000 looped in with the biomechanical body as a more modern 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:24.600 view on on vampiod diets. Now, before we really get 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:26.560 into the topic, though, we probably just have to talk 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:30.360 about the consumption of blood as a food, like what 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:32.959 does that mean? What does that entail? And it's a 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:37.040 it's pretty interesting, uh, to stop and study that, particularly 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:41.000 when you look at animals that are obligate. Sango VORs 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.280 that that feed exclusively on blood, like the vampire bat 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:49.520 say that category again obligates, So that's great blood only. 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:51.200 They go to the they go to the restaurant. They 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:53.920 need to see the blood only menu. They're not gonna 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:56.320 eat the salad. They're not gonna eat the steak. It's 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.600 just the blood. That's the corner that they've they've painted 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:03.840 themselves into evolutionarily, well, from a lay person's point of view, 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:06.640 it would seem like blood would be a perfectly nutritious thing. 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:08.880 I mean, the conventional wisdom is that the blood is 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:11.360 the life, right, Yeah, I mean it's the life, it's 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.040 the life blood. This is the stuff itself. This is 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:18.640 like the pure essence. This is like humanity straight. Yeah, 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:22.040 you think that's kind of ore the magical mythic realm 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.040 to it. But when you actually look at something like 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:28.600 a vampire bat um and you look at its consumption 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.360 of blood, I mean it's basically consuming protein and water. 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:34.480 There's there's no fat for the bat to store away, 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:38.920 So unlike their insect and fruit eating kin, they can't hibernate, 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:42.200 they can't migrate because they lack the fat stores. Instead, 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:45.560 they have to feed every night, lapping up to their 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:50.160 body weight in order to survive, and um, it sounds 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:55.000 like a very difficult limited diet. Yeah. Yeah, And and 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:57.000 there are a lot of fascinating theories about how it 0:14:57.000 --> 0:14:59.960 occurred that they may have started out feeding on parasite 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:04.080 that contain the blood, and then eventually that they decided 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:07.240 weren't decided. Eventually they evolve more in the direction of 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:10.000 feeding exclusively and directly on the blood, as opposed to 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:12.520 the creatures that feed on blood. Oh, interesting, how an 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.560 intermediary could come in there? What was that story I 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:17.960 was reading about a while back about there's a particular 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:21.960 species of African jumping spider that likes human blood but 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.440 not drinking it directly from humans, right, praise on mosquitoes 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:27.440 that contain it. Yeah, so it's the same, the same 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:30.520 sort of situation where yeah, eventually you just give up 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.240 the middleman and just going straight for this might come 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:36.880 straight to us. Yeah, And so that's one of the 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:41.280 reasons that it's hard to imagine a human feeding exclusively 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:43.600 on blood to get into or even even a humanoid 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:48.400 certainly a larger creature, just because the energy levels required. 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:52.240 But we know fully well that humans do sometimes consume blood, 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:54.960 don't they. I mean, I I have seen a blood sausage, 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:56.960 but I don't think I've ever eaten one. I don't 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.360 know that I have either, unless, I mean, after I 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:02.080 would reading about it, I thought, well, maybe I've had 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:04.480 it on an airplane. It didn't realize it because I've 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:09.040 like I've flown some some some particularly some Asian airlines 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.000 before where there's like some sort of a sausage meat 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:14.200 that I couldn't identify looking at pictures. Maybe that was 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:17.400 blood sausage. I don't know, but you see some version 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:21.200 of blood sausage in a lot of different cultures, and uh, 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.800 including I was. I found this interesting. The red tofu 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:28.640 found in some parts of China, the blood tofu blood tofuu. Yeah, 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.360 it's made from like pigs blood or something. Yeah, so 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:34.800 it's not not really tofu. So any any vegetarians out 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:37.120 there see that on the menu, you might, and you know, 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:39.800 ask a few questions about it before you order it. Uh. 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:43.040 And then of course there are various blood festivals. There's 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:46.120 a Nepalese Yak blood festival in which they drink blood. 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:49.440 They are various traditions throughout the world. Where blood is 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:53.800 consumed directly as sort of a culinary ritual. And certainly 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:56.840 in the American tradition, what everyone the whole thing is 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:59.240 to have a big rare steak, right, And certainly that 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:02.760 is blood leaking out of that meat. You know, I've 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:04.840 heard that all my life, but I think I've actually 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:08.320 read recently that that is not true. That the that 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.480 a the like the meat you would buy package the 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:14.520 grocery store, is mostly drained of blood. There's really not 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:16.960 going to be much blood in it. Uh. And that 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:19.480 when you cut into a bloody steak, you know, like 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:22.160 a nice rare steak, and all that red liquid comes out, 0:17:22.240 --> 0:17:24.760 that's mostly just a mixture of water and then some 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:28.560 other protein. I think it might have been myoglobin. Okay, well, 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:31.159 you know, maybe I'm thrown off here by vampire movies 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:34.600 in which like a newly turned vampire starts sucking steaks 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:37.520 to stay alive. I feel like that trope has shown up, 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:41.720 I think inhabit and perhaps in Chronos as well. I 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:44.920 can't remember Chronos. That's a great one. So yeah, maybe 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:47.320 maybe this is an example of my my knowledge is 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:51.280 that has based more fiction than reality. But but either way, 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:55.280 humans have not been averse to consuming blood throughout history 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:59.200 as part of their diet, but not exclusively. Well, now 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:02.119 that leads us to just again the idea of medicinal 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:05.280 consumption of blood. Occasional consumption of blood is part of 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:10.439 some actual treatment of malady or illness, or just some 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:14.400 sort of a ritualistic practice, and there are a number 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:17.320 of cool examples of this. Drawing up most of these 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:20.359 examples from two different sources here, there's an excellent article 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:24.840 by Maria Dolan from Smithsonian Magazine titled The Gruesome History 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:27.440 of Eating corpses as Medicine, and of course that goes 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:29.400 into a lot more than just blood consumption, but also 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:32.040 flesh consumption. Is great article. I'll include a link to 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:34.080 it on the landing page for this episode. And there's 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:38.199 also another great article, Young Blood, by Jess Zimmerman writing 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:41.360 for Ian Magazine. I really liked both of these articles too, 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:44.480 that were great reads. But yeah, so some of the facts. 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:48.879 According to a description by Plenty the Elder, who is 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:54.040 a Roman historian, apparently Romans loved to drink the blood 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.800 of gladiators who were killed in the arena in ancient Rome, 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:01.120 so you'd have people down there. It out. I guess 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:03.320 one of them gets skewered with one of those little 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:06.880 pokey pokey Roman swords, the blood starts to come out, 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:09.400 and people just be like, give me some don't count 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:11.639 out the trident, dude. I always like to try it 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:14.560 ent and that guy, to whatever extent, that was actually 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:17.200 a thing and not just an artistic motif. But I 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:19.080 always I was always rooting for him because he had 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:21.680 more of the uphill battle. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:26.680 I would drink his blood because clearly he's he's he's smart, powerful, 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:29.320 but smart. Yeah, so that's what I want before I 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:32.280 go into podcasts. Again, I'm not sure exactly where this 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.800 falls on that scale I talked about earlier, like the 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:39.040 the sort of secular this is some kind of material 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:42.879 nutrition thinking to the magical I'm gaining the power and 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:46.800 essence of the gladiator thinking, I'd imagine this falls more 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.879 to the magical side, right, Yeah, I would think so. Um, 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:53.240 And it seems like it based on what I was reading. 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:57.520 It may have its roots in Truscan funeral rights, so 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:01.000 it may go beyond just you know, the near near 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:03.760 bloodthirsty aspect of the culture at the time. And I've 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:06.800 also read there's a two thousand three paper title between 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:10.560 Horror and Hope Gladiator's blood as a cure for UH 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:13.520 epileptics in Ancient Medicine, And this is published in the 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:19.879 Journal of Historical Neuroscience. And this article posited that spontaneous 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:23.639 recovery from some forms of epilepsy may be responsible for 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:28.560 the illusion of therapeutic effectiveness UH from drinking the blood 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:30.600 of a gladiator. So it's one of those things where 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:33.640 it seemed to work enough of the time, so why 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:35.880 not because it's also it's just it's just good fun. 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:37.919 It's just part of the part of going out on 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:41.199 the town and enjoying a gladiatorial contest. Well, yeah, the 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:44.320 false cure working by this method, I think was a 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:47.400 common feature of ancient medicine. You always read about these 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:50.879 types of medicines that that ancient people's thought would be 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:54.359 effective at curing X, Y or Z, when we now know, 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:56.720 you know, this has no effect at all. Why do 0:20:56.800 --> 0:21:00.199 people think this? What might have happened really often is 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:04.840 that somebody took some of this in an unrelated way. 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:07.439 They just got better and it's like, look, it worked, 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:10.640 or they might have received a placebo effect boost from 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:15.400 from obtaining it. And then likewise, since uh, either they 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:18.480 had to pay a certain amount to obtain this gladiator 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:20.480 blood or it was such a big deal to get 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:24.359 it that you end up tweaking your memories enough to where, 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:26.840 of course it was a gladiator blood. I didn't drink 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:31.240 the blood of a dead slave and not benefit from 0:21:31.240 --> 0:21:33.560 it and a monster, do you think, I am? No, no, no, 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:35.840 that that makes sense too, because we you know, we 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:39.359 go through all kinds of mental justification to justify things 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:41.239 that were difficult to get. So if you spend a 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:44.760 lot of money on appliance or a piece of furniture, 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:47.200 you end up coming up with ways of thinking this 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:50.080 was a good investment. The same could be true some 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:54.280 gladiator blood. I'm quite sure. So we we see this 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:56.199 trend throughout history, and we're gonna roll through some of 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.240 the examples, and some of these you're gonna get into 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:04.920