Latest / Ridiculous History / The Mystery of the Devonshire Colic

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The Mystery of the Devonshire Colic · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: Casey Pegram, Max Williams, the one and only A how
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Speaker 1: Andrew Howard before we get started today. No, we have
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Speaker 1: I'm Ben? Hey, Ben, it's me. No, I've had a
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Speaker 1: It's true, Ben, Uh, It's it really is kind of
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Speaker 1: Maybe not cat called. We know the problematic and troubled
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Speaker 1: us Yeah, And we're gonna have Eli and Diana on
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Speaker 1: you said, secret secrets are no fun, Noel, You and
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Speaker 1: some of the first episodes where we thought, are they
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Speaker 1: all the things that can happen when the heart is involved, Ben,
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Speaker 1: and Eli also do these wonderful little kind of flashback
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Speaker 1: re enactment situations. They've got songs. Gosh, what I'm saying
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Speaker 1: it out loud? It really does sound like we have
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Speaker 1: something to worry about. But maybe not. Uh, it's all
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Speaker 1: in the family, right. But when does the first episode drop?
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Speaker 1: I think we've got a trailer coming up, and then
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Speaker 1: episode one the following week. Yeah, yeah, it may very
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Speaker 1: well be out as you hear this episode today. So
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Speaker 1: we do hope that you welcome them to the Ridiculous Universe.
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Speaker 1: We can't wait to hear what you think about their
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Speaker 1: you the course of true love never did run smooth.
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Speaker 1: So this if you like ridiculous history, you're gonna love
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Speaker 1: ridiculous romance. You might see Nolan I pop on there
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Speaker 1: as well. But there is more on the way. No,
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Speaker 1: all that MCU comparison is so astute. I love it.
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Speaker 1: We're assembling some ridiculous Avengers and our own show continues today.
5:07
Speaker 1: We're diving into something that has I think, well, I
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Speaker 1: don't know about you men, but stories about weird medical
5:15
Speaker 1: maladies throughout history. Always fascinated me because one of the
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Speaker 1: things that we've done for fun, just like off air,
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Speaker 1: just hanging out, is looking up these strange conditions of yesteryear.
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Speaker 1: Like one of my favorites is brain fever, just because
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Speaker 1: of the name. Oh totally. I'm also a huge fan
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Speaker 1: of laundry lists of side effects and potential symptoms that
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Speaker 1: go along with these, especially when they're super cartoonish and
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Speaker 1: involved things like madness. You know, I always like make jokes.
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Speaker 1: I think probably I'm not alone in this. When you
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Speaker 1: see big pharma advertisements on television where they are required
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Speaker 1: by law to list potential side effects, and you know,
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Speaker 1: there's rattle off things that includes like, you know, bloody
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Speaker 1: diarrhea and uh, you know what you always say, like
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Speaker 1: Walt Wally or whatever, and you know, and death. But
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Speaker 1: this one that we're talking about today, the Devonshire Colic,
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Speaker 1: absolutely has those laundry lists. Yeah. Yeah, the devon Shure
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Speaker 1: Colic was a mystery for quite a long time. It's
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Speaker 1: a mystery that we're going to solve today. But when
6:23
Speaker 1: we look back at people of the past, we think
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Speaker 1: of we think of certain afflictions or conditions as somewhat archaic, right,
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Speaker 1: Like maybe brain fever was something people didn't quite understand. Consumption,
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Speaker 1: which we now recognized to be tuberculosis, was also not
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Speaker 1: super well understood for a long time, And when you
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Speaker 1: think of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, you might think
6:48
Speaker 1: of things like gout, which is often portrayed as a
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Speaker 1: condition that primarily only the well to do might contract.
6:57
Speaker 1: That's the stage. Yeah, it is. And I think the
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Speaker 1: reason and for that is because some of it had
7:01
Speaker 1: to do with eating very rich, processed foods. I can't
7:06
Speaker 1: not think of the episode of King of the Hill
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Speaker 1: when Bobby becomes obsessed with this delicatessen and he constantly
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Speaker 1: goes and he's eating like I think it's like, you know,
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Speaker 1: liver worst sandwiches or something like that, and he develops gout. Uh.
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Speaker 1: And it is there. It is sometimes associated. It is
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Speaker 1: something that people can still get if they're eating foods
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Speaker 1: that are really really rich and certain things that can
7:30
Speaker 1: like build up in your system. And I'm sorry to
7:32
Speaker 1: be so vague about that. I'm obviously not a gout scientist. Yeah,
7:36
Speaker 1: I think it's safe to say there are very few
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Speaker 1: gout enthusiasts in the world here's something that we notice
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Speaker 1: if you look back at history. The truth of the
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Speaker 1: matter is, before the age of modern medicine, people had
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Speaker 1: tons of afflictions or conditions real or perceived that they
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Speaker 1: couldn't quite concretely explain. And with the benefit of modern
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Speaker 1: science and retros fact, we can say that in many
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Speaker 1: cases of folks were experiencing something that continues today that
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Speaker 1: as dangerous side effects. It's mild lead poisoning. The most
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Speaker 1: famous outbreak of this accidental lead poisoning was this thing
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Speaker 1: called the Devon colic in this English county in the
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Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds, this condition was affecting thousands of people. And
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Speaker 1: here comes our laundry list. The victims primarily dudes, and
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Speaker 1: they were experiencing stuff like paralysis, madness, blindness, death. It
8:36
Speaker 1: was It first got reported in seventeen o three and
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Speaker 1: it just continued year over year to increase. And I
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Speaker 1: think it was seventeen twenty four when there was a
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Speaker 1: pretty big upsurge in the number of cases. And this
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Speaker 1: was also a year there's where our mystery starts. This
8:55
Speaker 1: was also a year that was noted for a bumper
8:58
Speaker 1: apple crop. I love a good bumper apple crop. Ben.
9:02
Speaker 1: And it was the opinion of one John Huxon, who
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Speaker 1: investigated this mysterious malady and published his findings in seventeen
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Speaker 1: thirty nine, that one of the primary causes was cider
9:13
Speaker 1: apple cider. And there's a great article on Flanders Health
9:17
Speaker 1: dot us that talks about the notion of taking the waters,
9:22
Speaker 1: which is something that I've never heard, but I think
9:23
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start using that. Uh you ever heard of
9:26
Speaker 1: a schwitz? Been taking a schwitz? Yes? Yeah, yeah. They
9:29
Speaker 1: talked about that on the Sopranos. A lot have a schwitz.
9:32
Speaker 1: That means you go and sweat it out in a sauna,
9:34
Speaker 1: and that was exactly they were talking about. In the
9:36
Speaker 1: town of Bath, England, in England's West Country, there were
9:39
Speaker 1: lots of these fashionable spas. This was basically considered a
9:42
Speaker 1: spa town, and it was suggested that folks who were
9:46
Speaker 1: afflicted with gout rheumatics. I don't know how to pronounce
9:50
Speaker 1: this ben a g u E says, I don't I
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Speaker 1: don't know that one lethargies or apoplexies for gretfulness, shakings
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Speaker 1: and weakness of any member. I imagine that member referring
10:06
Speaker 1: to like limbs yes, yeah, you're you're correct. So they
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Speaker 1: would go to places like Bath, England and taking and
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Speaker 1: I agree, take the waters is an awesome phrase. We're
10:17
Speaker 1: officially bringing this from back. Here's what they would do.
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Speaker 1: They would sit for up to three hours at a
10:23
Speaker 1: time up to their necks in this warm water. And
10:26
Speaker 1: they would do this several times a week for as
10:29
Speaker 1: long as six months. And while they were doing this,
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Speaker 1: they were also ingesting a lot of the local spring water.
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Speaker 1: And the idea of curative restorative springs is a very
10:39
Speaker 1: old one, and it's an idea that you know, is
10:43
Speaker 1: with us to a degree in the modern day. The
10:46
Speaker 1: weird thing about this, although it might sound like kind
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Speaker 1: of a placebo, the bizarre thing that's somewhat mysterious here
10:54
Speaker 1: is that this treatment appeared to work in the majority
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Speaker 1: of cases. In fact, a lot of people who experienced
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Speaker 1: paralysis from severe or acute lead poisoning later found their
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Speaker 1: condition mitigated by doing this process, by taking the waters
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Speaker 1: in Bath. Why how well, we'll tell you in a
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Speaker 1: little bit, but before we do, let's take a closer
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Speaker 1: look at lead. You know, no, I always remembered growing
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Speaker 1: up some of my relatives, my great, my great great
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Speaker 1: some things. They were the kind of people had the
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Speaker 1: really fancy flatwear and cups or glasses in one of
11:41
Speaker 1: those hutches, and you know, you would only ever take
11:44
Speaker 1: it out for special occasions. And my mom's got one
11:47
Speaker 1: of those. Yeah, it's weird. It's like that. There's so
11:50
Speaker 1: many things your parents have that you are not allowed
11:53
Speaker 1: to touch, which is so strange. Like the decorative soaps
11:57
Speaker 1: you can't use the fancy soap that's for company, fake fruit,
12:01
Speaker 1: fake fruit, specifically, monogrammed towels, hand towels. You know, you're
12:05
Speaker 1: not supposed to actually dry your hands on these towels
12:07
Speaker 1: that are in the bathroom. There's a separate stack of
12:10
Speaker 1: towels that you're supposed to use to dry. I've never
12:11
Speaker 1: understood that, but it's it's it's it was a different world.
12:14
Speaker 1: But you're right. Then, those decorative cabinets where they're meant
12:17
Speaker 1: to be on display, like at the very best, I
12:20
Speaker 1: will try to serve guests with the non chipped flatwear.
12:23
Speaker 1: Well yeah, well yeah, here's the thing I have I
12:26
Speaker 1: always wondered as a kid, you know, and see this,
12:30
Speaker 1: the fancy flatwear and glassware taken out, you know, on
12:33
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving or something like that when the whole family gets together.
12:37
Speaker 1: But there was one set of glasses I was never
12:41
Speaker 1: taken out, never really touched. I was forbidden from playing
12:45
Speaker 1: with them or drinking from them. And I always thought
12:47
Speaker 1: it was because my parents assumed I would break things,
12:50
Speaker 1: which I would. I was a klut sort of cartoonishly
12:53
Speaker 1: clumsy child. But later I learned that this glassware contained lead,
13:00
Speaker 1: and my parents and uncle's and aunts were aware of this,
13:04
Speaker 1: and so they didn't want to throw this stuff away.
13:07
Speaker 1: But they certainly didn't want their kids drinking lead, because
13:11
Speaker 1: they come from the modern era and are very well
13:14
Speaker 1: aware of the problems that lead can pose, especially when
13:18
Speaker 1: children are exposed to it. Because since the times of
13:22
Speaker 1: ancient Rome, lead has made its way into alcohol specifically,
13:29
Speaker 1: it could happen a couple of ways. We know now.
13:31
Speaker 1: It was either due to the makers of said booze
13:35
Speaker 1: wine or whatever using lead ascetate to sweeten the to
13:39
Speaker 1: sweeten the sauce, or story and stuff and containers that
13:44
Speaker 1: were glazed with lead. So weird. Yeah there. I'm a
13:48
Speaker 1: big fan of books with very specific titles, as I
13:52
Speaker 1: think you are, and also a fan of anonymously published
13:55
Speaker 1: books that adds a certain mistique to it that I
13:57
Speaker 1: just can't get enough of. But there was one published
14:00
Speaker 1: in seventeen called Valuable Secrets concerning the Arts and Trades,
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Speaker 1: and in it it contained a recipe for treating wine
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Speaker 1: with lead. And the idea was that you would take
14:13
Speaker 1: wine vinegar and saturated with letharge, which so funny because
14:19
Speaker 1: it's also that's one of the conditions that leads, is
14:23
Speaker 1: that that comes from lead poisoning lethar gene, which maybe
14:26
Speaker 1: that's the etymology there, who knows, but letharge is lead
14:30
Speaker 1: ox side essentially. And then you would add about a
14:33
Speaker 1: half a leader of this concoction of of wine vinegar
14:37
Speaker 1: and this lead material to each hogs head of wine,
14:43
Speaker 1: a hogshead being a cask that would hold fifty imperial
14:46
Speaker 1: gallons in metric that's about two leaders. And then doing
14:52
Speaker 1: this would make sense to you at the time because
14:55
Speaker 1: you would know a lot about making and story wine,
14:58
Speaker 1: but you wouldn't know much about the long term effects
15:01
Speaker 1: of lead exposure. So it's a win win from your
15:05
Speaker 1: perspective as a wine maker. The wine is going to
15:09
Speaker 1: be protected against going bad, and added bonus, it's gonna
15:13
Speaker 1: taste ever so much sweeter, just a little bit sweeter.
15:17
Speaker 1: And here's what was happening. The lead oxide was reacting
15:20
Speaker 1: with any ascetic acid in the vinegar to form a
15:24
Speaker 1: soluble lead acetate. And this concentration of lead in the
15:28
Speaker 1: wine may have in many cases exceeded fifty parts per million,
15:33
Speaker 1: which just the basic explanation for that is that it's
15:37
Speaker 1: very it's bad. So it wouldn't it would be enough
15:42
Speaker 1: for the metal to deactivate the enzymes of yeast that
15:46
Speaker 1: could threaten the alcoholic content of the wine, but the
15:50
Speaker 1: amount of lead acetate would still there. There wouldn't be
15:55
Speaker 1: enough there to interfere with the actual taste other than
15:59
Speaker 1: that sweetness. And so what we're looking at is an
16:02
Speaker 1: adulteration of booze with lead, either deliberately or by accident,
16:08
Speaker 1: you know, depending it might have just been in the
16:09
Speaker 1: containers glazed with lead. And this this had effects on
16:14
Speaker 1: multiple populations across centuries, from Roman times to the Middle Ages.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes the amount of lead would cause these community wide
16:25
Speaker 1: outbreaks of severe lead poisoning, and they are and it
16:30
Speaker 1: seemed like, uh, it seemed as though people just weren't
16:33
Speaker 1: making the connection for a long time, and they thought
16:36
Speaker 1: there were these regionally specific you know, we love the
16:38
Speaker 1: weird disease names, just regionally specific, strange names for things
16:43
Speaker 1: like the pied in colic. Right, that was one that
16:46
Speaker 1: was regional to France. And isn't colic like that condition
16:51
Speaker 1: that babies have or that's cough a lot? Ye like? Yeah? Yeah,
16:57
Speaker 1: Colic the way we understand it today is a severe
17:00
Speaker 1: pain in the abdomen caused by gas or obstruction of
17:04
Speaker 1: the intestines. And we all associated with babies. I think, man,
17:07
Speaker 1: that college sure was a severe pain in my abdomen. Man,
17:10
Speaker 1: let me tell you what. Yeah, there it is. Yeah.
17:13
Speaker 1: They were saying that they were describing this umbrella of conditions,
17:18
Speaker 1: this umbrella group of conditions as colic because people were
17:23
Speaker 1: feeling generally unwell. My favorite name though, properly for this
17:28
Speaker 1: is uh, well, you know what it is, Oh, I
17:31
Speaker 1: know what it is. It's the dry gripes, the drag gripes.
17:34
Speaker 1: That was that was regional to Massachusetts. Uh. In the
17:38
Speaker 1: American colonies back in the early seventeen hundreds, and in
17:41
Speaker 1: the southwest of England they referred to it as the
17:44
Speaker 1: Devon colic or the Devonshure colic. That was a little later, actually,
17:49
Speaker 1: but that one involved. That's the thing. Then these all
17:52
Speaker 1: kind of had slightly varying symptoms. It would seem like
17:56
Speaker 1: I don't quite understand how they lumped them all together.
17:58
Speaker 1: But this and involve stomach pains, constipation, and mental disturbances.
18:05
Speaker 1: The last one spooky. And I shouldn't laugh about the
18:08
Speaker 1: dry gripes because you know it affected real people. But
18:11
Speaker 1: I cannot wait to call out of work one day
18:15
Speaker 1: by saying I'm sorry, I can't make this meeting. I've
18:17
Speaker 1: got the dry gripes and I need to take the waters.
18:20
Speaker 1: I am become weird. I have the dry grips and
18:24
Speaker 1: I must take the waters. Post taste, we're making. We're
18:27
Speaker 1: slowly building the best get out of work letter ever. Uh. So,
18:32
Speaker 1: you're right. They had the variation in the symptoms most
18:36
Speaker 1: likely dependent upon the amount of lead to which people
18:39
Speaker 1: were exposed. There was something else that was happening. There
18:42
Speaker 1: was a thing called painters colic because there was a
18:45
Speaker 1: lot of lead in paint and this would cause chronic
18:48
Speaker 1: constipation of the painters and for people who manufactured paint.
18:54
Speaker 1: Everybody was looking for a reason to explain this, but
18:57
Speaker 1: they were usually looking for a reason to explain this
19:00
Speaker 1: ccific regional outbreak they were witnessing. That's where John Huckson
19:04
Speaker 1: comes in Seour. He's an English doctor. He notices there
19:09
Speaker 1: there's a ton of people coming to him saying they've
19:12
Speaker 1: got the cold sweats, they've got stomach pain. Perhaps most distressingly,
19:16
Speaker 1: they're vomiting a lot of bile with blood in it,
19:21
Speaker 1: and then they're becoming paralyzed. So he says, this is
19:25
Speaker 1: an outbreak of Devonshire colic. And it's so weird because
19:31
Speaker 1: they knew that there was. This seemed to be some
19:34
Speaker 1: sort of correlation right between the apple harvest, cider drinking
19:38
Speaker 1: and the sickness. As far back as three a doctor
19:43
Speaker 1: named William Musgrave said that the cause of Devonshire colic
19:48
Speaker 1: was roof and acid sida drunk in two great quantities.
19:53
Speaker 1: T O O. Yeah, yeah, so you know, drinking too much,
19:56
Speaker 1: but specifically the cider. And you know in Devon even
20:00
Speaker 1: to this day, or Devonshire is it people call it Devon.
20:03
Speaker 1: They definitely still call it that. But I guess maybe
20:05
Speaker 1: the shire is just sort of like means Devon town,
20:08
Speaker 1: you know, a shire, right like in the Hobbit. But
20:11
Speaker 1: it is very much still prime cider country. Yeah. And
20:16
Speaker 1: and from what we understand, the terms are often used
20:19
Speaker 1: interchangeably Devon or Devonshire. Uh So they understand that there's
20:24
Speaker 1: this correlation, right, And the weird thing is three Musgrave
20:30
Speaker 1: is right in a way, Devin cider is the source
20:33
Speaker 1: of this condition. But the cider itself, the roughness, the acidity,
20:38
Speaker 1: the amount consumed, didn't really have much to do with
20:42
Speaker 1: what was happening. Everything he described right read urine, pale skin,
20:49
Speaker 1: frequent vomiting, incredibly painful stomach aches. These are all textbook
20:55
Speaker 1: definitions of lead poisoning, especially at severe paralysis. Wait, when
21:00
Speaker 1: you say bright red urine, does that mean there's blood
21:02
Speaker 1: in the urine or is it just like you know,
21:04
Speaker 1: sort of like when you're dehydrated your urine becomes very orange. Yeah,
21:09
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's a good question. We know people
21:11
Speaker 1: are definitely vomiting up some blood, but as far as
21:15
Speaker 1: bright red urine, um, it may have just been discoloration,
21:19
Speaker 1: because otherwise they he probably would have noticed a blood
21:23
Speaker 1: content of some sort. That's true because blood in the
21:26
Speaker 1: not to be too gross, but like if you ever,
21:29
Speaker 1: you know, had any kind of blood go into water.
21:32
Speaker 1: You know that it proliferates in the water much differently
21:34
Speaker 1: than urine, Like it has sort of a cloud equality too.
21:37
Speaker 1: That's yeah, that's a good point. So later there's a
21:40
Speaker 1: medical historian who comes along. His name is H. A. Waldron,
21:44
Speaker 1: and he knows that the cider makers of Devon tended
21:48
Speaker 1: to process their apple harvest in these leadlined pounding mechanisms
21:54
Speaker 1: and presses. This is coming from Great Atlas Obscure article
21:59
Speaker 1: the History of back And so there's another important piece here.
22:03
Speaker 1: The poor members of the community lived almost entirely off
22:07
Speaker 1: cider and apples and everything they're touching, all the cider
22:11
Speaker 1: they're touching has spent some time absorbing lead. And these
22:18
Speaker 1: doctors are in this race to figure out, like how
22:21
Speaker 1: do we treat this? How do we We can't tell
22:24
Speaker 1: people not to eat, it's their main source of food.
22:27
Speaker 1: We need to know what's going on, or we need
22:29
Speaker 1: to at least sort of mitigate these symptoms. And so
22:32
Speaker 1: many members of the medical establishment of the day ended
22:36
Speaker 1: up sending their patients, like we said, to Bath and
22:41
Speaker 1: the town's name, like you said earlier, Nor refers to
22:44
Speaker 1: those local springs. They've got a nice temperature about a
22:48
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty degrees fahrenheit or so, and people loved
22:52
Speaker 1: hanging out in these and there was a long standing
22:55
Speaker 1: belief that the waters were curative or restorative due to
22:58
Speaker 1: their mineral content. But healing spring waters right, Um, there
23:03
Speaker 1: is a town I want to say it's in North Carolina.
23:05
Speaker 1: Hot It's called literally called hot Springs. I believe it's
23:08
Speaker 1: North Carolina. But um, these natural hot springs just come
23:11
Speaker 1: right out of the ground and they build these kind
23:13
Speaker 1: of structures around them that you can, you know, have
23:15
Speaker 1: a nice slush fits in. But as it turns out, well,
23:18
Speaker 1: these situations are indeed super relaxing and a nice way
23:22
Speaker 1: to unwind unless you put some kind of you know,
23:26
Speaker 1: uh like epsom salts, say, for example, which can bring
23:30
Speaker 1: down swelling. It's a good way to treat doubt, even
23:32
Speaker 1: I believe, again not medical advice, but I think I've
23:34
Speaker 1: read that, um, it can reduce inflammation for example. The
23:38
Speaker 1: waters themselves don't really do much other than you know,
23:41
Speaker 1: mellow you out, uh. And that was addressed in a
23:44
Speaker 1: nine edition of the Medical History Journal by Audrey Haywood,
23:49
Speaker 1: who discusses literally is his medical history and kind of
23:53
Speaker 1: debunk certain myths, of which there are many. As we know,
23:57
Speaker 1: practicing medicine oftentimes is just what it's sounds like, especially historically.
24:02
Speaker 1: Um and she has had this to say about the
24:04
Speaker 1: efficacy of hot springs quote. It is commonly assumed that
24:07
Speaker 1: spa therapy has only a placebo effect, that the pleasurable
24:11
Speaker 1: activity of immersion and warm mineral water has social and
24:14
Speaker 1: psychological effects but no physiological value. Yeah, so this is
24:19
Speaker 1: why bath is extraordinary in this situation. As Heywood goes
24:24
Speaker 1: on to describe, there did seem to be measurable, significant
24:29
Speaker 1: benefits for people, especially they were suffering from processes. If
24:33
Speaker 1: they went into these scuritive waters, they would indeed find
24:37
Speaker 1: their conditions mitigated or cured. So let's talk about how
24:49
Speaker 1: it actually works. The explanation is surprisingly simple. After you
24:56
Speaker 1: have consumed lad, if you're human being, your body mistakes
24:59
Speaker 1: it for or calcium and uses it to build bone,
25:03
Speaker 1: and over time that poison that is accumulated in your
25:06
Speaker 1: system causes all these violent symptoms. And here's something that
25:11
Speaker 1: is a hazard for the astronauts in the audience. When
25:15
Speaker 1: you are weightless for a period of time, you increase
25:19
Speaker 1: calcium loss from your bones. So if you're floating in
25:24
Speaker 1: these springs for you know, hours at a time, several
25:29
Speaker 1: days out of the week, for up to six months,
25:32
Speaker 1: your body is gradually stripped of both calcium and lead
25:36
Speaker 1: from your skeleton, and then you are able to avoid it,
25:40
Speaker 1: you urinate it away. And we know that research in
25:45
Speaker 1: the nineties confirmed this. Audrey Hayward, the author you know
25:49
Speaker 1: just mentioned, they found that doing this regiment, even in
25:54
Speaker 1: the modern day, would increase your flow of urine and
25:57
Speaker 1: provably remove significant amounts lead from your system. So in
26:03
Speaker 1: at least one case, you really could just take a
26:06
Speaker 1: bath to cure yourself of something. Well, that's the thing, right, Like,
26:10
Speaker 1: if if it works one time for one set, then
26:14
Speaker 1: that can easily via word of mouth or via doctor's
26:18
Speaker 1: kind of like relying on a very small sample size
26:21
Speaker 1: spread that as like the gospel for treating this condition overall,
26:25
Speaker 1: which isn't always going to pan out in fact, you
26:27
Speaker 1: know doesn't. Yeah, And this the Bath General Hospital. Around
26:31
Speaker 1: the same time, they were conducting what they called the
26:34
Speaker 1: Trial of the Waters, which sounds like a fantasy novel
26:37
Speaker 1: this way. Hayway considers one of the very first long
26:40
Speaker 1: term medical therapy trials in history, and it's this same thing.
26:46
Speaker 1: The doctors were giving victims of paralysis what they consider
26:49
Speaker 1: healthy fresh food daily soaks in these waters, and they
26:53
Speaker 1: found that drinking this water actually had a medicinal effect
26:57
Speaker 1: as well. We said that bath spa water was pretty
27:01
Speaker 1: mineral rich. It was specifically rich in calcium and iron.
27:05
Speaker 1: So while floating is getting rid of calcium and lead
27:09
Speaker 1: from your skeleton, ingesting this water is kind of replacing
27:13
Speaker 1: that calcium you might have been losing. Just for the record,
27:16
Speaker 1: it wasn't all you know, trumpets and rainbows and angel farts.
27:20
Speaker 1: The water tasted pretty nasty from what we understand, right,
27:24
Speaker 1: It's not like the water that you would drink from
27:26
Speaker 1: your faucet or your water filter today. Yeah, kind of
27:30
Speaker 1: a was described in Anatlas Obscure article as a sulfuric
27:36
Speaker 1: eggy flavor, which I guess makes sense because of the calcium.
27:40
Speaker 1: It will sulfur. You know, rotten eggs, you know, have
27:43
Speaker 1: a smell of sulfur, And I guess there's a lot.
27:45
Speaker 1: Isn't there a lot of calcium? And like egg shells, Yeah,
27:48
Speaker 1: eggshells are like ballpark calcium. I think, got it. Well,
27:52
Speaker 1: that makes sense then, but people were drinking this stuff
27:54
Speaker 1: on purpose, Ben, Yes, because they wanted to be able
27:58
Speaker 1: to move one of the walk They wanted to be
28:01
Speaker 1: able to use their limbs. Wait, so they were drinking
28:03
Speaker 1: it out of the liquid that they themselves were stewing in. Uh,
28:07
Speaker 1: probably not at the same time. It was just like
28:11
Speaker 1: bottled and sold after. I'm sorry, I've just so many questions.
28:14
Speaker 1: You're like, I mean, like this is like human stew
28:16
Speaker 1: I imagine the Uh maybe maybe maybe not. Maybe it wasn't.
28:20
Speaker 1: Maybe it was like the material was bottled separately. But
28:23
Speaker 1: I'm also picturing it as like the stuff that people
28:26
Speaker 1: were actually soaking in, which is really gross. Yeah. That
28:30
Speaker 1: that feels like maybe a level of laziness that even
28:34
Speaker 1: I have yet to attain life goals. So watch how devonsure.
28:39
Speaker 1: I'm on the way to you. Maybe maybe maybe to
28:42
Speaker 1: streamline things, they would just give you a ladle. It
28:44
Speaker 1: would come with your with your with your soak experience.
28:47
Speaker 1: You get your ladle, and then you just, you know,
28:50
Speaker 1: why not kill two birds with one stone. You soak
28:52
Speaker 1: it and you drink it all the same time. Well yeah,
28:55
Speaker 1: you know, but you're sitting there with other people you
28:57
Speaker 1: don't know where they've been, and it's like the thing
28:59
Speaker 1: with public pools, you know, it's a trustful for real
29:03
Speaker 1: who's gonna be in there? Right? That's always my question.
29:06
Speaker 1: They didn't chordinate this stuff. Spoiler alert, it's gonna be me,
29:10
Speaker 1: that's gonna be you. You're one of them. I'm a peer. No,
29:12
Speaker 1: I'm kidding. No, I'm not a monster. I would never,
29:15
Speaker 1: I would never, but you know, but the chlorine does
29:17
Speaker 1: knock knock that out. Do you ever hear those myths
29:19
Speaker 1: about like certain pool treatments that will like show who
29:23
Speaker 1: the peer is that if you pee, it's gonna all
29:25
Speaker 1: of a sudden like have some sort of like ink
29:27
Speaker 1: stain that's gonna like track you through the pool so
29:29
Speaker 1: everyone knows it was you. I don't think that's actually
29:31
Speaker 1: a real thing, but I remember hearing tell of that,
29:33
Speaker 1: and it was I think a a myth that was
29:36
Speaker 1: meant to discourage people from being in pools. I heard
29:38
Speaker 1: about that, and I filed it under that's awesome if true.
29:42
Speaker 1: I like that instant karma. Anyway, our possibly extremist views
29:47
Speaker 1: of public pools aside. Decades later, a guy named Dr
29:51
Speaker 1: George Baker finally understands that it's not the apples themselves,
29:55
Speaker 1: so the cider itself, it's on people's drinking habits. It's
29:59
Speaker 1: the lead that exists between the process of taking an
30:03
Speaker 1: apple from an orchard and turning it into a delicious,
30:06
Speaker 1: boozy beverage. Baker is the Queen's physician at the time,
30:11
Speaker 1: and he is doing something that finally helps crack the case.
30:15
Speaker 1: He is corresponding with other experts. Oddly enough, he's talking
30:19
Speaker 1: with Benjamin Franklin, and old Benny f is like, you know,
30:23
Speaker 1: here's what happened, George. I don't know what's going on
30:26
Speaker 1: with you guys over on your side of the ponds.
30:28
Speaker 1: But in Boston, when I was just a weed teenager,
30:31
Speaker 1: we had an outbreak of what we recognized as lead poisoning.
30:34
Speaker 1: And then we realized there were lead stills that we
30:38
Speaker 1: were using in the process of creating rum. And we
30:42
Speaker 1: know of this because there's there's still a letter and
30:46
Speaker 1: extant letter of Benjamin Franklin's where he talks about lead poisoning.
30:52
Speaker 1: And in this letter you can see that they've clearly
30:56
Speaker 1: traced lead as as the culprit. And so Franklin is
31:01
Speaker 1: saying to George Baker, well, you know this might be
31:05
Speaker 1: a similar case. Very reasonable. Now Baker has to prove
31:09
Speaker 1: his hypothesis. Yeah, so Baker um in seventeen sixty seven
31:17
Speaker 1: he noted the similarities between lead poisoning and this Devon
31:22
Speaker 1: colic and he began to become highly suspicious of this
31:27
Speaker 1: acidity argument, right, that that was what was causing at
31:30
Speaker 1: the acidity and the cider uh. And after talking to
31:33
Speaker 1: Ben Franklin, well, by the way, it was always popping
31:36
Speaker 1: up in interesting helpful ways throughout history. I know. He's
31:39
Speaker 1: a problematic dude and definitely had some weird bodies buried
31:43
Speaker 1: under his house, and it was a bit of a
31:45
Speaker 1: womanizer and not maybe always the most stand up guy.
31:49
Speaker 1: But he definitely knew how to solve a good history mystery,
31:51
Speaker 1: didn't he He did, He did, And everything you just
31:55
Speaker 1: said about him is true. Noal but he including the
31:58
Speaker 1: part where he pops up at the weirdest moments to
32:01
Speaker 1: do a cameo in some other historical tale. So that's right.
32:06
Speaker 1: They he had to test this, and so he takes
32:10
Speaker 1: cider from Devonshire, which has high lead content, and cider
32:15
Speaker 1: from another area which has zero lead content. He takes
32:19
Speaker 1: UH about fourteen leaders of Devon cider, and from that
32:23
Speaker 1: he extracts a grain of lead sixty milligrams, and then
32:27
Speaker 1: from that we can calculate today the cider contained about
32:30
Speaker 1: five parts per million of lead, and that's more than
32:33
Speaker 1: enough to create the symptoms of mild lead poisoning, even
32:37
Speaker 1: if you only drink about a pint a day. If
32:40
Speaker 1: you're like, hey, guys, I like cider, but I'm not
32:42
Speaker 1: a you know, cider hollic or whatever. I'm just gonna
32:45
Speaker 1: have my one pint today five pm after a long
32:49
Speaker 1: day at work or whatever. So the problem is that
32:53
Speaker 1: some people, especially farm hands, would drink like a gallon
32:57
Speaker 1: of cidered a day four leaders, and this would eventually
33:01
Speaker 1: cause severe lead poisoning. Now Baker's discovered this, he says, Okay,
33:06
Speaker 1: it's the lead. How is the lead getting in there?
33:09
Speaker 1: It's a good question, and we're gonna hop to that
33:11
Speaker 1: in just a second. But I wanted to drop a
33:13
Speaker 1: little bit of cider trivia on you, Ben and and
33:16
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians. I recently took a much needed trip to
33:21
Speaker 1: Seattle with my daughter and my girlfriend, and during the
33:24
Speaker 1: trip visited with a listener of movie Crash. It's another
33:27
Speaker 1: show that I'm on, and his name is David Gooch.
33:30
Speaker 1: I don't know if he listens to the show or not,
33:31
Speaker 1: but if he does, High Gooch. But he works at
33:34
Speaker 1: a cidery in Seattle called the Seattle Cider Company, And
33:38
Speaker 1: I kind of remarked that, you know, you don't you
33:40
Speaker 1: don't really think of cider as being like a particularly
33:43
Speaker 1: popular beverage in the United States, Like there's like, what
33:46
Speaker 1: can you think of been like on I could probably
33:48
Speaker 1: count on one hand how many cider varieties are available
33:51
Speaker 1: at most of our neighborhood bars. It is like Strongbow
33:54
Speaker 1: and like and Woodchuck, I guess. And then I know
33:57
Speaker 1: that Stella makes one too, but it's not super popular.
34:00
Speaker 1: And he pointed out that since Prohibition like ended, nobody
34:06
Speaker 1: made cider like for many many, many many years, like
34:10
Speaker 1: a long long time, and I'm not quite firm on
34:14
Speaker 1: the amount of time. But his company, Seattle Cider Company,
34:18
Speaker 1: was one of the very first since Prohibition to start
34:20
Speaker 1: manufacturing cider on a large scale, which I thought was interesting.
34:23
Speaker 1: And he gave us a tour of the facilities and
34:26
Speaker 1: all of the fermentation giant vats and the canning operation.
34:30
Speaker 1: It was really really cool. To see that. But I
34:32
Speaker 1: just thought that was interesting because he he said since prohibition,
34:36
Speaker 1: and I thought he was referring to like, wait, it
34:38
Speaker 1: was cider prohibited like further than like regular prohibition, and no,
34:41
Speaker 1: I meant like since prohibition prohibition. So that was pretty interesting. Yeah, interesting,
34:47
Speaker 1: And get know, I like cider. Well, the sider they
34:51
Speaker 1: had at Seattle Cider Company was much less of a
34:54
Speaker 1: sweet kind of saccharin cider than and it would probably
34:56
Speaker 1: be more similar to the types of cider they would
34:58
Speaker 1: have made back in the these days where it's like
35:01
Speaker 1: got an apple equality to it, but it's not sugary sweet.
35:04
Speaker 1: It really is almost more like an ale that has
35:07
Speaker 1: you know, an apple ness to it. And I quite
35:09
Speaker 1: like the ones that I tried there. Yeah, I'd love
35:11
Speaker 1: to try out some of that local cide or if
35:13
Speaker 1: anybody feels like sending some or has recommendations cider that
35:17
Speaker 1: I should try or get into. Yeah, help me, help
35:20
Speaker 1: me evolve my palette. Please, God knows I need the help.
35:24
Speaker 1: So so here's the thing. He has proven the culprit.
35:30
Speaker 1: Now he's asking himself, how does this lead get into
35:33
Speaker 1: the process. He says, it's either an apple press that
35:36
Speaker 1: has lead lined in it, or one of the vessels
35:39
Speaker 1: used for fermentation, or maybe there's lead in the pipes
35:44
Speaker 1: that convey the apple juice to the fermentation. That and
35:49
Speaker 1: it's a local village industry, which means this explains how
35:53
Speaker 1: the levels of poison can vary from one place to
35:56
Speaker 1: the next, and eventually, especially in places where people were
36:00
Speaker 1: eye Baker was able to find particular like lead lined vessel.
36:06
Speaker 1: So at this point we might reasonably assume that people
36:10
Speaker 1: would be happy about knowing this, that they would say,
36:13
Speaker 1: oh good, it's lead poisoning. We like not being paralyzed,
36:18
Speaker 1: we like not having these terrible symptoms, Thank you, Dr Baker.
36:24
Speaker 1: But that's not what happened now, because a lot of
36:27
Speaker 1: these people thought you are going to ruin our main industry.
36:31
Speaker 1: They were like, bro, we know you work with the
36:34
Speaker 1: queen and that's cool for you, but we're poor. We
36:38
Speaker 1: have to do this. And in fact, many of us
36:42
Speaker 1: rely on apples, not just for business, but it's the
36:45
Speaker 1: main thing we eat. Well. It also reminds me of
36:48
Speaker 1: it's a little more modern example, but that botula is
36:51
Speaker 1: um scare with the pizza the frozen pizza maker. Um that.
36:55
Speaker 1: And then he ended up doing like a publicity stunt
36:57
Speaker 1: to to do like a funeral for all the potentially
36:59
Speaker 1: in affected pizzas. And even though we know in that
37:02
Speaker 1: story the canned mushrooms that were suspects didn't end up
37:07
Speaker 1: even testing positive fribatualism, and he had to destroy this
37:11
Speaker 1: massive amount of product and then that got out and
37:15
Speaker 1: then it kind of it just it sort of tanks
37:17
Speaker 1: you even if it people remember the bad news, even
37:20
Speaker 1: if it doesn't end up being true. So I could
37:22
Speaker 1: see how that would be something that would be scary,
37:23
Speaker 1: even though it wasn't directly cider related, uh specifically to
37:28
Speaker 1: to the man. It was, you know, connected to the cider,
37:31
Speaker 1: but it was something that could be mitigated and then
37:34
Speaker 1: you know, dealt with and and and move forward. I
37:36
Speaker 1: could see how it could put a taint on the
37:39
Speaker 1: whole industry, you know, with people thinking, oh god, cider
37:42
Speaker 1: was to blame. Yeah, And it's weird because historians knew
37:46
Speaker 1: that Baker was very well aware of some cider manufacturers
37:51
Speaker 1: not being big fans of this idea. They had also
37:56
Speaker 1: recently campaigned to repeal attacks on cider. They were sort
38:00
Speaker 1: of in a punchy fighting mood, and locals argued that
38:05
Speaker 1: Devin's cider didn't contain that much lead, and they said, actually,
38:09
Speaker 1: the problem really is the earlier point about acidity, and
38:13
Speaker 1: the lead that you found in the cider was probably
38:16
Speaker 1: caused by farmers shooting at birds in the orchards, and
38:19
Speaker 1: that left some bullets behind inside the apples, so they're
38:24
Speaker 1: grasping at straws. And and he was, he was vilified.
38:29
Speaker 1: Baker was just like Samuel Weiss and washing your hands.
38:32
Speaker 1: Baker was vilified by authority figures in the area as
38:36
Speaker 1: a quote faithless son of Devon. And and people were,
38:42
Speaker 1: you know, they felt to some degree betrayed, like their
38:46
Speaker 1: livelihood was in danger. But his thesis remained relatively unscathed.
38:53
Speaker 1: And it's happening while technology is evolving, so more modern
38:58
Speaker 1: machines are replaced seen these old lead lined machines. And
39:03
Speaker 1: as much due to that as due to Baker's breakthrough,
39:07
Speaker 1: Devonshire colic becomes increasingly rare. And then cider makers, whatever
39:14
Speaker 1: they may have said publicly or at the local oh, publicly,
39:18
Speaker 1: is in at the local pub. And uh no, let's
39:22
Speaker 1: leave it in. Let'son's it's it's it's part of the record. Thanks,
39:27
Speaker 1: So Uh, No, matter what they said in public, a
39:32
Speaker 1: lot of cider makers went back to their to their
39:35
Speaker 1: operations and quietly removed lead from their process on their own.
39:39
Speaker 1: And then this would have been This is in like
39:41
Speaker 1: the early eight hundreds, right, Yeah, by that by that point,
39:46
Speaker 1: it's interesting because obviously even still today, we still have
39:50
Speaker 1: problems with lead contamination and water supplies like in Flint, Michigan,
39:53
Speaker 1: and even in Detroit, um because of aged infrastructure and
39:58
Speaker 1: pipes and stuff like that that there isn't the money
40:00
Speaker 1: to replace or just you know, I guess irresponsible governance
40:05
Speaker 1: or I think it largely comes back to lack of
40:07
Speaker 1: money to improve infrastructure. We have these fates of lead
40:10
Speaker 1: poisoning among children and lead levels that are way beyond
40:13
Speaker 1: acceptable levels. Yeah, and this is a little bit of
40:16
Speaker 1: a thought experiment. As as we're wrapping up the episode,
40:19
Speaker 1: I'm really glad you brought this up. There's a thing
40:21
Speaker 1: that we've talked about maybe in the past on error off.
40:27
Speaker 1: I've always been fascinated by it's called the lead crime hypothesis.
40:30
Speaker 1: You heard of this, I have not been. So we
40:33
Speaker 1: know that lead is very toxic to multiple organs of
40:36
Speaker 1: the body, the brain in particular, the lead crime hypothesis
40:42
Speaker 1: argues that there is an association between elevated levels of
40:47
Speaker 1: lead in the blood of children, right, so they're exposed
40:50
Speaker 1: in childhood, in their formative years, and later increased rates
40:55
Speaker 1: of crime and delinquency. Oh my god. So the idea
41:00
Speaker 1: of this hypothesis is that exposure to lead when you're
41:05
Speaker 1: a kid, when your brain is developing, may have effects
41:08
Speaker 1: that make you more likely to commit crimes as an adult,
41:13
Speaker 1: you know, or as a as a you know, as
41:15
Speaker 1: you go through your teens. This remains hypothesis, hasn't been
41:19
Speaker 1: conclusively proven, but I would love to see information about
41:23
Speaker 1: Devon and Devonshire and maybe, you know, if there was
41:26
Speaker 1: some correlation between crime in that time and exposure to
41:30
Speaker 1: lead in the cider industry. We don't have that information now,
41:35
Speaker 1: and we also, uh, we also have to just emphasize
41:39
Speaker 1: yet again, that is a hypothesis. It is not you know,
41:43
Speaker 1: it's not conclusively proven. Well, and I mean, surely this
41:47
Speaker 1: isn't something that happens like, uh, you know, what's that
41:50
Speaker 1: like genetic memory or something like that. I forget the
41:52
Speaker 1: exact genetics epigenetics, but I did just look up crime
41:57
Speaker 1: stats for Devon and in one or between April mar
42:04
Speaker 1: Devon has an eighteent crime rate. So what does what
42:08
Speaker 1: does that mean exactly? I don't know. The total number
42:12
Speaker 1: of violent crimes uh is twenty nine point five thousand,
42:16
Speaker 1: So violent crimes does makes up thirty two percent of
42:19
Speaker 1: all crimes reported in the country, um and the number
42:22
Speaker 1: is up four point six percent compared year over year
42:24
Speaker 1: compared to the previous sample. Uh So, IMMA must have
42:27
Speaker 1: to do with the population because Devin, you know, the
42:30
Speaker 1: UK in general isn't a massive land area. So I
42:33
Speaker 1: mean for a small shire like Devon to have a
42:38
Speaker 1: crime rate that seems pretty nuts. Yeah. No, that's a
42:41
Speaker 1: very good point. But again I couldn't possibly correlate that
42:45
Speaker 1: to the lead poisoning epidemic of the eighteen hundreds, but
42:48
Speaker 1: maybe you could. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, well,
42:52
Speaker 1: we would love to see the science on that. Let
42:55
Speaker 1: us know. If you are an expert, let's know what
42:58
Speaker 1: your take on the lead prime hypothesis is. And most importantly,
43:03
Speaker 1: I know the question that's been on everybody's mind. You
43:06
Speaker 1: heard about the waters of Bath and you thought, well,
43:09
Speaker 1: I want to take the waters. Guys, can I still
43:12
Speaker 1: take the waters. The answer is yes, Uh, these waters
43:18
Speaker 1: aren't proven to be hazardous or healing nowadays. But if
43:23
Speaker 1: the mood so strikes you find yourself in the neighborhood,
43:26
Speaker 1: you can soak in those waters. You can take a
43:28
Speaker 1: sip of that water. You can even we should have
43:31
Speaker 1: mentioned like back in the heyday of bath people are
43:35
Speaker 1: just literally laying in water for hours and hours, right,
43:38
Speaker 1: They needed entertainment, So there would be these musicians that
43:41
Speaker 1: would come and like play to people in a bathtub,
43:43
Speaker 1: which sounds like it could be a fun time. You
43:46
Speaker 1: can do that today. You can do it the same
43:48
Speaker 1: way that people did it hundreds of years ago, but
43:51
Speaker 1: hopefully you'll be doing it for fun and recreation instead
43:54
Speaker 1: of an attempt to no longer be paralyzed. And just
43:59
Speaker 1: I'm at the best statistician. I'm not gonna lie, but
44:01
Speaker 1: the stats that I have on Devon and violent crimes
44:04
Speaker 1: is that of the national crime rate is from Devon.
44:10
Speaker 1: I don't know, Um, you know what, just glaze over
44:13
Speaker 1: all of the stats stuff. I think I might be overthinking,
44:16
Speaker 1: but um, it's very interesting that you can still hang
44:19
Speaker 1: out in bath and tour those uh those bath houses
44:23
Speaker 1: that you know have probably not changed much at all
44:26
Speaker 1: since the times of the story they were telling today. Yeah,
44:28
Speaker 1: and we would love to hear your take on this.
44:32
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for tuning in. Thanks of course to
44:35
Speaker 1: our awesome producers Casey Pegram, andrew A. How Howard and
44:39
Speaker 1: of course Max Williams. I think we're still working on
44:42
Speaker 1: a nickname for Max. We might even drag Max on
44:45
Speaker 1: the air. You know it's important and a little behind
44:48
Speaker 1: the scenes inside baseball. Also thanks to Alex Williams compose
44:52
Speaker 1: our theme brother to Max, no joke, Yes this is true.
44:57
Speaker 1: And also big big thanks of course to Eli and
45:01
Speaker 1: Diana a ridiculous romance. Uh can't wait for you to
45:05
Speaker 1: check out their show. Big thanks of course to Eve's
45:08
Speaker 1: jeffco who just made an appearance on Ridiculous History. And uh,
45:14
Speaker 1: well you know we're required to say it. Big thanks
45:16
Speaker 1: to Jonathan Strickland. Noel, I'm thinking that maybe we can
45:20
Speaker 1: like redirect the quistions pedantic rage towards Eli and Diana.
45:25
Speaker 1: What do you think I think they've got it coming.
45:28
Speaker 1: It's a hazing kind of situation, right, maybe it is? Uh,
45:32
Speaker 1: most importantly, man, thanks to you, and here's to us
45:35
Speaker 1: not getting lead boys needs same Ben same, We'll see
45:38
Speaker 1: you next time, folks. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
45:47
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
45:50
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.