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Dromomania: The Wanderlust Disease · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much
0:31
Speaker 1: for tuning in. Uh, and here we are. Uh this
0:35
Speaker 1: it's it's getting weird. I don't know about you, guys. Hi,
0:38
Speaker 1: I'm Ben, I am no wherever you go there, you
0:40
Speaker 1: are here, we are now, and we will entertain you,
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Speaker 1: I hope. Uh. Yeah, you know today we're talking about Okay,
0:51
Speaker 1: so we we obviously are all in the same boat
0:54
Speaker 1: and that we are sequestered in our various homes and domiciles. Um.
0:57
Speaker 1: Most there's a home in a domicile, Ben, a domin side,
1:00
Speaker 1: it seems more formal. I don't know, well, you know,
1:04
Speaker 1: home is home has that emotional steak. All right, Yeah,
1:08
Speaker 1: there's an implication you know that, uh maybe a person
1:12
Speaker 1: you're in love with can be more of a home
1:14
Speaker 1: than a house ever will be. Ah, that's a nice sentiment, Ben,
1:18
Speaker 1: Thanks the thanks the uh speaking of nice speaking fantastic
1:23
Speaker 1: of course we Uh we've got our super producer Casey
1:26
Speaker 1: Pegram uh live and direct in full effect here. Uh,
1:33
Speaker 1: you and I uh and Casey, all three of us
1:37
Speaker 1: and probably you listening at home, folks wherever your home.
1:40
Speaker 1: Maybe have been thinking a lot about travel, about all
1:44
Speaker 1: the things we we took for granted. Now it is
1:48
Speaker 1: a not so uh not so secret secret that our
1:52
Speaker 1: very own Casey Pegram may or may not have another
1:56
Speaker 1: identity across the pond. Casey travels, uh, pretty like I
2:02
Speaker 1: would say, on a on a fairly regular basis to France,
2:07
Speaker 1: right Like, how often would you say, travel a year there, Casey?
2:10
Speaker 1: I would say, I averaged once a year. Sometimes it's
2:12
Speaker 1: twice a year for several weeks at a time. So,
2:16
Speaker 1: you know, the question of home and domicile, I would
2:19
Speaker 1: just say, a house is not a home. You know.
2:22
Speaker 1: That's true. That's true, you know. But I was getting
2:26
Speaker 1: at with all of that, was though that we're all
2:29
Speaker 1: in the same boat because of this, uh, this this
2:32
Speaker 1: pandemic and uh today we're going to talk about a
2:35
Speaker 1: way stupider pandemic. Yeah, that may or may not have
2:40
Speaker 1: even been a real thing. Yeah, I've been thinking a
2:43
Speaker 1: lot about travel, the different epic trips that we have
2:47
Speaker 1: taken as individuals and even as groups or in pairs
2:52
Speaker 1: here for for the good old day Job in the
2:55
Speaker 1: podcast minds uh, and I think a lot of people
2:59
Speaker 1: are our dream mean of their favorite road trips or
3:02
Speaker 1: their favorite sojourns. And today, uh, as as you said, old,
3:07
Speaker 1: today we are going to uh, we're going to look
3:12
Speaker 1: into what seems like, um, I don't know, an outbreak,
3:16
Speaker 1: a social panic, seemingly contagious epidemic. Our story you like
3:22
Speaker 1: this case, Our story takes us to France in uh,
3:26
Speaker 1: let's see, really kicks in in the late nineteenth century,
3:29
Speaker 1: in the eighteen eighties. Yes, and please forgive my my
3:33
Speaker 1: lack of scientific chops. This would definitely be an epidemic,
3:36
Speaker 1: not a pandemic, because it's very regionalized. Uh in France
3:40
Speaker 1: in the eighteen nineties. Uh, the country of France was
3:44
Speaker 1: beset on all sides seemingly by this contagion. Um. It
3:51
Speaker 1: was around eighteen eighties six to nineteen o nine that
3:55
Speaker 1: the phenomenon of wander lust be came a thing where
4:02
Speaker 1: people would be seemingly for no reason, um, wandering around
4:07
Speaker 1: Europe in in in like a fugue state, like that
4:11
Speaker 1: that time where Walter White. Never mind, that's a that's
4:14
Speaker 1: a spoiler alert. Forget about that. Forget I said anything.
4:17
Speaker 1: Watch Breaking Bad. It's a great show. Now's the time. Um,
4:20
Speaker 1: But Yeah, a fugue state, being like sort of like
4:22
Speaker 1: a waking sleep type situation where you're just sort of
4:27
Speaker 1: zombified walking around. Um. They were crossing borders, um, with
4:32
Speaker 1: no papers, going into other continents, even with with nothing
4:36
Speaker 1: in mind for for an endpoint. Um, and what's going on?
4:40
Speaker 1: This seems like madness. Uh. They would often be arrested,
4:44
Speaker 1: some would be um subjected to mental health quarantine, you know,
4:49
Speaker 1: put into an insane asylum. What they called him at
4:52
Speaker 1: the time. Um, it was collectively referred to. I said,
4:55
Speaker 1: wander lust. We'll get into that. But the scientific term
4:59
Speaker 1: that was bandied about the time was I love this,
5:01
Speaker 1: hope I can say it right, dromomania. And that is
5:04
Speaker 1: based on reporting by a philosopher by the name of
5:08
Speaker 1: Ian Hacking, who is also the author of Mad Travelers
5:10
Speaker 1: Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illnesses. Yeah. Physicians
5:16
Speaker 1: also referred to this as quote pathological tourism. Today we
5:22
Speaker 1: call it something else. We call it wanderlust. And wanderlust
5:26
Speaker 1: is a fascinating word for any fans of etymology in
5:29
Speaker 1: in the podcast house today. It doesn't really have a
5:33
Speaker 1: translation into English from German. It's one of those words
5:38
Speaker 1: where it feels like when you say it, we all
5:41
Speaker 1: kind of get the gist, right. It's it's this deep,
5:44
Speaker 1: abiding desire, dare we say, a lust to to hit
5:48
Speaker 1: the streets, to travel, right, It's like that B fifty
5:52
Speaker 1: two song Rome, you know, Rome, if you want to
5:55
Speaker 1: roam around the world without wings, without whatever else there without.
6:00
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it's that that that that song to me,
6:03
Speaker 1: sums up the sentiment of wanderlust. It's this voice calling
6:07
Speaker 1: from within that is uh, that is urging you to
6:10
Speaker 1: go forth and explore the your surroundings and beyond. Right, Yeah,
6:14
Speaker 1: I I also think of a bit of nostalgia for me.
6:17
Speaker 1: I also think of on the Road again, because I
6:19
Speaker 1: don't know about you guys, but as soon as I
6:21
Speaker 1: could drive, I pulled out my map and I made this, uh,
6:25
Speaker 1: this series of concentric circles that would let me know
6:28
Speaker 1: how far out I could drive and then how long
6:31
Speaker 1: would take me to get back. And I always played
6:33
Speaker 1: on the Road again. You know, I know it's a
6:36
Speaker 1: corny song. I get it, but I embrace it and wanderlust,
6:40
Speaker 1: this compulsion to travel nowadays, it's uh, it's something that
6:44
Speaker 1: we view as relatively benign, right, someone's like, oh, wanderlust
6:48
Speaker 1: took me and I decided to just hit the open road,
6:52
Speaker 1: you know. Uh, happy trails to you and so on.
6:55
Speaker 1: And the weird thing is back in France in the
6:59
Speaker 1: late eighteenth century, this was considered a disease. Like you said,
7:05
Speaker 1: people were traveling in a kind of a trance state. Uh,
7:09
Speaker 1: they didn't really seem to know what they were doing
7:12
Speaker 1: where they were going. And as this spread, people were
7:16
Speaker 1: struggling to get a handle on what actually was happening.
7:20
Speaker 1: It seemed like it was maybe even less a I
7:23
Speaker 1: guess you would say, a true psychiatric condition and more
7:26
Speaker 1: like a diagnosis of convenience. Anytime somebody was doing something
7:32
Speaker 1: the violated norms or status quo, doctors might say, ah,
7:36
Speaker 1: you're a jeromomaniac. And it could it was applied to
7:40
Speaker 1: any number of situations, right, Oh, yeah, it sure was. Um.
7:45
Speaker 1: From that from that book we talked about earlier Mad Travelers,
7:47
Speaker 1: Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illnesses. Um. It
7:51
Speaker 1: describes the first man who is diagnosed with this condition,
7:54
Speaker 1: by the name of Gen Albert Dada. How did I do, Casey? Yeah, yeah,
8:00
Speaker 1: it sounds good. Casey on the case he was diagnosed
8:05
Speaker 1: with what was then being referred to as traveling sickness UM,
8:12
Speaker 1: and the diagnosis read as such UM. He was diagnosed
8:17
Speaker 1: with traveling obsessively, often without identification or specific reason for
8:23
Speaker 1: why he was traveling. I mean, to me, this just
8:27
Speaker 1: sounds like good old fashion just taking a walk, you know,
8:31
Speaker 1: like going out and smelling the roses like it's It
8:34
Speaker 1: seems very totalitarian to require someone to have a destination
8:39
Speaker 1: in mind. Uh, who is this hurting? Ben? Who is
8:42
Speaker 1: this hurting? This is hurting? Who is this hurting? Just
8:46
Speaker 1: wanting wandering without a destination in mind? I don't understand
8:49
Speaker 1: who is uh? Wh who is going to suffer as
8:52
Speaker 1: a result of this? Well we have to understand. See,
8:55
Speaker 1: this is what establishment with this idea of a convenient diagnosis.
8:58
Speaker 1: Just like just like doctors were diagnosing all all sorts
9:03
Speaker 1: of patients from all sorts of walks of life with
9:05
Speaker 1: quote unquote hysteria, People were being diagnosed with dromomania to
9:12
Speaker 1: cover up or politely addressed things that ordinary society would
9:16
Speaker 1: not would not put in public spaces, Like people were
9:20
Speaker 1: diagnosed with dromomania for leaving their families, for instance, for
9:24
Speaker 1: deserting the military, and of course experiencing about of amnesia,
9:28
Speaker 1: so it kind of became a catch all or a
9:32
Speaker 1: miscellaneous diagnosis. In the case of Data, he may have
9:37
Speaker 1: had a genuine, uh mental problem because when he was
9:42
Speaker 1: very young, at the age of eight, he fell out
9:44
Speaker 1: of a tree and he had a concussion that caused
9:48
Speaker 1: fits of vomiting and migraines. This may have been according
9:53
Speaker 1: to historians, this may have been a physiological cause for
9:59
Speaker 1: his his wander lust. One day when he was twelve,
10:03
Speaker 1: he just disappeared, and then he surfaced later in a
10:07
Speaker 1: nearby town. Now, for a lot of us listening today,
10:10
Speaker 1: we would just say, hey, that's that's what twelve year
10:12
Speaker 1: olds do. Like kids want to run away sometimes, right, Yeah,
10:16
Speaker 1: that's true. I was just gonna say it sounds like
10:18
Speaker 1: the healthy curiosity of a young lad trying to find
10:21
Speaker 1: his way in the world. But now he did apparently
10:24
Speaker 1: have some, um, some qualities that took it a little
10:28
Speaker 1: further than that. Uh So he disappeared, and when he
10:32
Speaker 1: resurfacing that nearby town, his brother found him and uh
10:37
Speaker 1: and and gave him a good shake, and um he
10:41
Speaker 1: had apparently been uh wandering around with a traveling umbrella
10:46
Speaker 1: salesman acting as his young apprentice. I guess, um, and
10:51
Speaker 1: he hab thiss sense about him, according to his brother,
10:57
Speaker 1: almost as if he had been awakened from some sort
11:00
Speaker 1: of deep sleep, like he had been hypnotized in some
11:03
Speaker 1: way or under the spell of this uh, this, this
11:07
Speaker 1: umbrella salesman, or at least at the very least the
11:09
Speaker 1: idea of wandering. Yeah, yes, this dastardly umbrella salesman, right,
11:15
Speaker 1: the silent threat of France. Yeah, it's true. He blacked
11:19
Speaker 1: out and spontaneously traveled, not once, but numerous times. He
11:24
Speaker 1: would wake up or I guess, come to full consciousness
11:28
Speaker 1: on benches, in public spaces, uh, in police stations, on
11:33
Speaker 1: trains headed to cities he had never dreamed of going to.
11:37
Speaker 1: And sometimes he would have traveled so far away in
11:40
Speaker 1: his FuG state that he would actually have to work
11:43
Speaker 1: odd jobs just to get enough money to make it
11:46
Speaker 1: back home. We have, we have a couple of different
11:50
Speaker 1: weird stories about him, like that time he ended up
11:52
Speaker 1: in Algeria. Yeah, less obscure as always does a fabulous
11:55
Speaker 1: job of listening off some of these great stories. Um.
11:58
Speaker 1: In an article called in wanderlust was a disease, and
12:02
Speaker 1: it goes into good detail about the story. When he
12:05
Speaker 1: woke up. Um, he had apparently taken a ship to Algeria,
12:09
Speaker 1: earned his keep on said ship by becoming like a
12:12
Speaker 1: galley hand where he would, you know, do dishes, and
12:16
Speaker 1: then it hopped a ship that took him back to
12:18
Speaker 1: France and he was arrested, Um in a French city.
12:22
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, it seems so obvious. I'm gonna try my
12:24
Speaker 1: best pronouncing this. Uh casey A I X. I'm gonna
12:27
Speaker 1: go with X. What do you think. Yeah, that's that's
12:31
Speaker 1: pretty much red. It would be like X, like X
12:34
Speaker 1: Excel Province, and that is the city in question here
12:36
Speaker 1: often just referred to in shorthand as X. And he
12:39
Speaker 1: is arrested there because he was an undocumented laborer. Uh
12:44
Speaker 1: and Um, he you know, had been kind of slipping
12:48
Speaker 1: in and out of these few states from job to job.
12:50
Speaker 1: It seems like a pretty high functioning psychological condition. And
12:53
Speaker 1: that you can you know, you're kind of drifting around
12:56
Speaker 1: and doing these things and waking up from these uh,
12:58
Speaker 1: these weird dream like states. But you managed to keep
13:00
Speaker 1: a job, you know. That's that's that's not easy. That's
13:03
Speaker 1: the weirdest part in addition to his his various fugue
13:08
Speaker 1: state uh freelance gigs, that's what I'll call them. Uh,
13:12
Speaker 1: he had a solid job at a gas company. He
13:17
Speaker 1: had been apprentice to a manufacturer there since he was twelve.
13:20
Speaker 1: And Maud Casey, an author who wrote a fictionalized version
13:25
Speaker 1: of Donna's life called The Man who Walked Away, says
13:30
Speaker 1: how he kept this job was a mystery to me,
13:33
Speaker 1: because he was always wandering off. I mean, let's remember
13:36
Speaker 1: to not just he wasn't just going into feuge freelance states.
13:40
Speaker 1: He was also going to prisons. He was also going
13:43
Speaker 1: to asylums. People began to know his story. Word spread
13:48
Speaker 1: about this accidental tourist who's walking around a bit zombified,
13:53
Speaker 1: and even today, as reported in Fanta dot com, when
13:58
Speaker 1: too much travel was a sickness. Even to day, some
14:00
Speaker 1: people question whether or not he was legit, whether he
14:05
Speaker 1: was sincerely encountering, um, you know, some mental problems, or
14:10
Speaker 1: whether he was just kind of swindling people. He always
14:14
Speaker 1: managed to find some way to get home. He always
14:17
Speaker 1: uh managed to be safe, you know what I mean,
14:21
Speaker 1: Like he didn't wake up in a in a zoo
14:23
Speaker 1: fighting a tiger or anything and this caused some people
14:27
Speaker 1: to believe that maybe these episodes were deliberate attempts to
14:33
Speaker 1: erase his own presence, you know, get off the grid,
14:36
Speaker 1: start somewhere else, or maybe just escape his day to
14:38
Speaker 1: day life. Well, he sure had me going, man, he
14:41
Speaker 1: sure had me going, because I was thinking the same thing.
14:44
Speaker 1: But also it was like the poor guy. So again,
14:48
Speaker 1: we don't really know one way or the other. But
14:49
Speaker 1: it does seem a little suspicious that he never found
14:53
Speaker 1: his way into any uh, perilous situations, because seems like,
14:57
Speaker 1: you know, someone with this almost was like a more
14:59
Speaker 1: extreme form of narcolepsy or something, And people who are
15:01
Speaker 1: in arcalyptics don't get to decide where they fall out,
15:05
Speaker 1: right and where they come come to Uh certainly wouldn't
15:08
Speaker 1: be in the comfort of a park bench necessarily. It
15:10
Speaker 1: could be very well while driving at the wheel or
15:13
Speaker 1: like riding on horseback. At this time, I guess, now
15:17
Speaker 1: this is this is past horseback. Forget I said that,
15:20
Speaker 1: Uh so what horses? People? Yeah, okay, but it's not
15:24
Speaker 1: like the primary moto transportation. But he could very well
15:26
Speaker 1: have been on horseback. It's not beyond the realm of possibility.
15:34
Speaker 1: So what happens next ben Um. He really has his
15:38
Speaker 1: kind of all star uh fugue states wander lust Um
15:44
Speaker 1: encounter in eight one when he joined the French army. See,
15:51
Speaker 1: this is the one that really makes me think he's
15:52
Speaker 1: a kind of taken the the p out of people,
15:56
Speaker 1: as the Brits say. Um. He joins the French army
15:59
Speaker 1: near um mon Um and he heads east and he
16:04
Speaker 1: he goes through uh some cities in Europe, Prague, Possan, Berlin,
16:09
Speaker 1: and Moscow um by foot. And in Prussia he uh
16:15
Speaker 1: gets a nasty dog bite and he lands in the
16:18
Speaker 1: hospital and he gets recognized because he's a bit of
16:22
Speaker 1: a local celebrity because of his accidental tourism. Um. But
16:26
Speaker 1: unfortunately this is very very very bad timing for Dada
16:31
Speaker 1: because the czar had been assassinated and um Da Da,
16:37
Speaker 1: who had was a known nihilist his philosophy, was arrested
16:43
Speaker 1: again from the hospital and thrown into jail. Yeah, a
16:49
Speaker 1: known nihilist, Tallebowski is that so his his Ferris Bueller,
16:55
Speaker 1: his Ferres Bueller adventure does not end well for him,
16:58
Speaker 1: at least at that moment. Uh. Three months after he's
17:02
Speaker 1: thrown in jail, or thrown in prison. Rather there is
17:05
Speaker 1: a difference. He and the other prisoners are marched out
17:09
Speaker 1: to Constantinople and the French consule gives him enough money,
17:14
Speaker 1: just enough money for a fourth class train ticket. So
17:18
Speaker 1: he goes back to his his stomping grounds, and he
17:22
Speaker 1: goes back to his job at the gas factory. What
17:24
Speaker 1: on earth is going on with this guy? Uh? Fast forward.
17:29
Speaker 1: He is in a hospital in Bordeaux and his case
17:34
Speaker 1: catches the eye of a young neuropsychiatrist, Philippe a ghost. Yeah,
17:41
Speaker 1: that would be Philip case on the case. You are
17:45
Speaker 1: saving the day in this episode. So this young neuropsychiatrist
17:50
Speaker 1: gets obsessed with Dada and and he's saying, you know,
17:54
Speaker 1: this guy is nuts. He has an uncontrollable urge to
17:58
Speaker 1: wander or travel. I'm gonna call it dro romania. That's right,
18:03
Speaker 1: dro romania, which becomes the prevailing term for that uncontrollable
18:07
Speaker 1: wander lust. And here's the kicker. Uh. That really kind
18:12
Speaker 1: of sets Data part uh and really convinces Testia that
18:16
Speaker 1: this was a legitimate psychological condition. Apparently Data could only
18:21
Speaker 1: remember his travels when he was hypnotized. Interesting, right, you know,
18:27
Speaker 1: when he was put into a trance. Apparently he was
18:30
Speaker 1: an open book in a meadow on a sunny day.
18:33
Speaker 1: And when the neuropsychiatrist is hearing these stories relaid while
18:40
Speaker 1: the patient is a sensibly under hypnosis, he's writing them
18:44
Speaker 1: down and he compiles this this huge anthology for lack
18:49
Speaker 1: of a better word, of the guy's experiences, and he
18:52
Speaker 1: sends it to a medical journal under the name the
18:56
Speaker 1: Mad Travelers, so he's patients he wrote for this, And
19:00
Speaker 1: this happens often. You know, there's one person with maybe
19:03
Speaker 1: an inexplicable condition and there they They often end up
19:08
Speaker 1: being kind of an historical footnote, like that one guy
19:12
Speaker 1: we talked about who was able to eat everything and
19:14
Speaker 1: may have been a mutant. Remember him, No, that was
19:18
Speaker 1: the farting guy. That's the flatty list. Yeah yeah, who
19:22
Speaker 1: who was Uh that's him? Yeah yeah, yeah, he was
19:26
Speaker 1: the he was the eating guy. He he and the
19:27
Speaker 1: peto man should have teamed up, so he got the
19:30
Speaker 1: farting guy and the eating guy, and then this guy
19:33
Speaker 1: could have been part of their weird, stupid superpower crew.
19:37
Speaker 1: There's the sleepy wandering guy, and then it would be
19:40
Speaker 1: another another addition that could have another useless ability. Do
19:43
Speaker 1: they have to be French? Uh No, I'll allow any
19:46
Speaker 1: any European of European descent. Now, you know, well, let's
19:50
Speaker 1: broaden it. Let's broaden that. Do we have any others
19:52
Speaker 1: in the Annals of Ridiculous History that uh I'm trying
19:56
Speaker 1: to think you did we talk about the Habsburgs? No?
20:00
Speaker 1: Uh so maybe maybe a Hapsburg. What I like about
20:03
Speaker 1: this idea, no, is that the sleepy forgetful traveler could
20:08
Speaker 1: have actually been part of this weird superhero group and
20:11
Speaker 1: just forgot about it. Is this is it the habsburg
20:14
Speaker 1: because they can bleed all over you? What's the deal
20:16
Speaker 1: with the Habsburgs. Oh? That Habsburgs are just uh, we're
20:20
Speaker 1: just egregiously in bread, right, So they might have been
20:24
Speaker 1: some hemophiliacs in the bunch and they can just bleed
20:26
Speaker 1: all over you. There you go. Probably probably some color blindness.
20:31
Speaker 1: Uh probably. Oh and they were super rich, right, so
20:34
Speaker 1: they're the they're the money bags of the superhero group
20:37
Speaker 1: are assembling. Uh so, Uh, here here's the thing. Maybe
20:43
Speaker 1: maybe Donna's real power was not just his FuG state
20:47
Speaker 1: and amnesia traveling. Maybe his real power was to set
20:52
Speaker 1: and create trends because he may have been the first
20:57
Speaker 1: case of dromomania, but he certainly not to be the last. No,
21:02
Speaker 1: he really wasn't um there this this thing, it was
21:06
Speaker 1: being more and more looked at as as an epidemic,
21:09
Speaker 1: as as a truly contagious that's the thing, where like
21:12
Speaker 1: is it is a mental illness, isn't contagious. But there
21:16
Speaker 1: was a weird cross over here. Uh. It was after
21:19
Speaker 1: Tissy kind of gave data his diagnosis and and crowned
21:23
Speaker 1: him as patient zero more or less of this thing. Uh,
21:27
Speaker 1: there were a ton of other diagnoses that followed, and
21:31
Speaker 1: you gotta wonder if that's just confirmation bias. Then you know,
21:34
Speaker 1: when something has a name, all of a sudden, you're
21:37
Speaker 1: gonna see it everywhere and trying to use that name
21:39
Speaker 1: as much as possible, right right, Yeah, No, there was
21:42
Speaker 1: a there was kind of a demographic for the people
21:46
Speaker 1: who would be diagnosed with dromomania. They weren't itinerant travelers.
21:52
Speaker 1: They weren't vagrants, you know, or or hoboes, tramps, etcetera,
21:56
Speaker 1: whatever you wanna call it. They didn't seem to have
22:00
Speaker 1: common you know, addiction problems. They were not super wealthy,
22:06
Speaker 1: they were middle class but they were working poor. They
22:09
Speaker 1: had jobs, but you know, they didn't own castles or states. Uh,
22:13
Speaker 1: and then one day they would just wander off. I
22:18
Speaker 1: think there's a really big point here that we kind
22:20
Speaker 1: of alluded to at the top of the show, which
22:22
Speaker 1: is that if you tried to do this in Europe now,
22:26
Speaker 1: you would have a more difficult time than than these fellows.
22:30
Speaker 1: Even though there's a free travel zone in the EU,
22:33
Speaker 1: there are some rules and regulations and paperwork, but it
22:36
Speaker 1: was way easier to just sort of walk into a
22:39
Speaker 1: country back then. And this was also it wasn't just
22:42
Speaker 1: like see you know, I asked earlier who this was hurting. Well,
22:45
Speaker 1: I'll tell you it was hurting Ben. It was hurting
22:47
Speaker 1: the very foundation of family life and the family unit,
22:51
Speaker 1: because the notion of vagrancy was becoming a big deal.
22:56
Speaker 1: And that was simply because there was this expectation that
22:59
Speaker 1: people belonged at home with the family, with the wife,
23:03
Speaker 1: with the kids, with the puppy dog, and that by
23:06
Speaker 1: wandering around willy nilly, they were somehow endangering that the
23:11
Speaker 1: very foundation of society. Yeah. Yeah, and there's there's an
23:15
Speaker 1: interesting conspiracy here, a very well intentioned conspiracy military doctors
23:21
Speaker 1: were very well aware of the incredibly harsh punishments that
23:27
Speaker 1: deserters could face, you know, incarceration or even actual execution.
23:33
Speaker 1: You could be killed for deserting. So sometimes we believe
23:36
Speaker 1: they would diagnose a deserter with dromomania, which is kind
23:41
Speaker 1: of like saying, hey, I know they didn't show up
23:44
Speaker 1: to their duties as a soldier, but it's not because
23:48
Speaker 1: they were trying to run away. It's because they have
23:50
Speaker 1: this mental condition, and therefore we can't really blame them,
23:54
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So it was like to
23:56
Speaker 1: spare them, it was it was really to help them out,
23:59
Speaker 1: at least in some cases. I could see that if
24:02
Speaker 1: they had someone who could maybe vouch for them or
24:05
Speaker 1: high up in the in their in their ranks, that
24:08
Speaker 1: would maybe, you know, talk to the doctor and say, hey,
24:11
Speaker 1: he's a good man. Maybe uh throw him a bone
24:14
Speaker 1: and give him this time and make the diagnosis go
24:16
Speaker 1: his way. I don't know, I'm just guessing guessing here,
24:19
Speaker 1: but it certainly sees why would the doctor care, you know,
24:22
Speaker 1: if I if the person truly was a deserter, you know,
24:25
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm just wondering why they would bother uh,
24:28
Speaker 1: looking out for someone if they really had deserted, which is,
24:31
Speaker 1: you know, even to the least patriotic of us, it's
24:34
Speaker 1: not particularly cool to desert if you're like meant to be,
24:38
Speaker 1: you know, in the service of your country and you're
24:40
Speaker 1: needed just to take off unless the cause is absolutely hopeless,
24:44
Speaker 1: like in that Path of Glory movie. I would have
24:46
Speaker 1: hoped those guys would have deserted. But I'm getting ahead
24:48
Speaker 1: of myself. Well, you know, it makes me think of
24:51
Speaker 1: the hippocratic oath. I imagine in at least a few cases,
24:55
Speaker 1: the charge to do no harm was a huge motivator
24:59
Speaker 1: for the doctors. You know, they probably didn't agree with
25:02
Speaker 1: the the the idea of desertion, but they didn't want
25:05
Speaker 1: to be directly involved in the loss of a human life.
25:09
Speaker 1: That's if we're being very optimistic. You know, maybe they
25:12
Speaker 1: were paid by deserters, right, maybe they were bribed. We
25:15
Speaker 1: don't know, We do not know, but we do know
25:17
Speaker 1: that it happened. Um this was it caught on and
25:21
Speaker 1: and and you know, I mean it certainly wasn't an
25:23
Speaker 1: epidemic that you could measure in terms of uh, you know,
25:26
Speaker 1: any kind of virus or disease or any kind of
25:30
Speaker 1: you know, evidence of of a real transmittable sickness. But
25:35
Speaker 1: we do see evidence of it, and it's um, the
25:39
Speaker 1: ballooning of these diagnoses. Yeah, this is a this is
25:43
Speaker 1: a time when medical science is wild. Maybe this is
25:48
Speaker 1: like these are the days of uh, you know people, uh,
25:51
Speaker 1: people exploring all kinds of things in a pseudo scientific way.
25:55
Speaker 1: So they called dromomania an impulse control disorder like domania, pyromania,
26:01
Speaker 1: or dipsomania, dipsomania being the need to drink alcohol. But
26:07
Speaker 1: there's there's one thing, uh oh gosh, I gotta say it.
26:12
Speaker 1: My my favorite book in the entirety of this research
26:16
Speaker 1: is a book by a guy named Benjamin Khan or
26:18
Speaker 1: Khan uh and the name of the book is The
26:21
Speaker 1: Book of Minor Perverts. You see that one. No, I
26:26
Speaker 1: did read the Book of Major Perverts though, Um, but
26:29
Speaker 1: I I need to get a little more uh minutia
26:32
Speaker 1: in the world of pervs so that that'll be some
26:34
Speaker 1: good quarantine reading for me. I think this author is
26:42
Speaker 1: a professor of English and Women's and gender studies at
26:45
Speaker 1: Louisiana State University. And they say that the dromomaniac was
26:51
Speaker 1: one of a quote numberless family of perverts that were
26:55
Speaker 1: highly specific and interconnected. Dromomania Chaon says, established stability as
27:02
Speaker 1: a key kind of condition for what is normal or
27:06
Speaker 1: for what is seen, you know, as heterosexual, at least
27:09
Speaker 1: in in this professor's opinion. And I think, you know,
27:12
Speaker 1: that echoes back to what you were saying earlier about
27:15
Speaker 1: how vagrancy was seen as such a violation of France's
27:19
Speaker 1: moral code and culture. You were supposed to be a
27:22
Speaker 1: family man, and this was a challenge to it. Yeah,
27:26
Speaker 1: it's true. I mean, it's that that that is probably
27:28
Speaker 1: the most fascinating part of it to me. I wonder
27:29
Speaker 1: if that, uh, it was so culturally ingrained. Uh because again,
27:34
Speaker 1: the original descriptions of this and the descriptions in UM
27:37
Speaker 1: this book UM that you know, mentions these conditions, the
27:41
Speaker 1: descriptions really are it sounds like, you know, they're they're
27:45
Speaker 1: describing it with such harsh negativity, as though to demonize
27:49
Speaker 1: these people as mindless zombies, you know, wandering with no
27:53
Speaker 1: care to anyone but themselves or you know, that doesn't
27:57
Speaker 1: make sense to me. I don't know, what do you think?
28:00
Speaker 1: And I'm really on the fence as to whether this
28:01
Speaker 1: was a quote unquote condition or whether it was just
28:05
Speaker 1: like a societal thing that was then it needed to
28:08
Speaker 1: be given a name so that they could make it illegal.
28:11
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, yeah, I'm right there with you.
28:15
Speaker 1: It seems like there's a lot of public panic tied
28:18
Speaker 1: up into this. We know that droom romania functioned almost
28:23
Speaker 1: the way that a a fad would function because it
28:26
Speaker 1: disappeared almost as soon as it appeared. In nineteen nine,
28:32
Speaker 1: psychiatrists completely redefined the concept of what we call a
28:36
Speaker 1: fugue state, and so instead of looking at a fugue
28:40
Speaker 1: state as sort of its own distinct, separate thing, psychiatrists
28:44
Speaker 1: understood it to be a symptom of a deeper mental conditions,
28:48
Speaker 1: such as, for example, schizophrenia. And then, of course World
28:52
Speaker 1: War One occurs, European countries are sealing their borders left
28:56
Speaker 1: and right, so people like data can no longer take
29:00
Speaker 1: those easy train rides. Within what less than twenty five years,
29:05
Speaker 1: diagnoses of dromomania peter out, and eventually you just didn't
29:11
Speaker 1: diagnose people with that anymore. It was it was a
29:14
Speaker 1: disease that disappeared. When you put it that way, it
29:17
Speaker 1: sounds like a good thing, right. It does sound like
29:20
Speaker 1: a good thing then, And I think we can pretty
29:23
Speaker 1: much wrap this episode up here for today, but a
29:26
Speaker 1: little teaser. We've got a great episode coming out soon
29:29
Speaker 1: that's going to be a companion to this about something
29:32
Speaker 1: called hysteria that was very much a kind of hand
29:36
Speaker 1: in hand um condition to this and that specifically involved women,
29:41
Speaker 1: and something called wandering womb syndrome, which I've always found
29:46
Speaker 1: to be both a horrifically sexist and yet hilariously cartoonish concept. Yeah,
29:53
Speaker 1: the the old wandering uterus diagnosis and the uh the
29:58
Speaker 1: massage to relieve people. We're gonna learn a lot about
30:02
Speaker 1: the horrible behavior of the patriarchy in the medical community.
30:07
Speaker 1: We sure are. But before we wrap in, what happened
30:10
Speaker 1: to Data himself? Da himself? Yeah? Uh, Well it's weird
30:16
Speaker 1: because I think we buried the lead here, or buried
30:19
Speaker 1: one of the leads. Did we mention that Data managed
30:23
Speaker 1: to not only get married, but stay married for his
30:25
Speaker 1: whole life? Isn't that nuts? Ye got the gout? If
30:29
Speaker 1: he was a charlatan, he was a damn fine one. Uh.
30:32
Speaker 1: And he like what do you mean? Like how how? What?
30:35
Speaker 1: Like he just disappeared for weeks at a time and
30:38
Speaker 1: just came back and goes, hey, honey, had another one
30:40
Speaker 1: of a few states. Yeah, I guess, so I just
30:44
Speaker 1: needed to get my wander on, you know. And the
30:47
Speaker 1: poor long suffering spouse who had to have the patience
30:51
Speaker 1: of a saint. Uh. Eventually she passed away from tuberculosis
30:56
Speaker 1: and their daughter is adopted by family of gardeners. So
31:01
Speaker 1: in between his few states, dot I would visit her
31:04
Speaker 1: uh and one day she was apparently, according to him, abducted,
31:09
Speaker 1: And soon after that Dotta himself was found dead in
31:14
Speaker 1: a well. So things ended poorly for him. I hate
31:19
Speaker 1: to hear that, Ben, but uh, you now, I mean,
31:22
Speaker 1: when you live that untethered life, sometimes things don't go
31:28
Speaker 1: your way. I don't know what I'm talking about. I
31:30
Speaker 1: really I don't know what to make of this guy, Ben,
31:32
Speaker 1: I really don't know what to make of this guy. Like,
31:34
Speaker 1: do you think he was just completely irresponsible and a
31:37
Speaker 1: terrible husband and father or really had a legitimate psychological condition. Yeah,
31:44
Speaker 1: I don't know, man. I don't want to cast unfair aspersion,
31:48
Speaker 1: but there are a lot of things about this story
31:51
Speaker 1: that don't quite jibe with it being entirely a medical condition,
31:56
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. We're not doctors, so we
31:59
Speaker 1: can't a fish league give this guy a diagnosis. But
32:02
Speaker 1: if I'm being completely objective, it doesn't seem to entirely
32:05
Speaker 1: check out. And that makes me feel like we're very
32:08
Speaker 1: lucky to live in the world we live in today,
32:11
Speaker 1: where you know, quarantine society, quarantine is notwithstanding, we can
32:16
Speaker 1: travel and we won't be uh, we won't be called
32:20
Speaker 1: the downfall of society for doing so. Oh I thought
32:23
Speaker 1: you were saying in the world we live in now,
32:25
Speaker 1: where we just aren't allowed to leave the house at all, uh,
32:29
Speaker 1: on on on on fear of of fine. That's going
32:32
Speaker 1: into effect here in Atlanta tonight. I think at six
32:34
Speaker 1: o'clock it's an official shelter in place where I think
32:37
Speaker 1: you'll get a ticket if you're caught going somewhere. I
32:40
Speaker 1: had some friends say that they were stopped and asked
32:41
Speaker 1: where they were going. Really today, yeah, huh uh huh
32:47
Speaker 1: police stay here we come, baby, right. Yeah, the lockdown
32:52
Speaker 1: here is beginning at six pm. There are a lot
32:54
Speaker 1: of central businesses that will remain open, and it's okay
32:57
Speaker 1: to travel to those. Uh. This be in Atlanta. Liquor
33:01
Speaker 1: stores are considered an essential business. Uh, and alcohol consumption
33:05
Speaker 1: has gone through the roof for the city. Oh, I
33:08
Speaker 1: bet it has. Um, I'm about the same, but I'm
33:11
Speaker 1: definitely gonna have a little happy hour with some folks
33:14
Speaker 1: on my team. And I don't know if you doing
33:15
Speaker 1: anything a five thirty Evan you want to join our
33:17
Speaker 1: virtual happy hour, you are more than welcome, sir. Thanks
33:20
Speaker 1: so much, man, only if Casey can come, Oh you know,
33:23
Speaker 1: case he can come, I'll i'll, I'll send you a
33:26
Speaker 1: white cloth in spirit. Thanks so much, man, I appreciate that.
33:31
Speaker 1: I actually these virtual hangout meetings are killing me. I
33:34
Speaker 1: don't know about you, guys, but I think I've got
33:36
Speaker 1: another one at six. That's why I did last week
33:38
Speaker 1: that was gonna invite you guys to I think I
33:41
Speaker 1: sent you the message last week. Wait, are you doing
33:44
Speaker 1: one with your folks at six? Yeah, just some random
33:46
Speaker 1: coworkers of ours. That would be nice. Because we did
33:49
Speaker 1: it last week. Well then maybe we should just combine
33:51
Speaker 1: ours folks. We don't need to get in the weeds
33:53
Speaker 1: about the details. But as you can tell, Uh, we're
33:57
Speaker 1: we're happy, We're safe. Uh, we missed each other. We
34:00
Speaker 1: love hearing from you. I guess, yeah, let's see if
34:03
Speaker 1: we can get the band back together and all, what
34:05
Speaker 1: do you say? It sounds like a plan. Um. Thanks
34:07
Speaker 1: to you been as always for being there in this
34:12
Speaker 1: difficult time and continuing to crank out the ridiculous history hits.
34:16
Speaker 1: Huge thanks to super producer Casey Pegram for being a mensch.
34:20
Speaker 1: Alex Williams who composed our theme Christopher hasiotis big. Thanks
34:24
Speaker 1: of course to Eve's Jeff Cote. Big Thanks as always
34:28
Speaker 1: to the people on the front lines of the current situation,
34:31
Speaker 1: the grocery store workers, the truck drivers, the doctors, the educators.
34:36
Speaker 1: I mean, being a teacher is already a very difficult task,
34:39
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of people are are learning
34:41
Speaker 1: that firsthand nowadays. So thank you for listening, Thanks for
34:45
Speaker 1: hanging out, and stay safe, you know, and send us
34:48
Speaker 1: send us bad jokes please do. We'll see you next time. Books.
34:57
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
34:59
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
35:02
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.