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Ethnobotany: How to Get Drugs from Plants · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
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Speaker 1: when people ask me what I do, like, I don't know.
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Speaker 1: I met some friend Emily t other day and she's like,
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Speaker 1: what do you do? I always just say I work
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Speaker 1: for a website, and the when it starts in on stuff,
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Speaker 1: I'm just like, yeah, I just I work for a website. Jo.
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Speaker 1: I have lobbied for Chuck how Chuck works dot com.
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Speaker 1: But people would sign on to that. Man. Uh yeah,
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Speaker 1: this would have been a much better way to start
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Speaker 1: out the future of the Internet one huh. Probably. So
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Speaker 1: instead of we're gonna go back way back, Chuck back
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Speaker 1: in time? Um? Is that Huey Lewis sort of He's
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Speaker 1: playing Tomorrow Night or tonight where I think he's doing Chastain,
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Speaker 1: He's doing like you know, the Memphis uh Stacks Music,
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Speaker 1: Memphis Soul Show, what along with your favorite Huey Lewis classics?
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Speaker 1: What I did not know this? How did you not
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Speaker 1: tell me this? I didn't know? Would you be seriously
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Speaker 1: want to go? I would totally go see Huey Lewis. Dude,
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Speaker 1: have you ever heard Sports? Yeah? I had Sports when
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Speaker 1: I was one of the greatest albums ever released. It
1:39
Speaker 1: was one of the top albums of that year. From
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Speaker 1: beginning to finished, that was a great album. Anyway, Yes,
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Speaker 1: I would see Huey Lewis, and now I figured out
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Speaker 1: how to get there in a few hours. I don't
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Speaker 1: know if it's tonight, but I heard a promo for
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Speaker 1: it today on the radio, so it's good, good, good
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Speaker 1: to know. Um, well, Chuck, we're gonna go even further
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Speaker 1: back than the height of Huey Lewis's career. We're gonna
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Speaker 1: go several thousand years before that. Okay, Now we'll go
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Speaker 1: back to about the height of Hughey Lewis's career, maybe
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Speaker 1: a little before it. When I was a young lad
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Speaker 1: and I was watching TV. Remember those time life books
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Speaker 1: that we talked about here there. So there was one
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Speaker 1: set that, um it was like Mysteries of Mankind or
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Speaker 1: Mysteries of History or something like that, and I remember
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Speaker 1: clearly it said how could ancient civilizations perform brain surgery?
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Speaker 1: And patients survived? And there's this kind of like did
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Speaker 1: almost caveman looking guy like with like a scar on
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Speaker 1: his head and he looked at the camera like, yeah,
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Speaker 1: I'm still alive, but it hurts, you know. I saw
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Speaker 1: that and I went it just captured me. Right. Well,
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Speaker 1: I came to find out that that was a real thing,
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Speaker 1: and that, apart from a lot of the stuff you
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Speaker 1: find in time life books, it was correct. There's such
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Speaker 1: a thing as trep a nation and people actually did
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Speaker 1: survive it. Talk about this in the lobotomies. I think
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Speaker 1: so because I know we had we had to of
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Speaker 1: But trepid nation has been around as a surgical procedure.
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Speaker 1: It's brain surgery in that the brain is affected by it.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes they went in and poked around, but for the
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Speaker 1: most part it was just cutting away a piece of
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Speaker 1: the skull in the scalp to relieve pressure on the brain. Yeah, right,
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Speaker 1: And they did the same thing in a much more
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Speaker 1: sophisticated way these days, for like swelling of the brain. Right,
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Speaker 1: and some traditional societies still carry out trepid nation today. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: but um, as I said, it was successful, some um
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Speaker 1: Andian cultures showed evidence of like at success rate, which
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Speaker 1: is pretty good as far as I know, right, not bad.
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Speaker 1: But this is a really ancient procedure. This is um Neolithic, right,
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Speaker 1: seven thousand and two thousand BC. That's a long time ago. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that's like, uh four to nine thousand years ago. And
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Speaker 1: if you think about that to nine thousand years ago,
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Speaker 1: if they could successfully seventy percent of the time they
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Speaker 1: could successfully open your skull up, well they that with
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Speaker 1: a hundred percent successful Yeah, but you could remove your
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Speaker 1: heart hundred percent success. Right. But um, so trepid nation
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Speaker 1: is this ancient form of surgery. And about the same time,
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Speaker 1: probably people started figuring out that not only could they
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Speaker 1: perform surgery, but if they wanted to, they could hang
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Speaker 1: their shingle out and practice medicine if they knew what
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Speaker 1: they were talking about with plants, right, that's right. So
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Speaker 1: for a long time we suspect UH indigenous groups uh
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Speaker 1: had some sort of idea understanding about what plants were,
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Speaker 1: what what plants could be used for. That's right. But
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Speaker 1: then about there is this explosion, right, yes, this was
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Speaker 1: after the ancient Egyptians and pharaohs poked around and the
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Speaker 1: Sumerians with medicinal plants, um, China, Africa and India, that's
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Speaker 1: what it really exploded. And they actually I started to
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Speaker 1: list these things and put them down on paper or
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Speaker 1: whatever they were using at the time, to to papyrus. Well,
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Speaker 1: in Egypt and ken I, if you want to be technical,
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Speaker 1: there's a papyrus that's um dated to fifteen fifty three
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Speaker 1: BC that lists seven different drugs, a lot of which
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Speaker 1: are plant based, probably almost all. Yeah, I would say,
5:22
Speaker 1: so they weren't doing synthetic chemical spect they know. But
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Speaker 1: about the same time, like you said, in Africa and
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Speaker 1: India and China, like all these people started just jotting
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Speaker 1: down their understandings of plants. And it was extensive, right yeah,
5:34
Speaker 1: like rub this on your sore that and it will
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Speaker 1: ease your pain and suffering exactly, you know, so we
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Speaker 1: should write that down. A lot of trial and error,
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Speaker 1: I imagine, isn't that shacks line from that icy hot
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Speaker 1: and rubbed this there and it'll ease your pain. Um. So,
5:53
Speaker 1: so these these this understanding, this knowledge was like added
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Speaker 1: to and subtracted from, you know, over the course of
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Speaker 1: centuries and in millennia, and then about like the nineteenth century,
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Speaker 1: there is like a sharp divergence, right, yes, Josh, that
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Speaker 1: is when uh, in the first edition of the American Pharmacopeia,
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Speaker 1: early hundreds um drugs at the time we're s plant
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Speaker 1: based flashboard nineteen sixty only five point three were plant based.
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Speaker 1: So what happens is you've introduced people that could figure
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Speaker 1: out how to synthetically duplicate a lot of these plants.
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Speaker 1: So are they still plant based? Does that even count?
6:35
Speaker 1: After a while? I think it's kind of like you
6:37
Speaker 1: know how people say, like this is made with um
6:39
Speaker 1: our our product not tested on animals. That's because it
6:44
Speaker 1: uses stuff that's that was tested on animals thirty years
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Speaker 1: ago and found safe, so no longer. Yes, So I
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Speaker 1: think it's much the same way where once you synthesize
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Speaker 1: something enough for you know, a synthetic alkaloid has this effect,
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Speaker 1: you can use it in all these different ways with
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Speaker 1: something else that makes sense. So that was a that
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Speaker 1: represented a real separation from uh, the West and traditional cultures. Right.
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Speaker 1: This medicinal rift is what I just called it, So
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Speaker 1: kind of like medicinal rifts um as our understanding of
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Speaker 1: chemistry and the effects of drugs on the body groove.
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Speaker 1: Then you know, we we just kind of diverged from
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Speaker 1: traditional societies. But there came to be an awareness at
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Speaker 1: some point in time that all of these rainforests that
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Speaker 1: were destroying, in all of the uncontacted tribes that were
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Speaker 1: running out, um have a wealth of information that wasn't
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Speaker 1: listed in these early pharmacopias. Right, Sure that there's a
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Speaker 1: bunch of understanding of how to cure all sorts of
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Speaker 1: diseases out there, and we kind of need it. So
7:52
Speaker 1: out of that has grown this whole field the sub
7:55
Speaker 1: discipline of anthropology called ethnobotany. Yeah, what was the Connery movie?
8:01
Speaker 1: They were searching for the cure for cancer in the
8:02
Speaker 1: jungle Rangoon beyond Rangoon. No, that was Rangoon man. No,
8:08
Speaker 1: I can't remember the attack of theo. It was the
8:12
Speaker 1: lady from the Sopranos and Good Fellas and then Sean
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Speaker 1: Connery and he they were in the jungle, I think
8:17
Speaker 1: searching for a cure for cancer or something. Good movie.
8:20
Speaker 1: But that's that's the point though, is that the cure
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Speaker 1: for cancer maybe out there in some leaf that we
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Speaker 1: just need to locate and synthesize. Right. The problem is
8:31
Speaker 1: is like the field of ethnobotany isn't training people to
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Speaker 1: go out and eat leaves and write down their thoughts
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Speaker 1: on it. No, you got I guess they're interviewing people
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Speaker 1: local tribesmen, indigenous folks and saying, hey, tell us what
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Speaker 1: you know about medicine. Maybe we can learn something from that.
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Speaker 1: And this is a very very long process. So like, uh,
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Speaker 1: the and ethnobotanist is probably going to be somebody who
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Speaker 1: was trained as a botanist and undergraduate school and then
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Speaker 1: trained in um anthropology, linkinguistics, UM possibly chemistry in grad school.
9:04
Speaker 1: Got to be a people person. You have to be
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Speaker 1: able to chat it up with the possible head shrinkers
9:10
Speaker 1: UM and you go out in the field and you
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Speaker 1: have to gain the trust of the people who have
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Speaker 1: this information. It might not be common to the whole
9:18
Speaker 1: tribe UM. So you have to gain the trust of
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Speaker 1: the person who knows what plant to use for what,
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Speaker 1: and then get that information from them in a way
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Speaker 1: that's agreeable. There's a debate among ethnobotany that's pretty much
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Speaker 1: resolved these days, but for a long time that end
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Speaker 1: justified the means, like if you could cure athletes foot,
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Speaker 1: you know, with this plant, and this guy doesn't want
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Speaker 1: to give it to you, don't you have a moral
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Speaker 1: obligation to basically take that information from him, steal it
9:46
Speaker 1: as it were. Now there's a movement toward making sure
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Speaker 1: that these people are like their trust isn't broken, that
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Speaker 1: they're willing to share it, and if they're not willing
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Speaker 1: to share it, you pay them, pay them money, pay
9:58
Speaker 1: pay them either way. Compensation is is kind of becoming
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Speaker 1: a more of a thing among ethnobotanists rather than thank you,
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Speaker 1: you've done something great here bringing the trucks. Yeah. Well,
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Speaker 1: not only just what the plant is though, but obviously
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Speaker 1: they need specifics. They need to know what part of
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Speaker 1: the plant because you know, I wrote that article a
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Speaker 1: while back on how you can I think the universal
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Speaker 1: edibility test. You know some parts of a plant, like
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Speaker 1: eat the leaf and you can sustain on it. Eat
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Speaker 1: the root and you die in ten seconds. So what
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Speaker 1: part of the plant, how much of it to use um,
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Speaker 1: which would essentially be the prescription, right, And so the
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Speaker 1: ethnobotanist finds the stuff out, takes it back to the
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Speaker 1: synthetic chemist, who basically has to go over the you know,
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Speaker 1: hopefully the ethnobotanist is like, it's the leaves, just focused
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Speaker 1: on the leaves rather than you know, having to do
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Speaker 1: this on the plant and the stems and the seeds
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Speaker 1: or the flowers or whatever. But a crazy job. Imagine
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Speaker 1: how difficult that is. It is very difficult to synthesize
10:53
Speaker 1: something like that. Well, first they have to isolate it.
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Speaker 1: They gotta find out because you know, the local shame
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Speaker 1: isn't He's not gonna be like, well, it's this alkaloid
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Speaker 1: in there that's um, you know, going to really get
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Speaker 1: you off, um healing you exactly. Um, it's the it's
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Speaker 1: the synthetic chemist who isolates the active ingredient and then
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Speaker 1: figures out if they can put together a synthetic version
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Speaker 1: of it. Because one way to get medicine from plants
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Speaker 1: is simple extraction, right, But that's not the most reliable now,
11:27
Speaker 1: because you can extract uh, let's say the essential oils
11:31
Speaker 1: from one one bit and it might be like really
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Speaker 1: really potent, and another bit might not be so it's
11:36
Speaker 1: not like it's not consistent across the board, right, And
11:39
Speaker 1: if one bit makes it into one jar of that
11:43
Speaker 1: stuff and the other bit makes it into one, somebody
11:45
Speaker 1: who's in pain is not going to get any relief.
11:47
Speaker 1: The other person is going to die because they're gonna
11:50
Speaker 1: get like eighty times that feel really really good depending
11:53
Speaker 1: on what happens. Um So syn synthesis is the artificial
11:59
Speaker 1: synthesis is the um preferred means of of figuring out
12:05
Speaker 1: how to make a reasonable fact simile of this what's
12:10
Speaker 1: in the plant. You're trying to mimic the compounds. And
12:12
Speaker 1: I'm like, if you make it and it's the same thing,
12:16
Speaker 1: it has the same molecular structure as what's found in
12:19
Speaker 1: the plant, but you made it in the lab, it's
12:21
Speaker 1: still the same thing. Right. It's like a test tube baby,
12:24
Speaker 1: Like you're the baby is still a real human. This
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Speaker 1: is still a real compound. I guess on a molecular level, sure,
12:33
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't know. That's a good question. I
12:35
Speaker 1: thought that somebody much smarter than us probably is like, oh, boys,
12:38
Speaker 1: I'll send you an email. I'll let you know. I'm
12:40
Speaker 1: looking forward to that one. I have to say, um,
12:43
Speaker 1: and cheapness is the other reasons. Yes, Well, it's cheaper
12:50
Speaker 1: to synthesize something once you figure it out. I'm sure
12:53
Speaker 1: it's a very long, expensive process, but once you figure
12:55
Speaker 1: it out, you're like, has put a couple of hydrogens
12:58
Speaker 1: in with that helium and want to stand back? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and and better for the environment to like, if something
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Speaker 1: has to stay plant based, you're gonna need a lot
13:05
Speaker 1: of that plant That's true, you know what I'm saying.
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Speaker 1: So we have a lot of success stories in UM
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Speaker 1: synthesizing drugs from plants. Right. Quinine a part of one
13:15
Speaker 1: of my favorite drinks, Gin and tonic. You know it.
13:19
Speaker 1: Quinine is pretty across the board, a pretty awesome thing,
13:22
Speaker 1: I guess. Yeah, that's why tonic water is called tonic
13:25
Speaker 1: water because it has quinine in it and it's a
13:27
Speaker 1: tonic for malaria. Yeah, it's very small amount, but I
13:31
Speaker 1: guess it gives it that signature taste. And don't go
13:33
Speaker 1: with the diet. It's awful. There's a diet tonic it's
13:38
Speaker 1: not very good. You know, I taste that is super better.
13:40
Speaker 1: Remember we when we did the how taste works article,
13:44
Speaker 1: I figured out that I am a super taster of bitterness,
13:48
Speaker 1: like I can barely tolerate tonic water. It's so bitter.
13:51
Speaker 1: Really yeah, interesting campari, don't even get me started. But
13:54
Speaker 1: sometimes I torture myself and just have some anyway, And
13:58
Speaker 1: tonic I've never mixed with explode. So quinine is used
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Speaker 1: to treat malaria based on the chinchona bark. Then you got,
14:07
Speaker 1: let's say, another example, dioxin. I'm sorry, dioxin treating heart conditions.
14:13
Speaker 1: And that comes from the lovely fox glove. The lovely,
14:16
Speaker 1: lovely fox glove that you grow in your garden. We
14:18
Speaker 1: do grow it in my garden. Although my fox glove
14:20
Speaker 1: is dead right now. It's kind of depressing. Yes, it
14:24
Speaker 1: is very dead. Oh no, I'm in depressing. Yeah, of
14:28
Speaker 1: course I look at dead plants. Why are you not
14:31
Speaker 1: watering it frequiently? No, I don't know what the deal
14:33
Speaker 1: was with the fox glove. It might not have transplanted
14:35
Speaker 1: it soon enough, or it might not do well in
14:38
Speaker 1: a hundred and tin heat index heat um sort of shady.
14:46
Speaker 1: Emily is the gardener. I'm just the gardener's assistant. The
14:49
Speaker 1: heavy lifter. Another great example that you listed. This is
14:53
Speaker 1: your article, right, yeah, okay, is morphine. Yeah, the alkaloid
14:59
Speaker 1: from poppy plan It was synthesized into diacetal morphine and
15:04
Speaker 1: sold commercially by Bear for twelve years as heroin. Yeah,
15:08
Speaker 1: that's where heroin came from, called heroin. I'm just gonna
15:12
Speaker 1: go to the drug store and get some heroin. That's awesome. Yeah.
15:17
Speaker 1: And what's what's crazy is the heroine that's created today.
15:21
Speaker 1: You can make a case is um synthesize every time
15:25
Speaker 1: a batch is made because it's it's derived from the
15:28
Speaker 1: opium poppy. But then you screw with it a little
15:30
Speaker 1: bit to make something different, slightly different. So um. But yes,
15:34
Speaker 1: Bear invented heroin. Wow, it's amazing. Um. And then Bear
15:40
Speaker 1: also invented aspirin, which is derived from willow bark. That's right.
15:46
Speaker 1: And are you gonna say, uh, a set of salic acid?
15:50
Speaker 1: Nice one, that's aspirin. But what what's the natural compound? Um? Salison? Yes,
15:56
Speaker 1: salison um. And that was that was everybody's known about
16:00
Speaker 1: willow bark for at least some Syppocrates who wrote about
16:03
Speaker 1: it um. And he was a Greek and he lived
16:06
Speaker 1: in probably like the third century BC, fourth century BC.
16:14
Speaker 1: I always I wish we used zero more in this culture.
16:17
Speaker 1: It's so screwy, I know, but I love it. Anytime
16:20
Speaker 1: you're trying to place a time like this, you always
16:22
Speaker 1: kind of give this look up like you're trying to
16:23
Speaker 1: remember hanging out with that person, like forth saying no,
16:27
Speaker 1: I think that was third remember correctly, Yeah, so yeah
16:31
Speaker 1: it was. I mean it was an anti inflammatory and
16:34
Speaker 1: a fever reducer way back then. Still is, And that's
16:37
Speaker 1: one of the cool things when you people that poop
16:39
Speaker 1: poo Eastern medicine and things, it's like a lot of
16:42
Speaker 1: this stuff we use today is just a synthesized version
16:45
Speaker 1: of rubbing bark on your face and a lot, a lot,
16:48
Speaker 1: a lot more than you'd think. El Dopa, which is
16:51
Speaker 1: used to treat Parkinson's, derived from a plant. Um there's
16:55
Speaker 1: a whole awesome list if you if you search um
16:59
Speaker 1: uh plants synthesized drugs or drugs synthesized plants and a
17:05
Speaker 1: search engine, I think the first result is going to
17:08
Speaker 1: be this list from like the year two thousands of
17:11
Speaker 1: modern drugs that were from plants. Yes, and possibly my
17:16
Speaker 1: all time favorite, valium was derived from Valerian root, which
17:20
Speaker 1: I found out and just started taking a lot of
17:21
Speaker 1: Valerian root. Now you can make a t from it,
17:24
Speaker 1: and it's does it chill you up? Really? Yeah? It
17:29
Speaker 1: will knock you out too, if really concentrated. But it
17:33
Speaker 1: stinks that I haven't and I want to see o
17:36
Speaker 1: A right now. I am not in any way, shape
17:39
Speaker 1: or form recommending anyone try anything that I ever say
17:44
Speaker 1: that I do. Ever, even that's like, that's in a
17:48
Speaker 1: supplement store, right it is. But you know what, that's
17:50
Speaker 1: funny you're saying that because I was listening to why
17:53
Speaker 1: why doesn't the f d A regulate herbs? And we
17:56
Speaker 1: had this conversation that it's like, because it's in a
17:59
Speaker 1: natural food store, we just think that it's like, oh,
18:02
Speaker 1: it's fine, it's harmless. But you could totally odeon any
18:05
Speaker 1: number of things in a natural food store. It's because
18:08
Speaker 1: the FDA doesn't regulate it that it appears harmless even
18:10
Speaker 1: though it is. Yeah. Um, this brings up a point, Josh,
18:16
Speaker 1: that I think have always believed that the there is
18:21
Speaker 1: no disease that wherein the cure is not somewhere on
18:26
Speaker 1: the planet Earth. Oh is that you believe that? I've
18:30
Speaker 1: always thought that? And this you know this is true?
18:32
Speaker 1: Look at all, Like every plant that is eventually synthesized
18:35
Speaker 1: into medicine. I think the answers are all out there.
18:38
Speaker 1: It's just a matter of God's great scavenger hunt. Yeah. Maybe,
18:41
Speaker 1: so I like that idea. Okay, I've been hitting you
18:46
Speaker 1: with the home dingers lately, haven't I you? So you
18:49
Speaker 1: can kind of see Aspirin has been around for a while,
18:51
Speaker 1: Heroine has been around for a while, Tonic has been
18:54
Speaker 1: around for a while. Um, we're still making stuff from plants,
19:00
Speaker 1: but we've also figured out another way to use plants
19:02
Speaker 1: for medicine. And let's to use like UH enzymes from
19:06
Speaker 1: the plants as catalysts and UH chemical reactions cells as
19:10
Speaker 1: little petrie dishes almost. Yeah, Basically, if you want to
19:13
Speaker 1: carry out a um A chemical reaction in a safe
19:17
Speaker 1: environment injected into a plant cell, it's a great little
19:20
Speaker 1: house for it. And they're little factories. They make all
19:23
Speaker 1: sorts of stuff we need in chemical reactions to synthesize drugs,
19:27
Speaker 1: so they help in all sorts of ways. So up
19:30
Speaker 1: with plants, yes, but not just plants chuck, Not just
19:33
Speaker 1: plants that we might like to just chew on once
19:36
Speaker 1: in a while. Like Valerian right, but also poisons. For
19:41
Speaker 1: for just as long as um medicinal plants have been
19:46
Speaker 1: used as drugs, we've also used poisons as well. Yeah,
19:48
Speaker 1: that papyrus, uh you were talking about from lux Or,
19:52
Speaker 1: Egypt that listed all the drugs and plant based drugs,
19:56
Speaker 1: it also listed a lot of poisons and a lots
19:59
Speaker 1: of a lot of antidotes to those poisons. Yeah, because
20:02
Speaker 1: I mean, once we figured out there's such thing as poison,
20:04
Speaker 1: we started looking for ways to cure them, right, And
20:06
Speaker 1: that kind of follows your your logic that, um, there's
20:11
Speaker 1: you know, there's an antidote to every poison, yeah, right,
20:16
Speaker 1: for every malady. I believe that, And not because of
20:18
Speaker 1: any like deep research, but just because of things like this,
20:22
Speaker 1: and because I think the earth is structured that way. Balance, right.
20:27
Speaker 1: But even before that um homeostasis, Yes, even before that
20:32
Speaker 1: papyrus though about years before there is a cham i
20:35
Speaker 1: Egyptian pharaoh named Many's and he was the first person
20:40
Speaker 1: documented to conduct research into poisons because they kill people
20:44
Speaker 1: with poison for years. Socrates was famously killed in BC.
20:50
Speaker 1: That's the fourth century. I wonder how they first discovered
20:53
Speaker 1: that some poisons could actually heal you. I don't know,
20:57
Speaker 1: maybe by killing someone. Maybe right before they die they
21:00
Speaker 1: were like, geez, my back feels great all of a sudden, right,
21:03
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, then they die. Yeah, I don't know,
21:06
Speaker 1: just an idea. Um. We have had a lot of
21:10
Speaker 1: hair brain ideas of what can cure you, like, um,
21:14
Speaker 1: whiskey to cure a snake bite, right, if you're in
21:17
Speaker 1: the Old West, pour some whiskey on it. Right. So
21:20
Speaker 1: in the nine twenties some Brazilian um researchers put that
21:24
Speaker 1: to the test and found that not only is it
21:26
Speaker 1: patently untrue, but it actually makes things worse. Yeah, it
21:31
Speaker 1: speeds up the blood flow. Yeah, the alcohol does, so
21:35
Speaker 1: the delivery of the venom is just much quicker. Yeah.
21:39
Speaker 1: I think the whiskey remedy I would choose is here,
21:42
Speaker 1: drink a lot of this because you've been bitten by
21:45
Speaker 1: a snake and you're gonna die, right, so you might
21:48
Speaker 1: as well just numb the pain. And no one, no
21:51
Speaker 1: one ever had a patient where it actually worked. They
21:53
Speaker 1: just heard of a patient where it worked. That's right, right, Um.
21:56
Speaker 1: But the same Brazilian doctors came up with a way
22:00
Speaker 1: too curious snake bite, didn't they. Yeah, and this is
22:02
Speaker 1: amazing to me too. Everyone knows about anti vennon, which
22:06
Speaker 1: most people call anti venom. It is but although I
22:09
Speaker 1: think I've seen venom is acceptable now because so many
22:12
Speaker 1: people use it or something, well, some of our linguists
22:14
Speaker 1: friends and more progressive ones are like, just let language
22:17
Speaker 1: to go where it's going exactly, um decimate for instance. Uh,
22:23
Speaker 1: what they found out was they can use poison to
22:25
Speaker 1: fight poison. So by injecting a snake's venom into something
22:29
Speaker 1: of large that can take it, like a horse, they
22:31
Speaker 1: would build up an immune system. I bet there's some
22:34
Speaker 1: trial in air there too, but I can't you just
22:36
Speaker 1: see where they're like they inject the horses some venom
22:39
Speaker 1: and go around to its face and punch in there.
22:43
Speaker 1: So they would inject it into the horse, punch them
22:46
Speaker 1: in the face, and then the horse would eventually, you know,
22:49
Speaker 1: build up an immunity and produce antibodies called anti venom,
22:53
Speaker 1: and then they would extract that from the horse the
22:57
Speaker 1: hemoglobe in front of the blood. Now we got an
23:00
Speaker 1: anti evnom that we can use on humans. And so
23:02
Speaker 1: those the anti event and those anybody's when somebody is
23:05
Speaker 1: bit by a snake, when use the ant evnin that's
23:08
Speaker 1: derived from that snake snake's venom. Uh those anybody's go
23:13
Speaker 1: into too, the human find the anybody's find the venom
23:18
Speaker 1: and cling to it so that you can't do anything.
23:20
Speaker 1: It's like off me, no, I'll never let you go.
23:23
Speaker 1: And I want to know how that first started to
23:26
Speaker 1: That's who was the first person who thought maybe this
23:28
Speaker 1: poison that kills us can heal us. These Brazilian doctors
23:34
Speaker 1: were the first ones. And so let's inject into a
23:36
Speaker 1: horse and to see it's just amazing because think about it,
23:39
Speaker 1: I mean it's so massive, No that that makes sense,
23:42
Speaker 1: but just the initial idea, the spark of curiosity, which
23:44
Speaker 1: we always talk about, it's pretty amazing, gorgeous. Yeah yeah, so, um, chuck,
23:49
Speaker 1: if you this is no one knows this yet. This
23:52
Speaker 1: is the big secret. But this podcast, this episode is
23:55
Speaker 1: based on two articles. And did you find the common
23:58
Speaker 1: thread between the two articles, Um, Sean Connery Willie Nilly
24:05
Speaker 1: Willy Nilly in both articles you say that a lot though,
24:08
Speaker 1: that's I can see that. But did you know willy
24:10
Speaker 1: Nilly's hyphenated? Yeah, I thought it was capitalized like a name.
24:16
Speaker 1: Just the Willie part is capitalized willy nilly. So these
24:20
Speaker 1: Brazilian doctors figured that out right, they were not the
24:23
Speaker 1: first to figure out that, hey, this thing that kills
24:26
Speaker 1: me could also in a certain way. At the very least,
24:31
Speaker 1: this is very um uh. This part using poisons right
24:37
Speaker 1: to cure other problems is very logical. It's saying, this
24:42
Speaker 1: poison does this, and this malady does the opposite. So
24:45
Speaker 1: if you apply this poison to this malady, it should
24:48
Speaker 1: bring you back to homeostasis hopefully, which is what we're
24:51
Speaker 1: all searching for. And one of the first guys to
24:53
Speaker 1: to follow this reasoning to the very dangerous conclusion of
24:57
Speaker 1: here take this deadly nightshade um was a Scottish researcher
25:01
Speaker 1: named Thomas Frasier. Are you gonna try this word? Uh?
25:05
Speaker 1: Setal colin stays inhibitor. Wow, thank you you practice that one.
25:11
Speaker 1: That was the first time I said it out loud,
25:12
Speaker 1: although I mouthed it a few times. Well, he's atropine
25:16
Speaker 1: as that thing that you just said that's found in
25:19
Speaker 1: deadly nightshade belladonna very potent hallucinogen um, very dangerous poison
25:24
Speaker 1: as well. And this atropine, which is an active ingredient
25:29
Speaker 1: and contains an alkaloid that this UM, Thomas Fraser figured out,
25:34
Speaker 1: combats the UM the effects of antrax. Yeah, so antrax
25:40
Speaker 1: and saran gas similarly, they're both nerve toxins and the
25:44
Speaker 1: way that they kill you this is horrible. I know,
25:46
Speaker 1: it's unbelievable. So, like you have this thing called a
25:49
Speaker 1: setal colin stairs and uh, it's a normal it's a
25:53
Speaker 1: normal enzyme in your body. That UM basically tells your
25:58
Speaker 1: neurons to fire, your nerves fire because it says, hey,
26:01
Speaker 1: go fire UM, and it breaks down naturally. What saren
26:05
Speaker 1: and antrax do is they prevent it from being broken
26:08
Speaker 1: out and it just hangs out in your synapses and
26:10
Speaker 1: tells your nerves to keep firing and firing and firing,
26:13
Speaker 1: and your body just overloads on electrical charges and you
26:18
Speaker 1: die very painfully, very painfully because you feel everything because
26:21
Speaker 1: all the nerves in your body are firing way more
26:25
Speaker 1: than they should be. UM. So what what Scottish physician
26:29
Speaker 1: Thomas Fraser figured out is that atropine is an acetal
26:32
Speaker 1: colline stays inhibitor, so it goes in and basically binds
26:36
Speaker 1: the receptors where the acetal colling stays would normally bind.
26:41
Speaker 1: It's that itself and hence atropine. This poison can prevent
26:47
Speaker 1: the effects of antrax and saren and that's still used today.
26:50
Speaker 1: Ironically from the Deadly nightshade plant. The whole concept of
26:55
Speaker 1: using poisonous medicine is just dripping with irony. It is
26:59
Speaker 1: it is Josh. Another thing they're doing these days at
27:03
Speaker 1: the University of Buffalo is they are using um chilan
27:07
Speaker 1: tarantula rose tarantula to combat heart attack death. So cell
27:12
Speaker 1: walls have these little channels that open when the cell stretches,
27:16
Speaker 1: and they basically helped to contract and release. Your heart
27:19
Speaker 1: muscles are probably just contract well. They they channel the
27:23
Speaker 1: ions through. These are ion channels. The ions give it
27:26
Speaker 1: the electrical signal, so it's part of the pumping, right.
27:29
Speaker 1: But if these things get too wide, there will be
27:31
Speaker 1: too many positive ions, and that is basically what could
27:34
Speaker 1: potentially lead to a heart attack because it throws off
27:37
Speaker 1: the rhythm, and your heart attack is is just um
27:40
Speaker 1: a rhythmic heartbeat. So this tarantula of enom binds to
27:44
Speaker 1: these channels and blocks it from passing through and potentially
27:48
Speaker 1: saves people from heart attacks. Tarantula in them. Yeah, and scorpions. Yeah,
27:53
Speaker 1: I told you that I knew someone who was undergoing
27:55
Speaker 1: that therapy. We talked about that in the most with
27:57
Speaker 1: the most venomous creature on what we did. Yeah, And
28:01
Speaker 1: I tried to find research on him today to see
28:03
Speaker 1: if he is still fighting his fight with cancer, and
28:06
Speaker 1: I could not find out. But there's a guy I
28:08
Speaker 1: could ask and I got a lot of hope. This
28:11
Speaker 1: guy's a big inspiration for me. Well, it's good. Let
28:14
Speaker 1: everybody know. I will unless it's bad news and then
28:18
Speaker 1: I will just not speak of it. But what we
28:20
Speaker 1: were talking about is scorpion venom UH is being used
28:24
Speaker 1: to treat in his case, brain brain cancer, the Israeli
28:28
Speaker 1: yellow scorpion, and it has a protein that binds itself
28:32
Speaker 1: to UH cancer cells found in glioma's and that is
28:37
Speaker 1: brain cancer actually, and it it basically keeps it from
28:41
Speaker 1: replicating itself, keeps he cells from spreading. Well it does.
28:45
Speaker 1: And they also figured out that you can attach a
28:49
Speaker 1: UM basically a radioactive iodine to this venom, the protein
28:55
Speaker 1: found in the venom, and so the venom goes and
28:57
Speaker 1: seeks out the glioma and it brings with it along
28:59
Speaker 1: for the ride this radioactive iodine and as we all know,
29:03
Speaker 1: cancer cells don't like radiation, so it basically seeks in destroys.
29:08
Speaker 1: It's like a vehicle for it. It is. Is this
29:10
Speaker 1: the iron oxide nanoparticles? I don't know? All right, here's
29:15
Speaker 1: the deal. This is what I got. Chlorotoxin is the
29:18
Speaker 1: chemical that affects the protein, and the protein is what
29:21
Speaker 1: helps spread the cancer. This is new. I think they
29:26
Speaker 1: have a new study where they got chemically bonded iron
29:30
Speaker 1: oxide nanoparticles. They put that with the lab made version
29:34
Speaker 1: of the chlorotoxin and they created these nanoprobes. Each nanoprobe
29:39
Speaker 1: can carry twenty chlorotoxin molecules. Did they paint like that's
29:45
Speaker 1: basically what it is. So it's tumor cell uptakes a
29:49
Speaker 1: single nanoparticle. It's absorbing a lot of this chlorotoxin it once.
29:54
Speaker 1: So basically they did this on on mice and they
29:57
Speaker 1: found that with the nanoparticles that there are the nanoprobes
30:02
Speaker 1: that they're using, um it fights the tumor by percent
30:06
Speaker 1: compared to of just the venom. So I guess they've
30:10
Speaker 1: given it a little super car. They can hold a
30:14
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff in the trunk. That is really cool. Yeah, good.
30:18
Speaker 1: Up with mice, hunt, up with mice, up with scorpion venom,
30:21
Speaker 1: down with cancer? Right, Well, you got anything else? I
30:26
Speaker 1: do not. I don't either, Chuck. I think let's turn
30:30
Speaker 1: out better than I thought. Oh yeah, I had this
30:33
Speaker 1: turned out exactly how I hoped it would. Really yeah,
30:35
Speaker 1: I thought it was gonna be great and it was.
30:37
Speaker 1: That was very nice. Uh. If you want to check
30:40
Speaker 1: out these two articles, you can type in poison medicine
30:45
Speaker 1: and plant medicine into the search bar how stuff works
30:48
Speaker 1: dot Com. That will bring both of them up, along
30:50
Speaker 1: with a bunch of other cool stuff in our wonderful
30:53
Speaker 1: search page. Um. And since I said search bar, you
30:56
Speaker 1: know that means it's time for what they spook question
31:00
Speaker 1: and an answer session. We do this from time to time, Josh,
31:07
Speaker 1: we throw it on Facebook. He ask us anything. We'll
31:10
Speaker 1: zip through as many of these as we can the
31:12
Speaker 1: next couple of episodes. I like how people do ask
31:15
Speaker 1: us anything and then we ignore it a lot of it.
31:18
Speaker 1: Save these, by the way, because we may not be
31:21
Speaker 1: done with these. I printed them out for us. Go ahead,
31:25
Speaker 1: you take the first one. Ah. This one's from Cyrus
31:28
Speaker 1: Brojas at the time when it pronounced his name. Uh,
31:33
Speaker 1: do you guys really have cubes right next to each
31:35
Speaker 1: other at the office? Not only do we have cubes
31:38
Speaker 1: right next to each other? Now, Chuck, you moved and
31:42
Speaker 1: we're like, we don't share a wall anymore, but there's
31:45
Speaker 1: nothing but open space between us. Yeah, I'm behind you
31:48
Speaker 1: and you are behind me. We're like five ft from
31:50
Speaker 1: one another. So I you did not like it first?
31:54
Speaker 1: It was not so I disliked it. It It was just weird, man,
31:57
Speaker 1: It's so weird. Um. So now I spend my days
32:00
Speaker 1: is kind of staring at Chuck while he researches and things. Yeah. Uh.
32:05
Speaker 1: This from Emily Tran, What has been your most interesting
32:08
Speaker 1: or memorable dream to date? Um? I, Emily, have celebrity
32:14
Speaker 1: dreams all the time where I am really good buddies
32:18
Speaker 1: with Larry David or Jack Black, whoever my heroes are,
32:22
Speaker 1: and they're really realistic and always wake up and and
32:25
Speaker 1: very disappointed. Huh that that's not the case. You have?
32:28
Speaker 1: You had some friendships with some of your heroes these days? Think, Yeah,
32:31
Speaker 1: but not Larry David yet. Maybe one day, maybe one day. Um,
32:36
Speaker 1: you got a memorable dream? Yeah, I do. I don't
32:39
Speaker 1: remember the dream but um, I'm gonna bring you me
32:41
Speaker 1: in here on this one. She tells me that for
32:45
Speaker 1: three nights in a row, I would sit up and
32:48
Speaker 1: point like at the ceiling, be like, what's that kid
32:50
Speaker 1: doing up there? And she'd be like, what are you
32:53
Speaker 1: talking about? Look? And there'd be nothing there, of course,
32:57
Speaker 1: and she'd be like, what do you mean? And I thing,
33:00
Speaker 1: let's go back this week. I have no recollection of it.
33:03
Speaker 1: Whatsoever your house might be haunted, dudes, I have no
33:07
Speaker 1: idea what that dream was or anything like that. So,
33:11
Speaker 1: but there's kids like in our ceiling. It's scored three
33:14
Speaker 1: nights in the run, Tom Blake, there's a bustle in
33:16
Speaker 1: my head, drow. What should I do? I think everyone
33:18
Speaker 1: knows the answer. Don't be alarmed? Yeah, technically that's the
33:22
Speaker 1: first step, though, That's like, first, don't be alarmed, then
33:25
Speaker 1: something right? So what comes after that? I don't know.
33:27
Speaker 1: We not to ask Jimmy Page or maybe Robert Playing
33:30
Speaker 1: wrote that. I say, go back inside, go into your
33:32
Speaker 1: house and beware the child on the ceiling. What country
33:37
Speaker 1: would you like to live in other than the States.
33:40
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to live in Spain. I think Spain
33:43
Speaker 1: would be really neat to live in, although their government
33:45
Speaker 1: is in so much turmoil and they have like a
33:47
Speaker 1: whole separatist region. Um, if everybody could just mellow out
33:51
Speaker 1: in Spain, I I I would drop out. You never
33:55
Speaker 1: hear from me again. I'd be on some island or something.
33:57
Speaker 1: Would you do island living? I could do island living
34:00
Speaker 1: as well, if they had electricity and all that stuff,
34:03
Speaker 1: like it has to be a rich guy's island. A
34:05
Speaker 1: rich guy's island. Yeah. Um, let me see what is
34:11
Speaker 1: your favorite thing? This is Jason Carpenter. What is your
34:13
Speaker 1: favorite thing a listener has ever sent you in the mail?
34:17
Speaker 1: Beer ranks pretty high there. Um, beat Jerky, little little
34:22
Speaker 1: bit sweets. I always like seeing that package, right, the
34:26
Speaker 1: honeycombs one. Did you have those? Yeah? That's because my
34:29
Speaker 1: all time favorite little bit sweets? Candy coffee. You've gotten
34:33
Speaker 1: coffee getting coffee? Yeah? The beat Jerky was really high
34:37
Speaker 1: up there. It's like buds, smoked meats or something. Since
34:40
Speaker 1: from a listener ound in California. Oh that lady that
34:43
Speaker 1: printed her photographs on the paper that she made. That
34:47
Speaker 1: that was pretty neat. Yeah, we get lots of cool stuff.
34:49
Speaker 1: It's I don't want to hurt people's fee mugs were
34:52
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. I have still use that unicorn tears. I
34:55
Speaker 1: like the Joe Garden's book. Yeah, that was nice. We
34:58
Speaker 1: get a bunch of cool stuff. It's tots are really
35:00
Speaker 1: separated out because we've gotten some cool postcards even all right,
35:05
Speaker 1: And I want to say my last one, Um, the
35:07
Speaker 1: last one I rose from Janetsey Patrick. I realized I
35:09
Speaker 1: forgot to ask her to tell her that. Tell her? Yeah,
35:14
Speaker 1: how about one more each? Uh? Classic debate Power to
35:18
Speaker 1: be Invisible or Fly? Um? I would fly. I don't
35:21
Speaker 1: think i'd want to know what most people have to
35:23
Speaker 1: say about me when I'm not around. Yeah, I would
35:25
Speaker 1: fly too, because that means I wouldn't have to fly
35:27
Speaker 1: commercially anymore, which is something I hate passionately. And that one,
35:33
Speaker 1: by the way, was um, Shanna McCann, thanks for that.
35:36
Speaker 1: I'm gonna finish up with Melissa Rosenthal. When you were children,
35:39
Speaker 1: what were your favorite books? Um? I am going to
35:44
Speaker 1: say generally anything by shel Silverstein. When I was young, young,
35:49
Speaker 1: into my little tween years, I got really into bloom
35:52
Speaker 1: County the comic, got all those books, and then my
35:56
Speaker 1: favorite book, though the first book I ever read, really read,
36:00
Speaker 1: was when I was like eight or nine. I read
36:04
Speaker 1: The Great Christmas Kidnapping Caper and it was released in
36:10
Speaker 1: nineteen eight. Award winning children's book about these mice that
36:14
Speaker 1: live in Macy's in New York. Sounds cool. Santa Claus
36:18
Speaker 1: is kidnapped and they have to figure it out and
36:21
Speaker 1: track of the case. Why is everybody always kidnapedything? I
36:24
Speaker 1: don't know, but I have no idea why this hasn't
36:25
Speaker 1: been like a Disney movie. It was excellent. I read
36:29
Speaker 1: it every year for like seven to twelve nice and
36:32
Speaker 1: it was really good. What's yours? Uh? Probably my favorite
36:36
Speaker 1: little kid's book was Huper Humperdinck not Him, which is
36:40
Speaker 1: uh in that Dr Seuss camp but not a Doctor
36:43
Speaker 1: Seusee book, you know what I'm talking about. Um. I
36:46
Speaker 1: read a lot of Richard Scary and Barren Stain Bears,
36:50
Speaker 1: and then as I got a little older, I reade
36:52
Speaker 1: Ramona Quimby books for years. Those never read those. We
36:56
Speaker 1: both did Encyclopedia Brown too. Yeah, it's cool. I'll always
37:00
Speaker 1: remember he knew that that one kid was fake crying,
37:03
Speaker 1: and that he was the culprit because the kid put
37:05
Speaker 1: fake tears like on the outside of his eyes, but
37:07
Speaker 1: you always try from the inside. Yeah, what a dumb kid.
37:11
Speaker 1: Everyone knows that, but a lot of the kids see
37:13
Speaker 1: grapple with were pretty stupid. Yeah that's true. I'd like
37:16
Speaker 1: to read this today and see fucking figure him out. Oh, Betty,
37:18
Speaker 1: just be like, I can't read this, you think. Yeah. Well,
37:22
Speaker 1: if you have questions for us, you can always post
37:24
Speaker 1: them on Facebook, Facebook, dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. UM.
37:28
Speaker 1: You can also tweet to us at s y s
37:30
Speaker 1: K podcast and UM. You can reach us regular snail
37:36
Speaker 1: email at stuff podcast. At how stuff works dot com
37:48
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37:51
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
37:54
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37:57
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38:02
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