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A Currency for Colonies: The Strange Story of "Leprosy Money" · 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. As always, thank you
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Today's episode touches on some
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: pretty stigmatized, disturbing things, but it's a fascinating story and
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: it reminds me of our earlier episodes on currency. You
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: remember those? No, Yeah, what was the word for a
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: currency enthusiasts or a collector of coins? I think it's
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: new hang on, phil philologists. Oh that's the philotist? Is
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the damp collector? Oh never mind? Yeah, well stamps you're
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: kind of a form of currency in their own way.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: But yeah, to remind me of the of the currency episode, Ben,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I am null by the way that you're talking about.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: We did the rise and fall of local script remember
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: during the Great Depression era, that's right, And there was
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: even like you know things, Yeah, that's right. There was
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: there was notes that were specific to regions, and it
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: was just kind of like almost like a continuation of
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: using things like shells or precious stones. Right, And the
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: word for a coin collector, if not a full currency
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: collector would be a new miss maddest least love that
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: never been one of those or a philologist myself, But
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I do think those kinds of artifacts are absolutely fascinating.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: But you're right, then, we are talking about a type
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: of currency that was in and of itself stigmatized, but
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: a type of currency that was tied to an even
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: more stigmatized group, those afflicted with leprosy what is now
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: known as Hansen's disease. Um. You can leave your Bob
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Jokes at the door. That's me talking to myself. But yeah,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: we know this from popular culture. It's often depicted in film,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: or actually in Princess Mononoke, the studio Ghibliyao Miyazaki film,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: there is a leper colony, and it is a condition
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: that affects people in their eyes and their respiratory systems.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: They're nervous system and essentially is a degenerative condition where
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: people's bodies essentially break down and almost decay, you know,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: as they're alive. Yeah, this is a slow growing bacterial infection.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: We know now, but back in the day, people did
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  Speaker 1: not have the medical understanding we enjoy here in twenty one.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: As we begin, I want to shout out, of course,
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  Speaker 1: our super producer Casey Pegram, our guest producer Andrew Howard,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: and you know, a lot of people during the pandemic,
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  Speaker 1: when people were quarantined or had to stay at home,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: may have felt the emotional weight of isolation, of enforced solitude,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: right being forced to stay in a place for one
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: reason or another. People who lived in what we're called
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: leper colonies who were afflicted with Hanson's disease, we're so
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: stigmatized that they had to form their own kind of community,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: like entire communities of people under quarantine. And interestingly enough,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: there is strong evidence that not all of these people
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: who are called lepers and sent to these colonies actually
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: had leprosy. They may have been affected by a broad
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: spectrum of different skin conditions. And people saw it and
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: we're just so terrified of Hansen's disease that they said,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: that's close enough to leprosy for me off to the colony.
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  Speaker 1: You go totally. And I mean, like you said, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: they really did have kind of a very warped understanding
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: of exactly how contagious, uh, this disease was. And that's
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: part of it where people, you know, it's even an expression,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: people say, it's treating me like a leper, you know,
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  Speaker 1: like you don't want to be touched or you know,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: people are keeping you at arm's length or whatever. And
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  Speaker 1: so that extended to the types of things that would
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: get passed around, right like currency. Uh so it became
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: necessary to create a specialized currency that only people with
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: leprosy would be handling, right, Yeah, absolutely, we have to.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: We have to understand too that until the mid twenty century,
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  Speaker 1: there was no known proving cure for leprosy, and people
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: did believe it's spread much more efficiently than it actually does. Today,
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  Speaker 1: Hansen's disease has not been totally wiped out, but it
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: is relatively rare. There are an estimated according to money
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: dot org and you'll see while we're using money dot
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  Speaker 1: org and a bit folks, some one eight thousand cases
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  Speaker 1: are estimated to exist across the world today. A hundred
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: of those are in the US. And so there are
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: still all these misconceptions about this condition that are in
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  Speaker 1: the modern day. Like I will confess, when I was
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  Speaker 1: a kid, I was one of those people who thought
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: that leprosy would cause your fingers and your nose and
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: your toes to fall off because I had heard about leprosy,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: I had read about it, but I had never actually
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  Speaker 1: encountered it. Uh, And that's part of this stigma because
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: oh man, this stigma is so old it dates back
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  Speaker 1: to like biblical times. Yeah, I mean right, it didn't
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Jesus kara leper at some point that was a thing,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: and you have Bill. Yeah, it's one of those moments
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  Speaker 1: that demonstrated Jesus's mystical abilities or whatever to to heal
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: the sick and all that. But the thing that's that's
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: interesting about leprosy is it was sort of like a
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  Speaker 1: bunch of different conditions that were glommed in together as
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: this one thing. But in fact it was like multiple
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: different conditions that were all of varying degrees of severity, um,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: but kind of all put under this umbrella catch all
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: of leprosy. So you know, some folks might have a
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: form of it. It wasn't nearly as contagious or deadly,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: but they would be treated just the same. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: the Centers for Disease Control said that though leprosy can
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: spread through droplets in the same way that those droplets
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: that come out of your mouth when you sneeze or cough,
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  Speaker 1: the same method of transmitting COVID nineteen, it's not nearly
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  Speaker 1: as successful as something like the flu and being contagious.
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  Speaker 1: You have to be in prolonged close contact with someone
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  Speaker 1: who is not taking treatment for this condition over like
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  Speaker 1: many months according to the CDC to have a chance
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  Speaker 1: of catching the disease. But back in the day, way
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  Speaker 1: back in the day, biblical times, people would even believe
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  Speaker 1: that this was a curse from God, maybe because you
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  Speaker 1: had done something wrong or evil, or that your parents
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: had done something wrong or evil and the sins of
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: the parent were being visited upon the child. As we
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  Speaker 1: got closer to a more secular understanding of disease transmission
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: and medical science advanced, people started understanding that somehow leprosy
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  Speaker 1: from one person could affect another person, and this led
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  Speaker 1: to a kind of guilt by association. So if for instance,
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  Speaker 1: you are in um in an ancient town square and
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  Speaker 1: a leper touches a cup, you would feel like touching
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  Speaker 1: that cup would be a guaranteed chance of you getting leprosy,
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  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So any touched or war
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  Speaker 1: or eat was out of like out of balance officially,
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  Speaker 1: and let's just think about you know, started to keep
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: bringing it back to the topic coral. Probably way overhearing
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: about at this point. But bring it back to the
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  Speaker 1: beginning of the COVID nineteen pandemic, when people didn't really
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: fully understand how it spread. There are people that were
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: taking their groceries and keeping them in their garage for
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: days so that the quote unquote the surface transmission would
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  Speaker 1: be reduced the potential. Turns out that wasn't really the thing.
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  Speaker 1: But I understand this level of paranoia that comes with
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  Speaker 1: not knowing, you know what I mean. So you can't
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  Speaker 1: entirely damn these folks that were, you know, taking these precautions.
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  Speaker 1: But it also, like you said, bad, I mean, it's
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  Speaker 1: just this guilt by association and it really just kind
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  Speaker 1: of demonizes an entire population. Uh. And so these lepre
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  Speaker 1: colonies are established there. This is a great word, lepro storiums.
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  Speaker 1: That's what they were referred to, and that started as
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: far back as the Middle Ages, especially in Europe and
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  Speaker 1: India where the disease was much more common. They would
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  Speaker 1: be and this again something we know from from pop
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  Speaker 1: culture and film. Uh. They were maintained and overseen by monks,
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  Speaker 1: and they were often you know, on islands that were
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  Speaker 1: isolated and far away from the regular populations or high
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  Speaker 1: up in the mountains wherever it was. Remoteness was the
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  Speaker 1: name of the game. And so this is essentially a quarantine,
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  Speaker 1: isolated community aside from the caretakers who were taking risk
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  Speaker 1: and putting their lives at risk in order to you know,
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  Speaker 1: take care of these uh, these people, these these individuals
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  Speaker 1: who were ostracized in that way. And so with a
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  Speaker 1: colony or a separatist kind of civilization, essentially you need
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  Speaker 1: its own currency. So that was sort of one part
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  Speaker 1: of leprosy money, right, was just to give them a
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  Speaker 1: way to trade and to have money to spend to
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  Speaker 1: buy the things they needed within that community. But it
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  Speaker 1: also was a way to keep that money out of
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  Speaker 1: the circulation of like the larger world, because this notion that, oh,
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  Speaker 1: if you touch money that a leper as touched, is
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  Speaker 1: it offensive to say leper? I know they don't call
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  Speaker 1: it leprosy as much anymore, but they would have they
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  Speaker 1: would have said leper at this time. They would have
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  Speaker 1: said leper. It's okay. I'm just making sure to be
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  Speaker 1: sensitive because it does still exist. It hasn't been fully eradicated.
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  Speaker 1: It exists largely only I think in absolutely in tropical
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  Speaker 1: areas and in Africa and some parts of India. I
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  Speaker 1: believe yes. So one important thing I want to step
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  Speaker 1: back and clear the air on here is there's another
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  Speaker 1: misconception that leprosy was a quick death situation, right, like
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  Speaker 1: you would get it and then you would have a
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  Speaker 1: ticking time bomb until your demise. But the problem is,
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  Speaker 1: at least from a social management position, that people suffering
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  Speaker 1: from leprosy could live a long time, which means they
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  Speaker 1: need a community. You know, they need someone to cook,
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  Speaker 1: they need someone to like make clothes, repair shelters, all
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  Speaker 1: that jazz, which is why they need the money, the
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  Speaker 1: leprosy money that exists as an alternate currency that can
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  Speaker 1: be used for the economy of the leper colony. But
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  Speaker 1: there was another insidious purpose here. It made escaping the
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  Speaker 1: colony much more difficult. Imagine you are the most well
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  Speaker 1: to do person in one of these colonies, right. Let's
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  Speaker 1: say that you are growing food on the colony, right,
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  Speaker 1: and you have done quite well, and now you are
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  Speaker 1: super well off in comparison to the other members of
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  Speaker 1: the colony. And you say, hey, I bet I could escape.
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  Speaker 1: Not so fast, because even if you have ten tho
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  Speaker 1: dollars worth of this leprosy money. Nobody outside the colony
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  Speaker 1: is going to take it, and possibly nobody in other
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  Speaker 1: leper colonies would take it because it wasn't quite standardized,
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  Speaker 1: and so this was the only form of money that
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  Speaker 1: people could access. So while it did provide a path
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  Speaker 1: towards economic prosperity, it also functioned in a very real
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  Speaker 1: way kind of like a wall to keep you from
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  Speaker 1: leaving well. And that's the same problem as we saw
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  Speaker 1: in that previous episode we did about kind of regionalized currencies.
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  Speaker 1: They wouldn't have any standards, so there was no like
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  Speaker 1: you know, uh, documented exchange rate, and you get far
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  Speaker 1: enough away from your home turf that money is useless.
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  Speaker 1: You know that no one's gonna take it. Uh. So
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  Speaker 1: it really does, like you know, further isolate you within
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  Speaker 1: that community. So in a lot of these kind of
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  Speaker 1: quarantine zones, these were coins, by the way, and not
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: paper money, but these you could think of them as
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: as medical exiles. That's how it's referred to on an
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  Speaker 1: article from Atlas Obscura, and I like that. But the
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  Speaker 1: thing is is it's like it's it's it's indefinite, right,
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  Speaker 1: Like you there's really no. They didn't have a cure.
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  Speaker 1: So you're essentially being cast off from society and forced
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  Speaker 1: to of a potentially life sentence, you know, on this
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: isolated community. And I'm sure people got along and made
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  Speaker 1: new connections and friendships, but you would have had to
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  Speaker 1: leave your family behind, likely ben unless they were also afflicted,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: and then maybe they'd come with you. But I thought,
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  Speaker 1: what a what a heartbreaking situation this must have been
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  Speaker 1: for for so many Yeah. Yeah, And the big question
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  Speaker 1: is how did this money come into the hands of
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: people at the colonies. There was a process, according to
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: the curator of the National Hanson's Disease Museum, if you
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  Speaker 1: are someone who society has decided has leprosy, you go
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  Speaker 1: to the colony. You have to hand over any outside
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  Speaker 1: currency that you have, and in exchange you get these
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: special purpose coins, sometimes bills, but largely coins, and you
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: had very little say in the matter. This is kind
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: of firebreak and an airlock to keep this so called
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: tainted money on the on the colony grounds. So we
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: know that families had been separated. That definitely happened. If
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: you had this condition, you were stuck in one of
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  Speaker 1: these colonies, you could send money to your family and
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: your relatives on the outside, but the only way you
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: could do it is to go to the colonies administration,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: maybe that monastic order mentioned earlier, and exchange your leper
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  Speaker 1: colony money for the local currency. And it would be
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: up to those administrators as to, you know, what an
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: exchange rate looks like, as to whether or not they
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: let you do it at all, because if you think
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: about it, the people on the colony have no way
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: to address corruption or bad actors. Let's see, you're the
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: money man at the monastery and you're corrupt, then when
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: people hand you this outside currency, you could just pocket it. Yeah,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: and I'm certain that happened. Gosh, even more of a yeah,
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  Speaker 1: because you know, if if you were to escape and
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: you had this uh proprietary money, you know, you'd get
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: to a point where it would absolutely be worthless and
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: wouldn't help you out at all. And you've had all
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: of your earthly possessions taken from you and you're legal
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: tender taken from you. So uh, that curator you mentioned,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Ben who has a fabulous name, Elizabeth Scheck Snyder of
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: the National Hanson's Disease Museum, UH talked about an interesting
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: process that went on with outside money, all outside money
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: or outgoing money that left the the the Leopard colony
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: was sanitized by quote chemical fumigation um and and like
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: you said, patients were uh not allowed to deal directly
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: with traders that would come, you know, and and and
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: do deals with the monks, that the monks would buy
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: the materials with real money. And then essentially residents of
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: the colony would have to use their kind of monopoly
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: money to buy the stuff from the monks. And not
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Every quarantine settlement or lepresarium, which I agree is is
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: a fascinating word, had its own currency. But if you
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: look across the world, as Atlas Obscurity describes it, colonies
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: from places as far flung as Brazil or Japan all
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: issued some form of alternative currency. And this was entirely
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: a means of further isolating patients from society and also
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: reassuring the surrounding communities. Because you think nimby is bad now,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the not in my backyard phenomenon is that times ten uh.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Some of these were minted by the colonies themselves, and
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: others were made by the outside government specifically for those colonies. Yeah,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: or even issued like yeah, sometimes by that like a
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Ministry of Health type situation. And we know that sometimes
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: foreign countries manufactured leprosy money for colonies in different countries,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: like the Palos Echo quarantine in the Panama Canal Zone.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Was the money for that was made at the Philly mint.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Here in the US. They were also again not standardized,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: so if you had your Panama Canal Zone leper money
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: and then you travel to Brazil, then there is absolutely
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: no guarantee that they would take it. It would be
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: another foreign outside currency. Yeah, and I mean these there
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: was some thought that went into these. I mean they
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: were often beautifully illustrated, very elaborately designed, from the coins
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: to the to the occasional bills. The oldest leprosy coins
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: that we know of were um minted in Venezuela in
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: eight seven, and I believe to date we only have
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: one surviving example. And you know, speaking of the paper
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: money or script notes, they were issued from time to time,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: specifically in nineteen thirty five and thirty six and the
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Sungai Below Settlement and what would today be called Malaysia
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: and the island of ko Leon in the Philippines, they
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: also issued paper money. This colony was founded in nineteen
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: o two. Originally, these special coins were issued by the
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Government of the Philippines in nineteen thirteen when they said, okay,
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: we we want to pick up this practice an alternative currency.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: But in nineteen forty two, invading Japanese forces cut the
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: island off from Manila. They lost contact and Manila's where
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: the coins were minted. So now the colony has to
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: deal with a lack of currency in addition to invading forces.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: So at that point, you know, this colony is a community.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: It's like a small town, right or it's an entire
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: island in this case, so people have to buy stuff,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: you have to pay people who do jobs. And so
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: the President of the Philippines at the time, the President
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: in exile, Manual Kazon, has an emergency issue of these
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: bills of this paper money, and they come out in
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: seven different denominations. It's backed by the U. S. Army,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: so like they co sign it for credibility and legitimacy.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: But the Japanese forces stayed and the situation got worse
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and worse, and many people on the island unfortunately passed
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: away from starvation or lack of medical care and long
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: story short in U. S. Army Air Corps was able
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: to help a little bit by air dropping food and medicine.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: But we know that that injection, that emergency cash in
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: a very real way kept everything running for a time.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Like money is an idea, right, it's a representation of something,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: and so when you have that physical currency in a
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: very real way makes modern community as possible. So here
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: here's the thing. I mean. You know, leprosy was contagious,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: is contagious, but like we mentioned at the top of
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: the show, much less contagious even than the flu by
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: those droplets. Ben correct me if I'm wrong. But is
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: it largely a myth that leprosy is contagious by touch
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: or is there some truth to that? Well it's a
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: little more difficult than that, thankfully. So the current belief
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: is that this condition spreads when someone who has leprosy
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Rahnson's disease coughs or sneezes and healthy person is nearby
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: and repeatedly breathes in those infected droplets. So it's just
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: like the stuff with COVID and surface contact, right, people
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: are being extra extra careful. But you know, instead of
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: just bags of groceries, these are living people in their
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: lives and everything they touch. This is strange because there's
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: a larger idea, like most of this currency comes out
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: in the nineteen hundreds, as we said, because it coincided
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: with this general terror across the world that germs could
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: be transmitted simply by touching things. And we see, you know,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: we still see remnants of that idea with misunderstandings of
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: other medical conditions, like the idea of touching something that
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: has been touched by someone who's affected with a certain
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: STD or so one. Oh totally, and those stigmas persist.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Things like Herpie's simplex too, which is super common, but
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: not even as common as herpies simplex one, which is
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: a cold sore, which you know, so so many people
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: have don't even realize that's what it is. But yet
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: there's still a heavy stigma or on both of those things, right.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I think that's a good point. Douglas Mud, the director
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: and curator of the American Numismatic Association's, maum, Yeah, they're
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: killing with the names today. He uh. He explains it
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: this way. He says, through the nineteen twenties, there was
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: a bit of paranoia about currency and currency becoming a
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: vector of disease, and he said it was associated with money.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: This was only further compounded by the deep millennia old
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: fear of a disease that people very much considered like
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: a biblical curse, like you did something wrong, God has
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: punished you. But you know, I want to pause for
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: a second, no, because one thing that's fascinating to me
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: about this is people were worried about that kind of
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: guilt by association or contact, but didn't really think about
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: how dirty money actually is already. It's filthy, oh god, yes, yeah,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: it's something that you know, your parents warned you about
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: when you're a kid, you know, like don't don't like
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: lick your hands after handling dollar bill because it's one
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: of the most it's like a door knob. Anything that's
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: like you know, or like a like a guard rail
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: on an escalator or something. Anything that people are constantly
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: rubbing their grubby little pause all over is is going
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: to be a potentially a vector for some amount of
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: germs or nastiness. But it turns out that the micro
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: bacterium lep ry, which is what causes leprosy, not a
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: thing doesn't live well on the surfaces of of currency.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: And as we've been trying to hit home, I think
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: it's important because I will tell you and completely be honest,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: I had a pretty outdated view of what leprosy was.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: I kind of internalized a lot of those pop culture
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: references to it and depictions and film and stuff, and
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: I really did think that it was you know, you
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: could literally get it just by touching somebody. Um, so
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: this is a good myth busting exercise for me as well.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: But yeah, not nearly as contagious as the world would
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: have thought at the time, and again I think still
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: probably does. But a particular colony by the name of
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Carville had a century long history. Uh and in that time,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: not a single monk or staff member whomever got the
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: disease from a patient. So even earlier when I was saying,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: I like the monks were putting their themselves in harm's way,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: that would have been the perception. But it turns out
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: that that didn't really happen. That wasn't really the case.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: It was a lot of misplaced paranoia. But still props
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: to the monks for powering through that and helping these folks.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: But also, is it really helping them it was. It was.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: It was isolating them, it was separating them. I'm, I'm,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: it's it's a little complicated, isn't it. It is it is,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: And you're right. The leper storium there in Carville, Louisiana
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: functioned pretty successfully in terms of like limiting the spread
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: of this condition or the spread of conditions they perceived
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: to be leprosy. It also like they did things that
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: a small town would do. There was an internationally distributed
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: newspaper that was entirely made by the patients. And in
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: this paper, which is called The Star, reported that Dr
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: Gordon Alexander Reary had sent paper money from the Malaysian
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: settlement into the Institute for Medical Research in Kuala Lumpard
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: and they said, let's check. Let's see if we can
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: find this bacterium on these bills. And they checked it,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: you know, seven ways from Sunday, and they could not
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: find a single live leprosy bacillus. So they couldn't even
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: find one example of the living bacteria there. But you know,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: you published the crazy stuff in the front page of
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: the newspaper, you published retractions in the back. People had
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: already long ago made up their minds that touching this
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: money would give you leprosy. And so yet again fear
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: and rumor won the day over research and science, and
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: people still suffered this exile that you know, medically speaking,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: they in many cases did not deserve you know what
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: I mean. That's right. And you know we're talking about
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: at the top of the show, what was the word
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: new Matton, new Matton, new Masmists, numismatics, numismatics. Yes, this
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: stuff is red meat for those folks coin collectors, because
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: they are rare and they are very, like I said,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: beautifully minted and design. But they absolutely serve as kind
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: of symbol of how not fully understand things science and
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: the way these things work can really do a number
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: on people in terms of like how they're treated. It
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: almost as like subhumans. Right, Oh, absolutely, I mean consider
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: the irony. Now, for so long this money was considered
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: kind of funny money. It was script it was worthless
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: outside of the colony for which it was intended. But
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: now it is such a hot ticket item. Now if
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: you talk to a numiss Mattis, they are going to say,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: holy smokes, I would love to get ahold of some
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: of that money. People will track it down to the
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: best of their abilities. And part of the reason people
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: covet this stuff so much in the modern day is
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: because it was it was like a regular practice to
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: destroy the money, right, Like you would have colonies would say, Okay,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: we're not going to distribute this money anymore, because we
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: can actually treat this condition for sure, but just to
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: be on the safe side, let's burn it. Isn't that funny, Yeah,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: it's so. It's almost like they were having a hard
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: time letting go of the old ways or their old
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: kind of misplaced fears, right because they you know, but again,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: they were still just on the cusp of of the advancements.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: And let's not forget this stuff was going on well
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: into the fifties, the nineteen fifties, not the eighteen fifties.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: It's so fascinating. Yeah, I never would have thought that
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: that it had gone on for that long. But yes,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: some of these coins are it's almost like a very
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: particular niche of coin collecting too. But you're right there,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: they're very hard to find for that exact reason, which
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: probably makes them all the more sought after. So one
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: particular denomination from Colombia's Lazaretto Colony, the centavo competit nomination
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: was called Yeah, exactly, those are not as hard to
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: come by. Probably made a bunch of them. But then
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: you've got a particular type of mimiographed and hand lettered
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: and signed script paper currency from the Kullion colony very
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: difficult to find. And then there were even something referred
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: to as plastic tokens that were issued in China um
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: and and that is uh, you know, a long hard
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: road to get ahold of some of those. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: because a lot of the paper script was burned, a
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: lot of the coins were melted down to become something else,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: or straight up just thrown into the ocean, like that's
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: a that's a human habit, right, Let's just throw the
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: ocean will take care of it. So there's a group
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: of these kind of niche coin collectors like you described,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: who are hot on the trail of these things. They're
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: often seen more like a curiosity. It's something you would
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: get for the love of the game, I guess, rather
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: than something that would be a super valuable collector's item,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: because a lot of people even today aren't aware of
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: their existence. And Mud pointed out that there are two
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: factors that contribute to their kind of low value even
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: though they're very rare. And the first is that he
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: says part of what creates value in coinage is how
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: well a coin is known. And then secondly, people were
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: cutting corners, printing some of these, minting some of these.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: The leprosy coins were made from like common base metals
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: never actually you know, silver or gold, like more and
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: more like utilitarian or I'm gonna callunclarly refer to them
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: as trash metals like nickel or aluminum. Uh, and even plastic,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Like we said, right, that's interesting. So there you have it.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Leprosy currency a very interesting artifact left over from a
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: bygone era of medical misunderstanding, which we talk about so
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: often on this show. I mean, really, the history of
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: medicine is all about kind of figuring things out as
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: you go, and a lot of horrible, horrible decisions and
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: treatments where were made before people really knew what they
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: were dealing with. And this is this is exactly that case.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: But then I wanted to close out asking you did
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: you ever hear growing up that you could get leprosy
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: from an armadillo? We don't see those a ton around here,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: but occasionally you'll see one on the side of the road.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: But I I had always heard that and wasn't sure
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: if it was a myth or if there was some
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: truth to it. It is absolutely true that armadillo's, some
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Armadillo's hashtag, not all armadillo's, can be naturally infected with
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: the bacteria that causes Hanson's disease. I learned about this.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: This is a nerdy answer to the question, but I
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: learned about this when I was writing a sci fi
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: story where someone eats in armadillo, and so it was like,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I have to learn about what it is like to
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: eat in armadillo. And one of the first things that
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: popped up was a warning about leprosy. And I was
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: and I thought, I'm gonna have to change this whole
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: the whole vibe of this story, and the word gaming
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: comes to mind for what a garmadillo might taste like.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: But no, you're You're right, then it is absolutely true.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: In fact, the Centers for Disease Control has a They
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: have actually, if you go to CDC website, they have
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: some remarkably niche little sections advising you on what to
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: do in certain situations. Um and one of them is
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: a bit of practical advice on what to do if
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: you accidentally get leprosy from an armadillo. Yeah. It's one
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: of those things where you have to be thankful organizations
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: like the c d C exists because otherwise otherwise, I
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: imagine a lot of people would have no idea about this,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: and they take a little bit of like a hard line.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know if this surprised you as well, Noll,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: but if you visit the c d C S transmission
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: page for ever see your Handson's disease, what you'll find
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: is that one of the first things they say is
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: avoid contact with Armadillo's just in general, whenever possible, which
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: makes me feel sad because I always thought Armadillo's had
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: it rough, I know, And it really just goes back
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: to that same I mean, it's okay to ostracize Armadillo's,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: just not people. Armadillo's have feelings, at least anthromorphized ones
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: in like cartoons do, so I assume that applies to
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: the real thing. Now, Armadillo's are kind of creepy looking dudes. Um,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: but yeah, they say steer clear of Armadillo's, leave them alone. Uh,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: And if you do happen to feel as though you
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: came into contact with an armadillo, UH, seek medical help immediately.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Talk to your healthcare provider. Your doctor will do some
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: checks on your skin to see if you develop the disease.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: But it is unlikely that you have, and in the
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: unlikely event that you have Handson's disease, your doctor can
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: help get you treatment. Yes, well said, And in defense
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: of the noble, humble armadillo, we should also point out
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: that all wild animals can potentially carry diseases. There they
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: are wild, they're not domesticated. If you see an armadillo
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: remain calm, it is probably it is probably way more
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: scared of you, and you know, try to overcome the
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: urge to petit. I would say, it's it's that simple
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: at this point. No, I don't think either of us
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: actually have any leprosy currency, but I feel like I'm
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: going to keep my eye out for it now now
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: that we know a little bit of what it looks like.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: It's it's just such a strange piece of tangible physical history.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: It is. And we love that here on Ridiculous History. Um,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: and I'll tell you what else we love here on
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: ridiculous history super producer Casey Pegram. Oh he's the man,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: is he not? He's right up there with guest producer
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Andrew Howard thinks again, Andrew would love to maybe get
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: you think we could cajole him into getting on the
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: air sometimes, you know, it is certainly possible. I gotta say,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: I love that Andrew sound cue. Man, that is such,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: that is the perfect one. But it really is. It's
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: very so Andrew. If you knew Andrew, you'd understand. Oh man, Yeah,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: we can't wait to hear it again. Thanks also to
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: Alex Williams, who composed our track. You know what I thought,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: I was thinking, Man, maybe we should just start referring
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: to him as our composer. Does this soundclassy? It does
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: sound classy. I love I love the idea of being
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: a show that has a composer, right uh. And then,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: of course, also if a show has a composer, it
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: also needs a villain, So big, big thanks as always
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: to Jonathan Strickland's a k a. The Quiz through and
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: thanks of course through Christopher Hasciotis to Eve's Jeff Coke
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: and our awesome research associate, the one and only Gabe Louisier, No,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: I learned a lot on this one, and uh, we're
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: pretty lucky to be living in one. I guess. Yeah.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Well that's one way of looking at ito. I like
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: your I like your silver lining attitude. Speaking of which,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: I got my first vaccine shot today, Ben, and I'm
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: pretty pumped. Congratulations, man, that's awesome. That's awesome, thanks dude.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: It does feel like things are inching their way towards normalcy.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: And honestly, for me, one of the hardest parts about
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: this pandemic has been the paranoia and the not knowing.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Uh So, I understand the kind of thinking around this,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: this leper colony stuff. But you live and you learn,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: and time goes on and you learn more things about
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: the things that you once feared, and then hopefully you
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: can you can move past it. So I hope we
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: can take a page out of the book of the
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: history of Hanson's disease and it's associated currency. Well said,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: well said, Stay safe everyone, See you next time, folks.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: your favorite shows.