Latest / Ridiculous History / CLASSIC: The Rotten, Sausagey Secret Origin of Botox

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CLASSIC: The Rotten, Sausagey Secret Origin of Botox · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, no confession time, man, what you know, we're getting
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: on in years and I'm just wondering, have you or
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Max ever considered botox?
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: I don't think you need Thank you, thank you for
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: that caveat. I'm gonna say it's not for me. I know,
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: shade or grudge against anyone that feels like that's something
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: that will improve their self image or self esteem. But
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: it's just never been something that I found to be
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: of interest to me personally.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I was startled to read. I'm right, they often look startled.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Folks do what you will, you know, as long as
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: it's something positive and it makes you happy. But if
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: somebody came to me and they said, Ben, you need botox,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: it would kind of send me on a spiral.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Just to be honest, absolutely, And you know I mean
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: in this are very public facing day and age where
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: folks are judged for their looks on the regular people
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: who are public figures at the pressure to look your
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: best or whatever. But it turns out the origins of
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: this kind of thing, what is the word I believe batcha, Yeah,
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: that's right, are very unusual and dare we say ridiculous.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this may give you a pause, but we think
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: it's a very fascinating and ridiculous origin story. And obviously,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: like you're saying, we're not taking potshots for anybody who
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: was doing botox or similar procedures, but I think it
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: is important in an age of social media and everybody
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: being to some degree of public figure, it's important to
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: realize that there can be dangers to that because people
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: have been getting botox at younger and younger ages, which
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: you know, not to sound like an old fogy, but
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: I would be you know, were I a parent, I
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: would be a little concerned if I had like a
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: college or a high school aged kid who came to
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: me and said, Dad, for Christmas or whatever, I want
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: my birthday or something, I want botox.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: I will say.
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: I have a friend who she gets botox injections very
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: not very uncommonly, and what she always says is like
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: if you just do it a little bit, and so
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: they tell you like a little bit, like you know,
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: helps out. But like when you see those uh, you know,
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: the celebrities with the uh terror faces, probably uh that's
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: because they've just going way too hard. And like you know,
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: she was talking to me about I'm like, okay, that
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: doesn't like, that's a different way of thinking about it
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: from what how I've always.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Thought about something with moderation, right.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, it's no accident that the tox part
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: of botox uh is in there, because the baculinum toxin,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: which has often been referred to as a miracle poison,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: is in fact an incredibly poisonous biological material that in
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: small doses and when injected in the face, can cause
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: paralysis that is sort of desirable. I guess that causes
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: like wrinkles to be smoothed out and stuff. And again
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: to your point, Max, people that get it maybe a
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: little too frequently can have paralysis that is a little
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: bit more striking, let's just say.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: And then there's I mean, also it ties into very
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: real problematic things like body dysmorphia, issues with self image.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: But we think, regardless of your stance on botox personally
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: or philosophically, folks, we think you too will be amazed
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: to learn in today's classic episode the provenance of this treatment.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: It comes not necessarily from the world of medicine so
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: much as one man's unending obsession with food safety and rotting.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Pork exactly, blood sausage even which was a very popular
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: delicacy and of Wutcheenberg, Germany in the late seventeen nineties
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: vill bod which is now known as Boden excuse me,
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: as you said, Wurtemberg Wurtenberg in Germany. There was a
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: rash of sickenings that came about due to a particular
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: batch of pork sausage, a rash of sickenings, a rash
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: of sickenings, and because of that, it was discovered that
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: this toxin that was created due to essentially food spoiling,
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: had some unintended side effects that were then kind of
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: co opted and used for something completely different.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: So let's get into the tail. Ridiculous History is a
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio, Friends and Neighbors. Whether you have frown lines,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: cruise feet, or a face that is uncannily plump and
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: baby smooth, we'd like to welcome you to the show.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: My name is Ben, my.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Name is Nolan. Ben. I couldn't help, but notice you
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: got a little bag and sag in action going on
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: under those eyes. They're gonna shoot some sausage poison up
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: in there to help you out.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Well. I appreciate you using it by its real name
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: I'm going for more of like a haggard investigator, dangerous
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: cop on you know, off the res. Yeah, I'm doing
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: like a cerproco thing. I'm working up toward it. But
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: it's true. I don't know if everybody noticed what Noel
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: just said. You called it sausage poisones.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Sausage poison, my friend, don't I have a syringe of
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: it right here on the ready.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: No, riddle me, riddle me this snole before you stab
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: me in the face with this. Where's this sausage poison
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: thing coming from? Is there another name.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: For that, the sausage Poison Party?
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I would buy that album.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Let's oh yeah, that sounds like fun. Yeah, well, no,
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: it's it's it's you know, a sausage poisoned by any
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: other name is still sausage poison. But we know and
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: love it today as a little thing called botox that
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: has taken the fashion and celebrity world by storm.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you about something that we didn't
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: talk about off air, but it really creeped me out,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to keep the names out of it
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: out of respect for these people. So I know someone
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: who is a dude in his early twenties who has
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: had multiple botox injections?
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Is it Jonathan Strickland, it is, it is?
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's I don't think it's Jonathan. No,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know of anybody, any of our coworkers who
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: are botox fans. But it is an increasingly common procedure,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: right and it's it used to be something that people
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: would just most Americans would just hear about on television.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: But now that you know, when I learned that this
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: this guy I know is getting botox injections in his
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: early twenties noll and he says he has to have them,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: it hit me how common this procedure is becoming.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: And just you know, disclaim it right up front, utterly,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: no shade, do do what you want to do, Do
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: what makes you feel good.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: It's your body.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: It's totally your body. But yeah, and I said, you know,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: the fashion and world of celebrity was taken by storm,
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: but it is totally trickled down to us, you know,
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: every day folk. And like there are botox parties you
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: can have, Like people will go to gym's and set
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: up a little botox station because it's an easy, little
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: quick procedure it's just as rans that's loaded with this
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: stuff that is a processed form of back to heia
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: that actually gives you botulism. And we talked about sausage
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: poison because, as it turns out, the guy that discovered
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: this stuff found it in a batch of bad blood
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: sausages in Germany in the early eighteen hundreds.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: That's right. We can trace the success and prevalence of
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: what is called botox today to the discovery made by
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: this physician, Justinus Kerner, who, as Noel said, encountered a
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: batch of dangerous sausage sausage gone wrong in the early
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds. What Kerner discovered specifically were the spores of
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: something called Clustridium buchulinium microbes.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and as it turns out, there were multiple strains
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: of it that were discovered. One in particular is what
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: has become used widely as botox because it has the
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: property of relaxing muscles. So you know, if you have
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: these lines in your face and then you inject this stuff,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: it relaxes the muscle and causes the lines to kind
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: of disappear. And it's interesting because this scientist, as was
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: sort of practice in the day, he didn't have anybody
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: to try this stuff out on, so he just shot
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: himself up with it and literally, like a thing that
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: he knew was poisoning sickening people, he just decided, well,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: maybe might find something interesting out here, and he started
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: injecting it in himself, and he discovered some pretty interesting properties.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Right, And we do have to say, in Kerner's defense,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: his bona fides come thusly before he experimented on himself.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: This is a quote from our friend Laurie L.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Dove.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: He rigorously tested hundreds of sausages to find these different
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: varieties of bachulism or bachelim toxin, and it turns out
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: that it was pretty common to have dodgy sausage in
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Germany at this time because there were, you know, lower
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: standards of food safety, to be honest. And eventually this
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: led to something that sounds hilarious but is tragic and real,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: which was, you know, scores of people dying due to
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: sausage poisoning outbreaks. This inspired Kerner. He worked himself up
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: to self experimentation, which sounds so crazy today, but you're
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: absolutely right, and he discovered it had this muscle relaxing
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: effect that you had mentioned and that it was not
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: fatal and that it could alter appearance to a degree.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: That's right. In addition to that muscle relaxing effect, it
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: also could cause vision problems, problems swallowing, vomiting, and severe
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: weakness of muscles when just used directly or experienced ingesting
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: it through the tainted food. And Kerner actually came up
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: with a pretty clever name for this stuff. He called
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: it worst Gifts, which means sausage poison. But I think
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: that as a sausage present.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Go there we go. But then the evolution of botox
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: applications continues for decades, right, and there's a big breakthrough
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: about seventy years after Kerner.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: It also involved tainted food. In this case, it was
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: a bespoiled ham that was brought to a funeral talking
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: about adding insult to injury. Some people died, actually three
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: people died and twenty three people were paralyzed by this
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: tainted ham. And a doctor by the name of Emiel
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Pierre van Airmingham of Belgium had to investigate this botulism outbreak.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: And it's interesting he actually studied under Robert Koch, doctor
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Robert Coke, who found out about anthrax and tuberculosis and
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: cholera bacterial cause. So the bacterial causes exactly, and Airmingham
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: was able to make the connection between botulism and that
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: spore we talked about that he called Bacillis botulinus and
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: it was later renamed Claustridium botulinium.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: And this is a watershed moment for this science because
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: in the years afterwards people were able to identify more
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: strains of Baculinum talks and eventually arriving at seven total,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: four of which could actually cause illness in human beings.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: That's right, And we're getting some of this info from
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: a great article on NBC News called Frozen in Time.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Botox over the years, from bad sausage to brow raiserre
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: a poisonous path to pretty That is some good alliterations,
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: good title. It's neat though, too, because as we move
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: into the forties and World War two, folks were experimenting
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: with this stuff as like a serious chemical weapon.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. According to a two thousand and four article in
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Clinical Medicine by the it's the Journal of the Royal
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: College of Physicians in London, there was a plan on
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: the US side to have Chinese sex workers slip tiny
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: pills into the food or drink of high ranking Japanese
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: officers in the hope that this would prove fatal. They
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: got far enough to actually make the capsules, but they
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: never put it into action. But yeah, as Noel said,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: they were actively planning to weaponize it. And now you know,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: you can have a party and put a version of
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: it in your face.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: And that stuff you put in your face is the
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Bauchulinium talks and type A. Because in the sixties and
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: seventies the research into that in particular was accelerated and
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: it was meant to help with muscle disorders. There was
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: a doctor by the name of Alan B. Scott of
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: the Smith Kettlewell Eye Research Foundation in San Francisco, who
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: did animal studies with that ty a, and he hypothesized
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: that you could actually use this stuff to help cure
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: people who had crossed eyes, cross eyed people who were
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: cross eyed. There's an official name for that. It is
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: called strabismus. I was not aware of that, and it
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: is a type of quote ophthalmic dystonia. And they found
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: that when injecting this stuff into the muscles around the
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: afflicted eyes, it loosened them up and caused them to
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: go straight.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: So now we see the transformation from a poison in
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: your sausage or you're what was the phrases, bespoiled ham
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I like that, to a weapon of war or would
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: be weapon of war, to something that may, it turns out,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: have health benefits. In nineteen seventy eight, doctor Allan Scott
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: gets FDA approval to inject more, you know, to experiment
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: on people with bachulinum toxin.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: And he trademarked it as acu Linum, and that was
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: the name of the company that he incorporated with that patent, and.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: By the late eighties drug makers were paying attention. A
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: manufacturer named Allergan purchased oculinum or or purchased rather, let's
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: be technical here, purchased the rights to distribute it, and
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: then the FDA approved this not just for strabismus, as
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Noel mentioned, but also for spasms of the eyelid muscle
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: better known as bleferos spasms.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: And it wasn't long after Allergan acquired this serum that
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: they also got approval from the FDA to changed the name.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: I didn't realize that was a thing. I guess it
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: makes sense because he can't be you know. That's why
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: the names of pharmaceuticals are often a little dull, because
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: I think they have to have some aspect in them
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: that ties to the actual substance, the actual material that's
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: in the product.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Can't call things smile pills, yeah, exactly.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: And they changed it to botox, which was a fun
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: portmanteau of batchy line toxin type A botox.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Now here we are. We've gone through the discovery of
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: this stuff, the application of it, and the various uses
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: people tried to find for it that didn't quite work out,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: like a weapon of war. Again, thank goodness, we went
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: with some health benefits instead, and very impressed. Good on
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: you human species. So the big question that is, how
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: did we get from how do we get from this
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: sausage poison to a wrinkle treatment? Right? It occurs in
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the nineties when a Canadian ophthalmologist named doctor Jing Carruthers
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: notices that her patients with eye spasms are starting to
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: lose their frown lines, which is a specific type of
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: line on the face that comes with aging.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Right, It's like, oh, my goodness, Louise, not only is
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: I not twitching anymore, you also have taken on a
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: new youthful glow and because that's how people talked in
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: the nineties in Canada.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, yes, these are accurate reenactments. And in nineteen
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: ninety two, doctor Caruthers, along with her husband, who was
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: a dermatologist, published a study that noted this C. Bauchulinum,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: a exotoxin could be used to treat brow wrinkles, and
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: they had no idea about how quickly the rest of
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: the world would catch on, so dermatologists across North America
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: took note in the United States as well. By nineteen
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: ninety seven, botox used for wrinkles had spiked to the
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: point that Canada ran out and people began to panic.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: And it's like, you know, I have a pretty distinct
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: memory of like when you started hearing about botox, and
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: it wasn't for me anyway until the early two thousands.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: And that's because the FDA in the United States didn't
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: give Allergan approval to use bow talks for that application
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: that the Canadians were so fond of already until two
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: thousand and two, and that's when they were able to
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: get that approval for the temporary improvement of appearance of
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: moderate to severe glabellar lines or those vertical frown lines
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: between your brow that you know, folks are wont to
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: get rid of.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: You hear them called worry lines, worry.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Lines, and this is not only this is in men
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: and women, and they can start to form as early
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: as like nineteen or twenty years old.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: This was a genuine treatment for something that a lot
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: of people were very insecure about. You know, people wanted
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: these wrinkles gone. And the FDA we keep issuing approval
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: for different uses, right, and botox became amazingly popular. I
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: think you and I and super producer Casey all remember
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: the glut of advertising. Right. It started to show up
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: in fictional shows too. Somebody would get botox. Right. You
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: started to see advertisements for it in malls, in gyms,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: and it would be called the you know, the beauty
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: secret in the health mags or the different lifestyle magazines.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: And then of course, inevitably knockoffs come into play, right,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: which leads to one of my favorite phrases that we
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: found here. Photos photos that's rough. That's rough.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: It is like baby.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Laxative, like what I don't know, But I am not
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: a photos authority, thank goodness, but we do also have
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: to caution against using some kind of thing like that.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Did somebody make homegrown botulism? Did they just get the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: right kind of stuff to grow?
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: And some bad sausages do it in a petri dish
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: and in their closet.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: That's that's that's not a good look now.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: But a lot of people in the United States, a
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: lot of a lot of people did seem to think
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: that botox was a good look, despite like seven hundred
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: percent since the early two thousands, and that's according to
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. But that number is
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: only tied to that cosmetic use. And as we've already
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: been through, quite a few other uses for this toxin
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: that are under review currently or actually in practice, and
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: that includes the treatment of cerebral palsy, a condition that
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: involves severely contracted muscles, so it makes sense that you
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: could use this to ease those spasms.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: It also has success with easy muscle spasms from multiple sclerosis,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: or and this surprised me, treating migraines.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: But as with anything that you know, experiences such a
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: meteoric rise so quickly, there's there's a backlash sometimes right
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: and in that timeline on NBC they talk about this
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: botox backlash and terms you know, thrown around.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: Like poker face and joker face.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: And the idea that it's just a little too available
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: and maybe people are doing it a little too willy
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: nilly and not thinking about maybe some of the side effects,
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: and even some celebrities that were all about it are
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: a little less willing to you know, come right out
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: and say this is something that I do.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: So then I guess the question is also is this
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: a fad, right or is this just society adjusting to
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: this treatment. You know, we're not the kind of people
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: who take pleasure in, you know, mocking other people are
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: ridiculing their choices. As far as we're concerned, I think
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: you speak for both of us here. If you're not
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: hurting somebody, then do do as you will. You know,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to bully anybody for making a choice
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: about their body that made them feel comfortable, confident, et cetera.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: But it is strange, and I don't think most people
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: know that this all goes back to one guy in
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds who said, what's wrong with all this sausage?
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Yep? And that tainted to meet you know is big,
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: big money. Despite this backlash we talked about, Allergan reported
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: that in twenty sixteen they finished with a seven percent
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: rise in net revenues and that is attributed to three
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: point nine billion in fourth quarter sales.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Holy smokes, Well, I feel like it would be a
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: little bit too personal question to ask you, nol or
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: u Casey if you would get this kind of stuff,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: So I'll go out and say it. By the I
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: think by the time that I am like elderly, I'll
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: probably just be able to download myself into a robot
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: or to get some sort of crisper level genetic treatment.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: So I don't know how long the age of plastic
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: surgery is going to exist. In general.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: I totally agree Ben, I look forward to slash year.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: When that day comes. I just want to rattle off,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: real quick a couple of the other products that Allergan pedals.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Leading of course the list is Botox, followed by Restasis, Oser, DECKX, lenses, Vrailar, Viberzi, Kaybella.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: I know Caybella. I think I've seen that commercial, no
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: idea what it does, and Lostren.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: These sound like if I'm living in some sort of
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: he man Masters of the universe world. This sounds like
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: this is my traveling crew of adventurers Gorilla.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Come hither a busy See.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: I think it works. I know it's it's a tough job.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: But whenever I hear about naming cars or naming drugs,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: I always think, whose job is that? Who sits there
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: and goes proton?
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: No?
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Wait, Britonica, you know that seems like a pretty sweet gig.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: If you have that job, please write to us let
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: us know if you're taking suggestions.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Ho ho what thither?
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: No? I think I think I remember this noise? Do
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: you remember this?
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: It's not a good noise. Okay, I guess it's time.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: It's time, gentlemen, Jonathan Strickland, the Quistor, you've returned yet again.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: I am back. I am back to quiz you on
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: things that may or may not have happened. And of course,
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: as we all know, it is your duty to, within
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: the span of three minutes, determine whether the nonsense I
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: spout is real or if I just made it up.
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: Thease at tire of your games, Quista, too bad Noll,
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: for this has become a permanent segment. Sporadically throughout the
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: course of this podcast. And so let's see, I gotta
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: come up with an our betrayriy rule. Why know we're
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: talking sausages today, are we not?
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: Yes, round, So at.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: The beginning of every question you have for me within
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: the span of those three minutes, once the timer begins,
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: you must proceed your request with please, sir, can I
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: have some more?
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Oh boy? Okay, and we have to have to try.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: You need to.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: Twist your oliver as hard as you can. Sounds pain's
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: that's what makes the voice so high bitched.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: This is gonna be cartoonishly cognate.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's right. Well, it's because it's because the query
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: I have the quandary. If you will the stuff what
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: I might have made up all might be true, happens
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: to be of English origin. Are you prepared to hear
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: the scenario?
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: We are prepared, all right.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: There's a fist bump happening right in front of me.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: We even blew it up.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: It's extremely insulting to do that on an audio podcast,
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: but we will continue. Nonetheless. I will signal to you,
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: Master Bolan, to pull the giant lever on our timekeeping device, which,
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: as we have previously established, takes up the entire back
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: wall of this studio.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: And most of the budget.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: All right, Yeah, it's a long one, so don't I'll
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: point to you when it's time. These are getting longer
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: each day. Listen, you left me with a lot of
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: time on my hands to kind of put this together.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: And I mean, I'm saying it's equal blame here. All right,
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: let's get on with it.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Here we go.
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: In the UK, sausages are sometimes called bangers, as in
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: the famous dish Bangers and mash. But why bangers? Well
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: it is because in the early nineteenth century, before English
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: law forced s laughter houses oh wait, no slaughter houses
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: to relocate far away from urban centers, the denizens of
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: old London Town could hear the sound of the abattoir
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: workers striking livestock over the head with a blunt instrument
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: in preparation for the slaughter. The sausages produced by the
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: packing industry then took on the name bangers, and the
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: nickname stuck even as the slaughterhouses were forced to relocate
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: further away. By the mid eighteen hundreds, a.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Begin getting running started.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: WHOA okay, we're going So I always just assumed that
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: it was because sausages are like tied together and if
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: you like walked with them, they would bang together.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Oh you eat some crazy rock car sausages.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: No, like you know, they they come on like a string.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: You got a string of sausages and like if you
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: could sling them over your shoulder and as you walk,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: they would bang together.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: Right ba sa more close enough? Go ahead?
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Whatever? That was beautiful?
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: Good?
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: All right? So, so in what time period did this occur?
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Early eighteen hundreds. By the mid eighteen hundreds, the UK
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: passed laws that forced slaughterhouses away from urban centers for
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: cleanliness issues. Please, sir, may I have some more you
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: may know?
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Oh I don't have anything.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: Oh well that's fine, consider yourself at hope I do.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: I am really, I'm really tempted to say true. One
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: thing that's making me question it is that it would
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: be strange for the food manufacturers to use that name.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I could see the street level.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: Oh this was the nickname that people adopted for the sausages.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: It wasn't marketed as bankers.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: But why not call a stake a banger then, you know,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: or like a hot club track? Yeah, that's different. How
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: you know that that wasn't until many many years later.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: That's what we call bangers now is like a really
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: tight track.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Casey could have a gunshot in airhorn. That is the
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: best use for us. Yeah, all right, so I I'm
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna hazard true. Really okay, what are you thinking?
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking false? Because I really do feel like the
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Bangers is like that they bang together? So shall we
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: shall we flip for it?
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Roachambo roachimbo deathmatch one two three shoot.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: And we're supposed to call out what what we what?
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: We shot?
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Okay? Okay, ready, one two three brock Sorry, okay.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: You want you beat me?
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: So you're going with true?
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: We're going with true. We're locking it in doing a row.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: You have fallen to the mastery of.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: The Quizta Himbo always seems like such a good idea,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: but I really think we should talk these through the
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: cool mistress Rochambo.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: Oh, I feel so good.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: I'm a little peeved at you, though, Ben I gotta says.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: I have a little peeve to you. What I feel
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: like you should be better at rock paper scissors. We
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: play it all the time.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: I'm sitting in a big bowl of mashed potatoes as
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: Bangers and mash right, whoa right in.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: The potato yeah, I'm a little peeved in meat.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: Would you like to hear where the term bangers really
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: came from?
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Yes? Please?
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: It was a century later during World War One, which
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: at the time they did not call World War One
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: because they were optimists and just called the Great War.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they didn't know there was gonna be a sequel.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: No one had looked at the trailers. World War One,
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: there was a meat shortage in the UK, and so
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: sometimes the packers, the meat packers would make up the
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: difference in the lack of meat with a little extra
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: water content and sausages, which are of course tied off
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: in casings. You put a case filled with water, a
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: water tight case on a hot surface. The water expands,
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: sometimes causing the case to rupture, resulting in a banging noise.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: And that is why they're called bangers.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Because they would like pop. Yes, it's from the popping
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: noise of Well, I was wrong too then, so I
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: feel better now, I mean I wasn't. I did say false,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: but my explanation was not quite honest.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: You never know, You never know. Also, just in case
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: you are curious, the captive bolt pistol was invented in
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: nineteen o three in Germany.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Don't care.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Oh I thought, I didn't think it was a bolt pistol.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: I was picturing the hammer.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: Right, No, I said blood instrument. That's why I specifically
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: looked up with pistol created.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Well, it looks like now we are in a dead
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: heat overall, right, because for two we are two for two.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: So the next one is going to be decisive for
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: all the means.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: I cannot wait. But it's going to be another one
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: about bodies.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Look, man, we have sure, we have some trends here,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: but we vary the show we like. You know, we
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: just also did a great episode on vitamin donuts. It's true.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: I have no response to that, none at all.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: That's a first.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: I'm just waiting for you to wrap this up so
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: I can so I can.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Leave, crawl back into your corner.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: I'm just so, I'm so tired of this room.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: He's got a little palette here with like candles and stuff.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Is thats how you read your fake history stories by candlelight?
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: Yes, I read my fake history stories by candle.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: You've got a weather picture stuck up with a thumbtack.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: I think it's a dog from the fifties. Is that
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: stock photography.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: Is my aunt.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, So on that note, let's hope that we
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: have only lost the battle and not the war in
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: our continuing conflict with the villainous quist Jonathan Strickland.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: You're here in the meantime. If you'd like to send
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: us some words of comfort, as we are both emotionally
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: shattered right now. You can write to us at Ridiculous
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: at HowStuffWorks dot com. You can also, you know, send
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: us an e card or a nice gift and post
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: it on Ridiculous History on Facebook book. You can talk
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: to us on Instagram. We're going to try to do
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: a better job of being part of this online community,
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: and we're going to do that soon in the form
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: of our first ever Facebook Live.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Yes, the rumors that we just started are true, ladies
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: and gentlemen, We are indeed going to be Facebook Live
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: and direct with a Ridiculous History family, and we'd love
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: to we'd love to meet you irl sort of, So
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: drop bys a toss us alike, ask us some weird questions,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: and be prepared for some strange answers.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: When is that going to be? Do we do we
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: know yet? Are we just kind of floating the idea?
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Out there and then well we'll nail down the date.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: We're planting the seed, planning the seed.
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: I'm just excited for everyone to finally see the quist's
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: amazing costumes.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: That's definitely gonna.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Happen, that's true.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: We just things I'm going to have to start working
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: on right away. I'm going to be there.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: So how will our first Facebook live turn out? There
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: are several ways to find out, but you want to
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: watch it live and we'll let you know exactly when
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: that's happening in an upcoming episode.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Until then, we'd love to shout out our super producer
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Casey Pegram, our pal Alex Williams, who composed our theme,
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: and regular contributor Lori L. Dove, who wrote How Stuff
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Works article Toxic German sausages are responsible for botox.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: And most importantly, we'd like to thank you for tuning
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: in giving us a listen and follow up on that
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: recommendation from my excellent co host there Don't be a Stranger.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Hit us up. We'd love to hear from you. You
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: can write to us directly at Ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: See you next time.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: Send more fanmail for the quizter
• 34:50
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• 34:54
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