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Short Stuff: Straitjackets · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: and we've got Jerry all wrapped up, so that means
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: this is an episode of short Stuff.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. You know, I don't know why I
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: thought of this. I may have, I don't know. Maybe
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: I was listening to Quiet Ride or something because the
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: idea of straight jackets popped into my head and I
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: was just wondering. I was like, you know, you see
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: you still see that stuff in TV and movies. Yeah,
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: but I was like, is that still a thing? And
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: it turns out not so much.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: No, not so much. How Stuff Works did an article
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: recently on straight jackets, and I also saw a really
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: good article on a site called history Hit, which I
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: hadn't heard before, but a guy named Kyle Hoachstro wrote
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: about him and it's.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Part of this came from How Stuff Works. A little
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: bit of it.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, cool, Yeah, I thought I recognized that. So street
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: jackets came around in the Georgian period, way more recently
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: than I thought. Some people say about seventeen seven around them,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and they're exactly what we think of them today, which
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: is they were used to prevent people with severe mental
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: illness from harming themselves and others by preventing them from
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: moving their arms. They could still throw their torso at you,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: but they couldn't like strangle you or smack you, or
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: punch you or choke you or anything like that, because
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: their arms were tied around their back through these overly
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: long sleeves that were attached to a jacket. Hence the
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: straight jacket, very very tightly. That's where the word straight
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: comes from.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly, straight as in a t.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Yes, straight laced, meaning tightly drawn or tight fitting.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not straight as in straight and narrow.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: No, and not straights like Ludacris's old restaurant in Atlanta.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: I didn't know he had one.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: They had to dessert. It was chocolate soup, which from
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: what I could tell, is just water down chocolate.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: You know the Falcons. I have season tickets and they
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: have different themes usually, and one week it was the
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: history of hip hop, and so there was all kinds
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: of people that came out and sang during the breaks
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: and stuff timeouts, and at one point, Ludicrous came down
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: from the ceiling of Mercedes Ben's dome nice like strapped
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: into a thing a straight jacket with like a GoPro
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: on a selfie stick.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: That's awesome.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Man, Like hundreds of feet in the air. It was
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: pretty amazing.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I would have lost my mind with fear head of been.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: We were all pretty delighted. So straight jackets have sort
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: of risen and fallen and lockstep with the what they
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: used to call, you know, insane asylums. We don't use
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: that term anymore, but these asylums really grew over a
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: couple of hundred years in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: and lockstep so did the use of straight jackets. They
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: were heavily used for a while, like you said, just
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: to keep people from hurting themselves or others. And their
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: rationale at the time was sort of like, hey, listen,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: at least you can move around. We're not like chaining
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: you to a bed or something like that. Yeah, so
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: you can get up and walk around. At least it's
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: a little more humane than the alternative. But things started
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: to change as things changed in how we looked at
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: treating mental illness.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and one of the things there was actually a
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: strange turning point where they started to go out around
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: the time that King George, the third of England who
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: was running the show when the American colonies declared independence
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: and fought England for independence and won. By the way
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: he was. There was a very famous movie and I
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: believe book called The Mandess of King George.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Great movie.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: I had not seen it, but I did you know
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: that he was considered barking mad, as they were to
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: put it back in the day he had. They're not
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: quite sure what he had. They think possibly even had
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: a metabolic disorder called porphyria, and wasn't mentally ill at all,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: but these were just symptoms of porfyria. He could have
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: also had severe mental illness, but he was confined in
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: a straight jacket, very famously by his doctor, Francis Willis.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Francis Willis also seemingly cured George the Third two and
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: very publicly so. And so King George the Third represented
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: the end of straight jackets because he also represented the
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: beginning of the concept, at least in England and the Colonies,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: that mental illness could in fact be cured, and that
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: created a revolution in how we treated the mentally ill.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: From that point on, it all pivoted in the In
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: One King.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you should totally see that movie. It's great, okay,
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: like Capital g.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Grade, who's a David Keith.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: No, Nigel Hawthorne is King George. And you think David
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: ian Holme is Doctor Francis Helen Myrens in it. It's
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: it's really really.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Good, Okay, I'll check it out.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: So in the nineteen tents, of course, is when we
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: saw the straight jacket worn by Houdini as a way
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: to do a stunt in full view of the audience,
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: rather than holding curtain up. But his brother, actually, Theodore Harden,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: used the straight jacket before Houdini, evidently, and I think
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Houdini might have ganked that from his bro.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, we did a whole episode on Houdini.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: It was a good, good one.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: It was speaking of good ones. I say we take
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: a message break, let's do it.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Well, now we're on the road, driving in your truck.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: I want to learn a thing or two from Josh,
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: PM Chuck.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: It's stuff you should know.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Should all right, Final Josh and shock shot.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: So these days, if you're not watching movies or television
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: where you still see tons of straight jackets, you're probably
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: not going to see them use much at all. They
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: are pretty outdated. Now we have. We have all kinds
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: of different things, from better treatments, better medication, better techniques,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: more staff. The idea of just sort of the idea
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: of restricting someone's liberties by physically restraining them like that
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: is just sort of an outdated way to look at stuff.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: They can also be deadly. I think there was a
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: case in eighteen twenty nine at Lincoln Asylum where someone
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: actually strangled themselves with their straight jacket.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were strapped to the bed in a street
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: jacket and left overnight, and when they returned they had
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: strangled themselves or had been strangled by their straight jacket overnight,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: and all the way back in eighteen twenty nine this asylum,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Lincoln Asylum, banned the use of straight jackets. So even
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: as far back as that, within a few decades of
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: their invention, they already had a bad name as being dangerous,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: despite being considered a more humane alternative to chaining somebody,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: which it was. You could say, but yeah, like you said,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: we now have different, like different techniques to We do
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: have physical restraints still, they're usually like super fuzzy wrist
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: and arm restraints, but they use those as a last resort,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: right if a patient. In this is the United States.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure about some of the other countries that
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: hear us, but in the United States, if a patient
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: is dangerous or presents a clear danger to themselves or
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: to other people, you can, against their will, inject them
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: with the centative to restrain them. So it's chemical restraints
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: or we also have different non confrontational techniques. And I
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: look that up because I was curious what that amounts to,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: and it is the most like low hanging fruit that
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: apparently works. If a patient is agitated, you get them
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: away from whatever is agitating them, and then you ask
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: them what's wrong? What can I do to help you?
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: What do you need to feel better about things? And
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: that this works, he's just take them to a low
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: sensory environment and just talk to them like a human being.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: That's that's the new technique now, instead of straight jackets
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: or chains.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because I imagine being approached by like three big
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: dudes holding up a straight jacket is not going to
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: lower the temperature at all.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: And one has a net and one has a trident.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it really is. It really is an
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: almost one trope because like these things went out of
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: fashion so long ago, but movies and TV just kept
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: using that same trope because it just is such a
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: signal for what you're to say, what kind of person
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: this is, which is a danger.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: I think if there's any through thread to stuff you
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: should know, and there are many, but definitely that we've
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: been grossly misinformed and misguided by TVs and movies over
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: the years. It's definitely a thread of stuff you should know.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, there is a company and I don't
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: know if it was this might have been from the
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: House of Works article. Sure, but uh, there is a
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: company in uh Wanaki, I hope I'm pronouncing that right,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin called Humane Restraint and I read that the first
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: twelve times as human Restraint, which I thought was the
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: worst funny name for a company that did this. Sure,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: but it's actually a great name because it's Humane Restraint.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: It's a company that makes this stuff. Did you go
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: to the website and look around?
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: No, but I did look up suicide smocks.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Well, just peruse Humane Restraint the website at some point,
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: because it's just one of those things where you are
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: sort of shocked to realize that there are, of course,
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: a company makes this stuff. This company makes all the
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: bed restraints. They make this safe furniture that you can't
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: like hurt yourself on gum me furniture. They make the
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: suicide smocks, which is you can't like roll them up
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: like to hang yourself or tear pieces off or whatever.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: No, it's a dress made out as a gown made
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: out of a moving blanket.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: No, I know, but the the whole point is you
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: can't roll it up and use it as a noose, yeah,
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: or tear it.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: No, I know, it makes total sense. But it's made
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: out of moving blanket material.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly for sure. And the company that makes these
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: make less than one hundred straight jackets a year. They're
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: called Humane jackets on the website. And if you were
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: a hazard to guess how much they cost, what would
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: you it would be your guess? Nice leather strapping, Oh yeah, yeah,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: it looks top of the line stuff canvas of.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Course, seventeen hundred dollars, drew.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: My friend. You can get a humane jacket for two
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: hundred and twenty five bucks. What, Yeah, it was much
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: cheaper than I thought.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's probably plether then it.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: May be, but they had it's just an interesting website
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: to think that. Wow, there's a company that just makes
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: this stuff, but like a what a market to corner.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: I think the interesting thing is is they interviewed someone
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: from there and they were like, hospitals aren't buying these
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: anymore at all. Obviously, we sell maybe one hundred of
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: them a year, and one hundred percent of them are
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: to jails and prisons.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the depressing fact of this podcast totally. In
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, a group called Treatment Advocacy Center said that
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: pointed out that jails, How's jails and prisons house ten
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: times more seriously ment a little people than state psychiatric
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: hospitals too. And the reason why that's a little bit
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: of a three card Monty move right there, because there
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: are no state psychiatric hospitals anymore because of Ronald Reagan.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: And of course the reason they're also using straight jackets
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: is because they don't they're not hospitals and they don't
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: have to play by the same rules of humane treatment,
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: so they could. You could still be in a prison
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: and if you're a danger they demio a threat or whatever,
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: they can put you in a straight jacket.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: So, Chuck, I'm a rocker and I really loved your
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Quiet Riot reference who else has worn straight jackets in
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: the music industry over the years.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Well, my friend you and I would saw Alice Cooper
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: in concert together in person, so we know Alice Cooper does.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks to an invitation from Hurricane Nieder herself.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: That's right. Who else?
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Johnny Rotten very famously wore one in the Save the Queen, God,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Save the Queen video the sex Pistols.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, quite right, that quite right. Wouldn't even in that
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: article that I found that mentioned these others?
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: No, but they just right there on the cover. You
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: did some extra, excellent, extra research. You got anything else?
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: I got nothing else?
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Well, then street Check.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: It's his apps.
• 12:39
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• 12:42
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• 12:44
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• 12:47
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