Oh What A Time... - #12 Healthcare

Episode Date: October 1, 2023

Pop some chicken soup on the hob and check out this week’s episode which is: Healthcare. From how the common cold has been cured down the years, to how our ancestors diagnosed diabetes via a good old look at urine, right through to the worst headache cure you have ever heard in your life. And ONE DAY TIME MACHINE is back once again and would you believe it? Someone has finally taken up Elis’ once scorned ‘coffee table’ option. If you’ve got a one day time machine or anything else, drop us an email here: [e-mail] We also HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT! This is the 12th episode and as we suggested, was meant to be the end of the series. But we’ve had so much fun doing this and your emails have been so funny, that we simply don’t want to stop… so WE HAVE BEEN RECOMMISSIONED! And we’ll be back next week. So thank you so much for being part of this burgeoning community of ours. Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? Oh and please follow us on Twitter at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod And thank you to Dr Daryl Leeworthy for his help with this week’s research. Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). And thank you for listening! We’ll see you next week! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The all-new FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino is bringing you more action than ever. Want more ways to follow your faves? Check out our new player prop tracking with real-time notifications. Or how about more ways to customize your casino page with our new favorite and recently played games tabs. And to top it all off, quick and secure withdrawals. Get more everything with FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600.

Visit connectsontario.ca. I'm going back to university for $0 delivery fee, up to 5% off orders and 5% Uber cash back on rides. Not whatever you think university is for. Get Uber One for students. With deals this good, everyone wants to be a student. Join for just $4.99 a month. Savings make free. Eligibility and member terms apply. Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time, a history podcast that tries to decide if the past was absolutely rubbish. I'm Tom Crane. I'm Chris Scull. And I'm Ellis James. Each week on this show we'll be looking at a new historical subject and today we're going to be discussing healthcare. From the history of the common cold to how the ancients worked out what diabetes was, plus the worst headache cure you have ever heard.

Thank you once again for your emails. They've been flooding in. Tom, you've been in charge of the postbag this week. What have you got for us? Yes, so as usual, you guys have not disappointed. Credible emails. Some of the best emails I've ever read have come in from you guys. Before we get into that, should we have a quick Latin test?

We did this back in the day. Yeah. People left reviews written in Latin. I'll give you a new one that's just come in this week. It simply says, Veni, Vidi, Rissi. And that's from Miriam. Do you know what that means? Never studied Latin.

Wasn't offered at my school. I'm going to say, I think I am. I listen to podcasts. I think I am. I listen to podcasts. I think I am. Are we close? It's actually not bad. You've got the rhythm of it, right? I'm not sure how impressive that is.

It's I came, I saw, I laughed. Look at that, Miriam. Thank you, Miriam. Now, if you guys want to leave a review in any ancient language, feel free. As long as it's attached to a five star, we'll try and work it out. If it is, I'll ignore it. So much nicer than saying conquered. It is, isn't it?

Yeah. Far more pleasant. Now, into the meatier emails for this week. First of all, let's kick off with Ben Steele. Ben Steele has got in contact. Now, I don't know if you remember last week, I think it was, well, maybe it was a week before, I was talking about going to a battle reenactment. Yeah.

And seeing someone in some Converse All-Stars and it really taking me out of the moment. So he said, hey, love the show. Just wanted to add to Crane's story of being taken out of the spell of battle reenactments when he was about 12 by a roundhead wearing Converse that he mentioned the adventurous episode. Roundhead wearing converse that he mentioned in the Adventurers episode. Roundhead wearing converse.

It lacks an attention to detail. I think if you're putting yourself into the world of battle reenactments, surely you're thorough enough to look down at your feet. If you go into that much effort, that Roman legion's terrifying in its new balance. Exactly. Why does that only extend to the top half? But anyway, this man here, Ben, said, at a similar age, I went to an event at Tattershaw Castle in Lincolnshire

that had a battle reenactment where one of the guys doing it was accidentally wounded by a medieval pike. Oh, man. I told Claire about this. I read it to Claire. And Claire, my very intelligent wife, responded, what, do you mean the fish which sounds like a lie but genuinely isn't

I could get her in here get on the mic and be like a medieval bike I'm not sure how that would work an 800 year old big fish what slapped it round his face it was just the bones

like what you get in a cartoon bin so Ben says unfortunately the subsequent arrival of the air ambulance really spoiled the atmosphere. I'm not sure if the NHS were used to dealing with pike-based injuries in the early 2000s, but I'm assured by my mum, who worked in the A&E at the time, that he was fine in the end.

Love the show, Ben. That must have been quite an injury if it got an air ambulance. It's like a proper medieval injury. Right. I've got a history question you're not going to get on any other history podcast i'm taking you back to the day of agincore right you've got a little stall there packed full of converse all-stars how many of the english army are going get this get this footwear off my feet i want a pair of converse all-stars

well my first question would be how muddy is it on the day? Yeah. Very muddy. Infamously muddy. I think you're struggling to shift, Enny. If it was quite a dry field, I actually think it can be a far more comfortable shoe than what was available at the time. Yeah, good enough for basketball players in the 50s as well. Also, we think the Converse All-Star is cool because of its history

in college basketball and stuff like that in America. It would have none of that context. People would just go, that is the weirdest looking piece of footwear I've ever seen. You'll be pushing the Battle of Ashencore back four hours while you tell them the history of 1950s college basketball. And then, of course, the strokes made them popular again in the early 2000s.

Meanwhile, the French are going, should we just call this off? Well, if on the off chance you are the man who was stabbed by a spike a pike at tassel castle do get in contact with the show and let us know um what's happened exactly yes why that happened because i would i would love to know um john isard has contacted the show to say i just listened to the jobs episode this is fascinating this this is amazing i love our listeners this is so interesting just listening to the jobs episode and wanted to flag a time

related job you may not have heard of, which felt oddly related to those stick-toting waker-uppers. Now, this is in the Jobs episode. We talked about people who went around and woke people up around the city, around the town, before people had watches and clocks and stuff like that. John says, My fourth great-grandaunt was a lady called Ruth Belville,

who was born... Sorry, don't move a... Fourth great-grandaunt was a lady called Ruth Belville, who was born... Sorry, don't move a... Fourth great-grandaunt? Oh, yeah. What's that? That's not a good enough link, is it? I can't even do the mental maths on what that found in treatment. As he says here, it is as in great-great-great-great-aunt.

Yeah, so the sister of your great-great-great-grandfather or grandmother. Wow, okay. To be honest, if you bump into her at a christening, the conversation's going to be silted. Wow, you're 150 years old. Well, that's actually quite easy conversationally. If you can't have a conversation with someone who's 150 years old, you can't come up with any interesting questions yeah then i think the problem is with is with you even yeah just

question what's it like exactly you must be knackered um so this lady was called ruth belville who was born in greenwich in 1854 she affectionately became known as the Greenwich time lady as her job was to sell people the accurate time around London so her dad John Belville worked in the Royal Observatory and clockmakers used to come to Greenwich to set the correct time but John apparently had a massively accurate pocket watch it was like really really accurate who's the guy going around describing it as massively accurate well it's it's our it's our listener uh john isard who's describing it as massively accurate to like a tenth of a second apparently so he decided to send the time via messengers to establishments and they would pay for the service and they then adjust their clocks

according to his pocket watch and then ruth his aunt, took over the business in 1892 and only retired at the age of 85 in 1940 due to the dangers of wandering around the London during the Blitz. So up until the Blitz, people were going around and selling at the correct time. That is very cool. It is, isn't it? That is so cool. I would dine out on that forever. Now, we've had so many of these, as always, on One Day Time Machine, the world's best bit of audio business. Cue the sting. It's the One Day Time Machine. It's the One Day Time Machine. It's the One Day Time Machine. It's the One Day Time Machine.

And this is from Philip Madden who says, Hello lads, I was hoping to use the time machine to witness and slightly alter history. It's quite a short one but i really enjoyed it my idea is to go back to witness the birth of jesus christ but as a coffee table now we need to explain that people haven't been listening that ellis is insistent you can go back as a coffee table if you want the plan being to see if the presence of a coffee table makes it into the gospels and from that into the standard nativity scene i thought it would be quite funny if every school's nativity play and all nativity sets contained and i love this in the language here a standard coffee table so that's so brilliant okay i'm gonna ask the listeners for a favor now christmas is around the corner if you've've got a nativity scene, please get a little doll's coffee

table, insert it in the nativity scene, take a picture, send it to us. It will go on the Instagram every single time. Oh, that's so funny. That is hilarious. That is brilliant. We've got a really cool email from Jon Izzard. Because I love that his fourth grade auntie

was selling accurate time. In the age of the smartphone, Because I love that his fourth grade auntie was selling accurate time. Yeah. In the age of the smartphone, it's just, and the Apple Watch, it's beyond belief, the idea that you're like, what, you want another time? You don't have to pay for it. Yeah.

But a coffee table in the Bible, what would be on it? What book? Sapiens. That's a bit on the nose isn't it well john isard's email has inspired a new feature i think if you're related to someone who either had a really cool job or someone famous in history please do let us know on hello at oh what a time dot com um are you related to anyone famous or interesting? Any ancient relatives that did something really cool, Tom and Chris? Well, I'm glad you're sitting down.

Get this. My mother's sister's ex-husband, his sister is the sister. Before you tell us this, Chris, can I just tell you one thing? sister is the sister. Before you tell us this Chris can I just tell you one thing? Just to remind you you took umbrage on John Izzard mentioning his fourth great grandad and now you've named

15 different categories of person. So my mum's sister's ex-husband's sister is married to Ken Doherty, the snooker player. Yes. We got there in the end and it was worth it. So have you met

Ken Doherty? No! My brother's tapped him up for snooker tickets once. But that's as far as it's got. I've never met him. Because I wouldn't want to stand in front of him relaying how we're probably not even related.

Yeah, well I was about to give you a quick maths problem trying to work out what are you to Ken Doherty if he was telling you the other way around. Let's see if you can work that out. I'll tell you that now. Well, this sounds like a lie but it's not a lie.

Izzy's mother's side they were larbalestias like Lewis Hamilton is a larbalestia and one of Izzy's cousins worked out that they share, they're like seventh they have seventh great grandparents in common so she's very

Izzy and thus my children are very very distantly related to Lewis Hamilton Really? And it sounds like bollocks. Yeah. So it's the kind of thing that we only really discuss as a family because it sounds like you're telling a mad lie. But no, so... Have you felt

any of that money trickle down? That is exactly what I said. That's the first thing I said. She's a multi-millionaire, isn't she? Will you be there for the reading of The Will? On the off chance. People are going, why is Ellis James here? Fingers crossed. Have you ever bumped into him?

No. Have you got to the end of the will? You mentioned the fast car? Maybe he's left his really fast car. Imagine if that's the thing I got left, his car. Completely impossible to park anywhere. Speed bumps would be a nightmare. Your neighbours in Crystal Palace live in at how loud the engine is

when you set off for work in the morning. Tyres cost quarter of a million quid each. Oh, it needs a service. We're going to have to remortgage. Absolutely the worst car in London traffic as well. That is not what you need in the stop-start world of London traffic. Bad in the rain.

Yeah. Zero storage space. No need in the stop-start world of London traffic. Bad in the rain. Yeah. Zero storage space. No space for the kids. One seat. Yeah. Get it on the M1, though. M1, though. Late at night, no traffic. Can you imagine how quick you get to Centre Parks? That's true. You left at four in the morning and you said, I'll see you at Centre Parks in two

and a half minutes. Absolutely incredible. Well, let's hope that happens. So, if you are related to anyone, get in contact with the show. Let us know who. All right, you horrible lot. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at oh, what a time dot com. And you can follow us

on Instagram and Twitter at oh, what a time pod. Now clear off. When things heat up, you don't just want a cold one. You want the coldest one. The cold lagered cold filtered cold certified one mountain cold refreshment Coors Light the chill choice visit CoorsLight.ca to learn more celebrate responsibly must be legal drinking age are you Dave a claims-free hybrid driving university grad who signed up online well Dave, Dave, this jingle's for you. Who saves with TD Insurance? Because he's a claims-free hybrid driving university grad who signed

up online. It's Dave. Not Dave? No problem. TD Insurance has over 30 ways to save on home and auto. So... You can totally save, just not exactly like Dave. Save like only you can at td insurance.com slash ways to save td ready for you so this week i will be talking about how the ancients dealt with diabetes

and the study of urology and i'm going to be talking about the common cold the history of the common cold now i'm going to talk about headaches now um i don't know if you saw the news recently of a scan that revealed this patient had a worm growing in her in their brain did you see that oh yeah it was in australia i think it was i think it was a woman i can't remember with a with a worm in her brain which is even in the age of modern medicine and you know very positive health outcomes for all manner of different diseases bad news yeah also that woman wasn't she doing something like drinking pond water you know no she'd actually been no i can tell you what she was doing she had been

creating a drink using herbs and like plants near where she lived she'd been going out gathering plants and herbs whatever they are i can't remember the specific ones and that's where this bacteria or whatever it was lived and then once she'd made the drink using that that's how she got the worm in her brain right and i'm assuming if you're making a drink with herbs it's you're gonna market it as a health drink it's not like do you fancy a hangover this will give you a hangover do you know what i've got a fairly decent i don't want to show off i've got a fairly decent stash of herbs i couldn't make a single half decent drink out of those herbs and they're proper herbs however chris what i tell you one thing if you did make a drink it might taste awful but you wouldn't end up with a worm in your brain so i think you'd probably win oh also i've never i don't know i've never cooked with thyme or saffron

i thought this would make a nice drink yeah whoa wouldn't mind drinking this i've had this sort of consistent fear of going to australia for years why uh well mainly because of the sharks because i'm petrified of sharks and a lot of us going on holiday somewhere i want to be able to get in the sea and i would never have the confidence to do that if i was in australia okay it's often said that humans don't respect nature and i feel like australia is really telling people you shouldn't be living here there are and no one is listening. There are a thousand things that will kill you.

And their ecosystem, from what I've seen on Passport Patrol, their ecosystem is made of glass. Yes. Like someone brings over a toad and the whole thing comes crashing down. Yeah, yeah. If you take a pink lady apple that you bought from your local spa the day before you flew out, if that's in your rucksack, you'll basically get teased to death from what i understand my next girlfriend of mine went

to australia and had a half a pret cheese sandwich in her backpack that she forgot to declare and she was bang in trouble they were like that cheese sandwich gets out this airport this whole experiment of australia will come crashing down. It doesn't suggest a huge faith in the culinary expertise of the country you're going to if you're packing a bread cheese sandwich. There'll be nothing for me out there. I did stand-up though. I did a three and a half month

stand-up tour. Oh yes. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. But yeah, it's too far yeah but did your brain did your brain remain worm free for the trip did you did you know which is why my career grown to a halt really because i um i i showed real potential when i started doing stand-up. And then I went to Australia, having a good Edinburgh. I did gigs over there.

I did Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, and then a tour of rural Victoria. Got a worm in the old brain. And since then, to be honest, I've been sort of level peg. I'm not particularly funny bloke. I am what I am. Little worm that gobbled up punchlines. That's what it lives on.

The part of the brain that sort of creates top. My set-ups are sort of a relatively high standard. I can never finish anything off. It's quite exciting. You see your stand-up. You'll start and then go, this will be good. I'm excited to see where this goes.

I just come up with really interesting ideas never pay any of them off it can be hugely frustrating and reviewers have mentioned this now in the ancient world uh including in ancient egypt headaches and migraines was sometimes thought to be the responsibility of evil spirits spirits that have somehow taken up residence in your mind and then become trapped. Now, I'm going to say this. If your doctor is blaming spirits, I always think that's a bad sign.

Yeah. Like, if someone said, oh, you're bloody spirits. That's why... Imagine if Michael Owen had been told that after he'd pulled his hamstring. You've got spirits in your leg. Your knees are like an episode of Most Haunted.

It would suggest to me that Doctor has basically missed some crucial lectures and is too embarrassed to admit. Now, the throbbing pain was the spirit trying to find a way out. The Babylonians call this annoying poltergeist to you. So that begs the question, how would you get rid of a spirit trapped in your grey matter? For the 7th century Irish cleric and saint, and I'm going to apologise to our Irish listeners, especially Irish speakers. I'm not sure that this pronunciation is correct.

Eid Macbrick, who lived in Donegal in the north-west of Ireland, and who variously claimed to be able to make pregnancy disappear and to make headaches disappear by absorbing them even at a distance into his own head the man was a liar the answer lay in an incantation right it ran something like this but in latin from the pure i asked the prayers that he cools the noxious fluxes that flow heated in my head, that he cures my head with my kidneys and with the other parts afflicted, with my eyes and my cheekbones, with my ears and with my nostrils. So by this method, the cause of the headache was banished from the patient.

And because of Mac Brick's apparent success as a healer, his methods were copied and used by various monasteries around Europe. So what was he claiming? What would happen then? He was just claiming he would stand near them, or as he's not even near them necessarily, from a distance it says, and he'd just simply look at them

and then he'd absorb all the problems. Yeah, deliver this incantation, then you make your pregnancy disappear, you make your headaches disappear by absorbing them. And I'm not having you go, the 7th century Irish, they'd be like, that's great. I'd have to see the theatre of that.

Is he stood there like, trying to suck them in? Yeah. Or was he like a sort of normal, stressed, too busy 21st century GP? He's like, right, come in. Come in. Quick incantation.

Next. You'll do it over the phone between 8 and 10 in the morning. Now, the Babylonians and the Egyptians, by contrast, agreed that the answer to this question of getting rid of spirits was logical. One had to provide an exit a doorway or a portal to this headache right to this spirit so the spirit could simply escape on his own terms so you needed to give the spirit that was in your head a helping hand right now the result was a

procedure called trephination and this involved oh no i was scared this was heading towards a procedure yeah now this involved literally drilling into the skull. Oh, come on. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. An operation that was conducted, of course, without any form of anaesthetic, right? Except maybe you might have a drink, like a slug of booze. Now, if I was about to have my skull drilled into, and the people who knew about this sort of thing said,

listen, now, you want to get a little bit pissed before it happens. That's when I'm going to treat myself to a slightly nicer bottle of wine than I usually have. And then I'm going to whack myself around the head with it. Now, tree panning, whether to get rid of a headache caused by an evil spirit or not, has been practised all over the world since prehistoric times. It is one of medicine's oldest treatment methods. Despite the likely conditions in which the operation was carried out, it was remarkably successful.

Now, this statistic blew my mind, OK? Of the skulls of prehistoric humans found in France, some 40% of patients seem to have survived. Now, that is known because there is no bone growth around the otherwise obvious hole in their head. Imagine it happening as a teenager, just as you're getting into sort of the opposite, you know, going out, the opposite sex maybe.

You're trying to pull. Oh yeah, that, I had a headache about a year ago, but it's fine. So would it be left as an open hole basically? Yeah, and then the bone would grow back. You would feel drafty. Would you put a cork in it? What would you do? Some half-chewed chewing gum?

What's the idea? You've got to seal that with something every day, haven't you? So is it actually trying to cure the pressure building up inside the skull? And that actually... I guess that's what it is I have had headaches that feel like horrible pressures building up in my skull So it kind of makes sense. I would say that getting the drill out is the nuclear option.

Yeah. A hole in the front of your head. So people have always had headaches. People will always have headaches. A headache is horrible. So you're looking for keywords. You're looking for a solution. I just find it incredible that people are like,

so what is it? Your young son's got a headache. Have you tried drilling into his brain? Yeah. It's just how drastic everything is. So a lot of these things, you just have to wait and they will pass. But if you're doing something during that period,

when it eventually ends, you go, well, that thing I was doing was part of the reason it passed the reality was it was simply time and this is why people are able throughout history to sell things and to fool people because it's just a matter of time isn't it but by that point someone is stuffing lavender um up your daughter's nose and you're like yeah looks good actually looks good to me that reminds tom, your point reminds me of one of my dad's favourite catchphrases, which is that if you're sick, go to work. Take the days off when you're better. Like, whenever you're sick, get yourself into work.

Work, and then take the days off when you're better. How does that work? Why? Has your dad never been ill? No, because if you don't feel well, just get yourself into work. Just work for the day. What's his stance on COVID out of interest, Chris?

Yeah, is that exactly what I'm thinking? Has your dad... Has your dad... Go to... Whatever you've got, go to work. Give it to other people. Whatever sickness, virus it is just get yourself into work and then when you feel better have a sick day but maybe take yourself off just relax enjoy the time that is hilarious on that what are you guys are you what are you

guys like when it comes to that are you the sort of people that push yourself to keep working to go in or what what's what's your where are you actually well sort of people are in a pre-covid age i would follow my dad's advice yeah i would i'd like just drag yourself in just get through it yeah yes i did a gig in um brussels once and i had a horrific cold and i I was doing a 30-minute set. And it was before the worm entered my brain. So, yes, I was headlining. I remember having to go off after 15 minutes to blow my nose, which must have looked great. The audience must have loved that.

No. Yeah. I think I've changed my opinion a little bit but the problem with being self-employed as well as often you just it's very difficult to take time off absolutely i completely agree especially because you're you're paid by the day that's how most of my work works so it's kind of it's hard not to i had a similar thing at the edinburgh festival once where i did a show and i was unbelievably ill but i had a reviewer in and I thought I have to do this and I took

a bottle of cough medicine on with me and throughout the show I would take a glug of it and continue for five minutes and after 40 minutes What do you mean? We're not glugging it. It's not like Genuinely, after 40 minutes a woman stood up and said

just say I'm a nurse and you do need to stop doing that Oh my god Now that is incredible Now the treatment of headaches with herbs and scents continued into medieval times when lavender sage rose or hay were proposed

as usefully sweet and effective If none of this worked and you went to see a doctor in ancient Greece, as well as in Europe, all the way through to the 19th century, you might face the prospect of being bled. The 19th century they're doing this. Dr. Robert Witt, an 18th century Scottish physician, insisted that a nosebleed was the best solution to an obstinate headache. Yeah, I've always thought about that.

When I've got an obstinate headache, I just just think if only someone could punch me in the face that would be absolutely perfect get rid of this bloody headache there's a fist when you need it bloodletting i've always said whenever i've read about that through history is the thing that just blows my mind when you've got someone who's really ill on death's door and the doctor turns up and goes, what we need to do here is bleed this guy out a bit more and then I'll make a recovery. Because it must have...

I don't understand how that could ever have worked. Well, I mean, following ancient Greek methodology, the doctor would use the shaft of a thick goose feather to scratch away the inside of the nasal cavity and then let the blood flow at will. So you've got a terrible headache.

And some doctor, he goes into his little briefcase, his little bag, gets on a massive goose feather and is like, let me stick it up. I would never go to the doctor again. There could be a live goose in the corner of the room and he just plucks a feather out there and then. He just has a goose in his room at all times it may not be from yeah the live goose is his assistant the live goose did all the hard yards at medical school but crucially doesn't have opposable thumbs

yeah yeah sorry you've got a ring between uh eight and ten if you want to see the goose um alternatively uh you might apply leeches to the face or open a temple vein with a cutting knife all to allow the pressure to subside to reduce an excess of blood in the body and therefore restore uh humeral balance so there you have it that's headaches through history i think everything i've heard on the podcast so far so far what you've just said is the biggest reason not to go back to the past yeah yeah yeah like the medical treatment now that thank god no one's gonna stick a goose feather up your nose and i mean that's you've got off lightly if they're doing that or at least it's a reason not to go back to the past when you've got a headache. Very briefly, the leeches, I think, are an interesting thing

because why someone has looked at those, those unbelievably disgusting things, and thought, that's what we need to bring into the... Put that on your face. Of all the things you've used. Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? Of everything. The leech.

Leeches still have a medical use, don't they? They're still... They do. And maggots. And maggots can really help clear up medical use, don't they? They do. And maggots. And maggots can really help clear up a wound, can't they? Again, and this is a very common trope of especially American stand-up, the first person to do that. What were they thinking?

I've got a history fact that I think I know. I don't know if we should introduce a jingle where it's bits of historical knowledge we think we know and we're not quite confident. I'm sure... Half-remembered anecdotes. I'm going to take what you've just said and turn it into a jingle.

He is saying... He is saying... He is saying... He is saying... Half-remembered anecdotes. Half-remembered anecdotes. I'm sure that the medical usage of maggots was discovered in maybe the First World War when soldiers who'd been blasted by shells were recovered from, like, shell holes. And those who had wounds that were infested with maggots had better recoveries than those that didn't. And that's how they discovered that actually these maggots

are performing a medical triumph. That's really interesting. I've got another half-remembered fact, which if you want to fact-check this, and if we've got it wrong, we will always accept our mistakes. And in a clarifications section, however, they looked at pilots who'd been burnt in planes that caught fire, that had been shot down. And the pilots that landed in the sea had far better recovery rates from their burns than pilots who landed on land

and this is my half remembered fact, the doctors at the time thought, well it's obvious then isn't it? this is what we need to do with burns, salt so at one point they were putting salt on people's burns thinking it was the salt in seawater not the fact that it was water, that's my

half remembered historical fact. Oh, wow. That's amazing. Do you know what? I'm banging into this. I think we've just discovered another feature. Half-remembered historical facts. Don't Google it if you've half-remembered it.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't fact-check yourself before sending it in. Great. Hello at owhattime.com. Dare I say it, is that Britain's second best format point? And just remember as well, because we don't want to spread

misinformation, especially in the internet age we will do a sort of clarification section and a correction section Maybe the third greatest feature might be called A Grown Up Speaks so i'm going to be talking to you about how the ancients dealt with diabetes in the study of urology i think diabetes is one of those things that a thousand years ago would be a living nightmare yeah it would would end your life early it would be

horrendous and now it's one of those things that relatively can be managed can it yeah yeah it can be managed but it wasn't until 1921 the discovery of insulin that transformed the lives of diabetics and at last at that point doctors could treat an illness which for with different symptoms and manifestations had evaded them for thousands of years. And that's something to think about. So if you go back to ancient Egypt, as the ancient Egyptians noted in medical papyrus compiled around 1550 BC, certain patients were presented with an ailment that caused them to urinate excessively, resulted in gasping, thirst, and then weight loss. So the ancient Egyptians were clocking diabetes.

That's the first kind of acknowledgement of this disease. So in the 5th century BC, a doctor in India called Sushruta identified another symptom of diabetes, which he called honey urine. And this is basically how doctors began to diagnose diabetes. And this is basically how doctors begun to diagnose diabetes. It was so named because Shashruta, this doctor, noticed that the wee of diabetes patients seemed to attract ants that would otherwise be put off by the smell of human urine.

Wow, that's amazing. So like all good scientists, he invented a test which could basically prove if a patient was suffering from diabetes. He would take a cup of a patient's suspected honey urine and he would set it amongst a colony of ants. And if the ants moved towards it, that was an indication that the patient may have polyuria. And then he put it in his porridge.

That's amazing. Well, that's where the phrase, you've got ants in your pants comes from, doesn't it?'s where the phrase you've got ants in your pants comes from doesn't it you're diabetic you've got ants in your pants that's really interesting so if we fast forward to the renaissance various doctors were by now working on the observable symptoms of diabetes and the swiss physician called paracelsus who was active in the first half of the 16th century noted that what was left after evaporating urine sampled from patients reporting an excess of water was a residue which he called salt and this led him to believe that this salt which he considered the cause of diabetes was deposited in the kidneys and stomach

so in the renaissance age they begin to figure out okay it's something to do with the kidneys and then in 1770s matthew dobson realized that the salt that was identified by Paracelsus was in fact sugar, and the link between diabetes and sugar production was made. Did he do what police do in cop dramas where they think they've found a big stash of cocaine? Did he put a little dab on his tongue and go, bloody hell, it's sugar! I mean, that's the thing about this study of ancient urology. There's lots of evidence to say, oh, we noticed that the urine of diabetes patients was sweet.

Who's drinking it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of tasting piss going on, isn't there? There's not a lot of ways you can really analyse urine, apart from give it a good old gulp. What else can you do? You look at it, you pour it on the ants. Is that the lowest rung?

In Renaissance science, is that the lowest rung? The piss tester? Is that what it is? There's one guy who can, you know... What would happen is, it's like, you're doing your work experience next week, so you're in year 10. Yeah, looking forward to it. What are you doing?

Oh, I'm doing some stuff at other solicitors, actually. It's mainly just going to be copying things out and filing. What are you doing? I'm going to a hospital. You've got a week of piss tasting ahead of you, mate. In 1674, Oxford-based physician Thomas Willis actively sampled urine in this way.

He noted the sweet taste of pee from certain diabetic patients, and he wrote in his diaries that it was wonderfully sweet, as if imbued with honey or sugar. So Ed Gamble's wee tastes nice, is what we're seeing. Sounds like Ed Gamble's weed tastes like dessert wine, basically. Is that what we're hearing? Sort of sweetened honey. That's amazing.

Now you've said that, every time I drink dessert wine, I'm going to be thinking, is this someone's era? Yeah. What I find interesting about this, and it always comes back to it, it's just amazing that in the renaissance era that long ago people were just able to make these deductions incredibly that i would have no i know this sounds obvious but we talk about one day time machine or the idea of being chucked back in time chuck me back now i'd have no idea of telling you any of this stuff or even working out what anything i'm just the leaps that people were

making when the the technology and equipment and the thought processes were so far behind these incredible leaps that these brilliant people were able to make in the past well a lot of it is accidental i remember reading another half-remembered historical fact i remember that the the doctor who discovered lsd accidentally ingested it in a lap. Your honour. And it's like this cup of urine. It's knocked over. And it's like, oh, look at all those ants going after that.

Hang on a minute. A lot of the great discoveries are just completely accidental. If you went back in one day time machine, you could try and spew out all of your spurious knowledge, some half-remembered facts, some stuff that was right. You'd be like, hi, everyone, I've got to say, diabetes happens when your body doesn't produce enough insulin. It's going to make you piss, tear, sweat, so by all means, have a taste.

The Earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around. The moon isn't made of cheese. I don't know if any of you think that. I'm not sure if I got that from kids' books. Okay, here's a question. The moon is flat. It's not flat. Excuse me, excuse me.

Where does wind come from? I'm not entirely sure about that. I can't remember it from a GCSE. I'll come back to you later on that. Sorry, I don't know. Sorry. You'd have to approach it like in Memento where you write loads of stuff on your body.

You know the movie? And then I just go out and read out as much as I can, basically. In the 24 hours I have, naked in the middle of a street reading out facts. That would affect my confidence. Right, I'm going to throw you back to, let's call it 500 AD. What facts are you telling people

that is demonstrably true that they can see for themselves that isn't going to get you burners which will blow people's minds. Is there anything you could say to them? What fact can I give them that for a brief period Michael Owen was the best player in Europe that he peaked at probably around

20 That's a really good question question what fact which we say 500 a.d like 500 a.d you could point at the sun and go the earth is revolving around that but they'd go yeah that's not that's a good one but you'd have all this with all this world's knowledge i think i might have come up with the world the world's fourth greatest feature what is there something you could tell to an ancient that would they could go i can see that if i can choose where i can go back to it would be the day before they invented fire and then i do some rubbing of sticks together in front of people and blow their mind yeah

actually you know what would happen if i go back i'd rub sticks and then yeah yeah they would because i don't know exactly how you do it weird They think you're weird. I'm not sure. The day before the fire's invented, I think you're pretty much, you might be dealing with apes at that point, Tom. And they are going to rip your head off. Here's another half-remembered historical fact. Apes, if they're attacking humans,

will go for the genitals first. It's good to know that. That's useful, actually. No, thanks. So if I'm attacked in a zoo I should sort of cut myself Like I'm standing in a ball for a free kick Well I've heard Here's another half of Reverend Horace

They go for soft things and testicles are the softest thing So if you cover them up They're probably going for your eyes So if an ape goes for you Ellis First thing you do is put your trousers back on That's your first port of call Send in Oh my God. So if an ape goes for you, the first thing you do is put your trousers back on. That's your first port of call. Send in if you've got any facts.

What would you tell an ancient that is demonstrably true that would impress them? Hello at Obotatime.com Yeah, something that you can prove. What would be a good thing? That's a really good question. There's something... Who was there?

Oh, God. I'm just a fountain of half-remembered historical facts today. But shadows, there's something with shadows that you can prove that the Earth is round and you can measure the distance between things by looking at angles of shadows at certain times of day. Yeah, you're going to be... Chris, with the greatest of respect,

you're going to be met with cynicism walking around medieval Britain trying to find a shadow they were around then as well one of the only facts I remember from school basically is that Pythagoras theorem of the two sides of a triangle so I can remember

that one but then I'm trying to think about what reaction I'm hoping to get when I tell someone that so i'm just grabbing the town dragging them to a beach with a stick and it's in the sand making out a triangle a lot of guys are like god he's sexy you know so much about triangles can we do all the vinegars going can we just get to the bit where we burn this guy and then they turn to me and say what do we do with that information you say you learn it and then you get a bloody good maths GCSE

with it laughing laughing interesting fact I'll tell you what I would do very briefly it's not really a fact but I've thought if I had to go back to the Victorian era or before and make money I would introduce the beef burger.

Let's say London. If I went to the time machine and I had to survive and make a living, I would introduce the beef burger to London. Talk me through your steps. Talk me through your steps. All right, you're back. I'm going for a smash burger. I know what it is. The importance of fruit and vegetables.

I would say, listen, you are ill and you've got access to fruit and vegetables. I would say, listen, you are ill and you've got access to fruit and vegetables. Isn't that all they ate back then? No, I think there's a lot of emphasis on meat. We've now entered a real half-remembered fact zone and I'm not sure if the listeners of this podcast have come to us for half-remembered facts. But I think people were quite cynical

about the importance of fruit and vegetables at one point in England, at one point, because I saw it on a programme once. But scurvy is a great example. They took us hundreds of years to figure that out. But how are you then demonstrating to them the importance of them? Are you going,

look at my body, I eat fruit and veg? I'm eating an orange and then I say And now we wait How long are you waiting for? How would you bring the beef burger To Victorian London And make your fortune? Mince beef, obviously You get some beef. We know what a beef burger is so what are you doing?

So I'm getting, all you need is a sheet of metal and the ability to make a fire. You're on a street corner you're heating that metal. I'm doing smash burgers. So you're selling it like a hot dog outside Brixton Tube.

Exactly. And they will catch on so quickly I'm getting minced beef I'm cooking, you know how to make a beef burger that's the bit we're not interested in if anything you can imagine two pieces of bread with a bit of meat in between I'm buying the bread from elsewhere

so it's unlikely it'll be a burger bun obviously it's not around because the burger didn't exist. What came first, the burger bun or the burger? That's one of the old philosophical questions, isn't it? I imagine you accidentally go to the bakery and say, can I get a burger bun? They're like, yeah, we've got loads here. Oh, it already exists.

It would catch on. It is such a good dish. It's a reason it's so big now. Are you calling it like a crane burger or a Tom's sandwich or something? Tom's sandwich is nice. Tom's sandwich is nice. McDonald's makes over £100,000 a year. It's big. You're basically saying you introduced McDonald's to Victorian Britain.

Yeah, the golden tea. The golden tea for Tom. One of the great innovative, transformative, disruptive businesses you could have picked. You're going for McDonald's. I guarantee you you a catch on like wildfire what there's no there's no what else is there back there apart from alleyways rain and sort of like just misery and then i come in with the greatest food of all time anyway yeah do get in contact with the show with any ideas you have for

what's it what we're looking for facts and uh and also the facts that you'd mentioned to people when you went back in time and also what would you introduce to victorian london that would do better than the beef burger we'll take that as well sorry chris well i'll just end on this that you i'll take you back to ancient babylonian, 4000 BC. Clay tablets at the British Library show a treatment for the following specific ailments. This is translated from a clay tablet. If a man's urine constantly drips and he's not able to hold it back,

his bladder swells, and he is full of wind, his urine duct is full of blisters. This is how you cure him. You grind some thorns. No. Crush into pressed oil. And then you blow this mixture cure him you grind some thorns yeah no oh dear crush into pressed oil

and then you blow this mixture into his penis through a bronze tube that is a bad day I mean I never thought I'd say this but it's at least

the thorns are ground yeah yeah I have had quite the eventful week but quite a fitting week for what I'm talking about today I'm going to be talking about the history of the cold

and the history of flu because I've had I've had Covid this week is it covid which is it it's only been three years mate it's coronavirus living under a rock what do i call it covid i call it covid is that the right one you call it yes you call it covid who calls it covid i've never heard that i did for a period for a long period oh really definitely until so much so that even after the pandemic had ended i was still calling it covered and people would say that's it's not

that okay and i couldn't i never remember which one it is but it's covered i've had that one the bad one the one that's that kept us inside for ages right so you've got cool for you and you have it now don't you well i think i'm on the very end of it it's worth saying we're doing this remotely I'm not sat in front of Ellis and Chris and we don't end a really great section by getting off with each other yeah exactly just to describe

where Tom is, he's in a pangolin cave and er he's having the time of my life so I want to talk to you about crucially the story of the of coals and cold treatment in the 18th century so according to professor ronald eccles of cardiff common cold center coals have been with us ever since humans gathered in any sort of community which is at least since the iron age onwards that's when they think that colds started kicking off basically when we started hanging around in groups okay um

but whereas now when we have sort of like lem sip and watch netflix stuff like this in the past treatment for colds was very very different so for example in the 18th century people one of the main ways people used to deal with a cold uh was you just simply get hammered this was basically what it was people would get very drunk they'd make hot wine with the berries from the elderflower tree and the idea was if you got wasted and you kept drinking you'd get rid of your cold so let's start by talking about that as an approach if that was still the accepted approach, if your partner would come into your room every few hours to check that you'd finished your Stella, if that was still the approach to a common cold,

how do you think you'd deal with that? Would you want that? I think I dread having to drink loads of wine. Well, there was once a Glastonbury where I turned up and I wasn't well, I had a cold, and I was like, I'm just going to drink through this. So I think I was going for that ancient approach. And I think it kind of worked.

It worked for a bit. That first day I felt great. And then the next day I had twice as bad a hangover. Yeah. Because you have the illness and then an actual hangover and it added up. But I do think there is probably something in it in the short term. And I refer specifically to that scene in Braveheart where one of them needs an operation and they just get really drunk and which is a common thing interesting yeah well i suppose it also reflects what we were talking about earlier about just

letting time pass and i suppose if you're just drinking through it you'll be very old time the cold's gonna go in time isn't it yeah and if you're drunk for half of it then maybe that part of it's less miserable but at the same time as this was happening um progressive physicians such as william buckham didn't agree with his approach so in his 7072 book domestic medicine he said many attempt to cure a cold by getting drunk but this to say no worse of it is a very hazardous and foolhardy experiment and instead uh in the late 18th century he started suggesting things like resting in bed and eating bland food like chicken broth what a dreamer and toast yeah exactly which obviously is quite similar to what people do today although i think i'd expect more

from my gp than going there and him saying just just have some toast i think that would be like there's not enough information there for me to be it's a but that's the approach i would say that's the 80s approach like yeah go pop some chicken soup on watch an episode of neighbors that yeah watch kickstart watch going for gold yeah but in general though medicine during this period wasn't as particularly scientific now this is what's interesting about it because of medicine during this period wasn't as particularly scientific. Now, this is what's interesting about it. Because of this, and because there wasn't much local medical provision for much of Britain,

a lot of local areas lacked adequate provision. But at the same time, there was rising literacy levels in the country. People started to take things into their own hands. And crucially, they started to write into the their own hands and crucially they started to write into the newspapers with recipes for how to deal with colds so people would treat their own colds using recipes that other non-trained medical people just people around the country had written into the newspapers and the newspapers gladly printed so every week there'll be more and more of these cold remedies so an example being the

derby mercury in 1790 proposed adding a large teacup of linseed oil 10 two penny worth of stick licorice a quarter pound of sun raisins and then simmering the mixture over a slow fire till it reduces adding brown sugar rum white wine vinegar and lemon juice and then they drunk that in bed and they said if taken in time the newspaper told its readers this may be said to be an almost infallible remedy but the most interesting thing about all of these things is how much sugar appears in all of it now would you like to care to guess why this is why there's sugar in all of these things i think it perks you up just gives you a hit of energy. No.

That's a good guess, but it's not that. The reason there's sugar in all of these things is because it was one of the essential trade goods of Britain's empire. So the consistent flow of sugar from the Caribbean, which was worth more than 2.5 million on import then, which is 350 million today, meant a use had to be found for sugar everywhere so it went into cakes

biscuits puddings and it also went into basically all medical cures and that's the reason it's still in our medical cures today so when you look at lemsip and you see sort of uh sucrose and citric acid and things like this uh exist this is because there was this pattern of shoving sugar into all medicine because we had to use we had to use it basically and so we've become completely used to it now so everything has a sweet coating all the hot medicinal drinks are sweet all these things are sweet and it's all from this period where sugar was shoved into all medicine that's crazy also i have them to thank for uh that nice banana penicillin used to get as a kid that was kept in the fridge yes yes i remember

that i love that as a as a kid and probably until my mid-20s i used to have a really really almost chillingly sweet tooth right like i love chocolate yeah and then i started you know you read about it and it's not just it's not just your teeth which is always the thing we were told as kids and i just think well i'll just brush my teeth and go to the dentist it'll be fine and then i can continue eating french fancies at this sort of alarming pace you read about it, you know, sugar is like for your general system. And I really, really cut down. And then if you stop adding sugar to things and stop eating chocolates and biscuits and sweets, then when you have something like a slice of birthday cake at a party,

it tastes mental. It is absolutely mad because your palate's changed. Joe, being a child of the 80s, my mum would give me a bottle, like kids have bottles now, but it would be filled with tea and it would have three sugars in it. And so until I was in my mid-20s,

I would have three sugars in my tea. And then at some point I stopped and now if I taste the tea with sugar in it, it makes me feel sick. It is disgusting sorry when you were a child you were given like a baby's bottle yeah a baby's bottle with tea with tea in it

yes mate I was born in Dagenham that doesn't happen anywhere else in the country why is she trying to ease you into tea not only tea it had three sugars in it were you a terrible sleeper as a baby a friend friend of mine when she was going to nursery used to take coffee in a flask are you what how old was she like three

four no yeah yeah mellow birds so there's some weaker stuff. She wasn't drinking double espressos. But still. Mad, innit? Kids, though, are you? Was she quite full on as a child? That's a genuine question. She's had a stressful side job, many different hustles. I've given up coffee.

I have given up. I don't drink coffee because it makes me that anxious. The idea of what I'd have been like when I was three, having to take a latte into the nursery. Freaking out about the fact I'm the smallest kid in there. All my anxieties coming in. I can't believe you had tea in a bottle. That is crazy.

My wife cannot believe it. Would you unscrew the lid and dip your husk in it Would you do that Would that be quite pleasant It is nuts how much tea my family drink My dad hasn't turned down a cup of tea in his life He's like a 40 a day man It's incredible

I will drink Sometimes I will drink tea after tea I might have eight in a row Until it gives me a headache That will be the only point I will stop, sometimes I will drink tea after tea. I might have eight in a row until it gives me a headache. That will be the only point I will stop. Really? Okay. Yeah, it can't be good, can it? I'd love to say I can't wait for the scientist to tell me what happens when you give a child tea in a bottle with three sugars.

I'm like the canary down the mine. I'm also imagining social situations where you've gone somewhere with your mum and the person you're visiting says Patricia what would you like Patricia say I'll have a coffee and would Chris like something

he'll have an Earl Grey there you are sat in your nappy in a high chair you get a double espresso for him and don't hold back the sugar

like those V60 pour-overs, the really, really strong stuff? You could have a couple of them. He's trying to drop his nap at the moment, so let's really double down on espresso. And have you got any Lambert and Butler? Incredible. Wow.

So this is the reason that sugar was in everything everything but i'd like to give you uh some appreciation of quite how lucky we are that's what we've been left with these sweet lovely medicinal drinks because throughout history there have been some insane remedies for colds so i'm going to give you four of them now so ancient roman physician uh pliny the elder uh wrote a book called natural history and it's pretty skeptical as a record for the folk medicine around at the time for cold symptoms so coughs he noticed were supposed to be relieved at that time in ancient rome by a wolf's liver administered in mulled wine thoughts on that the mulled wine element fines on that? The mulled wine element, fine.

But can you imagine trying to kill a wolf when you're feeling rough? I'll just ride out the cold to be honest, Mum. Yeah, yeah. You just want to be in bed watching Horms Under the Hammer. You're like,

God, I need to kill a bloody wolf now. Ah, thank you so much for listening this week. And we've got a bit of an announcement, actually. This is the 12th episode you're listening to now, which was meant to be the end of the series. But to be honest, we're having so much fun doing this podcast. And your emails and the way you've been chipping into the show has just been so much fun that we're not willing to end the series so we've got good news basically

we're going to be back next week too and we've got one eye on doing specials all over christmas around the history of christmas and all that stuff so thank you for supporting the show it means so much we're having so much fun that we can't just simply end the series now so we will be back next week and the other way that you can support the show is of course to leave a rating and review we say it every week but it would be great if you haven't done that bit of admin we would love it if you could go on and support the show by giving us a little rating and review five stars if you can but hey who am i to enforce that rule thank you so much for listening and great news we'll be back next week we'll see

you then bye Thank you.