Oh What A Time... - #197 Surgery & Monkeys Eating Musical Instruments (Part 1)

Episode Date: September 6, 2026

This week we’re travelling through time to see how surgery has been performed through the ages! We’ll head to 990AD to see what surgical innovation followed a monkey eating some musical instruments, the amazing (and odd) history of artificial resuscitation, and a brief history of how humans have reset and healed broken bones.Elsewhere, we’re just so pleased to live in the iPad age of child entertainment whilst travelling. And: are you a ‘map of the world girl or guy’? For this and anything else, you can email us here: [e-mail] if you want more Oh What A Time and both parts at once, you should sign up for our Patreon! On there you’ll now find:•The full archive of bonus episodes•Brand new bonus episodes each month•OWAT subscriber group chats•Loads of extra perks for supporters of the show•PLUS ad-free episodes earlier than everyone elseJoin us at 👉 patreon.com/ohwhatatimeAnd as a special thank you for joining, use the code CUSTARD for 25% off your first month.You can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh Water Time is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else. Add free. Plus access to our full archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes every month, early access to live show tickets and access to the O Watertime Group chat. Plus if you become an O Watertime All-Timer, myself, Tom and Ellis will riff on your name to postulate

where else in history you might have popped up. For all your options, you can go to patreon.com forward slash O Watertime. Hello and welcome to Oh, what a time, the history podcast that asked a question, how on earth did anyone travel with kids on planes or trains or any form of public transport? Pray the iPad, because I'll tell you one thing. Obviously, don't get me wrong. We've all read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. I know that there's an issue with screens and children and screen time and what have you.

You read it on your iPad, didn't you? Yeah. But when your flight's been delayed for two hours and you're just sitting on the tarmac, oh my. God, there's nothing quite like it. And when we landed at Gatwick, I didn't just put the iPad back in my bag. I kissed it on the mouth. And I said, thank you. And I said, tell Steve Jobs, tell Dad that he's done.

That's an absolutely cracking invention. Do you remember the 80s, 90s version of the iPad on a plane, which was that you would have basically cathode ray TVs mounted, just below where your overhead luggage was stored? And they would go all the way down the plane and you would be forced to watch whatever it was that was being played. And do you know what? I was going to say, if there's 250 people on a plane, for instance, of all ages and classes and nationalities and what have you, the program that appeals to all of them does not exist.

You can't make that program. Someone is bored and someone is offended. Someone is loving it. Someone hates it. I still do this now. I quite enjoy watching the map of the world with the big plane on it. Yes. I find that quite relaxing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a map of the world guy. Even though like the plane is the size of the Pacific Ocean. For some reason they've got the size is completely wrong. Yeah, it's the size of Mozambique and it's sort of... No, I'm the map of the world guy as well. Do you know what the 80s and 90s equivalent to an iPad in a car was? that was just staring out of the window

and working out what the clouds looked like. That was my thing. Yes. And I love for that game. Or looking for registration plates. Oh, yes. Have the vaguely funny letters. I've got an even worse game of that.

Did you ever play cricket? You ever played that game from the car as a kid? So you'd be the batsman. You'd wait every car that went past. You'd get an additional run until a red car went past, which was the ball hitting your wickets and you'd be out. So it's just counting cars. That's good fun.

And then the next player would play and you see how many they got on there over. And that's what that's what entertainment was prior to Netflix on a pad. I've never played that game. Oh, it's great. Well, we'll do try. We used to make up songs. Oh, did you? I love sweet.

Usually quite derogatory about Dad. That was what we used to as well. How personal were you going? Very personal. He's driving along, just having his character assassinated. He doesn't make enough money. Yeah. Why are we going on such a shit holiday again?

I want a different dad. All together now, I want it. I want a different dad. Should we make up another song that goes, I want a different dad? Your mum leaning over to hoop the horn to the rhythm of it as well. I think there's an argument, though, by the way. I think there's an argument, actually, although we joke about these games being a bit crap, that they do teach you an element of having to be creative yourself.

To come up with your own ideas and to be happy to be in your own head. And I think that it's so easy to be distracted. I completely agree that iPads are a godsend on a long journey. But there is also something quite sad, I suppose, about the fact that that's probably gone away a bit, the chatting in the car coming up with the story of the game. Unless, which is what happened for us on the last 30 minutes of flight, the iPad runs out of battery.

And then it's the 80s. It's the 80s. But this time without the overhead TVs. And then you and Izzy actually have to talk to me. Yeah, yeah, awful, terrible. Yeah, yeah. Tell you what's gone out of fashion. If you're on a bus, on a motorway, the Mooney.

Yes. Never see them anymore. So pulling your trousers down at passing cars. Yeah. That did happen on like football buses, but not from a car. Have you ever seen that from a car? No, I've seen it, I've certainly seen it on. from minibuses and coaches and stuff.

Wow. But never see anymore. Have I got a yarn for you? The first time I ever saw a Mooney, I wasn't even aware of it as a phenomenon, was a coachload of Swansea City fans pulling up to Upton Park. Remember we got you in the FA Cup? It was late 1990.

And I was in the car with my dad and my brothers. we looked out of the window these savage Swansea fans banging on the window and all of them the whole row of this massive coach turned around and moonied us that's fantastic

I would have been like It's the Welsh way And they're all banging the ball eye and the butts out of the window Yeah yeah Yeah It was a big old deal The Mooney

Can I just say like I think to get a whole coach load of people To commit to the Mooney is quite an achievement And it requires a level of organisation. If they've driven to London and they're drinking Stella the whole way, I'm not sure how hard it is to galvanise football fans into doing that. It involves one charismatic hard

hooligan and everyone else be like, yeah, sure, good idea, okay. Do you know what? I reckon I could find out who was on that coach. Okay. So many of my friends went to that game. I could tell you exactly where it was. It's the turn off just as you approached the barking roundabout from the A406. Feel free to provide that extra element of deed. I don't know if they probably won't be familiar with London, but whenever I, the odd occasion, maybe once a year I come to that roundabout, I think about that. Were there any identifiable tattoos or birthmarks on this bottom?

But cheek tattoos. That you could maybe relate to Ellis and he could then use as part of his investigation. I would just say, like having, Moonie is such a shocking thing, especially on mass when you have no, you know, you're not prepared for it. And when the bum cheeks are pressed against the windows. I was like, what? I remember saying to my dad, like, what is going on? Yeah.

It didn't make any set. I couldn't believe it. It's how the Mediterranean imagines Britain, isn't it really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%. People on a cold coat shoving their ass against the glass. Absolutely. As they go down the motorway. Now, you mention iPads and journeys on planes with families.

I'm intrigued by something. Well, I'm kind of intrigued us to your response to this. I saw an Instagram video this morning, for some reason it was suggested to me. I don't know why, maybe because I've been on holiday with my family recently. It was a family going away to Spain, and the family, I'm intrigued to see how your wives would actually feel about this. The family thought that the dad wasn't going with them because he had to work. So they go to Heathrow, the kids are crying, the wife's crying, dad's not going to be there for the family holiday. they get on the plane, little do they know that dad has actually snuck onto the back of the plane.

And he's sat on his own for the journey. And then he surprises them on the tarmac in Spain that he's actually there after the wife has been dealing with the kids for the entire flight. So they land. He's like, I'm here really. And they're all like, yay. I have a suspicion if I did that. Claire would be like, sorry, what, you've. So I've had the kids the entire journey when he's been on the plane.

A, Claire's had the kids the entire time, which is unfair. B, it is just about the father's ego. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Why is he making his kids think that he's not going to be on the holiday? He's like some Superman for turning up. That's exactly it. What a wanker. So the wife's not in on it.

The wife is also surprised. Well, then he's a double wanker. She's completely delighted as well. But she's so happy to see him there. No way. They're young kids as well. But what a tosser. It does feel like the length that someone will go to

to avoid having to sit with their kids on a plane. But yeah, I'm not getting away with that and being celebrated at the end. That dad will do all of the fun stuff with the kids and none of the hard stuff. Yeah. Like Christmas Day, he's great and he's playing with the toys and all that kind of stuff. And the washing of uniforms, all the boring stuff, I bet he does none of it. And I bet you they prefer the dad. The school clubs.

Oh, all of that stuff. He doesn't do any of the admin. I hate that guy. I love it's become complete and utter character assassination. And now I can date the first time Chris Skull saw Mooney to the 2nd January 1999. Wow, there we go. One all and we won 1-0 at the Vetch in the return leg.

There you go. Julian Dix scored for West Ham. Did he? Yeah. He's the sort of man that would moon you from a coach, isn't he, Julian Dix? Yeah. Could easily have been him. Right. Welcome to Oh, What a Time. There's not a show entirely about people bearing their ass through a coach window. It is a show about history. And today, I think this is

particularly fun one today. We've got a brilliant historian, Dr. Darrell Ewardley, who helps us collect the research for this show. And it's just a brilliant, brilliant guy. Thank you so much, Darrell, for all your hard work. And I think this week he's excelled himself because we are looking at surgery through the ages. So today, I'm going to be telling you all about broken bones. in the past, which I think to me sends shudders down my spine. Yes, me too. Shattering something hundreds of years ago before, you know, anesthetia, all that sort of stuff.

Well, we'll find out about that later. What are you guys talking about? A little later, I'll tell you all about resuscitation, mouth to mouth, but also the most mad contraption and this idea that you could resuscitate someone, reinflate them if they're just nearly drowned, by blowing air up their rectums. I am not joking. In fact, when Dr Darrow sent us this research, I rarely double check,

but they seemed so insane, I had to double check. And I'm going to be talking about stitches. Okay, great. Before that, all I can think about now is Chris telling us about someone inflating someone via the rectum.

Whatever you're talking about, Ellis, I'll be honest, I'll just be thinking when we get into the rectum. I mean, we should probably do Chris's stuff first, if I'm honest. Every minute of this podcast is a minute close, to finding out about blowing air up your record. Also, fingers crossed, I have a heart attack,

and someone from the past tries to assassinate me. Do they need to close your mouth? You inflate by a balloon, because the way goes straight through. You've got a straw at that point, don't you? So I don't know it worked? We'll find out, we'll find out. Okay, before we get to that, though,

let's kick off a little bit of correspondence. This really made me laugh. It's an email from a listener called Calista White, and it says, Hello, you lovely boys. I love it when Tom says this. Oh, well, I'll keep doing it in, Calista. Thank you.

I've only discovered your podcast in the last year, but I've listened to all the episodes. Oh, hey, and I'm now going back through every episode as an all-timer. Thank you, Kalista. Really appreciate the support. It means the world. I have been wanting to contribute for some time, and I have finally got a reason. It's on the subject of parents being attacked by wildlife. I've just finished a master's in wildlife conservation, so obviously I very much respect and appreciate all animals. However, I hate swans. When I was about six years old, me and my family were in Bath. That's where I was attacked by a swan.

We found out this is the place. If you don't want to get attacked by a swan, don't go to bath. Imagine if it was the same swan. They're coming together. What a neat bow on this story. When I was about six years old, me and my family were in Bath enjoying the wonderful experience of a canal boat holiday. And at some point, a family of swans surrounded our boat

and began to peck at my dad like their lives depend on it. This is basically what happened to me. It was horrendous. Leaving him with a bleeding leg. This resulted in myself, my mum, dad and two sons. sisters having to lock ourselves in the canal boat as we witness a family of very angry swans trying to attack us. I wish I had an explanation for the swans behaviour. I can't remember what finally drew the swans away from us, but being so young at the time, I mostly remember

their angry faces and flapping wings, which has resulted in my lifelong disdain for swans. As someone who was so passionate about protecting wildlife, my friends do not understand my hatred for swans. However, I stand by my feelings as they are nasty little buggers. Much love to you all, And I absolutely adore your podcast. It's one of my favorite, best wish is Calista. Here's an additional thing that Calista will know. Swans have teeth on their tongues as well. Oh, God.

Which makes it doubly horrific. Yeah. Did you've seen a steel picture? They actually have studied tongues. It's horrendous. Also, if you're on a canal boat, you can't even escape. Because they're so slow. It looks like you're taking the pace.

I don't know what the top speed of a canal boat is. but a swan is definitely faster than that. On foot. Have you ever had a swan or a goose sort of approach you with his neck out? Yeah. It's quite unsettling. Tell you what's surprisingly big. Seagulls.

Yes, they are, aren't they? They're horrible sods, I think, seagulls. Especially, I find, like, seaside seagulls just don't appear to abide to any rules. Yes, I agree. You know how other birds, they don't want to go into personal space? They're lawless. And you see the videos of seagull swooping down stealing a sausage roll and things like that. Yeah, yeah.

Do you think that could be the effect of a hundred years of them swooping down to steal our sausage rolls and us doing absolutely nothing about it? Yeah. When are we going to stand up? Generations of seagulls have been told by their mum's and dads that is fine. Yeah, exactly. Those people are not a threat at all. What it really needs is one hero on the behalf of the nation to punch a seagull in the face when it comes out for a chip. and that message to be spread around the seagulls

that things have changed. Just we end up on the seagull news. Yeah, we're fighting back. I remember as a child having chips in a cone on the beach in Cornwall and these, I've been scared as these things were flat down. They come really close. They're desperate to sort of get your chips.

Yeah, we try to have a nice fisher chip tea on the beach of margate, me and the kids, and, yeah, impossible. In the end, just ended up beating them in the car. Have you seen the footage from like Tesco security cameras where seagulls just fly into stores and take sandwiches off the shelves? No. And just take them out into the street. And again, no one's doing anything.

Yeah. They're letting them get away with it. What's the security guard's job, isn't it? Surely. Come on, mate. In the clips I've seen, there's no security guard. They just fly in, grab a cheese sandwich, pull it outside, open up the wrapper and off they go.

God, that would really... It would really open up the world of thieving, wouldn't you? If you could fly. If you could fly into shops. What do you want to see is a seagull really trying to work out what to get in its meal deal, the three items, which really siding up the options before taking them? I'll have an orange juice. Yeah, I'll have an orange juice.

But my question is of this, because Colister mentions the fact that it's going to have affected her for life. I think that's interesting. Those things as a child that freak you out that completely affect you for the long run. Have you got any of those things? Because I've got a couple of things that were stuck with me for life. For me, it's small spaces and the idea of caving because of my Duke of Edinburgh experience when I was 13 or 14. There's no chance you could ever make me go caving or go into a small space.

And I can mark it to that one experience of just being stuck and hating it. You know what? When I was in primary school, I don't know if you had this. I guess it must have been national curriculum, but we learned a lot about the tutors and the stewards. And then the culmination of this year of primary school was we went on a school trip to the Tower of London. And I vividly remember being taken to the torture rooms.

And they had the rack there. And like little ease, these places where they would stick traitors and traitors gate and all that. And as a child, you don't have it. You think this is still going on. Yeah, yeah. That for me was like, oh my gosh, I could end up on the rack. Like if I become a traitor.

I didn't realize this is like 500 years out of day. I reckon there'll be a brief moment on the rack where it's momentarily quite nice. There'll be about a two-second window as they're stretching you out where you go, oh. Oh, I needed that. Ah, I needed that. Stop. No, no, now, now is it a stop? Exactly.

I reckon you can mark it sort of brief racking as a sort of a therapy in Britain. At a spa. Totally. Exactly. And you make it clear. We're not going to stretch you, like stretch Armstrong beyond recognition, but we are going to crack your back a little bit, and it's going to be the best thing you've ever heard.

You never know. Do you think anyone ever gave up information because it was so pleasant that initial moment on the way? Well, that's really funny. That back pain's been doing me for years. You can't afford to go and see a physio. Do you know your neighbour's been bad-mouthing the kick? That's a good impression.

Yeah. And he's pretending to be a Catholic. Well, there you are. Kalista, thank you for letting us know about your Swan horror. I was attacked by Swan when I was younger. That might be why you were emailing in and it was absolutely horrendous. So please send my thoughts to your father for that difficult experience. If you have anything you want to send to us on any subject, be it swan related, be it fears that you haven't got rid of, whatever it is.

If you own a spa and you're looking to introduce the rack. Yes. Even better than definitely get in contact. All right, you horrible luck. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at oh what a time.com. And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Oh, what a time, pod. Now clear off.

Now every week on this show as one of the benefits for our top tier patron subscribers, the O Watertime All-Timers, we will pick a name of someone subscribed to that tier and figure out where in history you may have been. Today, gentlemen, I have for you. Georgia Kemp. 90s-it girl.

Friends with Kate Moss and Johnny Depp and Noel Gallagher and Tara Palmer Tompkinson, all those people. Could she be a Kemp sister of like Martin and Gary Spandau Ballet? Oh yeah. And she's a fashion designer, she's actually more successful than the brothers.

What would be like a classic Georgia Kemp Night Out, let's say, in 1997 with Kate Moss? Where's she going out? Well, it'd be Browns or the Met Bar or the Groucho. Yeah. And it would start at about midday. And by 10pm, it would be in the early edition of the sun. Photos from the start of the night out Yeah, yeah, Damon Albarn would be there

Kate Moss would be there Keith Allen Keith Allen of course Alex James of course Damien Hurst Damien Hurst of course It's all fun in games in about 2002 when her septum falls out

And then she realizes That she should take things a bit easier And thus begins the long road to recovery Yeah, and frustratingly, Keith Allen absolutely disappeared when she realised that she needed to quit the booze. I thought, you were my friend, Keith. No, he's gone.

Alex, Alex. You're still my mate, are you? No, he's gone as well. Yeah. And now runs a wellness retreat in Oxfordshire near Soho Farmhouse. Yeah, and he's happy than she's ever been. Yeah, exactly. There you go.

There you go. I hope you're happy with that, Georgia. Quite possibly the most vivid one of these we've ever done. Yeah, I love that. Thank you very much, Georgia. If you want to find out where in history you may have been before, here's how you can sign up. Hello again, you horrible lot.

Enjoying the show. Well, why not show the love by becoming a Patreon supported today? For a mere handful of farthings, you can get ad-free shows, two bonus subscriber episodes each month, access to all the past bonus eps, first dibs on live tickets, and even help decide what subjects the boys cover next. Your support makes everything possible,

so sign up today at patreon.com slash oh what's a time or oh what's a time.com. What are you waiting for? Stop dawdling! So this week on the show we're talking about surgery and surgical intervention through history a little later, and I'm sure you're all waiting for this, how bellows were used to blow air up the rectums

of people who had nearly drowned. I cannot wait. Consider my topic, which we're starting with, as just a sort of holding topic, feel free to skip to the rectum stuff. I'm now imagining someone's drowned and the family are going,

that's horrible. But, yeah, please tell me it was a dignified idea. It was quite well. It wasn't that simple, Susan, I'm afraid. Yeah. I've got to ask, Why does Tom keep throwing himself into the sea?

I don't know for a fact he can't swim. What's going on? Yeah, so, as I say, the countdown's begun to Chris's section, but I'm looking forward to yours. Okay, quick question. Have either of you ever had stitches? Chris, Skull, you've got multiple stitches written over you. I don't know if I have, you know.

I think I've had, like, glue, but never had. I never had staples. What was the glue for? What happened? I think, I'll bash my head. I smashed my head once on a blind. Right. It was a cup, but they didn't stitch it.

They just glued it together. Yeah, I got glued about six months ago. Really? I got pushed against a fence playing five beside and split open. Did you? And it bled like a bastard. I've got scar there that is. permanent, that will never go across my hand now.

So I've got a sort of bond villain hand. And do you know what? I don't have very many scars. I actually quite like it. Yeah. It means my hand tells a story. Well, actually, it doesn't. My hand has a scar and then I have to tell the story.

But it's a prompt for a story. I do have a little scar actually on this arm here, but I don't know what it's from. It's just a line. BCG. Maybe it is, but I thought BCG was a lump, isn't it? Yeah, it's just a round circular. Yeah, it's not that.

It's a straight line. So something has happened in my past. I don't know what. And the fact I can't remember it suggests it's either so horrific, I've blacked it out or just completely nothing. Yes. Something has happened in the past and I'll never know what. Well, if you've ever needed stitches, this is the topic for you. A few miles outside Corderba, in southern Spain, lies the ruins of a medieval city called Azahara, the Radiant City. This is once home to the Caliph of Al-Andalus, one of the Arab kingdoms. And it was also the birthplace in 936 AD or CE of the Andalusian physical surgeon and writer Al Zarahawi.

Now, his ideas, notably get this, his 30 volume textbook on medicine. Wow. 30 volumes written by the same guy. I mean, you really want to have him in your social circle, don't you? Like, I've got young kids. My sister's a pharmacist and my other sister's a nurse. So useful. So useful, right?

So he'd written a 30-volume textbook on medicine, and that was the standard work of the day, right? That said out, and my wife is a trained physio, and I've ever pulled anything or hurt anything at football or whatever. She has no interest in helping in whatever. I think that's partly because she's seen people with real issues in the past. So when I'm living in, she's like, well, this is your fault. You just have to wait for that get better, basically.

Well, I hope that she'd have shown a lot of sympathy towards my, cut hand because I did have to have an evening and aeney. There you go. There you go. With an iPad? With my phone. Okay.

Good enough. You couldn't use. I didn't cry and I've got to say I was extremely brave. Do you get a little nod from the doctor at the end that said? Oh yes. So many nods. I was extremely brave, right? So his ideas notably is 30 volume textbook on medicine with the standard works of their day

from around the year 1,000 in Arabia, from the 12th century in Latin and on into the 16th century. So for almost 500 years, this guy, when he came to medical issues, was the Don. Now, nor has his influence gone away. Many of the medical instruments he pioneered remain in use today, which is absolutely amazing, isn't it? Yeah, that's remarkable.

So a thousand years after he lived and died in around 10, 13 AD, CE, albeit obviously a modernised form, but these include bone sores, foreseps, clamps, scalpel, tools to crush stones in the bladder without the need for open surgery, which I still don't understand how they do that without lasers. And even those used to inspect the ear and the throat.

So this is all Al-Zarawi. I mean, all his steps. He wrote this 30-volume textbook of medicine. It was the standard medical textbook for about 500 years, which is incredible. And a lot of the things that are still in use were his idea. Was he a practicing doctor or surgeon as well?

Was he just theoretical? Was he someone who wrote about it? I think so, yeah. So he was then, I mean, obviously he's unfamiliar to most people in the 21st century, but he was a major figure in the development of medicine and surgery in particular. Imagine the cues outside his GP office compared to the other ones in the area, where other people are just still using their hands or a bit of flint. Not washing their hands.

Exactly. And he's got a full surgical equipment and 30 volumes on how to use it. Al Zarawi, he was the person who first come up with the idea that you could only talk to your GP by calling between 8 and 10 on an absolute weekday. That was also his idea. And you can't actually book an appointment for about three weeks. But then you call you a GP and you're 44th in the queue, even though you started the call at 7.59 hoping to get ahead of everyone. That was all, he's been doing that for a thousand years. That's how good he is.

But for all that, his greatest invention other than that, or perhaps his, to say interventions, the world of medicine, came in the late 990s when this is complete by accident, right? He was able to observe, as a scientist, what happened when his pet monkey broke and then ate the strings of his ood. So an oud is a musical instrument of Middle Eastern origin, a bit like the lute.

I've seen Bill Bailey play an oud live on stage at the Wyndham Theatre. So it's spelled OUD. if you want to Google it, but it's been like the European lutes. Now, fearing the worst, right? So he loved this monkey, is monkeys eaten his ood. Monkey, I said food. Food. He's like, oh, my God, my monkey's eating my oud.

I love my monkey, worried my monkey's going to die, right? So he considered some of the tools, okay, using the forseps and the clamps and all that kind of stuff. But that soon turned out to be more of a worry than a necessity. because the monkey was fine, right? The strings, he'd eaten the strings, left no permanent damage. Now, why or how? Now, Al Zarawi's realisation would,

it would revolutionise medicine. Okay, so just to recap, he's got an ode, his monkey has eaten the strings. Yeah. Which feels like a mad excuse he'd give at school for why you haven't done your music homework. Yeah. He considered surgery but didn't need to because the monkey was fine.

Now, to understand what you learned, first we've got to consider and appreciate what medieval stringed instruments were, right? So they were made from wood, obviously, and gut strings. Now, these are sometimes mistakenly called cat gut. But it's not the gut of a cat. It's a corruption of kit gut or cutty gut, depending on the orthography, which references a small pocket violin, the kit fiddle, right? So they also mean that the kit drives from an older Greek word Okay, now whatever the

derivation, the truth is that no it's nothing to do with cats, okay? No cats have been butchered for use of the manufacture of musical instruments right. And so instead, this is the really important thing we need to remember, the strings were made from the intestines of sheep and goats

most often or else cows or horses or males or donkeys or hogs. And what they would do is they would strip away the top layers of fat and membrane to reveal the sub-mucosal, but it was an organic thing. So more strings were made from sheep and gauts, okay? So the tubular layer of the intestine was then split into threads, washed in a purifying solution, a bit like when they were making leather,

dried out and then wound together. So that's how they were making the strings for animals. And then the whole process was finished off with a curing and then a varnish to ensure that moisture wouldn't get into the strings, which would cause them to degrade or to unwind. So gut strings were also used for tennis rackets and other sport rackets and in pocket watches, at least until synthetic or metal alternatives sort of came along.

So they would be using this sort of sheep or goat intestines for guitar strings or a cello or a lute or whatever. Now, the animal gut being a natural part of the body, he realised wasn't harmful for the monkey. Ah. So he was like, okay, so this is an organic thing. Yes. And so the monkey has just ingested it and imbibed it and sort of absorbed it and it's fine.

So much like the intestines used in, like when you're making sausages, the body can just absorb them. Interesting. Or they're dissolved in the acid of the stomach, right? So Al-Zarawi's like, ah, what else? We should all be eating oud. You can't be on a purely Oude diet? Yeah.

My Oud-themed restaurant idea has legs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he was like, well, if you can absorb this stuff without becoming ill, what else can you use them for? Or what else can you use it for? So he was like, well, how can I adapt this for some sort of medical equivalent? So he was like, oh, right then. So he came up with the idea for stitches.

So he was like, you can cause wounds with stuff. And he wouldn't need to remove it. later, which would increase the risk of secondary infection, or, you know, by having to go back into the treatment zone, because the body will just absorb it. That's so interesting. He got the overall idea of gut stitches from the Roman physician Galen, who had advocated they used to close external wounds in the third century.

But Gallen was silent on the practice of sort of like internal stitches. So this is where his genius entered the arena. Knowing that the body would reabsorb cat gut, he advanced the method in the year a thousand or so of dissolvable stitches for internal use. Now I had dissolvable stitches on my gums when I had braces in the 90s

like a thousand years later. Isn't that absolutely incredible? So he described how to sew up wounds in his great textbook on surgery instruments which described various techniques suitable for internal and external suturing. And over time, both his method and his technology

were they were adopted into the medical mainstream. That's the other thing as well. It might be fine in a textbook. But you don't want to be the first person to be like, yeah, go on then. Sort of, you know, tie me up with cat gap. Go for it. Doesn't bother me. I suppose if you're very injured, you know, you're like, whatever, try anything.

But the technology was then industrialized during the 19th century by a company in Germany, by Julius Wilhelm Brown. So while gut stitches are no longer used in large parts of the world, particularly in Europe, because of fears of things of like BSE and CJD, you know, Manticow disease, and advancements in synthetic products, it is the case that they remain in new cells where,

which is one of the great continuities of medieval medicine, particularly medieval surgery. And it came about, if the stories to be believed, because a monkey ate and owned. That's remarkable. Yeah. I think if your pet monkey is eating your instruments, you're not feeding it enough.

You're not feeding enough. All you need to take it to some sort of monkey disciplinary program. Like monkey training. Well, you put an oud and a plate of monkey nuts or whatever in front of it. And every time it goes for the oud, you say, no, no, and eventually you'll go with the nuts. It'd be such a bolog. If you'd had a hard day writing, you know, adapting your medical textbooks. books, he thought,

what I'm going to do? I'm going to have a glass of wine. I'm just going to play my oud and chill. I'm going to go to your music room. And there's just bits of oud everywhere and it's off. And his stomach's the shape of a violin. Wait a second. But you know, this is the huge strings.

Like, is he going through the monkey's poo? Like, could I mean, could it not have just passed through? Well, maybe he caught the monkey mid-gobble. It might have been he was halfway through the Ud I'd know. I believe the monkey ate the Ud. That's not in question. But it was fully absorbed by the monkey's stomach and didn't just pass through.

I don't know. I'm looking at a guitar now. You couldn't pay me enough to eat that. We're genetically not that far away from monkeys. If you had to eat an instrument, what are you going for? I reckon I could swallow a couple of plechtrums if I'd had a few points.

But is a plecrum an instrument? I think that's a way of playing an instrument. Mouth organ? Yeah, I was thinking of my phone quite small, but metal, hard. Yeah. What's the softest instrument? Bassoon? Yeah.

It would take you days. It's a penny whistle coming out at the other end, no, it's not. It's not coming out. I'm not doing a grand piano. A drum skin? Yeah. That's not a full instrument, is it? I think it has to be the full instrument.

Symbols would be hard on the old lashes. If you've got an angle grinder, you could have a go at a triangle in small pieces. Your dentist is like, God, I mean, I only saw you six months ago. What have you been doing? Oh, sorry, it's a symbol. It took absolutely up to the ages. There must be an instrument.

There'll be instruments somewhere in the world, or very place in the world, which are made with animal pelts and stuff of that. Yeah, that's kind of what you really want. That's what you want, isn't it, rather than a saxophone. I think that's a dream. Or a big synthesizer. Exactly. Dear listeners, if you have an opinion on which instrument you'd eat,

do get in contact with the show because there's a kind of a sort of thing we will read out. Play a part in a hot new feature, podcasting's hottest new feature. What instrument would you eat? Oh, what a meal. Oh, what a musical meal. Email us on hello at oh, what a time.com. Elle, that was fascinating. It's amazing, as you will find out with my section on Broken Burr,

how long these medical inventions stick around. I just find it remarkable. The practices that we still use today in hospitals, how early these things came in. Yes. And you'll find that in my section about broken bones later. It's just remarkable. But that ends part one, doesn't it, Chris?

In part two, you will be hearing from me all about broken bones, which I think we can agree is not something you'd want to suffer hundreds of years in the past. It is really something you'd want to avoid. Skull, what are you talking about in the next section? The history of resuscitation. I'll spend a chunk of it talking about mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. But let's be honest, the bit you're really interested in is the tobacco enema to resuscitate people who just nearly drowned.

And also the government endorsement of this practice. And if there's ever been a better reason to sign up to the Patreon, it is this, because you can get that information. immediately now. You can get part two right now and you can find out how and why people were inflated via the anus to keep them alive. You can go to ohwatertime.com to join up to our patron. Either way, we will see you for the next part with that. Which is what we're waiting for, isn't it? The good stuff is coming. Bye. Oh, Whatter Time is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else,

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