Ottoman History Podcast - Medical Metaphors in Ottoman Political Thought

Episode Date: September 5, 2019

Episode 425 with Alp Eren Topal hosted by Susanna Ferguson and Sam Dolbee Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud In this episode, Alp Eren Topal traces the history of medical metaphors for describing and diagnosing state and society in Ottoman political thought. From the balancing of humors prescribed by Galenic medicine to the lifespan of the state described by Ibn Khaldun and the germ theory of nineteenth-century biomedicine, we explore some of the ways people thought about the state and its health or illness in the early-modern and modern Mediterranean world. How did these metaphors and images change over time, and how did they inform the policies of the Empire and its rulers? « Click for More »

It's the Ottoman History Podcast. I'm Sam Dolby. And I'm Susie Ferguson. Today, our guest is Dr. Alp Eren Topal, who is a specialist in Ottoman political thought in the Langdere. He completed his PhD at Bill Kent and will start a Marie Curie Fellowship at University of Oslo in September. Thanks so much for joining us, Alp. Thanks for the invitation. It's a pleasure to be here with you. Our conversation today will be about medical metaphors in Ottoman political thought. In other words, how Ottoman statesmen talked about politics, the state, and social life

by using concepts of medicine and the body. We wanted to start off, Alp, by having you read a fascinating example from your research, which is part of a working paper co-authored with Einar Wiggen of University of Oslo, who has previously been a podcast guest. This particular quote is from Zia Pasha in late 1860s. And he has this brief history of the Ottoman Empire. And in the conclusion, he has this very amazing passage where he narrates the history of Ottoman Empire in terms of various illnesses. Quote, With the blows from oppressors, the state contracted yellow fever, and occasionally its situation got worse.

Although its pain was temporarily relieved with the treatment from the Köprül viziers, the Persian campaign of Ahmed III and Mahmud I upset it again and the stomach problem deepened. Upon this sickness, the treaty of Küçük Kaynarca has opened a wound in its heart and it fell bedridden. Mahmud II ran to its aid, but as the sapling from Kaynarca bore fruit 40 years later, the Greek revolt led to a carbuncle in the bosom of the state. The Europeans gave up hope on its life and began to draw maps to dissect it accordingly. But of all the ailments, the military weakness, that is the upset stomach, was the most painful, and when Mahmud II succeeded

in abolishing the Janissaries, the patient opened its eyes finally. Still, the treaty of Adrianople worsened the wound in the heart, and its recovery was interrupted, and the Sultan had grown tired. heart and its recovery was interrupted and the Sultan had grown tired. But at that instant, Rashid Pasha once again ran to its aid and instituted Tanzimat. Alp, this passage is striking to me for a number of reasons. One, I want to know why military strength dissolving is akin to an upset stomach. But also it's so interesting to me because as you note in a working paper of yours right now, the Ottoman Empire is so often thought of as the sick man of Europe to denote its lack of political power in the 19th century. And here you have one of the foremost young Ottoman

intellectuals actually describing the empire in terms of sickness. What appealed to you about this passage when you first saw it? How brief and to the point it was. Just 300 years of Ottoman history just summarized and made sense of. Actually, that was something quite prevalent in young Ottoman writing. At that time, in 1860s, already all Europeans were talking about Ottoman Empire as the sick man. That was a very common reference. So it seems they were painful aware of this. And many of the problems they were criticizing with Ottoman administration and society were expressed in such terms. There's one other reference I remember, for instance, that says,

you know, okay, there are so many wounds and illnesses in this body, we don't really know which one will lead to its death. So, it's impossible to tell. And he says, okay, but probably it will be the illness with regard to the treasury, for instance. So, yeah, did they use these kinds of references and metaphors a lot i don't think there is much consistency in there you know they are both using uh certain archaic medical knowledge but also the more uh contemporary acquired you know modern medicine uh modern modern medical vocabulary in their descriptions. It's a bit of a mess.

So one thing we wanted to know, actually, was sort of how new was this idea that the state could be likened to a body and that the problems in the political power, the military trajectory of the state could be described as illnesses or ailments or wounds? Well, the idea of likening or comparing the state to a body is very old. It goes back even before Ottomans. But of course, wounds and ailments, diseases are more modern. The idea of drawing an analogy between a human body and a political body is one of the most prevalent tropes, not only in the Middle East or Ottoman Empire

but in most of the old world. So how early do we see some of these metaphors of the body being used to describe states? In Ottoman Empire it starts already in 15th century. And they're drawing on? Mostly the Galenic medicine that was acquired from Persian philosophy, basically, which was acquired from the translations of Aristotelian ethics, etc. So, it appears Galenic medicine becomes, that's what they draw on mainly in the early modern period up until the 18th century. Sorry, maybe we should interject here and explain for some of our listeners what Galenic medicine is. Galen was a, you know, ancient physician who followed in Hippocrates' footsteps,

but his main contribution was that he imagined or he proposed that the human body was composed of four liquids, which is blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. And these four liquids had to be in balance and in proper proportion within the body for it to be healthy. So if one of these liquids was in more than the others, it would lead to all kinds of illnesses. So hence the idea of bloodletting, for instance, in order to relieve the body of this excess. Basically, based on this idea, in the 13-1400s, both in Europe and the Middle East, this idea occurred. This parallel was drawn between the Galenic medicine and social and political body. So, just like human body is

composed of four liquids, so the political body is also composed of four elements. Also, this is parallel to the four elements in physical world, you know, fire, earth, air, and water. In a way, it was an analogy, a metaphor, but I think even more than that, it was a common ontology. So it makes sense that if physical world is composed of four elements and the human body is composed of four liquids, so the social life should be based on this idea of a quadruple classification, and the main point is always the balance. So in the case of the Ottoman Empire, then starting from the 15th century, what are the four elements of society and how are they supposed to be kept in a balance?

Well, the four classes, they call it the Erkan-ı Erbağ, that make up the society, are men of the sword, askeriye, men of the pen, kalemiye, ilmiye, including both, merchants and artisans make up the other third one. And the farmers, the reaya, the flock, is the fourth one.

And is that, because you mentioned that the sort of Galenic metaphor for society is widespread across the Mediterranean world. Is that similar to some of the ways that people in other parts of the Mediterranean world are conceiving of society? Yeah, actually, I think it was Leo Siros wrote a very good paper about this, that Galenic medicine was quite popular with Florentine political authors as well. And this was apparently a kind of a novelty compared to the more medieval metaphors where the state or the society was compared to basically the human body in corpus, where the ruler is either the heart or the head. But now with the Galenic medicine, we switch to a more more at a kind of different conception of society. So I have a question about the humors. You mentioned that one of the groups of society

are the soldiers, the men of the sword, and it seems like sometimes they are compared to phlegm. You have this quote from Mustafa Naime in a chronicle of the 17th century where he says, just like an old man's body is marked by an overabundance of phlegm, those states past the age of maturity are marked by an overabundance of soldiers, which requires constant spitting them out. Why? Why are soldiers like phlegm? I cannot say exactly, but it's also likened to fire as a physical element. It's easier to make the connection with physical elements. So, for instance, Knallizade, the 16th century famous philosopher says, one of the most beautiful ones I like, he says, like, the farmers are like the earth. They are the most productive ones, but still they are the farmers are like the earth they are the most productive

ones but still they are the ones that are trampled upon so they liken the soldiers to fire which is destructive it's destructive properties but since we are not really familiar with this conception of this for liquids i mean blood makes sense and yellow bile too, but I still find it difficult to translate out immediately the first black bile. What was it? What does it make sense? How have they understood it? It's a bit of a... Well, I mean, something that's striking about the case of phlegm and soldiers is that there's actually a prescription that's added to it, which is that you need to spit them out. And I don't know if that's clear what that means.

What does it mean to spit out soldiers? Well, of course, the overabundance of the standing army, especially the increasing number of janissaries, was a constant problem in the 17th century, from early 17th century onwards, because we know that lots of people from the ruled classes just bought their way into genocide corps, because this was kind of the first step into becoming part of the ruling elite in Istanbul. So their numbers increasingly grew.

And the state would constantly, for instance, in order to kind of reduce these numbers, they would regularly do checks on the rolls and see who's not there. Of course, Geneseo had ways of dealing with that too. But yeah, it was a constant problem on the treasury, state treasury, having this many people on the rolls and paying them regular salaries. And I tell you, you know, even before Naima, just three, four years before Naima, Khatib Çelebi makes the same point. And the main problems is overabundance of the soldiers, which is draining on the treasury. So maybe soldiers are phlegm, not because there's some kind of inherent relationship

between phlegm and soldiering, but because both phlegm and soldiering are things kind of inherent relationship between phlegm and soldiering, but because both phlegm and soldiering are things they want to have less of. Yes, yes. You want to spit it out. Right. And I wonder, who are the people who are writing these things? And who are they writing them for? The sources we used are almost exclusively Ottoman bureaucrats, who are also, you know,

learned men, who has gone through classical education in philosophy and letters and all that and they are all from the mid ranks of bureaucracy and most of them we know because of these political writing they left behind like Kocibey for instance

one of the famous ones but we know him as famous because of the three tis he left and we actually know little about his for instance background most of them are like me drank progress learned progress like these and the readers would be similar would be a similar group yeah these were mainly circulated only within the bureaucracy they weren't like mass-produced of so one one question then is sort of like,

did they all agree, right? I mean, did you find people arguing that actually soldiers weren't phlegm, they were something else or was it rather? There is almost a perfect consistency there. And I think that's also partly due to the fact that they repeat each other almost, especially from Khatib Celebi onwards, from mid-17th century,

I noticed at one point, and other scholars also noted this, that it's almost verbatim repetition. In this metaphor. Yeah. So it's not given much thought. So maybe this social class is something else. There's no such elaboration. so it seems like on some level it's conventional wisdom exactly but i also wonder are they receiving medical training actually yes

because part of these philosophical treatises is self-care because as i said they are fashioned after aristotelian ethics so it it starts with personal care, with personal morality, then goes on to household management, and of course, finally, the management of the city. So one part, the first part, self-care, involves lengthy descriptions of how to keep your body healthy. And of course, humors are a part of that. So yeah, it's part of their own medical knowledge about themselves

that also they reflect upon society and politics. So we'll be right back after a short music break with more with Alperen Topal and medical metaphors for society in the early modern Ottoman Empire. Welcome back to the Ottoman History Podcast. Welcome back to the Ottoman History Podcast. I'm Susie Ferguson, here today with Sam Dolby and Alper Antilpal, discussing how Ottoman statesmen and bureaucrats used medical metaphors and metaphors about the body to describe Ottoman state and society. So Alp, we've talked a little bit about how in the early modern period,

in the 16th, 17th century, the notion of the state as a kind of humoral balance between the four elements of society became the prevalent way for thinking about collective political life. But in your work, you've also noted that there was a sort of turning point in the 18th century with the introduction of or the popularization in Ottoman of the work of historian Ibn Khaldun. So maybe you could just describe for our listeners who is Ibn Khaldun and how did his work or his theory of history kind of join the discussion about Galenic medicine and the Ottoman state? Yeah, Ibn Khaldun is quite a popular figure, but he was this 14th century Arab historian who had this monumental work on history with a very again similarly monumental introduction which we know as the Muqaddama now.

So he had this almost theoretical take on state transformation whereby nomadic societies would eventually be settled in cities, establish states, go through several stages and then eventually collapse. So this work Mukaddime was not popular among Ottomans to begin with but somehow sometime in the 17th century, it got introduced. There are debates as to when that happened exactly, but we are almost sure that before 17th century it was not a big thing. But most famously, it was popularized by Katip Çelebi in mid-17th century, who used Khaldun's schema of the state going through youth, maturity, and old age in addition to the humoral analogy we have talked about before.

So, sorry, was Ibn Khaldun using concepts of Galenic medicine in his own work, or was that something that's tacked on to his work? That's not attributed to him, actually. But Ottoman political authors used both. So, Khayatib Çelebi drew both on humoral metaphors on Galenic medicine

and also the Khaldunian conception of state transformation. And the life cycle of the state. Yes, the life cycle of the state, exactly. So, after Khayatib Çelebi, it obviously becomes popular. And by the turn cycle of the state, exactly. So, after Khayyam Çelebi, it obviously becomes popular. And by the turn of 18th century, at the very beginning of 18th century, in the famous history of Naima, we see that Khaldun becomes the cornerstone of this work. So, he starts in his lengthy introduction to his work, Naima talks explicitly about Khaldun, cites him as the most important historian to come,

and then starts describing stages of Ottoman history in Khaldunian terms. And, of course, says we are in the later stages of the life cycle of the state. So, we are either, this in Ottoman terms maybe I should cite, it's sinni n-muğf, the youth, sinni-kuf, maturity, and sinni in-hitaat. In-hitaat later becomes word for Ottoman decline, actually. The debate in 18th century is mostly between whether Ottoman state is in its sinni v-kuf, in maturity, or it's already going over to old age. It's so interesting because in a way it's like a laying over of a metaphor that's based around the healthy body, right?

The life cycle of a healthy body onto a metaphor that's about illness, right? That's about imbalance or excess of certain elements in the body. Yes, the curious thing is, by 18th century, Galenic setup is no longer really, it doesn't really matter anymore. up is no longer really, it doesn't really matter anymore. I mean, we see it's still cited almost in every work, but that's as far as it gets. It's just cited, but it's not elaborated upon. What do you attribute that transformation? I think the rise of the emphasis on Galenic metaphors in 17th century must have something to do with this you know overhaul of ottoman uh state and social structure you know lots of big structural changes that have been dealt with you know ottoman historians a lot recently uh and you know increasing uh uh fluidity

between social classes you know penetration of of ruled people to the ruling elite. That kind of problems, I think, made Galenic set up this kind of thinking about, you know, classes and boundaries very prevalent. But by 18th century, this goes away. This kind of concern with, you know, keeping very strict boundaries between social classes, it somehow goes away. I couldn't pinpoint exactly when that happens. And it's replaced by a question about the temporality of large-scale change,

whether it's sort of in this life cycle of youth maturity and decline or proceeding in some other fashion. Exactly. I mean, with the introduction of Haldun and its use, state almost becomes reified as this thing, this body that moves through history and time, and it's talked about this monolithic thing. It becomes one body rather than a balance of many elements. Yeah, yes, exactly. And this kind of trumps over all other kinds of metaphors and explanations. And it makes sense because Ottoman bureaucrats become

more and more painfully aware of the fragility of Ottoman order and, of course, ways of restoring the former dynamism, virility, whatever you call it. So, in a way, the metaphor becomes more rigid as people's awareness of the fragility of the state increases. Exactly. Interesting. Chaldunian thinking, this thinking of state as a body, human body that ages, is a more proper metaphor. Whereas Galenic thinking had all, as I said, had this almost ontological aspect, you know. almost ontological aspect, you know. It only makes sense that the state and society

follows a similar logic to the human body and the physical world. But with Khaldun, it's more of a proper metaphor that very influences, really influences the thinking of state. So do we see practical implications of these ideas in terms of the concepts being mobilized by bureaucrats? Yes, actually we do, and that comes late in the 18th century,

especially during the New Order era. For instance, a dozen bureaucrats write memorandums for Selim III, thinking loudly on what to do with regard to reform. And I noticed one of these guys, Tatarjik Abdullah Molla, has one chapter specifically for this topic. So he ascribes the decline of Ottoman Empire to this increasing sedentary life. So, Ottomans were these nomadic people who were quite warlike, you know, dynamic, royal. But as they started to settle in cities, they grew indulgent, you know,

indulged themselves in luxury, started building big buildings, grew too comfortable, and they lost this. So he suggests, for instance, it's almost funny, that Sultan starts moving again in the provinces. Like maybe he will spend the summer in Edirne and the spring in Bursa and fall in Iznik, that kind of thinking. And it becomes even more emphasized. It becomes almost a state policy during the Greek revolt of early 19th century.

Because at this point, we see this kind of logic becoming core policy. So the logic is that, why are Muslims are losing against the Greeks? Because the Greeks are Bedeis, nomads. So they are still dynamic, whereas Muslims have lost that. Several hattuhumayuns by Mahmud II ordered the population to be mobilized all the time. So no longer wearing luxury clothes, you know, fur coats. So you will don simple clothing, you will carry arms, swords, knives, if possible, guns. And if you can afford it, you should have a horse. The state imagines to solve this problem by having the people in a state of constant mobilization. But that's, I think,

the last of it after the Greek crisis. ends this kind of thinking is almost gone and it's an interesting point because i mean especially later in the 19th century actual people in a state of nomadism are a problem for the state in a lot of ways there are violent campaigns to settle them and and so the idea that the ottomans needed to be more like nomads, it strikes a contrast with those events that happened later in that same century. Actually, it's contrast with what happened before, too. You know, Ottomans were this culture who were very proud of their sedentary, settled life. And nomads were always a problem for, you know, big state like Ottomans because it creates all kinds of taxation problems you know management problems so actually this kind of uh logic where you follow the haldunian reasoning to its you know basic logical conclusion if we have become if you have declined because of our sedentary

life maybe we should go back to nomadism although it's logical it's also very striking and actually shukrul ucak who wrote about this, calls it a radical rethinking of the empire. Because the state is, the Ottoman state is in such a huge crisis, even the most out of place solutions are considered. I think we can understand this in that context. You know, the early 19th century crisis of the Ottoman state, you know, surrounded on several sides with very drastic problems, Russians, Napoleon, and the Greeks. So I guess one other question then is in this 18th century moment where the bureaucrats are arguing that the state and the sort of elites need to become more like nomads. Does that actually change the state's approach to its nomadic populations in that period? I wouldn't be able to say. I haven't dug that deep, but I doubt it would be like that.

That seems more like a momentary solution taught up in a… Grasping for a solution in a state of crisis. Yeah, grasping for a solution in a state of crisis, exactly. We began by this wonderful patient history of the Ottoman Empire culminating with the Tanzimat. But of course, the Tanzimat did not cure the patient, perhaps, if we want to continue with that metaphor. How do changing conceptions of biomedicine in the 19th century change? What kind of metaphors can be used to talk about the state?

To begin with, galenic metaphors are almost completely gone so in 18th century you can still see people you know just repeating that as a cliche but in 19th century this is completely gone no galenism anymore and uh it makes also sense because galenic medicine uh is in decline already in 18th century. It is replaced by new medical approaches anyway, 19th century, so it's completely gone. But we see even in the early Tanzimat in 1814, for instance, certain bureaucrats talking about veins, for instance. I had this interesting passage from Sadr Griffat Pasha, one of the prominent men of early Tanzimat, talking about road structures and road reform in the empire and, you know, comparing roads to the vanes

in human body. So, in order for it to work, the vanes shouldn't be clogged. Similarly, the road network should work perfectly in the empire for it to be healthy. the road network should work perfectly in the empire for it to be healthy and there are a lot of similar fragmented analogies so people start talking about diseases now you know spread of diseases which again attributing disease not to an imbalance of humors but to things like germs microbes these kind of 19th century conceptions of contagion. Exactly. So what do you think are the main, like, what are the important differences from a conceptual point of view between the Galenic metaphor and the sort of the germs and microbes of 19th century biomedicine? Well, it's certainly a very different way of thinking about state and society.

way of thinking about state and society. I mean, we already see that with Khaldun in 18th century, they started thinking about state as this one monolithic body. With germs and microbes and diseases, you start to realize there is this sense of invasion too. Not simply a body getting old due to its natural lifespan and life cycle, but it's being invaded from all around with different germs and diseases and contagions. That are understood as coming from outside. Exactly.

There's also a certain internality when you're talking about veins. You start talking about an internal architecture that's both complex and... Something alien enters the body and you don't catch it in time, you don't realize it, but it starts making you weak. For instance, one late 19th century author, Hersegli Arif Hikmet, thinks about influence of foreign ideas in these terms. He says they are like blood disease. So, for an idea in these terms, he says they are like blood disease.

You don't realize them. They penetrate your body and slowly influence everything in the body because they spread through blood veins. And, of course, there are lots of references and comparisons to frengi, you know, the Ottoman word for syphilis. And syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease, so comparing Western influence and Rampant social and politicals in the Empire to frangie Has this kind of you know sexual dimension almost sexual imagery regarding state Society and its relation with Europe. So that's one thing that's obviously out there too in 19th century. I also think about Zio Gokop in late 19th, early 20th century. He

talks about germs a lot, and it makes sense because he was a veterinary medicine student. And one of the more striking passages to me, he writes about nomads. They're a disease that require treatment. And that seems like a kind of end note in a way to this mingling of Galenic medicine and Ibn Khaldun to think about political thought. Yes, actually, Ibn Khaldun

somehow keeps its popularity. Maybe we should note that in passing too. In mid-19th century, several Ottoman historians draw a lot on Ibn Khaldun. You know that Cevdet Pasha uses his setup. Although they don't take the kind of determinism implied in the Khaldunian schema. Will the state collapse or not? Is it inevitable? That problem goes away.

But this Khaldunian cycle is integrated in explaining Ottoman history. Mustafa Nuri Pasha's Netaycu Lukat does the same thing. For instance, they explain every century of Ottoman history in separate Khaldunian terms, like cycles being experienced in a state's life. But young Ottomans, for instance, reject that kind of explanation. Namık Kemal says, okay, the state is a body, but it's not a physical, corporeal body. He says, spiritual body. And it doesn't have a natural life like Ibn Khaldun says, Na'im Kemal interjects. As long as we apply the proper cures, it should have an indefinite life. So, it can be prolonged as long as you approach it scientifically in a way. There's a sort of enlightenment thinking there

even. But even Gökalp actually relies implicitly on Hibni Khaldun in his thinking when he starts comparing civilization and culture, the most central concepts of his thinking, he increasingly tends to describe culture becoming more associated with nomadism, with civilization, with sedentary life, for instance, and he tries to reverse that and glorify nomadic way of life, which he thinks was what gave Ottomans and Turks their power and dynamism. So one of the things you notice is that Galenic medicine and the sort of humoral theories, both of the body and of the state, are sort of shared between the Mediterranean world and the early modern period.

Would you say the same thing is true for the biomedical metaphors of contagion and microbes in the 19th and early 20th centuries? Well, tentatively, yes. And I think this has, you can explain it in two ways. One, of course, spread of ideas, medical ideas. And also, of course, as a homology, people start coming up with such ideas, metaphors, and imagery also independently of themselves. Like how this kind of social Darwinist thinking began cropping up everywhere in late 18th, early 19th century

even before people read Spencer and similar people. So I think, again, it's partly due to travel and impact of ideas spreading from the West. And changing medical practices themselves. And also changing practices, patterns, and parallel problems experienced in everywhere in the world. You know, you had this really nice point

in the paper about when or if using the designator Islamic adds anything to our object of study. The topics that we've been talking about today are often thought about as Islamic political thought, right? And so it seems to me that one of the takeaways from your observations about the use of medical metaphors is that Islamic is actually not always a useful designator. Would you say that's right? Definitely. That we think it somehow explains something when we add the designator Islamic, but it does not. But of course, I should note that this doesn't mean basically that Ottomans thought was the same as whatever was being taught elsewhere. Of course, there are

differences. Ottomans have a particular way of looking at things, but this doesn't mean they are not commensurable. One thing, for instance, we emphasize in our research with Aynur is that when Ottomans were obsessed with Khaldun and this life cycle of states in the 18th century, similar problems and solutions were being sought in Europe as well. Prior to the French Revolution, the French were obsessed about the question of decline themselves too. Again, similar to Khaldunian explanations, which is based on a kind of political economy, British economists were thinking about history in not cyclical maybe, but again, in economic political terms as progress.

So they were dealing with similar problems as societies and states sharing a common world and common problems. They are certainly commensurable. Right. And looking at something like a sort of metaphor, a unit of a metaphor of say the Galenic Humors or biomedicine actually brings to view some of the ways in which ways of thinking about or even adjudicating or administering the state in different parts of the world that we often separate between you know what is Islamic and what is European are actually more similar than we might otherwise notice which isn't to say that thinking in terms of Islam or in terms of region is never useful, but is to say that

looking at metaphor as a unit makes us able to see the similarities as well. Yes, exactly. Because thinking with metaphors, as we social scientists know, is a very humane thing. It's actually the basis of very core of thought. We always think in analogies, and then we start abstracting. And indeed the Ottomans not surprisingly did as well exactly do you catch yourself thinking in metaphors? a lot

yes the life cycle of this podcast has come to an end Alp thanks so much for joining us thanks again for the invitation The life cycle of this podcast has come to an end. Alp, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks again for the invitation. And for our listeners who want to find out more, we recommend that you follow Alper and Topal's scholarship, both existing and forthcoming.

We will also post a bibliography for this episode on our website, www.adamandhistorypodcast.com. We invite you to leave comments, questions, and your own metaphors for the state. Please feel free to also join us on Facebook, where we stay in touch with our community of now over 30,000 listeners and post news about upcoming series and episodes. That's all for this episode. Until next time, take care. So, okay. I need some more water. Mami, mimi. You need some more water?

Okay. Thank you.