Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Balto

Episode Date: July 27, 2021

Sawbones is finally doing the Balto episode! What happens when a remote town in Alaska has a diphtheria breakout, but their entire anti-toxin supply is expired? Call up Balto and the pack of hero dogs and mushers to make the harrowing journey.Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Sawbones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, talk is about books. One, two, one, two, three, four. We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's busted out. We were shot through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

Some medicines, some medicines that escalate my cop for the mouth. Wow. Hello everybody and welcome to Sobhones, a marital tour of Miss Guided Medicine. I'm your co-host, Justin McAroy. I'm Sydney McAroy. And folks, it's finally happening. The episode you have all been demanding all these years since we started Sobhones in 2013.

We're finally doing it. We're doing the Balto episode. You're getting people excited to see, and then you said Balto, and they're gonna be like, what? We're doing the Balto episode. Can you, when I told you we were gonna do an episode on Balto, you were so confused as to why I would say that. You assumed I was talking about still buffering

and not solbona. Correct. Sydney does still buffering and not saw buttons. Correct. Sydney does still buffering with her siblings and it is a show about the pop culture that informed their growing up. And I, she said, we're doing a Balto episode. I was like, that's weird. I wonder which one of them loves Balto.

But turn out it was for, it was for saw buttons. Now to be fair, Taylor does love Balto. Sure enough. That is what my main context for the, the animated, the 1995 animated film that you may have seen Balto. Uh, I think I may have intentionally watched it one time, but I have, uh, absorbed it many more times

because of Taylor's repeated watchings. Fair enough. Do you remember that movie? Did you see it? Balto know. No, I remember the trailers. I feel like there was a trailer for Balto at the beginning of a lot of VHS tapes.

Do you know who was in it? Everybody. I listed it in our show notes in case you'd curious. Okay. Kevin Bacon, Bridget Fonda, Jim Cummings, Phil Collins, Bob Hoskins, so many stars. Jim Cummings, Phil Collins, Bob Hoskins, so many stars. Jim Cummings, so many stars. So many stars.

The galaxy is dark. The skies are dark. And why all the stars are here in Bulta. Bob Hoskins, you know it. For the longest time I couldn't tell if any movie had Bob Hoskins or Danny DeVito in it. I the longest time I couldn't tell if any movie had Bob Hoskins or Danny DeVito in it. I never knew. We saw Jim Cummings recently use that, uh, the, uh, uh, Huntington comic book convention,

right there next to John Wesley ship. Mm-hmm. Shout out to both of my suming or listening. Uh, so anyway, I think there are a lot of us of a certain age who have, who watched this movie and maybe like me because I was younger at the time. Didn't fully like realize what it was about. I mean, I knew it was about this cute dog and I was always more of a cat person so maybe that was why I didn't repeatedly watch it the way that Taylor did. But I didn't know that it was medically relevant really. I mean, I watched it so I must have understood on some level

what the heck all these dogs were doing, but I guess it never really clicked until I was older. And then I was like, oh, that was sort of a cool hero medicine story, didn't realize that. But it still never occurred to me that we should do an episode about this until Theo wrote and suggested it. So thank you Theo.

Thank you Theo. Thank you, Theo. Yeah, this was a great idea because it is medically relevant. It is, I think it fits well into the things we cover. And if you have never seen the movie, Balto, strap band, we're watching some spoilies, I guess, right? Or also, if you have and you know this whole history and you know why Togo is who we should celebrate, there is so much drama in this dog story.

Can I tell you on the front? There's going to be some out of them, but there's just so much drama on the dog story. So let's get into it. So back before vaccines in the harder days, before we all got vaccinated for things, or at least we begged people to give them trucks and scholarships to get vaccinated for things. One of the most feared childhood diseases was diptheria. You probably heard of diptheria, right? You've heard the name.

And it seems like something that people used to get. You've probably never seen anybody with diptheria. Not never. Never. It still does happen in parts of the world, but it's pretty uncommon these days. used to get. You've probably never seen anybody with diphtheria. Not never. I've never. It still does happen in parts of the world, but it's pretty uncommon these days. It is caused by a bacteria called carina bacterium diphtheria. You can guess why we named it that. It used to cause fairly severe disease for kids, especially kids under five. That's why this is always important too, If you're ever having a conversation with somebody about why we vaccinate children so young,

like why do we give them these shots when they're so little and so many. It's because so many of these diseases were particularly devastating in that age group. So we vaccinate them at that age because if we wait until later, a lot of them may have already died of the disease before we vaccinate him at that age because if we wait until later, a lot of them may have already died of the disease before we vaccinate him. This is always confusing me. Like, why can't we space it out? Like, why don't you get your kids' kids? Because they might get sick.

I mean, that's just giving a kid a bunch of shots and like, go to a toys or a house later. I mean, yeah. Yeah. But, but, but, but, and then they won't get sick. Okay. You get it by... That's so award. You don't need to buy them a transformer afterwards. Health is its own reward. You get it by respiratory droplet transmission.

It's pretty contagious. And you stay infectious for a few weeks, two to three weeks. So it's a big deal when you have an outbreak of diphtheria or used to be. Symptoms will start as a sore throat, a fever, you could get inflammation of your tonsils, so tonsillitis. But it can progress to something much more dangerous because the bacteria releases a toxin. This toxin is responsible for a lot of the damage that is done by this infection.

It will destroy a lot of tissues and cause a lot of what's basically like waste product, this sort of debris that the toxin has left behind. And this grayish white debris will accumulate all over the back of your throat and mouth and respiratory structures. We call it a pseudo membrane, because it's not a membrane, but it has formed one now, sort of a false one that has formed. And you can imagine trying to breathe

through this sort of grayish film that is enveloping the back of your throat and everything. You can't, unfortunately, for many people who would get diptheria. It can also, of course, damage your heart. You can get inflammation of your heart from it or your nerves, pneumonia, respiratory failure. It can completely obstruct your airway and you can't breathe. And all in all, prior to vaccines, diptheria would kill about 20% of children under five who got it. So, I mean, put that in context. If you have an outbreak of this very contagious illness, diphtheria among, you know, a classroom,

a school, a neighborhood of children, whatever, one in five of those kids under five will die of diphtheria. So, it was a huge deal. It was a huge scourge in children. And I should say it can also be deadly in adults. It was mainly feared for its effect on children, but people over 40 were also very susceptible to severe illness and even some of those in between. In the late 1800s, when we first sort of pinned down, as we were understanding the like the germ theory of disease and we were connecting certain organisms that we could

find and locate and grow in, you know, petri dishes with certain diseases and all that was being put together, we put together what dip theory was and what caused it, but we didn't know exactly what to do about it at first. We just had, I mean, it was like a lot of things. Great, we figured that out. What the heck do we do now? However, soon after that, there was a solution of sorts, at least something that would give us some relief until the vaccine would be made.

By the 1920s, when this story I'm going to tell you takes place, we had anti-toxin. It was synthesized right before the turn of century by two different scientists, Shibasa Barro, Kitsado, and Emil von Beering. They both basically tried to take the toxin part, they isolated the toxin part that came from the bacteria and killed it with heat. Oh. And then you could give it to somebody and it's like an antitoxin. Cool. And stop the toxin. This would go on to be sort of like refined, I should say, into this antitoxin that was

made by injecting it into horses. You would basically like inject a horse with a toxin. They would create antibodies, get the serum out of the horse. And now you have this serum that you can give to people who have diptheria to stop them from dying. That was the idea. Then you would just take the horse to the center of town and everybody would like come drink from this horse.

Well, you don't drink from the horse. Everybody come up with this horse's teeth. I guess you could do that. I don't. Don't. No, I don't. From the life to the sats. To start from the life to sex.

To start from the life-giving udders of the horse. I don't know. This incredible anti-dip period horse. Well, I mean, you can't get horse milk, I suppose. You can milk anything with nibbles. I went there for me to parents. I don't know how well the antibodies in the serum are secreted in horse breast milk.

I think you're trying to say something to me. This is not what we did. I thought you knew and you just are trying to scare us away from delicious horse milk that cures diptheria. There was a famous horse named Jim who was responsible for some of these early experiments. Anyway. Thanks, Jim. Thanks, Jim.

His tree remembers you, Jim. Jim, the horse. You can look at the article. It's like Jim and I'm printing his horse. Jim, a horse. Jim. Thanks, Jim. His true remembers you, Jim. Jim, the horse. You can look at the article. It's like Jim and Imprincy's horse. Jim, a horse. Jim, a horse. Incredible otters. No, but anyway, they would take the serum

then out of the horse and then you could give it to people and it would counteract the effects of the toxin, which would prevent, hopefully, the severe disease and death. So you could still get sick, but not that sick. So in Nome, Alaska, this is where the focus of our story takes place. In Nome, Alaska, in the winter of 1924, the only doc in town, there was one doctor in four nurses in this town. They had a...

Dr. Balto, the horse doctor. Is it? This is not. Dr. Balto, Balto was not a doctor. It is so weird to me that you don't know this story at all. You know Balto's a dog, right? I know Balto's a dog, but I think if you're remote enough, maybe he's the best doctor in town.

No, Balto was not a doctor. A doctor, if you please. I can't with this. Is this gonna be like this the whole show? I feel like it's got that kind of punchy energy. Okay. Doctor Curtis Welch, only Dr. in town, they've got like a little 25 bed hospital for nurses. So you know, they are not, it's not like a tertiary care center state of the art medical

technology. He's doing the best he can him and his team to hold this place together. So in the winter of 1924, Dr. Welch did not want to believe that a diphtheria outbreak was starting. It is December of 1924. He sees a couple kids who have a sore throat, one has tonsillitis, and he thinks, Probably not diphtheria. And there are several reasons for this. Seed gnome Alaska was not easy to get to in 1924. Okay. So it's not less likely that it made its way there because it's more remote. Well, not necessarily that connection, but I'll get into why this is why this matters. The seaport in gnome would ice over from November to July

basically making it inaccessible by water, okay? The only way really to get to and from it was land. And you could, this is actually, it's funny. Have you heard of the I didarod? What is your perception of what the I didarod is? It's like a race that is a dog sled race. The I didarad is the name of the trail. And the I didarad trail is actually originally a collection of different trails

that people indigenous to the area that is Alaska had first traveled to get to different places. It was sort of coalesced into what was the eventually called the I did a ride trail and was used during the gold rush. That is where that comes from. I know, I used to think it was a race too, which I'm not saying that there aren't races along the I did a ride, obviously there are, but it's the name of the trail.

So it's sort of like the doctor is Frankenstein. And this is monster, that kind of deal. Yeah, yeah. So Dr. Welch didn't want to believe that the first few cases of this tonsillitis that he saw that winter could be diptheria because as I've already said, we're in a very remote isolated location.

He just saw a couple cases. So his first reason is like, well, pretty contagious. So I would think if it was dip theory, I'd see a lot more cases, right? Right. Just a couple. So probably not. And then the second reason is much more practical.

This is why this remote location comes into play and why I think I can understand and sympathize with the way Dr. Welch was seeing this. He had discovered a few months previously that the hospital's entire stockpile of diphtheria antitoxin had expired. So you're a small town doctor. You're in a remote location inaccessible by sea and only land but still very remote, very far from for many major centers.

You see a couple kids with tonsillitis, it enters your mind that perhaps this could be this horrible, deadly scourged diphtheria. Oh, God. But you know you do not have the treatment and you also know how hard it would be to get the treatment there. Yeah. So I think you'd definitely be incentivized like, no, it's probably not this, right? We could all agree. It's not this because you know what that means. Yeah. By January, however, Dr. Welch could not

fool himself any longer. More children had become ill. One had succumbed to their illness. And he knew at that point what was happening. There were the tail-tail signs of a diphtheria outbreak. He attempted early on in this to use his expired stockpile to try to treat one patient to disastrous consequences. So he knew that was not going to be an option. Man, I can understand why you'd be tempted to give it a shot, but still. Yes. So he put the whole town in quarantine first, everybody quarantined. And then he sent the following telegram, because we're in telegram days. An epidemic of diptheria is almost

inevitable here. Stop. I am an urgent need of 1 million units of diptheria antitoxin stop. Mail is only form of transportation stop. I have made application to Commissioner of Health of the Territories for Antitoxin already stop. There are about 3,000 white natives in the district end of telegram. So one million units though, is that like actually one million doses? No. Okay. No, that's not one million doses. Okay. If that does, that's not one million doses. Okay. Does it be some measure of those, some number of those units? Exactly.

Exactly. He was estimating how many units he would need to control the whole outbreak based on the cases he was seeing, the cases he thought he would see based on the number of, as he called the tension to white natives in the district. But I wanted to also call attention to the fact that the surrounding area, there were about 10,000 plus people in that population around that, around Nomellaska. And for some historical context, which is really important to know, is that a lot of the indigenous people, the native Alaskans, who lived around that

area, had no innate immunity to diphtheria. And so they had seen this play out in 1918 when the influenza pandemic burned through this part of the world. Because of how world. Yes. And how the death toll was very high. And so dip theory of the implications of an outbreak among this 10,000 plus native population was disastrous. I mean, there were some that predicted it could be 100% mortality. So the implications of this outbreak in Namalaska are very severe. And he knew this. He knew what they were facing and he knew that he had no way to get the, at the time, the

only treatment. There were no antibiotics. There was nothing else. This is the only thing that works. All of ours is expired. I've got sick kids. He picks up the big red thumb. What do you do? He's behind glass. He lives the receiver to his ear and says, get me balto. And balto is like, wolf wolf, which translates to, I don't do that

anymore. I've been out of the game for too long. There's no, nothing I would get back into the game for. And then the doctor's like, when the kid's is your son, and he's like, I don't have a son, and then his wife picks up the phone, and she's like, I do have a son, Voltao, and he's in no more last-can-your-our-only hope. I haven't seen the baby, but I'm a saint. It's about family.

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what is this hero dog gonna show up? Okay. So at this point, the mayor, the public health service, the governor, everybody starts to try to get on the phone, start sending telegrams. I mean, it's the 1920s, I don't know, however you're gonna communicate. They start getting on the phone with each other

and like, what are the heck are we gonna do? We've gotta get anti-toxin to know Alaska. The initial thought, because some of you may be asking this question, you may in the back of your mind think, okay, so you can't get there by sea right now, right? Because the port's all frozen. What about air? We're flying planes in the 1920s.

Okay. They're planes. So this was brought up and it's funny because as you read, and I would encourage you, I don't really want to get into all the intricacies of the, like, the travel methods to do, because it's a medical history show. So I really want to focus on the medicine. But it is a fascinating story when you think about

like the logistics of problem solving this and the different players who tried to push different things and what would have happened if they had attempted that instead. But anyway, a lot of people said, well, we should just fly it there. At that point, the only winter of any long-distance air travel that had been attempted in Alaska was done previously that year. So that's how recently anybody had even tried to fly a plane because at the time to fly a plane in those temperatures was still very difficult. Not only could your equipment freeze over and then you know you crash, but the pilot

would get really freaking cold, which would make it hard to fly. So you had to try to find a way to troubleshoot the conditions, the weather conditions, but then also the distance, nobody had flown that kind of distance. And when we started talking about like, where was the serum?

Cause like you had to get some to take to them. Right. Where was it? Initially Seattle was their best bet. I don't have a map in front of me, but it seemed like that's quite a haul. It is quite a haul from Seattle to know Alaska. So the original thought was,

and you found this all throughout this story is the governor kept saying, like, I don't think air travel's gonna work, but like all these other figures were pushing back, like no, like the mayor was really in favor of air travel. Amundsen gets up in this. Ooh. And it's like, I think the plane's the way to go.

My boy role is Amundsen. Um, so a lot of, a lot of people are arguing over how are we gonna get this serum there. There was a thought that they would like, park a ship right outside outside where it was frozen, like get a Navy ship and then fly a plane from there to, you know, you know what I'm saying? Like let it take off of the aircraft carrier and land in no, and see then just got to

get the ship there. And anyway, a lot of people felt that a mission by plane would be futile. They thought the plane could make it. And they actually like took stock of what sort of planes were in Alaska at the time. They didn't even feel that there were planes, like even if you could get the serum from Seattle to Alaska, they didn't feel like there were planes that could get it from anywhere in Alaska to know. The planes wouldn't make it.

There was no, there's like this whole story where there was no pilot that was certified to do this, but there was one guy who was like, well, I'll try anyway. And the mayor was like, that this guy will do it. And they were all like, maybe not. And the whole, as this story unfolds, the whole nation was just, I mean, completely focused on it.

Like it was being covered constantly in the media. Everyone was watching this in real time, well as much as you could at the time, as it unfolded. So the idea of using these trails where they had, you know, where dog sledding was done, like the I did a rod trail, and such to get the serum to

gnome came back into play. And it was decided that even though that could take some time, it was the only reliable method of getting this serum to the people who needed it. Even though certainly air travel would be faster if it worked, nobody thought it would work. Even though certainly air travel would be faster if it worked, nobody thought it would work. So a plan came together to first, they gathered all of the antitox and all the serum that they could find on the west coast, essentially, and sent it all to Seattle. So you have to gather it all in Seattle first. And this is over a million units, just like you requested. And then they're going to ship it from Seattle to seaw, Alaska, which is still very far from Nome, just for, you know, if you don't know Alaska in geography,

which of course I didn't before I had to, we got it. So they're going to ship it there. And then they were going to run it basically via dog sled all the way up to Nome. However, as they're putting this plan together, they're realizing like, man, this is gonna take quite a while because the next ship, the Almeida, who was that was gonna leave Seattle, just for the first leg of the journey, wasn't even gonna leave until January 31st.

So we're in the middle of January, we're in the midst of this outbreak. Time is human life. And you know that even though this is what, where in the midst of this outbreak, time is human life. Yeah. And you know that even though this is what, this is the plan, you know that it's not, it might not make it in time.

And then at that moment, a hospital in Ninana, Alaska finds 300,000 units of anti-toxin that they didn't realize they have still good not expired and says Hey, we got some We could get that to know Via dog sled it's like 634 miles still quite away. Yeah, it's a whole But and it's only through a hundred thousand units, but the thought was you know what that's enough That at least we can maybe keep people alive was, you know what, that's enough that at least we can

maybe keep people alive, keep those, you know, the people who are already sick, maybe save some lives, and the next batch will come in enough time to save everybody else, right? So this is the plan, and this is the famous, and there are lots of, it's the 1925 serum run is now what is about to ensue. There are lots of great mercy run. There are all these names for this trip. But basically they had to put together a trail from Ninana to know with multiple muskers. Those are the people who drive the humans

and many, many sled dogs to take them across and carry the antitoxin with them. And you got to imagine too, we're talking about glass vials wrapped and padded and trying to be protected and then carried via dog sled in this incredibly grueling environment for long distances. So like first of all, you got to grueling environment for long distances. So like, first of all, you gotta make sure they don't break. Secondly, you have to warm it up periodically. So you gotta make stops periodically

to make sure it doesn't like completely all freeze over. So it was a very dangerous, logistically difficult mission. But at the end of the day, 20 muskers and many, many dogs would be involved in this trip. They started on January 27th. And you can, again, as you read the accounts of this relay, almost every one of the muskers suffered in some way. I mean, frostbite lost pieces of their face.

Like, we're very injured. There was one, and who knows if it's true, but there was one account of one of the muskers when he arrived at his stop. They had to like pour water on his hands to get them to unfreeze from the sled where he was holding it. Like, he could not let go because they were frozen to the sled. As you can imagine, many dogs would sadly perish in this, in this very long journey. The longest distance covered in this trip was by Leonardo SEPPA and his lead dog Togo. They actually crossed like, it was like 91 miles. That was the biggest, longest.

And Togo was known as one of the best sled dogs at the time. This is important to know. And so he crossed a big chunk of it, they were, like I said, they were many involved. And this whole time, by the way, as all these muskers are crossing to get there, what's also happening is you're getting a daily like case toll in no.

So every day that this is happening, the timer is, yeah. A couple more kids get sick. You start to worry about the status of one of the children who already are sick. Again, the media was covering it all. And the entire time you also had government officials who were arguing like, this is why we should use a plane kids are dying

What are you doing get over these dogs we need a plane and so you have all of this happening at the same time that you're just trying to like These musher's are just trying to get the serum there. You can see why they made movies about this The final musher. This is why it's about Bolto The final musher who carries is why it's about Bolto. The final musher who carries it, the last leg of the journey, Gunner Kason, was led by Bolto. His team was led by a dog, Bolto. The story is that he wasn't supposed to be the final musher. So he had a lot of trouble setting out because of the conditions and everything.

And he was delayed in getting to his checkpoint. And the musher who was waiting at the checkpoint to take over for him had thinking that he wasn't going to make it that night had gone to sleep. And so as Gunner arrives, he sees that the cabin is already dark. Do you suddenly left? Well no, he figured he was asleep, but the problem is you got to wake him up and then he's got to get his team already. The way this relay was supposed to work is that like each team was supposed to be like, it's like a relay race literally.

They were supposed to just hand the serum to the next team and they take off. But I imagine, I mean, I've never been dark sledding, but I imagine that there's a lot involved with getting your sled all hooked up and getting everything on board. And you, you know, you got to wake up, maybe have your coffee. I don't know. Yeah. For a guy. I mean, I feel kind of bad for that guy. Like, you had to tell his good kids, like, oh, yeah, I was involved with the same one. I'm positive. There's a lot of, well, it's not very, you know, one time ago. Before we get to the Volto controversy, this is another, there's so many parts of this where there seems to be like, we're not so sure.

There are some who claim that this musher gunner, intentionally, all he looks blue past. Like real quiet, like, listen, I'll go ahead. Just, for the glory. I have no idea. I just, I read go ahead just for the glory I have no I just I read a bunch of different accounts. I have no idea. This is not my expertise is not this part of history I just know the medicine one way or another He is the one who finished it and I mean it was still grueling what he did was still incredibly difficult

He of course like almost every other mushroom suffered frostbite and um he arrived He sounds like he sounds like you and your dad on our road trip. Just like, I know we all have to use the bathroom very badly, but we just passed Charleston, which means we're basically at home at this point. So we should just go ahead and push the last 45 minutes with everyone having to pee their pants. This is exactly, yes, I can understand.

I know I'm gonna lose these fingers, but. No, folks, it's not a joke. If you're in a car with Sydney and she's driving, you're a lot. If you're hungry or have you used the bathroom, do it like before two hours away from your destination. Because once you hit that two hour mark, she is not stopping again. This is true. I just hate to stop. We're so close. It's 90 minutes away. I like to make good time. Yeah, no. These uh, mussels and these sled dogs made good time. They arrived. So they set off on January 27th, they arrived on February 1st. That is when the final rush. It's my first.

Early in the morning on February 1st, they thawed the serum and by noon, it was being administered to people who needed it. By noon, oh, by noon it was being administered to people who needed it. And by noon of five it was being rejected by people in the town that thought it was the anti-seeromers. It's a little likeer chips. The anti-antitoxins. So overall, let's talk about the two ends of this story. First, the medical part, the part that I want to focus on.

Overall, this was an incredibly successful mission. They got the anti-tox in there. And the officially reported, and this is really hard to tease out, the officially reported death toll was, I mean, some count said five, six, or seven, much lower than you would have predicted based on what was unfolding in Nome. So absolutely, lives were saved.

However, it is always important to note that there were a lot of native Alaskans in that surrounding, like I said, the 10,000 plus population that lived in that part around Nome, who may have also suffered and lost people to this outbreak. That total will never, we will never know completely. But I do think it is fair to say that the serum undoubtedly prevented deaths and was enough to at least take care of people who were sick, at least some of them, until the final shipment could arrive. Because that is what would have to happen later

is a second relay with that big giant shipment out of Seattle would have to be brought later. And some of these musurs did both, if you can imagine that, did both of these relays. Because they did, they called upon some of the greatest musurs of the time. And they just got right back out there and did the bigger longer relay that would arrive mid-February with the rest of the anti-toxan

and get the outbreak controlled and save a lot of lives that way. And there was still like, with that second relay, same thing, all these people pushing the planes. There's even this account where like they did put some, they did put some serum on a ship and take it up outside the port and then like tried to fly a plane into known but the like the engines on the plane wouldn't work and so everybody was like, sorry. You were right, you were right about the dogs, the dogs were the better choice. I see that now. I see that now. Anyway, the controversy comes in that Balto is was hailed as the hero dog because of being the one in the final leg of the journey.

There is a statue of Balto in Central Park because he was the hero dog who finished this journey. I believe there's also one in Anchorage. There's a movie that I saw and that Taylor was obsessed with about Balto. However, one, Balto was not the dog responsible for the brunt of the journey. There were lots of dogs involved in this, but many thought Togo should have gotten the glory over Balto. And secondly, there's also a little side note where some argue that Balto wasn't even actually the dog, that it was a different dog, but that the name of that

dog wasn't as exciting as Balto. And so they just said it was Balto. And like, there are pictures with Balto in them, like in the media, like actual photographs that were taken at the time, but they were taken many hours later because they arrived when it was still dark, so they waited till it was light. So there's this whole question of like,

not only are there people saying Balto wasn't the real hero, but then there are people who are like, it wasn't even Balto. Yeah, I think it's a guy younger, Balto is just younger and sexier than the other dog and he's a cover boy. I get it. They like the name Bolto is what I read.

It happens in podcasting too. I get it. So I guess more recently, there have been movies about Togo. Like there was an animated film Togo that was just released in the last couple of years, I believe, to celebrate the dog who may have done more. I think personally, Togo starring, sorry, Togo starring Willem DeFoe is on Disney Plus. There you go. And I think it's fair to say that all the dogs involved, Togo, Balto and every other dog. Probably.

Probably all the dogs involved. Probably deserve a lot of praise for this, as well as all the muskers. And that was another part of the controversy is that there were certain muskers who got more coverage and it kind of depended on your race, whether or not you were lauded for your accomplishments and all that. And so there is a lot of controversy

as to who gets credit for this human and dog. I think that every human involved in every dog involved should get a ton of credit. I know reading this story, I set crying, thinking, what an amazing feat. What an amazing accomplishment as a planet, not just a species because there were dogs too. All of us do great things like this, like this amazing serum run. I mean, it really is an incredible story that saved a lot of lives.

And after this, they would find ways to like, actually, there was like the Kelly Act was passed, which would allow for private air companies to do male delivery. And so you would have more like planes delivering things around Alaska in the years that would follow this so that remote areas would not be cut off from resources and times of crisis so easily, but But these these muskers and these dogs saved a lot of lives and it's an amazing story And I don't think when I watched the movie Balto as a kid that I had any idea of like the The context, you know, I mean, I think I understood like the dogs are saving sick kids But I don't think I really got this whole story

and and of course over time the anti antitoxin that was treating people would be refined, because it wasn't a perfect treatment. There were some side effects, there were some risks to it, obviously not as many as diphtheria, but it would be refined into a toxoid vaccine, which is the vaccine that we receive as children today. Hopefully, you all do, and prevent styptheria completely. So we don't have to wait until you get it and treat you for it. We can give you the vaccine, and you don't get diptheria. And we can just let those dogs chill.

Thanks, dogs. And the musher. The dog that played Togo's name, Diesel. And he's a direct descendant of Togo. Really? Here we are, original talk. You should read, I mean, it's a fascinating, like, you should read, like, accounts of all the different, because you can read details of each musher and the journey they took,

which, which leg of it was theirs and what happened to them and the dogs that were part of the team. I mean, there's, there's a lot of dramatic account of all that part of it. I didn't wanna get, you know, I didn't wanna get in the weeds too much with dogs letting. I wanted to focus on the medicine part, but it's an amazing story. Oh, Iron Will. That's another one.

That was a Disney movie that was about this, that was about this run. Had David Augustine stars in that? There's a lot of movies and books, I believe, I can't. I know, I know. Well, it's about a dog sled race. Ball Toe is about this original story, got it, yes. And of course, sled dogs, that is a cuba-good-engineer picture

that is in no way related to this whatsoever. It's just a completely separate. It's a really amazing story, whatever you, I don't know, I do think it's interesting to hear the accounts of the different mussels arguing about the better dogs and things from the time because you can tell that it's like very important to them that the right dog gets credit for what they were able to do Which is why I say at the end of the day like how about we just like let all the All the dogs be celebrate. Let's celebrate all the dogs is what I'm saying I'm not gonna have an that should be enough for them celebrate the Fox by the way

That was the name of the dog that may have actually been in the lead. Oh, shout out instead of Valto, but like that's, I don't know. And listen, we can be here all day talking about how great dogs are, but I understand I'm going to say thank you for listening to this episode of Saw Bones. We hope you've enjoyed yourself. If you could share the show with a friend, that's cool. We would love if you would do that or leave us a rating review on the podcasting platform that you have your choice. That is another great way of supporting

our show. We also have some merchandise if you go to McLean Merch.com, MCEL, our OY merch.com. Thanks to the taxpayers for these. Their song medicines is the intro and outro of our program. And thank you to you for listening. I really appreciate it. All that the fundraiser's still going for the lock zone. If you go to bit.ly4ds.com, sobones, sobones and lock zone, is that right? Bit.ly4ds.com, sobones and lock zone. You could help buy some for our community and we would very much appreciate it.

Sobbo, if you stepped in to support that. And yeah, thank you so much. If you've donated to that fundraiser, I super appreciated it. Really, thank you so much. If you've donated to that fundraiser, I super appreciated it. Really, it's life saving. You're saving lives directly. Thanks to you for listening, and we'll be back with you again soon. Till then, my name is Justin McRoy.

I'm Sydney McRoy. It's always don't drill a hole in your head. Alright! Comedy and Culture. Artist-owned? Audience-supported.