Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Harry Beno: The Poison King

Episode Date: May 3, 2022

Harry Beno (not BEAN-o) one day walked into a barn hungry for biscuits and emerged the poison king. Believing himself immune to strychnine, Beno took to eating poison for an audience. From there his act escalated to the next logical step, hammering nails into his head and burying himself alive. Justin and Dr. Sydnee tell the story of “Beno the Wonder” who confused doctors but couldn’t escape the ultimate Sawbones lesson: don’t drill a hole in your head.Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers https://taxpayers.bandcamp.com/

Saw bones 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, Saw Bones. It's Merrill Tour, Miss Guy to Medicine.

And I'm your co-host, Justin McElroy. I'm Sydney McElroy. What was with that sort of, I don't know, sing-songy in Canadian. I'm so excited because it is the max fun drive. It is. It is. It's the time of year that we come to you and say, hey, we are destitute and you're the only thing keeping us off

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advance. Said, here we're talking about this week. What's going on? What's that happened in the big, big medical world out there? Justin, I feel like that because we're all excited, it's the Max Fund Drive, we want to, we, I don't know, it's a fun time. Max, the maximum fun time. The maximum fun time. That this would be a good time to share with you a story that I have become familiar with recently. Thanks to a listener, Roman, who sent an email with a story and some newspaper clippings, original newspaper, gosh, I love those.

Is there anything better than finding an original newspaper article about the thing you're researching? Oh boy, don't get me started on the light of original newspaper clippings. You used to have to go to the library and load that stuff up on a microfilm, you know, microfeesh. Microfeesh. And scan through it, which I didn't, I don't give it wrong. There is a scene where we're, we're it up. Oh forget about it.

It was dark and calm and you're like, sexy looking into the past through that screen. Oh boy. I do miss that. Now you now like a lot of that's on computer. It's on your computer. Well, these kids today won't appreciate it. And so some of those articles, Roman sent me and that was a great jumping off point

to learn more about Harry. I am certain this is Beno. I wanted to be Bino, because I think. The pressure is Beno. But I wish it was Bino. Harry Beno, the poison king. I tell you, when I sat down to write my notes, I started composing the ballad of Harry Beno,

the poison king, which was the total wrong direction to go. It's still a work in progress, but- Okay, I'm looking forward to it. Maybe we could, maybe, I don't know, maybe that's a stretch goal. Yeah, we could put it up as a bonus content. As bonus content. We can record the ballad of Harry Beno, the boys and king. You're going to have to come up with music too.

I just have lyrics. Anyway, we all set out- What about this? Dun-un-un had a C shanty in my head. That's no, that's a Christmas Carol. Oh, sorry. That's deck the halls. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Now I hear it now. There are some tonal similarities just in the harmonics. No, I've been listening to Great Big C when I was doing my notes. And it's like that sort of vibe was in my head as I started composing. Anyway, we set out as children on a quest to find our unique skills and talents are place, our niche, where we belong in the world, what our contribution to human history may be. Harry Beno, born in Muncie sometime in the mid 1800s, I got to tell you, for some of these people, it's really hard to nail down concrete details, even with new original newspaper

articles. But Harry, I think that's because in the beginning of Harry's life, he was probably doing the usual stuff, not necessarily making headlines, you know, not newspaper article fodder. But then one day he was out on the road. He was sort of a wanderer, just sort of wandering around the country, looking for stuff to get into, I guess. Not yet. He's not there yet. He's out on the road.

He's traveling. He's hungry. He stops at a farmhouse for a bite to eat. Ask that kindly, kindly farmer's hungry. He stops at a farmhouse for a bite to eat. Ask the kindly, kindly farmer's wife. Okay, I have some chow. Is that what he says? Can I have some chow? No, I don't have a record of exactly what he said.

So in my ballot, he says, can I have some chow. So he asks for some food and the farmer's wife gives him some tea and some cookies or biscuits. A lot of the articles refer to them as biscuits, which I thought was interesting because they were, I mean, this is all like Midwestern is where all this happened. So this was on overseas. Anyway, so he got some biscuits, he ate it all because he was really hungry. Okay. And then the farmer's wife comes rushing back in and is like, oh no, no, no, no.

Did you already eat all those cookies? And he's like, yeah, I was starving. And she's like, oh no, one of them was laced with strict nine. We've all been, wait, why did she laced one of them with strict nine? It was supposed to be put in the attic for the rats. I've heard several versions. You should have made those at for the rats. I've heard several versions. You should have made those at the same time. I've heard several versions of this.

This is the one that I enjoyed the most. There was another version. You put an M in that one. Where you like, this one is the, God remember, the one with the M in it's poison. There was one version where he just found a piece of bread and was hungry and he ate the piece of bread and it had been soaked in strict nine and left somewhere.

That's like a race. For the race. I can see like something. One way or another, here's Harry. He's eating all these cookies or the piece of bread, whatever. He now knows it's laced with strict nine. So these are his final moments. Yeah.

I mean, imagine that feeling. What does he do now? Like, he's sitting there. And I was trying to picture what's going through your head are you are you are your is your life flashing before your eyes? Are you filled with regret all the things you haven't done or are you just like was he sitting there just like satisfied? Like you know what I did it. I did everything I wanted to do on the show. I did it I feel good about it all, and I embrace my fate. Floor cookies, I ate a few.

Maybe you got really drunk, I don't know. I think we're gonna get off. I'm so much floor bread, I wouldn't have ended up like this, but that's not life or living. I just love to eat whatever's grass food, open to my fail of you like a golden retriever. So he waited and time passed. Mm.

And he was okay. Whoa. And after about an hour, it seemed pretty clear. Harry was gonna live. Not only was Harry gonna live, he was fine. He no, no worries here, no effects. Yeah, he was totally, he was totally okay. Which I know at this point, if you listeners are like me,

you may be thinking, well, maybe he didn't actually eat one of the ones that had strict, maybe like they, these were the fine biscuits and the strict nine biscuit was already in the attic and maybe this didn't really happen. Okay. Like, don't it? It may have just been a story he came up with. Yeah, well, it could have been that,

or it could have been that like, she was like, oh, I think one of those had Stric 9 in him, but actually it didn't. But that doesn't matter because he had evaded death and he'd found a new career path. All the way. Poison related. He had entered that farmhouse.

Harry Beno hungry for biscuits. And he merged from that farmhouse. Harry Beno the poison king. He could still go for a biscuit. Well, almost he wasn't quite the poison king yet. He was still sort of wandering the country. I said it like I said at this point, just kind of like looking for work, looking for biscuits, whatever.

You were a floor breath, whatever you could find. And he actually got arrested soon after this in Richmond, Virginia for vagrancy. He would get arrested for vagrancy several times throughout his life. And he spent 10 days in jail. And while he was in jail is when the idea solidified. Like he was recounting the story to his cellmates

of eating the strict nine and how he was fine and how amazing it was. And it was through this that he had the, I mean, I guess like you get a lot of time when you're behind bars to contemplate. No, a lot of great stories in there, you know. So, so he was in, he was in jail for 10 days when he came out. He set out to a pharmacy to buy poison. So he would like, could you direct me to the poison, please? I would like all your

finest poisons. Good, sir. The nasty stuff. So he bought strict nine. But he wanted to, I mean, if you're fine with one, maybe you can tolerate them all. You're going to go to town and I was about to link him. So now what exact poisons, I don't know. A lot of the articles just say like the deadliest poisons known to man, the worst poisons he could find, that sort of thing. I couldn't find like an exact recounting of others.

Other than strict nine is definitely among them. Other poisons. I don't know. But he bought a bunch of poisons and then he ate them. Just ate them. I'm gonna write up. He ate them. And I mean, this is his story, by the way,

this is like, he is the source for this. So according to Beno, he bought some poisons, he ate the poisons and he was fine. So he knew he could do this, you know, eight shows a week at this point. Yeah. He had previously worked occasionally with like circuses as a laborer, like since he did sort of just travel about, he would sometimes hook up with like a traveling carnival or circus or something and work just, you know, carrying heavy stuff or whatever.

And so he knew like from that experience, he knew the value of a good side show act. And he knew that this had that kind of potential, a guy who could eat lots of poison. So he started touring with circuses as a side show, come see Harry Benno, the poison king, who can eat poison. She like. And then watch to see if he got. Imagine that show because that's what it is. You watch a guy eat something and then everyone wait.

And then you just wait to see if he dies. You've got to have some other bits. You got to have something. You need a pattern. You need a pattern. You need a song. Maybe a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer in your pants, something. You need a pattern. You need a pattern. You need a song, maybe a little song, little dance, little self-serving your pants, something. Well, I don't, I don't know at the initially he was just, you know what, he probably told the story. That was probably

part of it because the story seems so entrenched along with the, you know, the what actually happened that he probably would eat the poison. He would sell you a ticket. You'd watch him eat some poisons. He would tell you about why he's not gonna die. And then eventually you'd realize, you know, an hour had passed or whatever and he was still alive and you figure, well, it worked. But like anyone in showbiz will tell you,

you can't let your act get stale. No, no, no, I pay. Listen, you're telling me. It's gotta stay fresh. If you're gonna keep selling tickets and you're going to keep finding More people who like it nasty Who are who are looking for a good side show where guy eats a bunch of poison and like I don't I didn't find because You know my mind was immediately like what was anybody verifying that it was poison? Yeah. You know, was there like, I don't have record of like

a doctor standing there to like evaluate everything and be like, mm-hmm, this or a pharmacist, like, yep, that looks like poison. And then he would eat it. And then afterwards like examining him and saying like, he looks like his heart's feeding. He's, you know, he's breathing. So you can see he just talked to you.

So he could only eat strict nine for so many people before they began to lose interest. So that he realized at some point, being the poison king is all well and good, but I'm gonna have to up my game and find other acts, other things to do to keep people interested. Yeah. And I wanna tell you what he did next.

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because you'll probably forget now a little bit. So do it right now, maximumfund.org. Ford slash join. Thank you sincerely for the bottom of our hearts. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you. Now, Sydney, we were about to evolve. Yes. Harry Bino.

Bino. Bino. So, Justin, what's the natural place? It's a hard not to say Harry Bino. I know. In my head is Harry Bino. So, okay, if you've been eating poison as a stage act, what's the next place you go? Nice swallowing.

You'd think so, but no. I guess you would think I don't know. You bury yourself alive. Ah, okay. Yeah, so that was his next trick. That makes tricks now that tracks. Yeah, that was his next trick. On June 28th, 1898, he was...

I should say, I don't know exactly when the first time he buried himself alive was. A lot of this is like, there are sightings of him that pop up through like newspaper articles and things like that from the time period. So who knows when he first tried it. My dad was himself in black eyes once. Oh yeah. He was the only for the rom and the home house.

He did live to tell the tale. We hope. He's upstairs right now. Well, since a macaroni shape ghosts Hope not because that ghost is watching our four-year-old. That's true So he so he buried himself June 28th 1898 in the arena in maple grove Go Maple grove garden in Muncie

He stayed down in the coffin with no food or drink nothing. He had a tube so he could breathe So he did have that Yeah, that's a little cheating. Yeah, you need air gosh I don't know so you did tube that would carry air from the surface and he stayed down there eight days And then he was dug up that is a long time. It's a long time. I mean, there's going to be, it's not going to be a good smell when that comes out. Let's say it that way. Mr. Beast did that and I don't remember how long I was down. I don't think it was very great. I think he made it like 30 hours. And he had stuff down there. He had like drinks and things. Yeah. Anyway, after a brief spell of confusion,

that's what was reported. Like he came up and he seemed sort of dazed. Makes sense. Thank you. Probably all the dehydration and starvation. Oh, yeah. But then he ate a cracker and he seemed okay. And he won a hundred bucks from the newspaper who batten we couldn't do it. Wow. So yeah, so a good, a good trick.

The weirdest part of this particular story, which is already a weird story is he ate a lot of poison down there, but just for fun, because he was hungry. And it's the only food he likes anymore. Now, while he was down there, so like I said, he had a tube for breathing. Okay. Well, the other part of it is people were, were paying to come see him. So they can drop jelly down the tube. Well, they could talk to him.

Oh, okay. So they could talk to him down there and ask him how things were going. And he could prove he was still alive. I guess that was a big part of it was to say, like, I'm still alive. Although, you know, if it doesn't work out, good news is you pop the tube out. He's done. That's all, that's all good. It's very streamlined, very efficient.

So he used the tube for talking to people. And one person, anybody could come to, at this point, by the way, it was come talk to the freak of Muncie. The point was take the freak of Muncie. This was, I didn't, I am not calling him this as he was known in part as the freak of Muncie. Um, and one woman named Grace came every day while he was buried underground to lay flowers on his grave. I like that. And talk through the tube to Harry underground. And I don't know what their

conversations were about, but how is it in there today? Pretty cramped, how are you? Oh above ground, you know, the usual. how's the weather down there? I don't have weather. We've covered this race. It's a box. So Harry and Grace. Oh, hold on, I'm pooping. I don't know. Oh, walk away.

Oh, God, it's everywhere. Grace, don't look at me like this, Grace. I don't wait for the tube. I don't think he told Grace that sort of thing. And the reason I don't think so is that after he was you know resurrected Him and Grace got married that same way So whatever whatever transpired between the two while he was underground it resulted in Love that is beautiful

it resulted in love. That is beautiful. That's a meat, that's a meat cue to have ever heard one. So they would, so they traveled together for a while as he continued to try to find new, new wilder nastier stunts. There have been no inventories. There have been no inventories nastier than ever. Welcome, Muncie. The next, the next thing he started doing, so he was still eating poison. He buried himself alive quite a bit.

That became a standard part of his act. Just the intersections and stuff. He just buried himself there. Anyway, he also began driving nails and shoemakers all into his skull as a way to make headlines. He would hammer a nail into his skull and be fine. The crowd would go wild. Which would be, I mean, I will say,

like, that would be a wild thing to see somebody do on stage. Yeah, that would be something else. Yes, and he did that. Now, as a result of this, he had many trips to the doctor. So these become part of his story at this point. It's like he'd do a stage show where he would hammer something into his head and live to tell about it, but then he'd have to go find somebody to like pull it back out.

You think you would teach yourself that skill, right? Like that is something that you would try to learn how to do. I have accepted that over time medical documentation has changed a great deal. Especially, and a lot of that is in what I think of as a negative way. Everybody's so crunched for time, and the electronic medical record makes it so easy to just use templates and things. That a lot of the narrative art of medical documentation is gone. Some people still do it, but for the most part, that's how, I mean, doctors used to write

stories about their patients. It would be like a journal of what the encounters they'd had and that kind of thing. That is certainly not the way that a medical documentation would be done today. Like a note that you would get generated while you were having an office visit, it would not look like they used to look. And so when I found this quote from Dr. J. F. Benney in 1900 who saw Harry after one of his performances and dug a steel nail out of his skull for him.

He said, and I just, gosh, I wish I could find this in a note today. You never would. Beno is a freak. Yeah. Either he is a man with nerve to suffer pain without flinching or else his nervous system is so blunted as to be devoid of sensation. So this is one of the things that doctors started to theorize is that for some reason he didn't feel pain. And he doesn't report. You like any of this stuff he did to himself hurting. So, I mean.

It's interesting, I guess like you would think, I mean, the poison wouldn't hurt necessarily. Like that doesn't really explain the poison thing, right? It doesn't explain the poison. Nobody could ever explain the poison. If indeed the poison was. If that was real. I think if you had asked most medical doctors,

I probably would say he seemed shocked to us say he's not really eating points on right. But when it comes to the nails in the head, I mean, he really was hammering things into his skull and was totally fine and was reportedly and reportedly not in pain. So I mean, there's something to be said for that. That is unusual. You know, and so, I mean, did he have some sort of like insensitivity to pain syndrome? Perhaps, perhaps he did. He continued to do these acts and visit doctors. He, because of these things,

and especially the varying himself alive, he would occasionally, there'd be, there'd be an article written that he was dead, and it wasn't true. himself alive, he would occasionally, there'd be an article written that he was dead, and it wasn't true. He just was, you know, had buried himself again. He was once buried alive at the Union Point, Georgia Corn Carnival, and that led to widespread rumors that he had died. Like people mourned his death in the newspaper and wrote in February, but he had not died. He was still alive. And in Joplin, Missouri once, he

drove some nails into his skull and was fine. And started to go to a doctor and then decided he'd learned his lesson about doctors and went to a car mechanic instead to have him. I think I get cut right. I mean, right? It's got to be a little cheaper than going to the doctor. Although some of these mechanics are on your little me go.

Yeah. In Joplin, Missouri, after he had driven some nails into his head, he decided, you know, the doctors aren't as good at doing this kind of thing. So he went to a mechanic instead to have the nails removed. Sure. And I was afraid to get, cut, right? Yeah. Get a discount. Although, so with some of these mechanics around here,

I mean, maybe not some of these guys are trying to know something to tell you. I just think it's because we don't understand anything about cars. It's probably not actually, you know, this time period is probably not car mechanics. It's probably like, yeah, just cats and fixed equipment, fixed things. Yeah, just cats and fix equipment. Fix things, yeah. People who know nails better than doctors. Nobody knows nails better than doctors.

And of course, he was occasionally run out of places for vagrancy. Hazard of the, hazard of the train. He did, he would do in some of these exhibitions, he would nail himself to the ground. He would also, he would help he would nail himself to the ground. He would also let other people in the audience nail things into him. There was one where a doctor actually drove a nail into his arm while people watched and things like that.

First do no harm unless it's for the walls. I guess. Well, unless you're on stage. We definitely had the oath back then. But what was more of a loose suggestion than an oath? But what was strange is that he would do this and not, I guess, be in any pain. I mean, like he would exhibit no pain. But not just his head, like this was like in his arm.

He let somebody do this. Yeah. And I should mention later on he did, this was in his arm. He let somebody do this. Yeah. And I should mention later on he did, there was one other poison that was eventually mentioned Beladonna would be the beginning of his act. He would dissolve some Beladonna and some water and drink it to start things off before the hammers and nails came out.

Maybe that just wasn't jipple, but. So eventually now one thing that, as you may have predicted, all of this would drive a wedge in his marriage, in part because she probably was like, I don't want you to die. Die. But also, she just thought he was so obsessed with fame and stardom and publicity,

and that that was really all he wanted was to just do something wilder to get more attention, you know, and wasn't given her enough attention. And then also, she once said that he slept all the time, which I don't know if that's from all the poison and hammering things in your head. What are you, what are you, what are you, what are you, what are you, what are you, what are you, what are you, what are you, what are you, what are you, what are you, good jogging? Eventually, and like they would, they were sometimes reported as separated, but then also she'd pop up in hospital,

like reports that he was in the hospital and she was by his side. So I don't know, to mulch or was a fair. Anyway, eventually this is not shocking. The end would come after one performance for poor Harry Beno in Kansas City He was doing his act there and he had never listened to an upset us all bones podcast that minute yet. Mm-hmm. And so he he did indeed

He didn't drill a hole in his head, but he punctured a hole into his head a little too far that time Yeah, and after a course in the hospital. He did indeed pass away to hold into his head a little too far that time. Yeah. And after a course in the hospital, he did indeed pass away. I assumed he'd die peacefully of old age at 90. This is wild. No, he died from hammering an all into his head. Yes.

One of the newspaper headlines was man with sponge head passes away. Tasteful. The condom bin. Beno the wonder. One of the newspaper headlines was man with sponge head passes away. Tastes full. The comments that will say, Ben O the wonder, Ben O the wonder has died. That's what they'll say when Mr. Squarepants dies. Man with sponge head passes away. Why would SpongeBob have to die? Why didn't SpongeBob have to die? I feel like.

Why does it make sense? Like we could just like, because he's more on honey. I'm sorry to be the one making to die. I have to solve it. Why? I have to solve it every day. We could just like. Cause he's more no honey. I'm sorry to be the one making to you. No, he's fictional. We could just keep my life forever. There's no need to kill it. Yeah, but eventually the story has to move forward.

I don't think the story of SpongeBob needs to move forward. Are they even making SpongeBob anymore? Probably. Yeah. I will say after he died, of course doctors wanted to examine him to try to figure it out. And they couldn't find anything specific that would have explained the poisons. But they did notice that his skull was thicker than the average humans, at least based on their measurements at the time.

So maybe that was why he was able to draw like hammer so many things into a skull without harming himself until he finally took it too far But they did note that and he did have multiple holes in his skull So like he was doing it that wasn't a trick who knows about the poison, but that was not a trick The the Minneapolis journal wrote after he died Many a man has said that if he could see Beno puncture his head an all. He would not take a ticket to a public hanging. Surely a life like this has not been lived in vain. I don't exactly understand all the ramifications

of that statement, but God bless you, Beno. I don't know if, like at the time, it was a big problem that everybody wanted to see public hanging. And so there was a, like, maybe... A see public hanging and so there was a like Maybe kinder general version of that was watching Beno put holes in his head. Well, maybe don't do public hanging Instead of like trying to decrease demand for tickets to public hangings Anyway

It I just want to know in addition to Roman sent me some original articles and you know That was a great jumping off point because there are there are some really fun newspaper articles from the time period that you can read about Harry Benno. But there is also a chapter in a book called Wicked Muncie by Keith Roiston and Douglas Walker. And that was that gave me a lot more context for Harry Benno's life because the newspaper articles are little snapshots, but that sort of gave me a better summary. And it has a lot of other wild stories about Muncie.

So if you wanna know about some weird stuff, the tapun, in Muncie through the years, every, I think a lot of towns have that sort of, like you could do the same about Huntington. You could collect a number of wild stories about the history of Huntington. So it's that's the kind of thing that floats your boat. At least this chapter was very enjoyable.

Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. And thanks to taxpayers for using the song medicines as the intro down to our program. And I want to make one last pitch. This is our last plea to you of the Max Fund Drive. If you haven't done it yet, please, we have a very ambitious goal that is seeming very far away right now, but we believe in you. We believe that you are the person that will go to your computer or phone, go to maximumfund.org, or forgslash.join and support the stuff that you like because it's the only way to keep that stuff coming.

If you can't do it, we get it, but if you can find a way to do five, 10, heck, even 20 or 35 bucks a month, it would really honestly be so helpful to us. There's a lot of people who depend on you. And if you can help us out, we would really appreciate it. So maximum fund our order for us. I join you get the bonus content, you get the patches, you know, the bags, the creative kits, all that stuff. But really, the important thing is that you're helping make great stuff get into the world. I think it's great. Some of it's great. I'm hitting this.

Well, and you're listening, so you must think it's at least, you know. Passable. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Be sure to join us again next time for Saul Bones until then. My name is Justin McRoy.

I'm Sydney McRoy. And as always, don't draw a hole in your head. Alright!