Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Arsenic

Episode Date: August 5, 2016

It's poison! It's medicine! It's both! ... OK, so it's mainly poison, but it hasn't always been that way. Join Justin and Dr. Sydnee for a brief tour of medical arsenic. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saubones 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, time is about to books! One, two, one, two, three, four! We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's lost it out. We pushed on through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

Some medicines, some medicines that escalate my cop for the mouth. Wow! Hello and welcome to welcome to saw bones Emerald to have misguided medicine. I'm your coach. Just a macaroni and I'm Sydney macaroni Hey, hey Justin. Hey, sister Justin, I'm gonna name things and you tell me what they have in common like a quiz. Yeah, it's like yes It's a very fun quiz. It's a very fun exciting Funny I was a humorous Okay, like jovial laugh and do things. Something for everyone. Quiz. Okay. Okay. Brussels sprouts. Dark meat fish.

You? That's gross. Okay. Rice. Rice. Specifically jasmine rice. Okay, beer and apples. They are all part of a balanced diet. And I think that we, I mean, beer, sure, yeah. I've been told at different times they're all good for me. They all sound very helpful and health inducing. And that's it.

They send very some like healthy foods. Eh. Eh. I mean, that wasn was what I meant. Well, what's the unifying factor? They can all contain arsenic. Yay. They what?

They can all contain arsenic. I didn't know that. Yeah. Wait, wait, like, I mean, anything can contain arsenic, right? Well, I mean, in the sense that if you put arsenic in it. Yeah, right. Sure. Yeah.

Yes, I mean, we contain arsenic in that light. But those things you mentioned have arsenic in them? So arsenic can be in any in water and in soil and so it can get into any of our food products, but these are some things that have been listed as the most likely to contain. So, brussel sprouts? Higher amounts to contain. So brussels sprouts? Higher amounts of arsenic.

Brussels sprouts? Brussels sprouts, dark meat fish, rice. Like I said, apples and various fruits, apples though are... I knew brussels sprouts. Beer and wine. That one I can't. That one I can't. I can't wait for that one, but brussels sprouts I knew.

I knew. I knew there was something up there. They smell weird. Smell weird like arsenic. I always thought it was like arsenic. No. Kind of smell. I knew I knew I knew there was something up there. They smell weird smell weird like arsenic I always thought it was no I knew it that might be why Charlie would need him She sent her baby senses. They're more heightened than we are because she's outpaced us evolutionarily That makes perfect sense to me. What's up with arsenic though? Well, it's a really bad poison, right?

Yeah, well, it is, but we've used it as medicine for a long time, so I thought I would tell you about it. I would love to hear more about it. Are you gonna talk about the play, arsenic and old lace? That's the only thing I really know about arsenic. Nope, not a word. Well, we just covered it. That was the only time you'll hear arsenic and old lace

mentioned in this podcast. Maybe you can do it one of your classic Justin Searches, the internet segments later in the show. And you can tell me about Arseneckon Oldlays. Yeah, sounds good. That's good. Let's just tag for this episode. Let's the only tag that you can search

that is searchable, Arseneckon Oldlays. Okay, perfect. This will be your Arseneckon Oldlays fancast. That's how metadata works. Brought to you, but I don't know how it works. Brought to you by Justin and Sydney. So Arseneck. Thank you to Damien and Erica for poisoning us with our scenic. Your plot's been revealed. You poison my email with a great idea. It's not what

poisoning means, but sure. You only have a negative connotation, but please. Not in this case, unless you hate this episode, in which case, blame them, not my fault. Arsenic is an element, like is in the periodic table, you know, the one with all the boxes. Right, yeah. The one that's on that cool paratoms I have. The coolest paratoms anybody ever had. It's number 33 in case anybody is studying for a chemistry quiz. Well, you listen to this podcast.

It's information. What an amazing bit of serendipity that would be for you. We're taking a quiz and listening to this in which case your professor needs to pay better attention. Yeah, this is by the way number 13 is B. You asked enough. It's not Justin never knows the answer to a chemistry quiz. That's fair.

So it can be found just in its pure like elemental form, but typically arsenic is some sort of organic or inorganic compounds. So there are lots of different forms. So there are lots of different colors that you can find a substance that is in arsenic-based substance in because it compounds with a lot of other different things. Does that make sense? Yeah. It's a tool that you just have plain arsenic. It has some uses

in industry and treating wood for instance. And in the past, we've used it more as like a pesticide and things like that. But some of these uses have faded over time because you know, arsenic poison. Yeah, right. It's actually as as I kind of alluded to, we have arsenic in our bodies. A trace amount of arsenic is necessary in the human body. There are lots of things that we need in just little teeny amounts. And we need just a little dab of arsenic.

A little pecan, a little pecan, a poison. Just a hint of arsenic, as well as a lot of other animals too. Need a little bit of arsenic to function. They should update sugar and spice and everything nice and also just the faintest head of arsenic. Okay. Who's made of that? Girls and then boys are made of slugs and snails,

puppy dog tails and also, lest we forget a little bit of arsenic also. A little bit of arsenic in there. That's, you know, it's important to remember and these times with so many people who are trying to divide us, that the one thing that connects us, the one thing that unifies us all, that we all have in common and can share.

A little bit arsenic. A little bit arsenic. Yep. It's also the 53rd most commonly occurring element. Man, I'm alright, this is fun. I'm on the edge of what I see. Like I mentioned, I can't. I know I dragged my whole chair in here.

I only needed the edge. It can be found in water and dirt. It's in the earth's crust and can accidentally see it into our food, which is when it becomes poison. Poisonous. The most common form of poison that you would think of as arsenic trioxide. And when it is, that forms when you heat,

when heated air comes in contact with arsenic, element of arsenic. And when that happens, by the way, it gives off like a garlic odor in case you were wondering that fact. Okay. So like if you have some arsenic and then you heat the air around it and then it smells like garlic, run. So if you ever smell garlic, you should feel, if you get food and it smells like garlic,

you should feel fairly certain that it's been poisoned by arsonic. Either it's got garlic in it or arsonic. It's one of the two. One of the two. Unless they put both, then there's a clever, clever murderer. Yeah. That's from an agathric chrystine all the way, but no, no, it's not just in shaking his head. No, it's not. I've never read any, but I bet the word arsenic comes from the Syriac word, Alzzarnica, from the Persian Zarnic for yellow. And that's probably because one of the most common arsenic compounds you can find, orpament is yellow.

Okay. Thanks. In Greek, it became, after it derived from that, it became arsenic on, which of course eventually is arsenic. The worst transformer. Arsenic on, which is actually related to... The Old Spark, Arsynacon. It was actually related to the Greek word for male or virile, because what's more male

and virile than poison that kills you. It's known as the King of Poisons and the Poison of Kings. Both. Yeah. I think it's a clever plan, words. Yeah. It's the best poison, and also it's been used to poison of kings. Both. Yeah. I think it's a clever plan. Words. Yeah. It's the best poison.

And also it's been used to murder many kings. It's a classy poison. It's a very classy poison. Do you know why it's such a good poison? Oh, why so? So it is in the trioxide form. It is a white powder that dissolves instantly in water. And it is odorless and it is tasteless.

And it cannot be detected in any way. So it's a lot like eye-ocaine powder. It's exactly right. It's like eye-ocaine powder. I knew that's what you're building. I know, I'm a bit of eye-ocaine powder. It's what it is. These are just not.

It's real. It's arsenic. You can though build up a little bit of a tolerance to it over time. Right, from the drip out at Roberts. A little bit. TZ, you had to have a... Yeah, don't try to do that though.

I mean, you can't do it like... You didn't hear that. The drip out at Roberts. You know what? You probably can't. We take it back. Don't try that. I may have been confusing.

That was something else. Never mind. Don't worry about that fact. Don't worry about that. Don't worry about that. On us. So it's really good for killing off like heirs to the throne ahead of you in line. That's not a problem for Justin and I

being the oldest children and our families. Yeah, I know it's good after us. Yeah, we don't need to use it well. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. We're coming after us. Oh, yeah. We don't have to murder anybody, but I gotta watch my sisters. We're gonna watch our sisters.

Yeah. And of course, kings that everybody hates or just that you wanna off. And also, well known use for killing wealthy husbands that maybe you never really liked in the first place. And you didn't want to be stuck with till death do you part? Well, at least until death did you part?

Yeah, you parted, you chose the top. You wanted death to do them part first. However, that all aside, it has medicinal uses throughout history as well. Hypocrites was one of the first to advise arsenic sulfides and opament, which we've already talked about, for ulcers and abscesses and very skin conditions.

So you thought that creams and sabs made of this paste would be good for these kinds of skin problems. Dioskortis recommended it for a debilitory, meaning for hair removal. Oh, perfect. Which seems like a crazy link to go to for hair removal. Yeah, you're kind of shooting the cannon indoors with that one. It seems like a bit of an overreach.

Like just pluck. Just pluck it out. Shame it, whatever. Shame it. There's some nair. Yeah, there's some nair discorities. It was one facet of traditional Chinese medicine, but used like a lot of poisons would have been with the based on the concept when one Cortana is that you use it to treat a poison.

Sure. So why not arsenic, the King of Poisons? In Ayurvedic medicine, an arsenic containing elixir was thought to give immortality. I would argue the conjury. Yeah. Paracelsus, who we've talked about before, the father of toxicology from the 1500s, middle name, Bumbastos. That's so good. One of the best middle names ever. Was a big fan of arsenic too. He recommended it. Arsenic too, that of course is the sequel to Arsnick. It's way better, way fizzier. Got the great caramel color, you remember. Arsnick too, electric boogaloo. He used it for syphilis as well as he made a ball

mount of it to use for all kinds of very skin conditions, wounds and answers again, as well as anthrax, popular for anthrax and carbuncles. Carbuncles. Carbuncles. A carbuncle, okay. So, furunkles and carbuncles, you've heard of an abscess or a boil. Yeah. You know what a boil is. Yeah.

Most people when they see like a big, almost like a big giant zit with a big white head on it on your skin somewhere they'll call it a boil. The other word for that could be an abscess. If it has one head on it, just one little white, you know, that you just got a scraper, popper, whatever head, it's a fur uncle, if it's got multiple heads on it, it's a car, buncle. Oh, this turned out way grosser than I thought it would, Sid.

What do you got next? In 1786, Thomas Fowler, who was a British physician, made what was initially called liquor mineralis, later to be known by 1809 as Fowler's solution. Now this was a medicine that was made with 1% potassium arsenite, so arsenic-based stuff. And he initially recommended it for things like fever and headaches. It became really widely used in London. It was very popular for the treatment of malaria and later became popular for the treatment of what was just being understood as sleeping sickness. Now, do we have quinine by this point? It was an alternative for that.

Why did we need an alternative? Quite an network? No, it does. Does this work? You think? I'm, you know what? No. Well, I mean, it could kill you too. If you take too much arsenic, so it was, I would say it was inferior treatment.

It could take too much anything. It's going to kill you, Sydney. That's what too much rains. Well, I mean, there's some truth to it. I'm going to get into there are some things that can be treated somewhat with arsenic. So can you treat malaria with arsenic? Actually, yes, I believe you can, to some extent. But if we have much better, again, we have much better treatments for malaria. So I am not saying to go get arsenic,

but I'm not saying to go get arsenic. I'm not saying to go get arsenic. Actually, yes, I believe you can to some extent. But we have much better, again, we have much better treatment for malaria. So I am not saying to go get arsenic fresh out the podcast. Number one treatment for malaria. It's new. It's hot. It's off the shelves. No, don't use arsenic. We have old news. Well, we don't, we don't typically go straight for quinine either these days. Me, you can. But there, there are a lot of other

better treatments. A lot of other better treatments for that area. A lot of side effects. But would it have killed any of the plasmodium? Maybe. Perfect. Maybe. I don't want to say no. By the time we get to the 1880s, because of

Fowler solution, we're seeing arsenic use for all kinds of other illnesses. Based on the, I don't know, success, perhaps, of fouler solution. So you see people prescribing it for heartburn or because you have rheumatoid arthritis for tuberculosis. Again, for any kind of skin condition, cancers of the skin, there were all kinds of arsenic-based

like pastes and creams that you might put on them. For cancers of the breast, it was a common treatment. Other skin conditions like psoriasis, even things like hypertension were being treated with arsenic. And there were other things made of arsenic that were very popular. There was donovan solution, which was arsenic and mercury. It's not enough. There was arsenic in there.

There was a devalagon solution, same idea. What was really interesting about Fowler solution is that in 1878, they figured out that in people with a certain kind of leukemia, if they were given Fowler solution, which contained arsenic, it would bring their white blood cell count down, which the white blood cell count is very high in this particular kind of leukemia. So this bringing it down like that indicated that it was treating the leukemia in some way.

Oh wow. Huh. And so this was used as a treatment for leukemia for a really long time as a result of this prior to the advent of things like chemotherapy. And for a long time into the 20th century, Fowler solution could be found as a commonly like in a pharmacopia or in a materiometica, you would find Fowler solution up to like 1914. It was listed as a treatment for things that I've already mentioned, like syphilis and malaria. So probably it was effective in some way, right?

Yes. That's far enough along in history that we weren't just like guessing at things in the material medicine stuff. Exactly, we were starting to actually try and test things by now. The biggest hints of science. Yes.

Was failure solution for anything else? Well Justin, I want to tell you a little bit more about our scenic but first, why don't you come with me to the building department. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines, the escalant macabre for the mouth. Hello! This month's Beef and Dairy Network podcast is an Olympic Special recorded here on Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro. We'll be tackling all the big issues. Should athletes be allowed to eat lamb?

Should Olympic equestrian riders be able to ride on a cow? All these questions and more answered in this month's Beef and Dairy Network Olympic Special. Find us at MaximumFund.org or wherever you get your podcasts from. So Sid, what else was Arsene being used for this time period? So as I mentioned, Arsene was used for all kinds of different, again, a lot of skin issues, but stomach upset, anything else. And because it was used in so many, for so many different illnesses, especially a lot of systemic kind of illnesses, there were lots of different ways that you could prescribe it,

because it's not enough to rub arsenic on your skin. It's not enough to drink some. Let's make it into some tablets where you could eat it or a powder. No, sure. No, sure. Sure, I mean, why not a milkshake? I don't know.

A milkshake. You could inhale it as a vapor. You could inject it. That seems for a substance that too much of it could kill you. I'm not sure I would want to go with inhaling. I'm not sure I'd trust that method. A little harder to control, I think. Yeah, right.

You could inject it in your muscle. You could inject it in your vein, IV arsenic, or you could give it as an enema. Great. If you're feeling really spicy. I'll do the other. I'll do the other. You'll do the others. Yeah, the others are fine. Thank you.

I've got plenty of arsenic at the moment. I'd rather not get an animal of it. Thank you very much for the offer, Doctor. Well, let me know if you change your mind. Yeah, no, I don't think I will. I have plenty. No, I understand. I bought a bunch of rice just for that.

That's great. I've spent the whole day isolating arsenic from rice. Perfect. Yeah. I'm no, I'm so good on that. I'm arsenic. I'm good. Thank you so much. I won't be back. Bye. In the Victorian era, and we've mentioned this actually before, I think in one of our unbeauty episodes, beauty products and things, women were fond of rubbing arsenic on their skin. things. Women were fond of rubbing arsenic on their skin. The reason is that it would give you that really unhealthy tuberculosis glow. Every so crazy about back then. Everybody, and we've mentioned this before, this was a time when it was really popular to look like you had tuberculosis because then you looked

kind of frail and pale and like a fine lady who stayed out of the sun all the time. You're strong breeze or just snap your clean and half. That was fashion. Set inside covered in clothing, coughing delicately into a hanky. Just a tasteful out of blood. Just a teeny little highlight of red blood against the white background. That's just that pop of color that every woman loves.

They also would, there was also a compound made out of arsenic and vinegar and chalk. Yeah, that you could eat, which also would make you look kind of pale and sickly. Perfect. Again, really popular look. It also, arsenic could sometimes give you your cheeks kind of a red flushed look so that

you know you'd have that paleness but then just the faintest hint of color in your cheeks because of burst capillary. Great. So, gin blossoms but in your cheeks stay your nose, right? Yeah, there you go. I'm waiting for the day where this comes back and I mean surely like everything comes around, right? Yeah, there you go. I'm waiting for the day where this comes back and I mean, surely like everything comes around, right? We are not that far off. We're not that far off. Right now everybody's just reliving the 90s and their fashion choices sooner or later. One physician fairly famous for the use of arsenic

was Paul Urlich. Now usually when I start to talk about a physician, a historical physician on the show, I'm gonna tell you really terrible things about them. Dr. Arlyd Flagg, if you popped up. Like if you're at the doctor's meeting, you don't necessarily wanna hear, hey, I heard about you on Sullivan this week.

Oh no, I don't know. Dr. Arlyd, actually, don't worry that much about him. Oh good. You don't have to, this is kind of a nice one. He was a German physician. He lived in the second half of the 1800s. He invented a lot of things. He did a lot of work in the field of immunology.

He actually would go on to win a Nobel Prize. He invented Salversan. Salversan was a very popular medication. And he did this by the way with the help of Dr. Sahachirohata. And the two of them created this compound to target syphilis, which was the great pox. It was a huge scourge of the time, of a lot of human history, really.

And he found that this compound specifically targeted, the spirakites, the teeny little bacteria that caused syphilis. Spirakites. Spirakites. I know teeny little bacteria that cause syphilis. Spirakheats. Spirakheats. I know you like that word so much. I love that. That's so good. They look corkscrew looking things.

They look little corkscrew birds. What? They look corkscrew birds. When we talked about them, they sound like corkscrew birds. Oh, that's right. They look corkscrew birds. I almost forgot. I was going to say honey, they're not birds.

They're bacteria. I don't know yet. I just, I always think of as far as sparkies. I love those drawings that everyone's done in some of the sparkies. So, Salversam was an arsenic-based substance, arsenic-finamine. And it was also called Compound 606.

I like it to think it was Formula 409 when I heard that. Except for, you know, this was the arsenic one that you put on your syphilis. But other than that, it's indistinguishable from 4 real 4 real 9 popular over the counter cleaning solution. It's basically the same. Do you think that this is? You know, it's formula 409. You don't put it on your syphilis anymore. It's why countertops. Do you think this isn't the same, like the same line, like the same, you know what I mean? Like, four me look four or nine, do you think eventually became compound six or six?

Like this was another creation. Honey, the countertops look terrible. I'm sorry, dear. I got the, I got the simple medicine again. I don't know why they make the bottles look so close to each other. The coloring and everything is indistinguishable. I mean, but God help you if you go the other way.

That's the spy words. That was actually the first really effective treatment for syphilis. Up till then, mercury had been really popular and this overtook mercury as what you would want to use on your syphilis. And in 1910, it was the most widely sold drug in the world. Wow. Which says something about its effectiveness, as well as something about the prevalence of syphilis.

Yeah, a lot of people were willing to do whatever it took. A lot of syphilis going on then. And it remained the mainstay of the treatment of syphilis until we get to the antibiotic era in the 1940s when penicillin was discovered. Yeah. Thank goodness. And thanks got just a little bit for everybody. Thanks again, penicillin. Thank you, penicillin.

Thank you, penicillin, for fixing syphilis. You mean our podcast is less interesting, but we do appreciate you carrying all the Zipless True that the antibiotic error really killed The story is usually like the average argument Salman's episode is almost always Bull crap bull crap bull crap bull crap bull crap bull crap bull crap antibiotics and here's what we do today like usually the the arc antibiotics and here's what we do today. Like, usually the arc.

That's, you know what's scary though, Justin is that as more and more bacteria become resistant to our antibiotics. Don't use to me. I'm not going to play this game with you right now. Please, I'm living with generalized anxiety disorder. Please don't like tell me about super bugs. I can't swing it right now. I'm just saying, just don't get too comfortable.

Yeah, I'm like, so good. I'm not being comfortable. If your doctor says you have a virus and you don't need an antibiotic, trust them. That's all I'm saying, okay.. Yeah, I'm like so good. I'm not being comfortable. If your doctor says you have a virus and you don't need an antibiotic, trust them, that's all I'm saying, okay? That's all I'm saying. This is a public health message from us to you. That's all I'm saying.

Just for me, just this once, just don't get the antibiotics, really, and them. He also studied various arsenic based compounds for African sleeping sickness. And I kind of alluded to that that we had figured out that maybe failure solution kind of worked for that. So he looked into that a little bit more.

This is called, this is also called Trapana semiasis, or sleeping sickness, as a lot of people call it. A better thing to call it. I don't know, I kind of like Trapana semiasis. And it did actually kill these, these little creatures as well. It was actually somewhat effective,

but the side effects of it could be fairly severe. There was a medicine that actually was derived from this in 1949, Mullarsapurl, which is used for the treatment can still of the second stage of sleeping sickness. The first stage, we have some really much safer effective treatments for, but the second stage of sleeping sickness, The first stage, we have some really much safer effective treatments for, but the second stage of sleeping sickness, we still don't have really great medicines for the, that there's some that work, but they're also very high risk. This one in particular is an

arsenic compound that we use to treat this because this disease is so serious, can be fatal. It is worth the risk of this medication, which has this possible side effect called reactive encephalopathy. How common is that? 3 to 10% of people who take this drug. That ain't enough on me. That's a very significant side effect,

and it can be fatal. But the thing is, the disease itself is so dangerous that in some cases you just have to give this medication. I actually remember hearing about this on a television program when I was a kid. I remember watching a special show about this, how we need to help. It was probably some sort of call to action.

There was probably some donation that had I had money as a child. Had I had money access to funds, but I was a kid I would have wanted to donate to. But I remember watching this television program about how we have sleeping sickness, which is so dangerous, and the treatment for it is this awful arsenic-based medicine, and surely we can do better, and money is needed for research. And you and you as a kid were watching this. Yeah. Man, you as a cool kid, I would have been closer back then. I remember this, I told everybody who would listen,

every adult who would listen to the story and said, this is what, you know, I'm gonna go into medicine and I'm gonna be a doctor and these are the things we have to fix. These are the things we should be putting money at or giving money to. Why are we, why can we not do better than this? we have to fix. These are the things we should be putting money at or giving money to. Why are we, why can we not do better than this? It amazed me. And it was sad as I was, you

know, researching this. That was still something that we have to use today. Yeah, that we didn't fix it yet. I mean, there are other options. I'm not saying that's the only one, but it is still used because there aren't, there aren't great options. And sometimes it's all people have Right. Exactly. If you would like to make An impact on that we would recommend a donation to doctors without borders So you can that they're on the front lines. They're battling sleeping sickness and doctors without borders. I'll work and donate That would be a wonderful thing for you to do. Be wonderful if you do.

Okay, so Sydney, today, what do we use arsenic for? Let me tell you about today. I want to tell you one quick point. This poor doctor, Erlich, was raked over the coals for this for salver sand, for this treatment he found for syphilis, which like I said, was the only effect of treatment for a really long time because if we treated people syphilis, they were more likely to have more sex. That was the prevailing thought. So if you got syphilis, we should let you just have it

as punishment. So don't treat it. So there was a lot of backlash. Hey people that are mad about that, I like to pretend that like bad doctors were the villains of solbons, but it's really you. It's really people like you, you creeps. Yeah, let's treat the syphilis. Okay. Let's just treat the syphilis. You creeps.

We all like to get a little love in now and then. Hey, listen. Hey, no crime in it. Hey, listen. We're all just trying to get through this thing. Oh, my. Sydney, today, today. Today. So mainly we think of arsenic as a poison. Yeah.

That's the that's the primary thing. When you say arsenic, again, you think of things like agathacrystia and arsenic and old lace. And if you get arsenic poisoning, it can be pretty dramatic. If you get, if you were poisoned with a lot of arsenic, and this wouldn't be something like, I ate an apple that had a little bit of arsenic in it. This would be like somebody poisoned me, or there was a large amount in drinking water which has happened, unfortunately, in the past. You can go to shock, you can have seizures, you can go to a coma, you can get really severe GI symptoms, like bloody vomiting and diarrhea and dehydration. For chronic toxicity, meaning that like,

when you hear those stories of somebody was slowly poisoning somebody over the years with arsenic, you know, those kinds of things, you can see some more like subtle symptoms. You can start to get like a peripheral neuropathy, meaning that you can get numbness and tingling and pain and your hands and feet nerve damage and pain. You can get lip damage to your liver and kidneys. There's a classic kind of dermatitis, like skin inflammation that we always call do drops on a dusty road. Because in medicine these are the things. Very poetic.

These are the things we come up with. You can even get these like white lines on your fingernails, we call meas lines, that look like from some sort of injury, but it's actually arsenic exposure over time. Now, we do still use it in a couple different medical ways. Like there are medical, as I already said, for sleeping sickness. In addition, they're studying the use of a form of arsenic to use in PET scans, which

help to look for like the spread of maybe tumors throughout the body. They're studying it for that to locate tumors better. The other thing that we use for that I actually very recently have treated a patient with is to treat pro-mylocytic leukemia, specifically relapses of this. Since 2000, it's been FDA-approved that we can use arsenic to treat leukemia. It was an effective treatment. Looked back. Ever since an effective treatment. Looking back. Ever since Fowler's solution back in 1878,

we knew that this was possible and this absolutely is something that we use today. And again, I treated somebody with this not three weeks ago. Wow. I mean, not on my own. I'm not an oncologist, like I just helped. But still, like it's a thing.

It's still a thing that we do today. Thank you to everybody for listening to our program. We sure appreciate you. I want to thank you to theMaximumfun.org network for hosting our show and letting us be a part of their extended podcasting family. Listen, I want to remind you, if you haven't done this yet, another show I make, my brother and my brother and me,

we're working on an expansion for a card game called Monikers, which if you haven't played it, it's sort of like a charades on steroids. I guess you could say it's a it's a really fun game and that comes from me a person who doesn't really like games traditionally. I sound like such a bummer. They stress me out. They make me nervous, but it's super fun. But we're working. We made an expansion for this game. We wrote all the cards for it. And there are a few cards that Sydney and I wrote based on solbons. So if you're a fan of solbons, you might want to check that out. Macalroycollection.com is where we're selling that for 10 bucks in expansion. You get monitors itself and the Macroly collection for 35 bucks. I think the expansion itself is just 10 bucks,

but Macro Collection.com, we are only selling that as a pre-order for the next five or six days, and then after that, it's over with. So if you would be interested in that, go pick it up, macrorecollection.com. Sid, anything you wanna plug, anything going on up there? The only other thing I'd say is we mentioned this last week. If you haven't checked it out, my dad,

Tom Smirl and my uncle Mike Meadows have a new podcast called Court Appointed, which is sort of like a legal version of what we do here on saw bones, kind of telling you some interesting weird facts on the history of different laws and my dad cracks a bunch of corny dad jokes. And it's really funny and really cool.

So check that out. Quarter pointed. It's on iTunes and all other fine podcast distributors that you are used to checking. Yeah. So check that out. It's very good show. Thank you, the taxpayers for the song Medicines is the Intern-Ansure program. You can find them on Bandcamp, I believe.

Well, several, let me double check that because I don't wanna like talk out. Yeah, taxpayers.com, sorry, taxpayers.bankamp.com is the address there. Go get that. They have a really cool alternate version of medicines that we actually use in the, before the building department, but it's great.

It's all very great. So go check it out. Folks, that's gonna do it for us until the next time we have a medical topic for you. My name is Justin McRoy. I'm Sydney McRoy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright! Maximumfund.org

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