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

Episode Date: September 16, 2015

Lice are gross. That is all. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers ...

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Saabones 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 were shot through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.
Starting point is 00:00:56 Some medicines, some medicines that escalate my cop for the mouth. Wow! Hello everybody and welcome to Saw Bones turf misguided medicine. I am your co-host Justin McElroy and I'm Sydney McElroy Sydney we did not talk about what we're going to say at the beginning of this show Why would we not do that? That's like a real head scratcher, you know? We've already done this bit as an opening bit before where we didn't come up with a bit that that bit has been done Why didn't we do that? It's a bit that that bit has been done. Why didn't we do that? It's a real head scratcher, I don't know why.
Starting point is 00:01:28 It's really makes you think. It's a real head scratcher. It is a real head scratcher. It's a real head scratcher. It's your head getting itchy. It is making my head, it's just thinking about it. Is it? Yeah, it's just, you know, like it's a puzzle.
Starting point is 00:01:41 It's a head scratcher. Does it make you itch anywhere else? No. Are you starting you itch anywhere else? Uh, no. Are you starting to itch all over? Yes. Now that you say that out loud, yes. You know other things that make you itch. Like what, Sid?
Starting point is 00:01:55 Life. Buh. Segway. Segway. Segway. Expose Segway. I don't know where you were going with that. Yeah, well, you're in the hands of S-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s- the rocky waters of broadcast excellence come with me. I'll cradle you. Now everybody prepare to get really itchy
Starting point is 00:02:29 because I found that when you talk about Lice, when you say the word Lice, when you think about Lice, you start to, are you getting itchy? Why would you get itchy? Why would we even do this topic? Who would even do this to us? Well, none other than our good friend Dwight. Oh classic Dwight. Thanks Dwight for the Lice Suggestion. Yeah, Dwight didn't actually give us Lice. No, I didn't give us any Lice
Starting point is 00:02:55 But Justin's Justin and my good friend Dwight Slappy suggested this topic good friend of co-hosts. Yes And so a co-host of what is that now? I can't recall for top of my head. Okay. Well, if by the end of the show. Things about at cheats. Oh, that's it. YouTube food review quiz show unlike any other. It's on YouTube to search for things about cheats. You can really make sure you watch the beginning though. There's a rich story line. Okay. Sydney, enough promo plugging. Let's talk about LICE. So lice and humans have a long and sorted history. Yeah. Yes, best friends since time immemorial.
Starting point is 00:03:29 We really have been. They've been living on us and among us. Oh, are you cold? Yes. OK, I'm sorry. They look like they're trying to change the temperature. You can do the lice spiel. I'm going to turn the AC off.
Starting point is 00:03:41 No, no problem. OK, well, it's just me now talking about lice. So they've been living on us and in our clothing for centuries. There are two main genuses, geny, genuses of lice, head and body lice, head lice being ridiculous and pubic-lice being theorists. pubic-lice, yes.
Starting point is 00:04:11 That's just what I was hoping you wouldn't say. I'm not going to talk too much about pubic-lice because- Famous last words. No, I'm just not going to do it because I'm going to mainly focus on head and body lice. I think they're more interesting and I'm not just I'm not going for the cheap snickers here. The giggles and the snickers and the chuckles and the. Got it. Alright. We're not going for that. Head lice which are the capitals species do not carry any diseases. They just live on your head and people don't like to have them. Right. Body Lice, Humanis is the species.
Starting point is 00:04:51 They actually can carry a lot of diseases. So they're a little more dangerous in terms of, you know, you don't like to have lice anywhere. But specifically, body lice can carry typhus, which is a show unto itself. So we're not going to talk too much carry typhus, which is a show unto itself. So we're not gonna talk too much about typhus right now. You know, that being said, if you do get head lice, you probably wanna go ahead and knock that out.
Starting point is 00:05:13 Don't sit at home and think, well, I just find, there's nothing serious to worry about there. Just lice. Well, it's not something serious to worry about, but like, I mean, most of us don't like having lice. I mean, if you do, I guess that's fine. It sounds, you know, we don't talk about, we've never talked about this, but most of us don't like having lights. If you do, I guess that's fine. Sometimes we don't talk about, we've never talked about this, but like, foot fungus, if you want to have athletes, foot, you go for it.
Starting point is 00:05:31 For the most part, it's not dangerous. It'd have to be really bad to be dangerous. If you want to have headlights, I guess, that's your thing. It's a personal choice just to leave the house because other people shouldn't have to be subjected because you're unorthodox lifestyle. But body lights on the other hand. Oh, hot. Like I said, they carry typhus, trench fever,
Starting point is 00:05:50 relapsing fever. They're just, they're generally bad news. So, you know, you should get that taken care of. All lights are sucking lights. All of our important lights that we're talking about are sucking lights, as in they suck your blood. Great, excellent. Which is no fun. No, not at all. I need that sucking lives as in they suck your blood. Great, excellent. Which is no fun.
Starting point is 00:06:05 No, not at all. I need that for life. Yes, we need blood. Good. Hey, have you picked that up from saw bones? Next. So, life's been living on primates for probably 25 million years. And the same genus that hangs out on humans hangs out on chimpanzees, and gorillas. They're all the same.
Starting point is 00:06:29 There's like humans, we have both kinds of lice, and then chimpanzees have one kind, and gorillas have one kind, and then both live on us. And it's interesting because if you start, and people have done a lot of studies, unlike the genealogy of lice. Like where did this, you know, species come from and how did it get from this primate to the humans and when did it split off and all that kind of stuff was it just evolution or did we get it from a gorilla? And it looks like that we somehow acquired
Starting point is 00:07:02 the one that's on gorillas, the genus that is specific to gorillas, about three or four million years ago, and that's the pubic-lyce variety. Okay. And that we probably got it through some kind of direct contact with a gorilla. What kind of direct, like a hug? Probably a hug. A lot of people like to talk about this. This is like something that I guess makes like, I don't know, evolutionary, like, spiologist, snicker. Like, we got it through direct contact with the gorilla. It's a good like, spiologist joke. Yeah, but it could have
Starting point is 00:07:36 just been like hanging around the same place gorilla's hanging around. So, you know, don't get too excited now, guys. Yeah, sorry. It's not that kind of episode. We have found lights on mummies and mummification preserves lights pretty well. Perfect. So That was my main concern. I just want to make sure they were okay. We've talked about before like mummifying animals like cats and dogs. I don't think anybody was attempting to mummify a mouse. That would be very difficult. She's gentle, gentle now. Wait for the moment. Wait till his back is tired. Don't want him fleeing. Also, when we, if we look back and notice like where there's a split in the kind of
Starting point is 00:08:16 louse, like that, that lives on our body and the kind of louse that lives on our head, you know, because they're, they're slightly different. When you kind of trace that back, you can, it helps us figure out when humans started wearing clothes Which is a really interesting like why did we start wearing clothes? I found estimations like as long ago as 170,000 years ago to as recent as 40,000 years ago It's interesting because you look at this time period where it wasn't cold enough probably that we needed clothing, but we had already become hairless. We evolved to a point where we weren't covered in hair.
Starting point is 00:08:53 We're just walking around hairless and naked for some periods of tens of thousands of years. Why did we start wearing clothes? Is an interesting question, which I don't know. Lice didn't answer that for me. It was cold. I guess it got cold an interesting question, which I don't know. Lice didn't answer that for me. It was cold So I guess it got cold and I don't know at some point we started decided we I don't know someone was leaving the cave and This the cave one was leaving the cave and her husband said honnets Chilli out there. She take a jacket and she said what are you talking about?
Starting point is 00:09:22 I don't know any of those words. What could a jacket be? Like, what do you mean? And then they had been in clothes. And then he was like, well, maaah. Well, maaah. Is that right? Yeah, that's how Flintstones worked.
Starting point is 00:09:33 Um. So you're saying there's a chance that Flintstones is inaccurate with its depiction of clothing. That it should have just been a wild, nudist romp. Yes, I'm suggesting that. I don't know. That wouldn't have been as popular on TV, I think.
Starting point is 00:09:45 I don't know the history of clothing. That's a whole other thing. I just know about lice. It's interesting because we can look back at these mummified lice and pick them off of them. We have, there are lots of times in history where we've discovered mummies and then found lice on them. There's this great report about we found pubic lice on this mummy.
Starting point is 00:10:04 We found headlice on them. Which is there's this great report about, we found pubic lice on this mummy, we found head lice on them, which is like an awful thing. You've been mummified. Now we found you thousands and thousands of years later. And the first thing we write about is how you have lice. Or put you on blasts as soon as we find you. It's not like, you seem to have cool muscles.
Starting point is 00:10:20 You seem like a handsome dude. It's like, no, pubic lice. Yeah, no, and we found a ton of lice in his shirt too. But it teaches us a lot about migration patterns of disease, like where, like, did this disease start in the old world and get to the new world? Or did we have it in the Americas to begin with? Or, you know, was it two different kinds? I don't know. Some of that is, I guess, just good for blaming. Right. It's like so we can look back and be like, you Europeans. A lot of finger pointing. We wouldn't have gotten pubic lice if it weren't for you guys.
Starting point is 00:10:50 It is. It is. It is. It is cool, pubic life for existence. But I don't know. I just want to point out something by the by. You said you didn't want to talk about pubic lice. It is literally every example of life so far you have used is pubic lice.
Starting point is 00:11:02 I'm going to get better. Rain it in. Okay. Let's talk about headlice. Okay. We all worry about headlice, specifically among school kids, right? That's when you think about headlice, you think about, uh oh, it's the fall. All the kids are going back to school
Starting point is 00:11:16 and they're just, I don't know, rubbing their heads against each other. Lice time. It's like instantly, like my image is that kids get to school and the first thing they do is go, I like your hat. Can I try it on? Can I rub my head on your head?
Starting point is 00:11:27 Can I try your hat on too? Let's all try each other's hats on. Hey, we all have Lice. Boom. Exactly. That's what happens in schools. It has been around for a really long time. It plagued the ancient Egyptians. They hated it. They hated having headlice and many of them did. They hated it. They hated having headlights and many of them did. So there were cures found for it. Most, I didn't know this was true, it was very common to just shave your head because you didn't want to have headlights.
Starting point is 00:11:54 So when we see some depictions of ancient Egyptians, they're probably wearing wigs. And it was very fashionable and common to have many wigs. It was okay. It wasn't like something that you hid like, oh, this isn't my real hair. No, you just wore lots of many wigs. It was okay. It wasn't like something that you hid. Like, oh, this isn't my real hair. No, you just wore lots of different wigs. Some of them very elaborate and fanciful. Some of them that just look like natural hair. Some of them with lice in them, probably.
Starting point is 00:12:14 Probably, probably lice would get in them. And then you would, I guess get rid of that one. Yeah, I'm just forwarding a new one though. I think you just rock it. If you wanted to get rid of the lice in your wig or in your real hair, you could, the Eberspapyrus recommended a mixture of water and dates,
Starting point is 00:12:32 and then you chew it up, and then you spit it out wherever, and put it on wherever the lice are. So whether it was hair or body lice, you could just put it there. I mean, I guess. I know. It's smothered the lice. That is a, that is a theme. You will find a lot of things throughout the history of lice treatment that the, the
Starting point is 00:12:52 goal was mainly to like plug up their little breathing holes and make them die, which is like a good idea. It's a good concept, but it doesn't get out the nits. And anybody who has dealt with headlights will tell you you got to out the nits. And anybody who has dealt with headlights will tell you you got to get the nits. Okay, let's keep moving, because my head is like crazy at you now. If you were a priest, you may just remove every speck of hair from your body.
Starting point is 00:13:16 It's a way to say, purified and clean. One step ahead of the lice, cause what do you care? No, you don't have a chance to lie. And I mean, everything like your eyelashes, like every shave your eyebrows, every bit, yes, every bit of hair from your body, because lice can live anywhere. There were, we have found throughout history,
Starting point is 00:13:35 like special life lice combs as well as lice tweezers, not just the age and Egyptians, like different Asian cultures, you can find like very elaborate, beautiful lice combs, like carved ivory lice combs. Just because you're dealing with lice doesn't mean you can't do it in style. Which is a good idea, like combing out, I mean we do that now, right? After you have lice, we treat it and then you gotta comb it all out.
Starting point is 00:13:56 I guess I've never interacted with lice in my entire life. Really? Never had, I've never sossed me with them. But a lot of lice free existence. I had lice once as a kid. Yeah, why didn't you tell me before you get married? I got it in school. I did.
Starting point is 00:14:09 I put that in our prenup. I was, and I was one of, at the time, two girls now three with very long hair, and it was a constant threat to us. A lice party. Plenty had some advice. Sure. Of course. Plenty always does.
Starting point is 00:14:22 Plenty the elder, if you're new to our show. One of our favorite recurring characters. So you could try a couple of things. And if you look at all the other live streaments, they kind of make some sort of sense. And then Pliny always comes in here with like this weird, I feel like he's just making it up. I feel like he was like,
Starting point is 00:14:39 I also had a general store where he sold stuff. I feel like specifically picked things he had like extra stock of that he was trying to move. So this week he was trying to get rid of dog's fat. So you could eat some dog's fat. I got this dog's fat. Just sitting on the shelves. Or if you had some snakes around, this line around,
Starting point is 00:15:00 what you want to do is leave the room. Leave the room. No, kill them and then cook them like eels So I don't know how you cook an eel, but cook the snake like you cook any so figure out how you cook an eel You could just like you would cook a snake This is endless. Yeah, and then eat that Or you or you could if you didn't want to eat it you could take the skin that I guess you removed from the snake Probably when you cooked it, I don't know,
Starting point is 00:15:25 however you cook and eel. You grind up that snake skin and then you drink it. Okay. Or you could try something that he recommended, and then this was recommended for a very long time by many different people. So this wasn't just old Plenty's idea. The powdered seeds of a plant delphinium,
Starting point is 00:15:44 Stephus Agria, Stephus Agria. idea. The powdered seeds of a plant delphinium, stuff, stuff is agree, stuff is agree, okay. Staves anchor is what it's more commonly known as. It's also called lice bane. Okay, well that, I mean that should have been a good initial clue to them that it would be useful in the battle against lice. It was used in different preparations against lice for a really long time. As in like the British soldiers were issued in the Battle of Waterloo, it is still around today in some like herbal natural preparations for Lice-killing purposes. You see it all throughout, you know, the 17s, 18s, 1900s. I mean, this is still around today.
Starting point is 00:16:23 It's extremely toxic, this plant, stavesaker, extremely toxic. It can irritate your skin if you put it all over you for like body lice. Also, if you ingest it, you'll puke and die. So, don't. Don't eat it. Don't eat it.
Starting point is 00:16:39 Don't eat it. What if I got really bad lice though? Don't eat it. Got it. Yeah, so it's a bad idea, but it was, like I said, it's still around today. The Aztecs used to just use like hair dye to try to remove them, so it would like double purpose.
Starting point is 00:16:53 Dye your hair a really nice shiny black color. And have no lights. And no lights. In the middle ages, there wasn't a lot of bathing. And we talked about this on our hygiene episode. Bathing became very unpopular for a while. And so you would wear the same clothes for a long time, which allowed a lot of body lice to flourish,
Starting point is 00:17:13 but also had lice in like the big elaborate wigs and then later just in your own hair. The middle ages were kind of humanity's toddler phase, weren't they? The things, just when things seemed to be improving, they just got dramatically lost. We know that, man. I'm not taking a bath.
Starting point is 00:17:27 Yes, you are, middle ages. I'm not gonna do it. I wanna wear this shirt every day. I love this shirt. I love this shirt, it's my favorite. I know it's got food all over it, but I wanna wear it again tomorrow. I wanna wear it again tomorrow, I wanna soar.
Starting point is 00:17:39 I can pull this sort out of the stone, no problem. Sometimes people would have so much headlice for so long that it would start to become kind of matted and sticky with like the exudates from the lice and then from your own hair, like the oil from your hair. Like you'd get this like big sticky mass of hair or like several different masses of hair. And then that would get infected sometimes
Starting point is 00:18:07 with like usually fungal infections would start to grow on like the sticky mass of light hair. I'm begging you, I'm begging you. And there's a name for this, Pl like a Polonica. Hell, Polonica. No, Pl like a Polonica. And this is something, again, that there are still cases up to this day of
Starting point is 00:18:26 Plyca Polonica not nearly as common as there used to be And there are so many names for it because it's been written about all throughout history Like you can find a lot of different like poetic and like in different plays and stories and stuff references Marin lock Elvish knots. They were called Elf locks. Mara lock Aaron Locke, Elvish Nots, they were called Elf Locke's, Meriloc, which was Lops. Take that, Lops. Take that Lord of the Rings fans,
Starting point is 00:18:49 how that out of the romance you're setting. This may be the origin of the Medusa myth. Oh. You know, snakes in her hair, because it would look like like coiled, big, thick, you know. There was a cure that I found for this. Other than like the obvious, like just shave your head.
Starting point is 00:19:07 Just cut it off. But there was one cure that was, you wait until Easter and then you cut it all off. And you could just bury it or, or if you're feeling more exotic. You could take the hair that you've, if you can even call it hair at this point, that you've cut off,
Starting point is 00:19:23 tie a piece of copper money up in it and then throw it into the ruins of an old castle, where, not just any old castle, a castle where evil spirits lodge, but don't look when you do it, just toss it in there and then run home really quickly. It sounds like somebody made that up to get some free hair or copper coins. This is referenced in the Mercutio speech about Queen Mab. He talks about alflox. Oh. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:19:51 And some other things that you could do for headlice, English tobacco juice, rosemary, quinoa water. Just the water. Like the water makes some quinoa and then pour the water on your head. Okay. I mean, quinoa and then pour the water on your head. Okay. I mean, actually, quinoa is good. In the 1800s in the US, there were some school kids who would wear sacks of powdered brimstone around their neck to drive oil ice.
Starting point is 00:20:14 Sitting, I love you. I literally can't talk about headlights anymore. Can you tell me about a different kind? All right. Well, we will move on to body lights right after we visit the billing department. Let's go. Okay, Sydney body lice I'm ready. All right body lice is not nearly as common. It tends to crop up in times where people are like really crowded, you know, stuck in the same place, close together,
Starting point is 00:20:43 not able to access, you know, baths and same place, close together, not able to access, you know, baths and showers regularly, cleaning their clothes, because it tends to live in the, in the clothing. It's a burning man. Basically, the burn. Don't put burning man on blast. Don't put burning man on blast.
Starting point is 00:20:57 No, that just ended, right? So like everybody got home and had to... Maybe they're listening on their way home. I'm just getting burn, burners. You didn't get body lights. I hope you didn't. I hope you didn't. I hope you took pictures too.
Starting point is 00:21:07 If you got crazy. Yeah, we're gonna go some year. Some year. And not in body lights. We watch us. We're gonna bring our baby to the burn. No, typically it tends to crop up in times of like war people who are stuck in like trenches or like
Starting point is 00:21:21 close together and not able to, you know, change their clothes a lot. Refugee camps. People just in general who have to, you know, who don't have access to the baby. Sort of a nature's way of saying, time for a change. Exactly. Yeah, clean your clothes if you can. Ancient Chinese medicine involved using a lot of kind of toxic substances for this. Arsenec was very popular, mercury was very popular, and you find this again, it's like sometimes these like really weird toxic treatments pop up,
Starting point is 00:21:51 and then they just stick around for a long time. Like, arsenic continued to be used up until like the 1960s in some places. The unexamined life, be careful people. Every time you treat yourself for body-lice, ask, is this poison? Because if so, you probably wanna try something new. It's, I think it's that we've talked about this before.
Starting point is 00:22:11 If something did something for a long time, it was considered to be effective. No, no, no. Or what it did. Something's happening. Yeah, like I feel really sick. It must be working. I just puked.
Starting point is 00:22:20 I just, you know, I threw up all this blood. Something good must be happening. Something's happening. Hypocrities thought that body- lice came out of humans. Like it arose from human flesh, especially if we were sweaty. That was a theory. Like you get really sweaty and then lice pop out everywhere. Gross.
Starting point is 00:22:36 This spontaneous generation, which we, you know, this not just does not just apply to lice. Like we thought this about a lot of different things. We just think that flies came out of dog duty, right? Well, meat, probably raw meat, yeah, maggots came out of meat, but I also have flies come out dog duty. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Well, probably we did. We thought that we thought that things came out of things. Yes. Um, just spontaneously.
Starting point is 00:23:01 And this, this persisted until 1864. Pasteur disproved that. Good. Lice among other things. Thanks for sort of that, Louie. So some cures for body lice, which like I said is a bigger deal because they can carry disease. Greek cures included pitch from the cedar tree, which doesn't sound great, or garlic boiled with a reg now. Nice. Sounds delightful. Can yourself taste it and really nice? I like that, because you see some of these like Greek cures and then especially with like Roman cures that sound a little indulgent.
Starting point is 00:23:32 Yeah, treat yourself. You got body lice, you've burned it. Boil some garlic with a regnow, have a nice glass of merlot. Merlot, I guess. Grog? I don't know my history. Oh, I just don't know anything about wine. Yeah. Sweet wormwood was a cure for a while.
Starting point is 00:23:51 Cresanthamum is something that you find suggested various times throughout history and that is really interesting because as we're gonna talk about in a minute they may have been onto something. Oh. Using like powdered or dried Cresanthamum on your body for lice. One suggestion I found was coat your kid in honey. Sure. Again, this was probably the smothering theory, right?
Starting point is 00:24:14 Not your kid, don't smother your kid, like smother the lice. No, that won't fix anything. It's sticky, and so you'll just coat yourself in it, and it'll smother all the lice to death. But we do have some... The thing that's weird is like that works for like ticks, right? Like you can do that with ticks. Oh yeah, like smother it. It's smother it and then they pop their head out like, what's going on then you just flick
Starting point is 00:24:35 them off. Sort of, you kind of have to pick them off. How could you? You could wear a mercury necklace. You know one time I came out from camping, and I thought I had a lump of marshmallow from S'mores stuck in my hair, and I picked out it trying to get it out for about,
Starting point is 00:24:53 maybe a half hour trying to get it out. And when I finally just pulled and yanked it out, it was a tick, and it was the worst thing ever happened. I still have the, like, I was probably 10 years old, I still have the exact image of what it looked like in my head. It was a nightmare. I'm really sorry that happened to you. Yeah, and it's an important story to share with people,
Starting point is 00:25:10 just to let them know. It's not marshmallow. That thing on your head is not marshmallow. It's not marshmallow. For all you people out there who felt a bump on your head and assumed it was marshmallow, like we do. It's not tick. Some other things you can do for body lice, mustard, just coat yourself in mustard, coat yourself in vinegar, and lie. Don't do that.
Starting point is 00:25:32 Don't use lie. No. That's toxic again. Don't lie. In World War Two, we had a great idea. By the end of World War Two, we were coding everybody in DDT. Great. This was not just for Lice, it was also for mosquitoes, you know, for malaria, was the big fear, but also for typhus for body lice. And DDT does in fact work against body lice. Well, that's going to do for us folks, another great episode in the book. Nope, nope, nope. It actually was so effective that we didn't, you don't see like there's this period of time from like the end of World War II up until like about the 70s where you kind of see not so much, um, headlice or any kind of lice really. Like, life is just kind of gone.
Starting point is 00:26:16 Correct that problem. Um, because DDT definitely did kill mosquitoes and lice. Unfortunately, it killed a lot of other things too. Oh, no. Everybody's heard of the book, Silent Spring, Racial Carson wrote in 1962, I think, which called it, issues of biologists, called attention to the fact that DDT
Starting point is 00:26:36 was a very toxic harmful substance to the environment. It had a lot of unintended impact on other animals, like the bald eagle, probably would be extinct if we hadn't banned DDT. As well as humans, possibly a carcinogen. And so in the 70s, we banned DDT, and which is good, don't use DDT on yourself. But didn't like saying it back. It's not spread DDT on yourself.
Starting point is 00:26:59 But then of course we see mosquitoes and mice come back. So yeah, too bad. Some home remedies that you may find for lice that have been around a long time, but are still around today. Because it's like anything. Can you clarify like, are these real? No.
Starting point is 00:27:16 No, these are not real. I'm gonna tell you what to do about lice. Okay. There are many suggestions on ways to, like we've talked about, really just suffocate the lice. The problem with that is that while it will kill the lice, the actual live little lice, it doesn't kill the nits, it doesn't get rid of the eggs that are clinging to the hair. Is that what nits are?
Starting point is 00:27:34 Yeah. Okay. So it doesn't get rid of those, and then they hatch and you've got more lice. They're back. So you have to get rid of the nits. I'm going to say that over and over again. Okay. I say that a lot. Now you've got to get rid of the nits. I'm gonna say that over and over again. I say that a lot. Now you've got to get rid of the nits.
Starting point is 00:27:47 You can't just treat it, you've got to come. In the early 1900s, gasoline and caracene became really popular treatments. So just coat your head and gasoline or caracene, which probably did kill the actual lice, but then the eggs hatched and you have more lice. This is still a thing that people will tell you to do. Don't do that.
Starting point is 00:28:07 It's just a bad idea. Dowsing yourself in gasoline is generally frowned upon. If you learn nothing else from top ends in your time with us. Don't drill a hole in your head and also don't douse yourself in gasoline. The University of California Department of Entomology has studied a lot of these kinds of like folk home remedy kind of things To see is there any truth because you've probably heard people say like oh you got headlies just put mayonnaise on your head
Starting point is 00:28:33 You some peanut butter try some Vaseline that'll work again All these things didn't really help so mayonnaise petroleum jelly olive oil butter vinegar things didn't really help. So mayonnaise, petroleum jelly, olive oil, butter, vinegar, ice purple alcohol, none of these things will fix the problem. They may kill some lines, but it doesn't fix the problem. Essential oils are something else you'll hear. Specifically, tea tree oil is something that I found a lot of people recommending to this day. It doesn't, it is, it does kill fungus, some fungi, it does kill some bacteria. It doesn't, it is, it does kill fungus, some fungi, it does kill some bacteria. It doesn't really do anything for headlice.
Starting point is 00:29:09 The idea is that lice hate the smell of tea tree oil. And so they will flee from your head when you, if you put it on there. But like, that doesn't even sound right. Right. If that doesn't sound made up to you, you have not listened to enough of our program. That's nonsense. Also, tea tree oil can be toxic to your liver. In our life, you see it.
Starting point is 00:29:31 You train them. You put them in the areas you don't want, and then eventually you'll have them in a little life circus, like John Hammond. That's like, you see, my, my, can you see the lice? But that's, but that's really, because they tell you like if you're gonna use this,
Starting point is 00:29:44 that not just on the person who has lies, but like everybody in the family has to put it on their head, because otherwise the lies will like pack up their little lies, suitcases, and be like, the new world is right over there on his brother's head. We got a head over to his brother to the new world. You got to coach your whole situation in T-Trio.
Starting point is 00:30:04 Guess who came up with that one, Sid? someone who was selling T-Trio oil probably? Yeah. Yeah. So also T-Trio can be toxic to your liver and large doses. It can trigger allergic reactions and you can't use it by, you can't use it on babies certainly or young children. You can't use it on pregnant women. Just my advice would be, if you have lice don't do this, just don't do this. Us a little side note on pubic lice, we weren't going to talk about it, but just one thing that you should know is that we call them pubic lice, they can actually be anywhere on your arms, your legs, in your beard. They found them in eyelashes, just a, so I just wanted to leave you with that little treat. But as far as actually treating life,
Starting point is 00:30:50 so since 1800, we knew about something we used to call Persian Louse Powder, which included this like chrysanthemum that was dried and crushed, and it had these substances called parithrin senate, which is a contact poison to lice, it affects their central nervous system, and it actually is effective for white. It is known today as Nix.
Starting point is 00:31:15 It was introduced about the 70s. So we still, you know, Nix is available over the counter, and a lot of people still use parithrin for body lice and head lice today. In 1984, OVIDE, which is Malathion, which is another way to cure lice, came around. So those are mainly what we get people to usually peritrum. Is red lice? Yeah. You can use red too.
Starting point is 00:31:39 Yeah. And any of these things... Wait, there's a red too out? No. I've been wanting to see what he's going to follow up with. But these are all treatments for lice that I would recommend, talk to your doctor, or they sell them over the counter. But the big thing again is you got to get the nits.
Starting point is 00:31:59 Got a good point. So you can treat the lice, and when you treat your kid for lice, you probably just all want to use the lice shampoo. I usually say that. Like, when just everybody take around a lice and when you treat your kid for lice you probably just all want to use the lice shampoo. I usually say that like when just everybody take around a lice shampoo. As long as there's no reason you can't because they do they do tend to spread in families pretty quickly. Cool. You know anybody who shares pillows or blankets or you know close enough I mean they can jump from head to head. So if you're close enough to somebody with head lice they can get on your hair. So everybody needs to wash. You need to wash all the clothes, bedding, stuffed animals, whatever. Um, and you need to comb, comb, comb out all the nits. Gotta get the nits. Gotta
Starting point is 00:32:37 get the nits. Uh, thank you so much for listening to our program. Uh, we hope that your head doesn't itch too bad, even though it totally, totally does. Just a reminder, you, you probably don't have a license. Although there is a special super strain of license out now that's resistant to a lot of these treatments. So watch out. Great, great. Watch out, cleat tight.
Starting point is 00:32:55 Thanks to the Tax Parade for letting us use their song Medicines is the intro and outro of our program. Thanks to Maximum Fun Network for having us as a part of their podcast family. There's a ton of great shows you can listen to there on a maximum fun org and Thanks to everybody who came out to our shows in the Pacific Northwest. That was a lot of fun Absolutely. We had a blast beautiful part of the of the world We've never been to it's gorgeous And that's gonna do it for us. Hey, we're on Facebook.
Starting point is 00:33:25 We've been missing that long time. Search for sub-ones on Facebook and come join the group there and follow us on Twitter at sub-ones. And that's gonna do for us until next Wednesday. I'm Justin McRoy. I'm Sydney McRoy. And as always, don't drill a hole in your head. Alright! Maximumfund.org
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