Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: National Hotel Disease

Episode Date: October 4, 2019

This week on Sawbones, Dr. Sydnee and Justin check in with National Hotel Disease, the diarrhea so bad it almost brought down a U.S. presidency. 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. Hello everybody and welcome to Salvon's Meryl Durf Miss Guyed Medicine. I'm your co-host Justin Nackaroy and I'm Sydney McRoy This is a bittersweet episode I would say said it is it is

This episode was supposed to be done supposed to be performed live last week. Yes. On our tour. Give the short version of the story because it is very sad. The I well, this particular, this particular episode, I've done all this research for our live show in DC on our tour last weekend. And the morning that we were supposed to leave, we woke up at 4 a.m.

because that's how early we had to get up to our flight. And our oldest daughter, Charlie, was puking. Yeah. And puking and puking. And poor thing, she was so sick. And there was no way we could put her on an airplane and make her stay in hotels.

That was just, it was unreasonable. So we had to put her first and sadly, well, no, not sadly, though, we had to put her first, but sadly, it meant not that myself and the girls couldn't come on the tour. And so this, this lovely story about another mysterious GI illness. Whoa. Was supposed to be told live in Washington, DC because it is relevant to Washington, DC, but instead, that will be this week's tale. Well, Sydney, I'm ready. Take me away.

Justin, have you ever heard of national hotel disease? Uh, no, but it sounds like an indie band from the 90s. It, I found this, I stumbled across this national hotel disease and I thought, what? I've now, there are some odd names for various diagnoses like illnesses, syndromes, viruses. There's some weird names out there, but this one really, I had never heard of this. It seemed particularly strange. It seems like one of those names that we come across sometimes that is like a colloquial name for these that we later understand to be like, no, that was just chicken pox. You got it at hotel, okay? It's nothing fancy. It's just regular. What is it? He says in waiting for Guffin,

well, monosumas revenge is just regular old American diary. Well, this was sort of like regular old American diarrhea that we're going to talk about. The national hotel, the first thing that might strike you is you might not know where that is, well, this because there is no national hotel anymore, but there used to be one in DC and a mysterious epidemic struck the national hotel in early January of 1857. And I want to tell you the story of this strange epidemic because to this day we're not 100% sure what it was. We have some pretty good theories.

But at the time, 1857, we couldn't, we didn't know anything really, you know, about much of anything. Yeah. I mean, well, heck, we don't know a lot now. But we have better names for things. Yes. So let's go back to January 1857. We have to go back. Let's go back. Washington, DC is a, it's cold. It's January. It's a dirty. It's a dirty place. I hear you. That's what I keep telling everybody.

Win. Everybody else listen. These fat cats. It's dirty. When people talk about how you need to drain the swamp or the swamp as it were, the concept of the swamp, do they realize they're making like a reference to the fact that DC initially was sort of like a, it was a swamp. Swamp.

Did people know that? I don't know. I feel like we did. Didn't we discuss this in one of our presidential illness episodes? Yeah. I was just curious. A lot of people talk about the swamp that is Washington DC. And I don't know if they realized that like it literally was. It was a swamp. It was a swamp. And it was never properly drained. And that's not a joke. I'm telling it was a swamp. It was a swamp and it was never properly drained. And that's not a joke I'm telling. It was a swamp that wasn't properly, it was a swampy marshland with like no decent sewage systems.

They were just in the 1850s. They were just putting some early like sewage systems in place prior to that. Essentially dumped your human waste into fields scattered about the city. Bummer. Yeah, I mean it was gross. It was a gross dirty marshy swamp with like piles of human feces like seven blocks from the White House and everybody was sick all the time. There were mosquitoes everywhere. There was malaria and yellow fever and typhoid and dysentery and it's gross. It's gross. It's gross

There's a gross place anyway Then also there was the you know all the political intrigue at this point in history I don't know if you know much about 1857 Justin Well, of course I do. I wanted to recap for everybody. So the inauguration of I do. I wanted to recap for everybody. So the inauguration of soon to be president James Buchanan was just weeks away at this point in history. It was it was going to be in March, right? Two 57. And the country was ill at ease. Took him a while to hand over power back then, huh?

Couple months, couple of months into the year before old, old James could take over. Yeah. I, I guess the, I don't know. It's a dream. I mean, that drive from your house in a stage coach. I'll be there by March, I guess. I guess I'm president now. I'll be there by March. He's just from Pennsylvania.

I got to walk up from Pennsylvania. I'll be there in March. It's a long walk. So he, the thing about James Buchanan, which prior to this episode of a medical history podcast, I knew nothing about James Buchanan, which prior to this episode of a medical history podcast, I knew nothing about James Buchanan, other than he was a president. That was the extent of my knowledge. James Buchanan was a moderate. I know that from this song, James Buchanan, by the way, I'd be giants in that set.

So that's, that's kind of, okay, moderate is a different word than what I would use, maybe. But I guess maybe for 185757 he would be considered a moderate. The thing about him is he was from the north and a lot of northerners were anti-slavery at this point in history, but he was not. He was anti-abolition. And I say that very specifically because it's hard to say that he was pro anything. He just kind of like everybody stop fighting and let's move forward. It sounds like a moderate to me, right? Yeah, but I mean, we're talking about slavery. It's hard to call somebody a moderate who's just kind of, well, you know, either way, they're

good. They're very fine people on both sides of the argument. Definitely in the lens of 2019, he is not, I'm not saying he's age to well. I would have called him a moderate now. Right. In the context of the song James K. Polk and the times in which he lived, a moderate. He was, so he didn't want the abolitionists

to make all the trouble they were making. If everybody could agree to enslavery, he was fine with that. He wasn't particularly concerned about any ethical issues or any human rights issues. He was just kind of like, I don't really care about this. It doesn't affect me personally. And I'd like my presidency to go well. So would you all just stop fighting about it? And he was already getting pretty chummy with the Supreme Court because they were about to issue a decision on the Dred Scott case to decide if they could, if like a Supreme

Court decision that could kind of restrict Congress from ever ending slavery. Oh, okay. And so he was like getting chummy with Supreme Court justices right prior to his inauguration to try to influence this decision that they would deliver. And he also, he didn't agree with the Missouri is very compromised, which was the idea that as states were entering the union, they would have the ability to choose whether they were entering as a slave state or a non-slave state and that kind of thing.

And at this moment in history, the new Kansas territory was in a huge state of a people, because they were trying to decide, they was kind of like split, about half the state wanted to enter in a huge state of a people because they were trying to decide. They was kind of like split about half the state wanted to enter as a slave state and half wanted to enter as a non-slave state as a free state. And so they were like fighting. It was like the, it's called bloody Kansas. And they were like, there was all these riots where people were killing each other over

who, whose constitution would win out as the state constitution that would join the union. So it was a very tumultuous moment in American history. Tempers were running high. Nobody was agreeing on anything. And it was becoming very clear that the federal government was going to have to step in and kind of do something about this issue, right? Right.

And we know what happens. They don't. And then when we do, it's the Civil War. And yeah, we didn't get it. Didn't get it on that one. So there were a lot of people who were not looking forward to the Buchanan presidency, because they did not see him as a figure

who was going to like resolve this issue in any meaningful way. That's fair. He seems to be just kind of a, kind of a, whim, kind of wimpy. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think he was just, he was like your standard. He was, he was, from my understanding, and this is my very brief study of the Buchanan presidency. He, he was a, like, true to the bone politician in that whatever his beliefs were, who knows?

He just wanted to get elected, stay in power, and have people, like, do what he said. And like, whatever he had, whatever had to come out of his mouth at any particular moment to make that happen, he was pretty good at greasing those wheels most of the time. Yeah, well, he did it. Yeah, I mean, he got elected president. He's like, he was good at it, I guess. I know a lot of people are wondering, what does any of this have to do with medicine? Me too.

Well, in light of this, this, this air of discontent in the country, we have an inauguration about to occur. It's a big party, right? All the elites in Washington and all of the supporters of Buchanan are about to descend upon the capital for festivities and balls and a lot of, you know, political backroom dealings prior to this next administration beginning. And a lot of the elite were going to stay in the national hotel because it was known at the time to be like the place to see and be seen. It was very posh, it was very Tony place,

it was very high class. It was the owners were friends with Buchanan. They were like personal friends. And so himself and his family and a lot of members of his delegation and like his political buddies in Congress and their staff, all these people were going to stay at the national hotel because one, it was the place to go and two was like Buchanan's friends and you know, they're all buddies there. So they're all gonna hang out the same place. There were a lot of drinking, huge banquets, like you would go and like the hotel would have a big banquet because a lot of the people staying

were like political dignitaries, right? So very high-class scene. So you have to imagine this, like the hotel itself, and it's this dichotomy that I think Maybe is intrinsic to Washington DC Itself the hotel was known as the nice place to stay It was filthy though. It's important to know that it was filthy as Comparatively or like everything was filthy. Everything was filthy. Like people, I mean, it's documented as famously dirty,

a famously dirty hotel. It was gross. There were people who like, weren't necessarily part of the Washington, who would come there, stay there and say like, this place reeks, why does anyone want to stay here? But it was still known as, I mean, like the,

it'd be like like really nice furnishings and finishes and stuff, but with like filthy sheets and dirty carpets and nasty floors and bad smells and poor ventilation and it was just gross. But I mean, a lot of things were

in DC at the time because again, it was a dirty swamp land that had not been prepared for humans properly before we moved in. So we have all these dignitaries. They're in their finery. He had like Buchanan would have like suits made for him, like hand tailored, beautiful suits made for him. And so they're all in their finery and their frippery, if you will, having their bank, having their bankwits and their drinks and whatever. And it's all so posh until the diarrhea starts. Oh boy, that always the way things seem so fancy until the first hint of diarrhea. And it wasn't long after they checked in that the diarrhea started.

This illness hit pretty quickly. It was reported that Buchanan seemed to be feeling pretty okay before dinner. They all had dinner. And then in the middle of the night, he was seized with abdominal pains and diarrhea. And a lot of people were not just Buchanan. Many people became ill, even the doctor with him became ill. Uh, woke up in the middle of the night, thought he had been poisoned, actually. He was so sick. Um, went and immediately took something to make himself puke, which would have been the... Yep.

...remedy of the time. 1887 before we're doing... Make it puke, make it poop. Um, what do you do when the problem is vomiting and? Diary or a morose. Oh So he yeah better It should be fixing me, but the doctor couldn't tend to himself for very long because Buchanan was sick and he had to go tend to Buchanan and so the va so the vomiting nausea swollen tongue Was a was a symptom. And everybody, all these political dignitaries, all these very fancy people spent the night

throwing up and having horrible diarrhea and cramping. And the next morning, it was a bad scene at the National Hotel. I would guess. Yes. Greater than normal. So initially the doctor says it was probably the soup. I think it was the soup we all ate. Was it the soup? Well Justin, we don't think it was the soup. There's more to this story. This is not where it ends. It does not just end with this bout of diet. Are you doing a soup cliffhanger?

No, I'm just saying. Is this a soup cliffhanger? No, I'm just saying. Is this a soup cliffhanger? Was it the soup? Was it not the soup? Check in next time. After we go to the billing department. No, you're going to tell me if it's the soup now. I just and I'm you can't leave you like this,

moral. Was it the soup? The soup is not poisoned at this time. HBO now because of this. You've treated mystery of the not poisoned at this time. I can't sing HBO now because of this. You've mistreated the fans for the last time. Who killed Laura Palmer and was it the soup? Was it the soup that you souped to do it? Let's go. Okay, Sydney, the soup. We've waited long enough. Was it the soup? I mean, it could have been the soup. Justin, I'm at the end of this. I'm going to tell you

I already alluded to the fact that we'll never know for sure what it was. Sydney can ask you one question. Was it the soup? Maybe. Okay, it might have been the soup. One way or another, the doctor thought, it was something we ate, we all got sick because it was something we ate. And because a lot of people got very sick with the same symptoms, but it's important to know that if we're just talking about like, oh, we just ate something bad, no big deal,

it wasn't a little tummy bug. Some people got sick and got better. Some people got sick and continued to suffer effects of this for months. I mean, would have like relapses and recurrences and would just feel weakened by it for, I mean, up to a year later, you know. Others stayed sick and eventually would succumb

to the disease. The first death was major George McNair, who was 64, and he also ate at the banquet around the same, at the hotel around the same time. It's not known if he had the soup, it's not known if he had the exact same food that President-elect Buchanan had. But he did get the same illness, the national hotel disease, and eventually died. He was the only one who got an autopsy. I don't know what else.

There are more deaths to come, I guess I have given that away. I don't know what event back then. No idea. You know, I'm not sure. I don't know. I'd have to look into that. But he did get it. He did get an autopsy.

And they noted that there was some inflammation and what they called the onset of gangrene in the stomach already, so like tissue death. But there was nothing obvious to them at the time. Now, of course, your ability to do any studies, to say what happened at the time. Now of course your ability to do any studies to say what happened at the time was fairly limited. So I mean the germ theory of disease was not you know a thing. So I don't know what they were looking for really. Kind of a weird idea. They did a nontopsy without really any clue was just look like to you guys they were checking for soup levels was their soup in here that would narrow it down boy I wish we knew what any of this stuff

was wow what is this one the squishy one it's all squishy why do we do this how are you doing this this is actually disrespectful I'm actually getting skisged out right now from doing this uh so they couldn't they couldn't figure out a cause and like I said other people were becoming ill. You can't and decided I think I'm gonna get back to Pennsylvania for a while to recuperate, you know, just wanted to be in his own bed for a bit and As he left the national hotel went back to Pennsylvania to to get better. I guess eat some chicken soup and rest. Well, wait, what? Oh, chicken.

No, not the soup again. The cases stopped. People stopped getting sick. So was it just that one? So magical night. Well, here's what could you guess what people began to think? It is a tumultuous time in American political history.

The president-elect stated it herself. It was exactly what people began to think. Was this a poisoning? Did somebody try to kill James Buchanan? With soup. They knew how much he loved a nice soup. So a lot of people, it's barley vegetable. I'm editorializing here, but I feel like with speculative nonfiction, that's okay.

He liked, I've read that he was not a particularly healthy guy anyway. He wasn't a particularly healthy eater and he also was a bit of a drinker. And generally speaking, was not in great shape even before all of the diarrhea. Kind of a maybe a donut whiskey soup. That doesn't sound appealing. I like those words you said, donut whiskey and soup, but not together. Perhaps a hot pocket vodka. It's hot. It's hot.

Hot pocket. It's hot pocket. It's hot pocket. It's hot pocket. It a hot pocket vodka. It's a hot pocket. 2019. Where is the hot pocket vodka? It's about time, I think. So anyway, people began to theorize was he poisoned? Was this a poison in your attempt? Somehow the rumor that it was arsenic got out and people were saying it was arsenic, which there was an evidence for, but, you know, people talked about it. But nobody was quite sure, like, well, none of that really makes sense, but at the same

time, it did stop after he left and went home. Right. So, maybe it was related. And then we get to wonder who could have tried to assassinate the president. There were different rumors that went around where was it a political rival? Was it maybe an abolitionist? You know? Oh yeah.

There was a lot of talk that they started to blame it on staff members of the national hotel, specifically, like former freed slaves at the national hotel, except the problem with that theory is that there were, in fact, none employed at the national hotel, except the problem with that theory is that there were, in fact, none employed at the national hotel. Exactly. The entire staff was white, so there was, that was absolutely not the case, but the series went wild.

You know, who could have tried to kill James Buchanan? Now, all of this talk is not great at the beginning of someone's presidency. Right. So, so to tumult. Exactly. A lot of intrigue. It's really going to distract from your ability to like guide policy or whatever James Buchanan was interested in doing. Who knows? It doesn't sound like he was very successful in doing much of anything. So whatever his plans were, he thought they were going to be dashed by all of this intrigue. So I thought you were going to say diarrhea, but that too. But he mainly was concerned about the talk. And he didn't, he needed to find a way to kind of squash it.

He didn't really think it was an assassination attempt. He was not particularly concerned. That's also a bad look. Like people hate my gut so much. They're willing to take me out before I meet in an office. Well, and also like kill a bunch of innocent bystanders, you know. So, I mean, that could have been me. I love soup. Yeah. Right. Now you've gone too far. So he decides it's a combination of his concern about all of the gossip and the fact that

he was good friends, as I already mentioned, with the people who own the national hotel. He decides that the best way to squash this rumor was for him to show that there was nothing to fear by staying at the national hotel again. Oh, I love this. He's going back to the scene of the crime to prove that he's that he ain't scared He ain't scared of the national hotel and he he that way I think two soups and it was probably the thought Historically that it was mainly because he didn't want the national hotel to get a bad name because he's buddies with them

But either way he went back and he stayed there right before his March 4th inauguration to show that there was nothing to fear. And as you may have guessed, he got sick again. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I don't know. We all need to ensure that he's gone. Yes. He he he was never completely recovered from his initial bout. And now he was sick again. It was actually, he was very ill on the day of his inauguration, his speech, everything. It was barely making it through because of how nauseous and then the diarrhea and the weakness and everything, the abdominal pain, everything that had

followed this illness and then it's the recurrence of it. He actually had his naval surgeon with him throughout the entire ceremony, like near his side, just in case. He would keep this surgeon by the way with him for weeks and weeks after this illness, and like he kept promising him, if you'll just please like stay here with me Just in case I don't want to die. Please just stay nearby

And tell me what to do so that I get through this if you just please do this. I'll give you a really great position in the government He never did he kept promising this poor doctor I'm gonna do this where I'm gonna do this where I'm gonna give you this favor if you'll just like take care of me and hang out And then you never did it eventually at the doctor got fed up with him and left him like Month later, okay, I'm confused because you said that like okay a bunch of people got sick and then it kind of just kind of stopped right? Mm-hmm, but then he goes back and he gets sick. He gets sick again That's so sad. The initial bat was in January right? Right. He went back to Pennsylvania. I was like a recurring problem though

When he wasn't there right? No, no, nothing happened in the intervening months. And then when he comes back on March 3rd, he gets sick again. Okay. Yeah. Wow, that's so strange. I know. Exactly, exactly. So anyway, he makes it through the inauguration because it's not just the speech, right? It's all like the parties and everything that follow. And he credited that by the way, to the fact that the doctor was giving him little sips

of brandy all throughout the day. And he thought that that's what fortified him against the illness and enabled, it's a pretty cool doc, enabled him to make it through. But this second outbreak, so to speak, was not just isolated to the newly inaugurated president. Other people got sick again. And this was especially weird too,

because it is thought that this second time he stayed at the national hotel, as far as we know all he ate there were like crackers. But somehow he got sick again. There's one thing that I love with my crackers. That makes me a lot of suspicions. Maybe he just didn't want to admit that he ate the soup again. He ate the soup again.

Just some crackers I think. Did you eat the soup again? No, I don't think I did. Did you seriously eat the soup again? There was soup. How could you eat the soup again? Think how much do you love soup? Just love the cracker is with it But you got to have a dip of them or they get so dry You know how dry crackers get so the results of this

Second I have to have incredibly powerful diarrhea if you'll excuse me. It has nothing to do with the soup. It's soup irrelevant. It's not fixed to the soup. So not only, like I said, not only did he get sick, but a lot of other people again get sick and the result of the second outbreak are even more deaths. Representative John Montgomery of Pennsylvania dies in April.

Representative John Quipman of Mississippi died in July of the following year from like ongoing after effects of the disease. And then former representative David Robuson of Pennsylvania dies in June of 1859. Again, of complications from the same disease that all started at this March outbreak in 1857. And people, this just continues to like get the rumor mill

going because two of these representatives, as I mentioned, are from Pennsylvania. Very suspicious. As, as is Buchanan, and the other representative was politically aligned with him. And another person who perished to this outbreak was James Buchanan's nephew who was supposed to be his personal secretary, but died before it was able to actually. I'm assuming he was not around him. He was driving with him. Oh, interesting. Yes. So, as all of this happens, people are just certain.

This has to be this poisoning attempt. This is certainly it was because all these people from Pennsylvania are dying. And James Buchanan and his family member and James Buchanan is sick. So, all these rumors are going around. At the same time, the hotel is shut down for a period of time for some cleaning. At which point they find a dead rat in the water tank of the hotel. That could be your problem right there. Which it seems like a strange thing to publicize, but I guess if the alternative is there's

a murderer in our hotel. The dead rat's like, hey, good news. We can get that out. On the right side, we know a guy who knows the guy had to get rid of dead rats. And it's weird because that was kind of like, that was published as like, see it's fine. We found the dead rat, it was just the dead rat. We got it out. Everything's good now. One. There is an argument though that it wasn't even that cute. It's like a big deal. They didn't. Apparently the water tank was just for like bathing and stuff.

It wasn't actually for drinking. It wasn't potable water. So then the thought was like, but nobody was drinking that water. So why did they blame it on the dead rat? Either way, they did find a dead rat. Other doctors said, no, no, no, it's nothing, it's not murder, it's not a dead rat, it wasn't the soup, it was a measma. Because this was a period in history where the measma theory of disease was very popular, which was basically the idea that diseases were like these bad smells

that drifted bad air that drifted, you know, through the air and could just like make you sick. And they could specifically come from things like dead animals or rotting garbage or gross things human waste could give off these errors of disease. And then you would inhale them and get sick. And so a lot of doctors said, well, if you go inside the hotel, you'll notice how bad it smells there, that it smells very bad inside. It's a bad smelling hotel. Yeah, very stinky hotel. It's very stinky.

It's very stinky. It's very stinky. And it was noted that because of like additions had been built on the hotel over the years, and the additions had been built in a really haphazard way. And so the ventilation didn't actually like go, it didn't ventilate properly. This is nowhere. No, this is just a city out of your room and into another room.

Yeah. And so like bad smells would be forced from one room to the next, but not like out of the building. Yeah. And specifically some of the vents went the wrong way. And so periodically guests would report just like sewage, like air that reaked of sewage, just like blasting through a vent at such speeds

that they would say it would put candles out in their rooms. So like your room is being pumped full of like sewer gas periodically. So the whole place smelled so bad you could see where if you thought the meads, my theory of disease was real, you'd go in the hotel and smell these like foul smelling gusts of wind and go well, it's just that. The disease is just seeping into all the rooms and making everybody sick. And then of course there were still people who insisted, no, no, no, it was murder because of the timing. And and this was even for a while listed as an assassination attempt

on Buchanan, you could see like Buchanan assassination attempts in national hotel disease. They used to call it the Buchanan grip sometimes. Oh, that's unfortunate. What was it? You know, that's a bad president. If one of the things that you can be named for is the diarrhea that you had out of time. That's a tough legacy. It's interesting on a side note, it's thought that this probably shaped to somewhat, not maybe not to a large extent, but it did help shape the Buchanan presidency because he was quite sick for a while. Like he suffered with the after effects of this disease

throughout at least the first year of his presidency if not longer. And it definitely made him less capable of like with standing long meetings or big, you know of doing like Tough negotiating and that kind of thing and so there's some thought that like this this physical illness may have impacted his abilities As a president which is is only interesting in the sense that it changes the course of human history and it's its disease Which is need to think about but on the flip side it sounds like James You can't it also wasn't very like wasn't a very good president period, like diary and almost standing. What was the national hotel disease really? I don't know.

Well, it was probably just plain old dysentery is what we think now. As I mentioned, the hotel was gross. DC was gross. It was, if you, I mean, if you look just beneath the surface of all the all the finery and all of the, you know, politicians in their hand tailored suits and all that, you just saw like human refuse in the streets. So like, it would have just been, it would have been very easy for some of that to contaminate the food and or somebody's hands or the sheets or the towels or the surface. I mean, like everything could have been covered in poop and you wouldn't have known. So it's probably

just dysentery. There were doctors a few years later who started referring to it as a light color. Just a light color. Oh, of color. Is it a diet color? A diet color. I probably wasn't color a color. It's so much a good Twitter username. The best of luck. Fortune favors the ball of y'all.

But it probably was just some sort of dysentery that somebody picked up from not washing their hands. When they went number two, got it on something that somebody else touched and got in their mouth and, if you could oral route, but there it goes. James, you can't have went on to become one of the worst presidents in the United States history.

According to people who know these things, I am not making that. That is not a subjective statement. That's not my opinion. These are just things I have read. The historians have read. Not a serious original there. No, people who are smarter than me these are just things I have read. The historians have read the original. No, people who are smarter than me about history and the presidents have said that.

And I guess that sounds pretty true because he never really seemed to weigh in on the issue of slavery in any effective way. And of course, this was 1857, what would happen in the 60s? Well, the Civil War. I mean, yes, bad. And the bad is, bad. I mean, good in the sense that it ended slavery, but bad, would have totally groovyed in slavery without it. Without all the killing would have been better not to have it. But James, you can't have didn't seem to help much with any of this. The national reopened and it did well until it was torn down during

World War Two. It was just not because of World War II, it's a time period. It is now the site of the museum. So if you've ever... For another three months, because that's close to the end of the year. Is that when it's closing? I didn't know if it had moved. But anyway, if you've ever been...

They're looking for another, as I understand it, at least. They're looking for another thing. But if you've ever been to the museum, that is the site of the once, once beautiful, but pungent national hotel and the dysentery that almost took down President James, you can't them. Darius, so bad they named it after him. Lord, please, if anybody is do that fate, it is probably me. But please

don't let me have a diary named after me. I just I just would like to be spared that fate. If I could, I guess if you're ever at the museum, don't eat the soup. Don't eat the soup. You never know. You never know. Folks, that's going to do it for us. Thank you so much for listening to our program. If you liked what you heard, there's a lot more on our website. You can put it on over to dietcallerah.com and you can see all of our episodes. I just grabbed that. You did?

Oh, no. It's fine. It's a good use of our film. It's fine. It's totally fine. You can see more of our episodes there. I'll leave us a rating or review or what have you. We really appreciate it. There's a really cool book. I've been able to read part of it. I couldn't read the entire thing in preparation for this episode, but I read part of it.

Carrie Walters wrote Outbreak in Washington, D.C. The 1857 Mystery of the National Hotel Disease, what is the entire book dedicated to this outbreak? It's just a cool, like, little story of the outbreak itself and then the history of the time. Anyway, if you're fascinated by this story, which I was, I would recommend this book so far, I've really enjoyed it. October 19th, we are going to be at the King's Theater with my brother and brother, me.

And that is a newly added show so you can still get tickets to that. All the other shows pretty much for the year are sold out, especially at least on the saw bones front. So if you want to get tickets to those, you can do that at McElroy.Family. And then click on tours. We also have on McElroy.Familyfamily is where you can find a link to merchandise. We've got a new Curels, Cure Nothing t-shirt that is very cool that I think that you will very much dig. And there's also a Pro Vax enamel pin. It's a design by Megan Cobb, those previously just for Max Fun donors,

and she's reworked the design, and we're selling those to benefit the immunization action coalition, which spreads awareness and information about vaccines. So it's a very cool organization. And it's the time of year to get your flu shot. Get your flu shot, Sydney and I got ours today. High five. Yes. And you should get yours now to go to a drug store, the time of year to get your flu shot. Get your flu shot. Sydney and I got ours today. High five. Yes. Woo.

You should get yours now to go to a drug store. You know, it'll take you 10 minutes. Just just go get it done. You don't need to go to the doctor's office if you don't. That's going to do it for us. Oh, thanks to taxpayers for these sorts of medicines as the Internature Rural Program. And thank you to you for listening.

We're going to be back with you next week. But until then, my name is Justin McRoy. I'm Sydney McRoy. And it's always don't. Jill a hole in your head. All right. Yeah. Maximumfun.org. Comedy and culture.

Artist, don't. Audience, support. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alright! Maximumfun.org Comedy and Culture

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