Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Pliny the Elder

Episode Date: June 9, 2016

In a way, it's all lead up to this. Live from the PlayStation theater in New York City, we've finally dedicated an entire episode to Pliny the Elder, patron saint of Sawbones. Also: A musical number! Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saw bones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. All right. What's wrong with me? It's about books.

One, two, one, two, a table. All right. Hello everybody and welcome to Saul Bones, a marital tour of Miskite and Medicine. I'm your co-host Justin McElroy. And I'm Sydney McElroy. You okay? Who's that? All right. And I'm Sydney McAurley. Okay, I'm going to have to get the judo meter out here a little later to see where exactly on the... okay, that's fine.

They just know me already, they're just comfortable with me now, it's fine. We have a thing. Yeah. We have a thing. Special chemistry. Hello! New York City Center of the universe I can't say the next line because we were in a clean show. That's true

But anyway, don't listen to rain. It's the third time that you've broken into rent since we've been here Yeah, and by here she means literally on the wings of the stage and here It's been a robust evening. So Sydney, this is a big show for us. It's the biggest city based on the planet New York City. And you said you wanted to do something like really special for this one. Something that we really set it apart. That's true. And I thought what is more special, if you don't listen to saw bones, you should. Same on you. But we talk about medical history and all the things

that we've done wrong in the past in medicine. And one of our most frequent guests, I guess, guests, special guests. I guess, yeah, special guests guest. Yes, special guest. Is someone called Pliny the Elder? It's happening. It's about time we gave Pliny his own show. And I thought he deserved a live show and a live show in New York City.

Yeah, Pl of the elder. He certainly knew of your city. Certainly one day he dreamed of performing on the great white way. Now we are fulfilling that dream for Plenty the Elder. It makes me so happy to think that we're saying Plenty the Elder and people are cheering for him right now. I was like, you know, if he could have even imagined.

What a treat it must be for him. I can't imagine. If you don't listen to our show, you're going, what? Who? This is a guy. I'm going to tell you who. So Plenty the Elder, also known as Gaius Plineus Sokundus.

Nice, I go and Pliny too. I don't know, Gaius, that's a good name. Gaius is good, and he kind of loses the plot. Then he brings it back towards the end. That's all over the place. Do you think his parents are just big fans? What, a battle started in Mexico? I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,

I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,

I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,

I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,

I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, And we wanted to perform in a passion play called Battle Star Galactica. I say passion plays because they didn't have a TV. And I know they have those, I think, probably. What's his story?

So he was born in 80, 23, lived until August 25, 80, 79. We know that exact date. That's rare. We should know those kind of dates. But we do because it was a big event, and I'll tell you about that. But not until the end, we want him to live first. So he was born to Guyus Plinius seller and Marsella in Como. He had a sister that was named Pliniya.

Pliniya. Pliniya, I like that's cute. It is cute. I don't know that there were twins, but in my mind there were twins They were members of the equestrian class What I made of that. I know I know you are I Didn't make this off you'd think I did but I didn't know and I had to look what does that mean because my thought was the the

Hort the horse class and I didn't know what that signifying the caste system. So that meant that they had at least 400,000 cisteras and presumably horses, I guess. Yeah. I mean, I figure. Or they were horses. And that. Was plenty of horses all the time?

No, probably not. I was probably a person. Because they're riding. You can always tell a horse by the fact they can't ride. You got it. Yeah. Trinx toot, don't be fooled. Heck, it can still be a horse, my friend. We've got two horses on each other's shoulders,

trying to sneak into the show earlier in a trench coat. Yeah, mustache, glued it on, with his brother. Because horses are made at whatever. Anyway, that's the next show. It's the next show. The horse isn't glue. So that was because you had to be rich to own a horse at the time, so a equestrian class.

And no one really knew what to do with horses yet. Like you had one, and that was great. But you didn't really know, like, what do we do with them? And we have to feed them and take care of them. So that's like a lot of money for something that we're not really sure to, like, we're not yoking it to things and plowing things or whatever. I don or whatever, whatever you do. Whatever practical use a horse has. I feel like.

So, and if you rode a horse in battle, then basically you just got to kind of hang back and like watch all the other guys on foot do all the work. So it was like a big deal if you could have a horse because then you lived, I guess. So anyway, that was the class he was part of. He was an author, obviously, we're going to talk a lot about what he wrote, but he was also a Navy and Army commander for the Roman military, and he was a buddy of one of the emperors of the Spasian, and he was a philosopher and a lawyer and a naturalist, so he had, he wore many hats. Busy guy.

Yeah, I don't know if he wore hats, but... No, they weren't hats. Busy guy. Yeah, I don't know if he wore hats, but sure. No, they weren't invented for 100 years. No. There was, if you ever look, if you ever Google Plenty, you'll find a beer, which is great, Plenty, the Elder, the Beer. But you'll also probably stumble across Plenty, the Younger,

who was his nephew, not his son. Pliny never had any children. He never married, never had any children. But he did have a nephew, and he left everything to him, including his name, I guess. So that's probably part of the deal. Actually, that was probably more a condition than an inheritance.

That's a color of Pliny. So before he started saying a lot of things about medicine that were wrong, that are the reason we're talking about him on a podcast, he rose through the ranks of the military. That was the beginning of his career. He was already a writer, and he wrote books about launching missiles and throwing things while on horseback.

Like, how to do that well Well, you're not a big book guy. That sounds like a very good book to me Yes, please He wrote a history of various wars after his service ended he wanted to write books of more meaning But this was during Nero's reign. And so you couldn't write anything, because he was kind of crazy, Nero was.

So you couldn't write anything that was really controversial, because then he'd have you killed. So he had to be kind of like flying under the radar. So he wrote books mainly about like grammar and rhetoric, and I mean, pretty, that's boring stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah, grammar. And it like a biography of a friend, it's pretty harmless.

But under Vespasian, he actually got to hold a role in the government and then he began to like pursue what he wanted to do. He was like a local governor of sorts, to parts of like France and Spain and Libya. He was a trusted advisor to the Emperor until his death. And then he returned to Rome in like 80, 75, 76. And this is when he wrote the book and then published it the following year that we know him best for. And the book that I cite on our show a lot. And that's natural history.

Now natural history is a huge book. It's sort of like the first encyclopedia, more or less. It makes sense that we would want to write down what natural history was, because you walk outside one of those or a tree. Was there a tree there last week? I have no way of knowing. I don't know. There's one now. That should be enough for you. Living the moment, Dan.

Danious. Danious. And plenty could tell you, because he wrote down all the trees. He wrote down all the trees and all the rocks and all the plants, all the animals. He wrote about space. He wrote about humans. He wrote about history. He wrote about anything. It was everything.

It was the like, in Carter, maybe, at their time. Oh, the phone. If that's the card of his time, what's the in-carta of our time? Because it ain't in Carter. What? That entire brand name has been relegated to win breakers from the mid 90s. I worked out at Carter.

Good. Congratulations. You should define products. A lot of deaths. In Carter? You know about Wikipedia. I've seen you on it. In Carter? You know about Wikipedia, I've seen you on it.

In Cardo? You can tell the city's work on an episode of Salmas, because you see we're going to like hosts. And then, man, nothing there. Let's check Dogbile. Better ask James if he could check in Carter. In Carter. I don't still have that disc.

So he made in Carter. So he made in Carter. I mean, basically, it was not infinite. It was finite. It was an encyclopedia. Right. It was an encyclopedia. There are 37 books in natural history. And like I said, it covers a huge variety of topics,

including, of course, one book devoted entirely to how best to throw a spear from the back of a horse. Because he was really into that. But there were, and you can find all this, by the way, you can find the entirety of natural history online. I search it constantly when we're doing our show to look for what did Blinney say about this disease,

or this treatment treatment or whatever. And it's all available publicly, which is cool for me. Anyway, I don't know about for you, but for me, it's cool. And many of the books in it are titled things like remedies derived from and then the forest trees or living creatures or aquatic animals or whatever. There are some that are titled by the remedy first, so it's like a niece, 61 remedies with a niece,

or dill, nine remedies. So you could search it either way, which is really useful for me when I'm doing my medicine now. Right. There are 35 remedies derived from wool, which was amazing to me. That's a whole chapter. Here are 35 things you can do with wool to cure you. It's more like a good housekeeping article.

And they're wide-ranging. He was covering everything. The Anesthe one, which is lengthy because there's 61 remedies. It includes things as diverse as like scorpion stings, bad breath, low appetite, and bad dreams. So, any of those things. So, anything you want to do with wool, the options are free. Now, some other things Pliny said in his book.

If he were alive today, aside from being, I think, very flattered by all this, I have to say, he would not like me very much. He was not a fan of physicians at all. He in book 29, chapter 8, which is titled, Evil's Attendant Upon the Practice of Medicine. He says, is it the expense of our perils that they learn and they experimentalyze by putting us to death? A physician being the only person that can kill another with sovereign impunity.

I mean like like okay back then though yeah. had a point. No. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nobody knows anything. I'm with plenty on this one. Well, not now. You guys are cool now, for sure. Love it. House-mash big fan. But like, back then, for sure.

For sure, for sure, for sure, not good enough. Which I think is where this impulse to not just tell people about the natural world, but to say, and also you can use that for this, I think that's where that came from, was this distrust like doctors don't know what they're doing. I'm going to give the medical knowledge to the people,

which is like a cool impulse. Like I'm going to put this book out there and it's going to tell you how you can use wool to fix you. You don't have to go to your doctor, because they'll kill you and they won't be held accountable. So some highlights from natural history, because that's always our favorite thing to do, is to talk about all the silly stuff that plenty recommended. So for instance, for it to think, plenty would recommend that you take a hippopotamus's left tooth.

I don't know how you're gonna get that. Shhh, very carefully. Uh, hippos, hippos don't like that. I bet, I don't know, I stay away from them. Um, and you're gonna rub it in your mouth for your toothache. If you survive all that, you probably won't care about your toothache. Uh, if you didn't want to do that, you could take a wolf's head

like off the wolf first. Sure. Separate it. And then you want to reduce it to ash. I mean, you can figure that part out. And then you can eat that. Yeah. It's a really good game of thirteenth episode. I just... LAUGHTER Plenty had a lot to say about teeth. He said that you could take the filth of the tail of sheep. What? LAUGHTER And use that to strengthen your teeth.

And you're stomachache. I will keep my weak teeth. Thank you. LAUGHTER I'm good. The medicines, the medicines, that ask you let my cards for the mouth. Myse head bones, like the bones from a mouse said, were good for toothpicks.

And if you could capture a lizard during a full moon, the bones from the front part, I don't know what front part, just the front part of the lizard. And, automatically speaking, we're good for that. But don't use vulture quills. Oh, no. They cause bad breath. Oh, should've guessed.

You could try porcupine instead. And I will. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. We've done a whole episode on hangovers before, but I think I instead. And that one. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. We've done a whole episode on hangovers before, but I think I might have missed this one. For hangovers, he recommends a deep fried canary? I mean, probably.

Right? If you're hungover today, tomorrow, think about like, you don't want to go for for sure. Um, for hemorrhoids, which were a problem then too, you could make a cream out of pig lard. Sure. And you also need some rust from cherry at wheels. Okay.

Where do we draw the line between this and which cry? Like these are spells. They're basically spells at this point. Or you could just use an onion as a suppository. Okay. Okay. No, what? I just started to give me a wild line of like my basic geometry and have so little like not.

And now Plenty, he was like an equal opportunity, offender, I don't know, everyone put it, but he was worried about us ladies as well. And for all of our female complaints, whatever those may be, you just take some rams wool and steep it in oil and then put it there. I could use that, Sydney's got a lot of female complaints about me.

If you know what I'm saying, fellas, walk a walka. I did my best. Sorry. Are you done with those jokes now? Or are you that proud of your system? All used to be good. Now, Wool, as I mentioned, he had a lot of uses for that. If you didn't have female complaints, perhaps you just have general pains in your loins.

What you could do with that Wool is You just have general pains in your loins. What you could do with that wool is steep it in a mixture of boiling, nitrous sulfur, oil, vinegar, tar, and apply that twice a day as warm as possible to your loins. The pain will be gone. That's just for you.

Oh, great. Sure, I'll with that one up. He has an entire chapter, book 29, chapter 20. Remedy's derived from dragons. Okay. What in the heck? Man, I wish I could curse. What in the heck?

Dragons? Dragons. I'll be funny enough, more plentiful today than anything else. Man, I wish that could curse. What the heck? Dragon? Stragons. I'll be funny enough, more plentiful today than in Carter, ironically. I'm assuming this term was used for other animals that weren't, because he talks about it like he's done it. Like, he's used these things. So there were some things calling a dragon.

Plenty of them, that's still. But you could take its eyes, dry them, and then beat them with some honey. You know, like you would like scrambled eggs. Beat them with some honey. And then you can make a lintement, and that's really good against ghosts. LAUGHTER So plenty of the elder has basically become a D&D character in this one, right? He's basically like the old guy who works at the apothecary.

LAUGHTER Now, as long as you've captured a dragon and killed it, why not use all parts of the dragon? Sure, anything else to be wasteful? It's fat is good at repelling venomous creatures. Now, to be fair... I heard somebody on it and go, What is wrong with you?

Dragons! I'm gonna write this down. Sailing in Germany. I don't like snakes at all. I don't like snakes out of that lady mitch. But he does mention, like there's like a footnote, and he's like, well, and he, I mean, yes, that is how you could repel snakes. But that might be hard for you to get the dragon fat.

So instead, you could take some vinegar and put it on some stinging nettles and then rub those all over your skin and snakes won't want to bite you then either. Probably not. Probably a little chewsier than that. Well, because they're gonna be, they're gonna think you're like scary crazy.

They're going to be like, whoa, whoa, check that guy. Did you see what he just did? I'm not getting close to that guy. For the cure of cataract, if you have cataracts, you could use the ashes of a weasel, assuming you have those. Other cures for the eyes, specifically for glaucoma, you could take some partridge eggs and then you boil those in a copper vessel and add some honey. And that's perfect for your glaucoma. Oh good, okay. That's not too bad. Now if you have

lice, which is again, that was a problem then, it's problem now. What you want to do for the nits and what I'm usually telling people are like, you gotta get all the nits out, you gotta comb, get all the nits out. Nope, you can destroy them by using dogs fat or eat a snake that was cooked like an eel. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Sorry, what?

I don't know how you cook an eel. So I guess that's step one. I'm like, eel. Step one. Eel fry snake. Step one. How do you cook a meal? They don't have that on the card. No, not on the card.

Now you may be wondering how did old Plenty die? He published this book and it was very... Like I said, it was kind of the beginning of like, what we think of as encyclopedias at this point. So I was like a big deal. And he really did. He, I'm making fun of kind of his curious, but he cataloged basically everything

in the natural world and told all kinds of human histories as well. The way that Plenty died might be kind of heroic, maybe. We're not sure. So he sailed a ship to Pompeii. Mech-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-mach-m there. And he was trying to save his friend, Rectina and her family from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Wow. It's very nice. I'm sure he appreciates that. You may want to let her finish the story. I read ahead a bit.

There are multiple accounts of this, as you may imagine. The most common story goes that when he got there, the wins were so strong back towards Pompeii that he wasn't able to sail away from Pompeii, and so they died there, and we're not able to sail away. His friends, people advised him, like, turn back, don't go. And he was like, fortune favors the brave. And then he took off. So like, that's like his heroic ending. That's like the good. It's like another Wayne's world thing. This is the heroic ending. Unfortunately, there were other versions of this story. So one version hinges

on the fact and you may be surprised to hear, Plenty was not like a healthy guy. He apparently was in pretty bad shape. Like, he had a bad heart, his lungs didn't work so well, something, I don't know. But anyway, he may have gotten there and had a heart attack, or he may have had a heart attack in the boat on the way there. and had a heart attack, or he may have had a heart attack in the boat on the way there, or there's one story that says he never even left.

Like he talked about it. He said like, I'm gonna, in a minute, I'm gonna go save. Just 10 minutes, I gotta have lunch first. Then I'm gonna go save my buddy and her family and oh, my heart. So there's also that that version. So we don't know. I'm going to choose to believe the first one. Perception is reality. He went there. He saved your daddy hero. Yeah. I'm going to give plenty. I'm going to have plenty of the benefit of the doubt and say that he did. He died a hero trying to save his friend in Pompeii. Hooray for a pliny. Yeah. So. APPLAUSE

Hooray. Now, plenty deserves, I think, more than just a story. What's more poignant than a story, but a story told in song? That's how I feel about it? Yeah, for sure. So where's your guitar? You know, you're talking to bring it. It's so heavy.

It's so heavy. I wrote this whole song about Plenty. Hold on, I gotta, wait, hold on. I got you. I got my anna and Elsa cup here. You have a cup? My anna and Elsa cup. What are you going to do with that cup? I stole it from Charlie. What is your plan with this cup? Oh, no. Riley taught him how to do this. That's true. That's 100% true. Whatever you're ready, Sid. I bought a tincture from the sky in town. Two bottle urine and some hay

And I sure hope it can cure pleuracy Cause Plenty says refunds aren't his way It's all wrong, it's all wrong I'm drinking pee and it's all wrong I'm gonna eat a fox's brain and feel exactly the same Cause Plenty the the elders always wrong It's all wrong, it's all wrong Bat blood on snake bites know that's wrong

He told me I should lick a snail and that my period stops hail Cause plenty the elders always wrong So yeah my pluralist's still got me down. But plenty says he's got great news. He's got maggots, he's got livers, he's got rabbit poop for shivers, and a buy one get one sale, I just can't lose. But it's wrong, it's all wrong.

A bogo sale on stuff that's wrong Sure, he's offering great deals if you don't care if you're healed Cause plenty the elders always wrong, it's all wrong, it's all wrong It's true that plenty's always wrong, but he helped to pave the way and died a hero in Pompeii. There are way worse things to be than wrong. Thanks everybody. We're back in 15 minutes. Thank you so much to New York. My name is Justin McRoy.

And Sydney McRoy. And it's always dope. Drill a hole in your head. I'm not a bad guy, I'm not a bad guy. It's too tight to stay. You stay with my, my big girls. you