Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: The People vs. The Spleen

Episode Date: January 28, 2016

This week on Sawbones, it's The Trial of The Century as Justin tries to prove to Sydnee once and for all that the spleen is useless. Take your seats, here comes the judge. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

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 doing that's lost it out. We were shot through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

Some medicines, some medicines that escalate my cop for the mouth. Wow! Previously on Salvans I Feel bad for this playing it got a bad rap and then everybody just got rid of it Nobody even knows what it's for. I mean, I do but we'll we'll talk about that in another episode I don't believe you. I mean, I don't believe you. We'll talk about about it. Triple. Don't believe you don't need it for anything Like you know you need your spleen. You absolutely.vill, don't believe you don't mean it. Is there anything? Like it, it's-

No, you need your spleen. You absolutely, okay. There's no way you need your spleen. I have a spleen. Yes, you, okay. Do you absolutely need your spleen? Do people have their spleen's removes? Yes, sometimes.

Your honor, the defense rest. But there are spleen's. Hello, everybody. I'm Justin McRoy. And I'm Sydney McRoy. And it's on. The people versus the spleen the day you've been waiting for for two weeks is finally here I don't understand in this

corner okay all rational people know that the spleen is a big useless lump of body cheese okay in that corner Sydney by herself. This plane is a made of cheese. We start fast. This plane is a made of cheese. Of buddy cheese. No. Oh. In this corner, all rational people in that corner, it's just Sydney out on a limb. 12 angry men. Can she win them over? So as you can tell, Justin has been watching too much of the grinder. And 12 angry men. And 12 angry men. He's just, I'm having a second over and over again.

Second screen experience with 12 angry men, but that's on my eyes. He's really just watching that Amy Schumer episode about 12 angry men. Yeah. So Sydney of nobody needs their spleen. That's not true. Can that be the whole episode? That you're wrong. You need a spleen.

We gotta do it. You can live without it, but it's better if you have it. We have to do the ads too, so that can't be the whole thing. Oh, okay, well that's fair. So Justin doesn't appear to know anything about the spleen. That's, okay, this is my point, and I'm gonna state my case first

because I think my case, let me short her. Dube and I said it in the last episode, I'll repeat it here. Dube people get their spleen removed. Yes. Do they get them replaced? No. You don't need your spleen.

Thank you. No, but just because you can live without something doesn't mean that it doesn't provide any function and that like there are consequences to not having it. So it's like an extra part in your body. No, it is not an extra part. No, we don't have a lot of extra parts in our body. They're just hard to do.

They're kidding, that's what I keep saying. Okay, I need you to, you're letting me like, Donald, I'm running away with this thing right now. Okay. The jurors are standing up. As jurors are wanting to do in their board, they're standing up and leaving. And they're saying, my mind's made up. I'm going to be. I don't think jurors are want to do in their board. They're standing up and leaving and they're saying my mind's made up. I'm not sure. I don't think jurors are allowed

to do that. But I don't know. I've never been on a jury. How bad I am. Hey, hey, that's what I'm calling out to you. US, uh, judicial branch. Do they get to pick jurors? The judicial branch of the government good to send me a letter. You mean, okay, the Justice Department, the Justice Department? Hey, send me a letter. I'm waiting to be a juror. I just thought I'd use our podcast for more. If you've never seen somebody

who doesn't have a good argument to make, this is what we call stonely. Sydney is stonely because she knows that I have a dominated. No, I'm gonna tell you about the spleen now. But I think in order to understand why yes, the spleen is a necessary organ, we need a little bit of history about the spleen, right?

Because I think that you're not long. The whole spleen is history. Didn't everybody's rear view. No, there are lots of people I think who don't really know what the spleen does. Like I remember, the spleen was always kind of an organ of ridicule and humor to my mind. Like before I understood what it did.

Like I remember people like would joke about the spleen. Like we didn't know anything else. So like an organ like their spleen out there and it was, it sounds funny like spleeny weenie. Remember that, I think that was the thing for invaders and spleeny weenie. I don't know, I don't know. Watch that. People you say that a lot. Everybody said that. You don't remember that. I remember what know, watch that. People you say that a lot. Everybody said that.

You don't remember that, everybody said that. Yeah, I remember what everybody was saying. Everybody was saying that. But for a long time, since ancient time, classical times, people have not known what the spline was for, much like Justin. So you're in good company. Excellent.

Thank you, Lance, for also suggesting this topic, for not knowing what the spline is for and recommending that we educate you. Yeah, we're happy to educate you Lance. There's not much to say to you, but everybody. The spleen is an organ of mystery. It's an international organ of mystery. Like Austin Power.

The spleen. Since. Webster's dictionary defines mystery as the spleen. Austin Power is in the spleen. Those as the story of the powers in the split. Those are the two things that I'm a student. Sydney, you have not made a good point about the spleen yet. We're four minutes in.

Now in the humoral system of medicine. And you remember what that is? Yeah. Before he was, they were trying to keep him balanced like bile and flim and black. Bile, bile and blood. Oopie. No, no, no, yellow, black, black, bio, blood and flim and black. Bile. Bile and blood. No, no, no.

Yellow, black, black, blood and flim. Got it. Clot. That's pretty good. So in the humoral system of medicine, which, as Justin said, that these four humors had to be kept in balance at all times to maintain perfect health, and the way that the reason this was important is that you kept them in balance by giving people various medicines to make them like puke or poop or pee or bleed or whatever.

The spleen was the organ that held the black bile. So it was like the container for it. Apocrates wrote about it, specifically the consequences of an under functioning spleen. So if your spleen didn't work well enough, then it couldn't hold all that black bile. And the way that it got it was like it kind of removed it from the body, from the blood, and then stored it there. So if the spleen was either having trouble like capturing the black bile, or if it wasn't able to store it well, then you could see that in a person because they would be prone to bouts of melancholy or maybe temper.

Got it. Hence the term venting one spleen. Oh, okay. Well, it makes sense now. Have you, are you fine? I haven't heard that yet. So that means like you get really angry and it's because your spleen is not containing

all of the black bile well and so it's spilling out. It's venting and then you are angry. And that was in general, that was what you, like the spleen was thought to basically do. Like black bio was kind of a negative humor. You needed some of it. It actually was thought to strengthen your bones, but it was, but it was also a kind of a negative thing. And so you wanted it, you know, kept under wraps. Actually, one of the ways they could tell if your spleen was functioning properly was if you were able to laugh.

How do you mean? If you are able to laugh, then your black bile is well contained and therefore your spleen is functioning. If you can't laugh, then you may have too much black bile, your melancholy, your spleen isn't functioning well. Okay.

So basically what I'm saying is if you don't like our podcast, it's probably because your spleen isn't working. You've probably got a malfunctioning spleen right now. Yeah, so essentially the spleen was responsible for keeping you in good spirits. Good spirits, good cheer. San, I had a huge spleen. And it did that. Like I said, it stored the black bile

because it was thought to like draw the watery parts out of food in the stomach. There was this thought that it was connected to the stomach. So it would like suck the watery parts out and store some of it. And then you would eventually, they didn't really know how, but some of it would get excreted from your body. Like you'd poop it out,

but they really didn't know any of those connections. It was just all kind of theoretical. On a side note, black bile, I wanted to bring this up. Black bile is a really interesting concept. Why is that? Okay, so there were four humors, well there aren't, but we thought there were. Right.

And you probably know what blood is. Familiar, yes. You probably know what flim is. Yeah, hawkeleugi. And you may know what blood is. Firmly or yes? Yeah, you probably know what flim is. Yeah, hawkeleghi. And you may know what yellow bile is. That's like what's in what you puke up. Like, okay, yellow puke. Like it's made by a liver.

Yeah. Like there actually is like a yellowish fluid that exists in the body that, I mean, like there's Billy Rubin and there's, and people would be John. So like those are three things that you could easily see coming out of the human body, or if you cut open the human body, like you could find them. Yeah, like what, but black bile is like, we don't see that. Where are they getting that?

Right. So like, what is it? And that's an interesting question. Like, why did it, why did they come up with this concept of black bile. So one theory is that if you bleed certain places and that blood gets digested or broken down to a certain degree, it'll look black. So like, for instance, if you're bleeding in the, in like your stomach or your upper intestines and it makes it all the way down the GI track and then you poop it out, it can look kind of black. We call that melanin. It's like black sticky tari stools.

If you have that, you may be bleeding. Please go see your doctor. And if you throw up blood, it can kind of look black. We call that coffee grounds. Mmm. So, that's advertising. Right. So that's one theory is that maybe that's where black bile come from.

It's come from. The other theory, I kind of like a little more. It's very poetic, is that we had this idea that the four humors were tied to the four elements, earth, air, water, fire. So we just needed a force. So it's made up just to there before from, it's more of a philosophical balance, like it just felt right that there should be four, hence black bile. There you go. That sounds about right from Edison at the time.

Just aesthetics overbractical. Pretty much. Like it sounds good and nobody can prove us wrong. Right. Hippocrates went on to describe the texture of the spleen from presumably from dissecting, you know, I don't think he could just tell, like, based on somebody's the way they look

or the way they act. And he talked about how soft and it was fibrous, Aristotle wrote about it as well, and he was able to locate it in the body. So we know it's kind of like, in what we would call your left upper quadrant. Mm-hmm. Do you know what I mean by that?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I guess this little self-explanatory, we divide the abdomen into four quadrants. Sure, yeah, the left upper one. It makes perfect sense for your spleen. The spleen lives. And it was initially thought after Aristotle kind of wrote where it was, and then after

seen dissections of the spleen in relation to where the liver is, which the liver is over in your right upper quadrant, so opposite from the spleen, it was thought that maybe the spleen was like a left-sided liver. Okay. Because the liver was known to be a really important organ. So it's like the parallel, it's the the anti-liber. Okay, yes. Right. Bizarro liver. The Betty to the liver's Veronica. the Betty to the liver's Veronica. Well, yes. Yeah, sure. Great. Well, they thought that they did the same thing, though. And see, like, if we're going to start talking about Betty and Veronica,

you're going to take me down a whole other road, because they're very... I know that they would look the same if you just switched their hair, but they're very different. So, like, the not the goofest to the liver's gallant. It's like, they're very different. Right. So they're the same. Like, they're Romulus to the livers gallant. It's like they're very different. Right. So they're the same. Like they're Romulus to the livers Remus. Don't I don't understand what you're saying.

Okay. Anyway, it was thought it was the left-sided liver. Okay, got it. The fat like Rome, the founders of Rome, the two boys nursed by the wolf founders of Rome. You're having an episode. I don't know. Anyway, so what's interesting about this concept that maybe the spleen was a left-sided

liver is that the spleen is actually typically much smaller than the liver. And so you would think that just by looking at the two organs, you would know that they didn't do the same thing. So then we start trying to contemplate like, wow, why would they think that the spleen did the same thing? It's the liver. Like, they look different, they're different sizes. They clearly are different organs. And this is, this may have been related to the prevalence of malaria in human history. Because malaria, if you get, like, especially if you get exposed to malaria over and over again over a long period of time, so people were in areas where

malaria was in Demick, who would have gotten it lots of times, your spleen can get big. So maybe early anatomists thought that the spleen was just much bigger than it really is. And so if you just saw the two organs about the same size because a really in large spleen, maybe as big as a liver, maybe it's a left-sided liver. To malaria, I think they literally thought that it was like a liver. Yeah, they thought it just was the liver only on the left.

Just as in like lungs. Yeah, like you had paired, like it was a paired organ. Exactly. Yeah. Now, I have a quick question. Is that accurate? Is that what the spleen is? No, it's not a left-sided liver at all. Oh, yeah.

Your honor. I am the defense attorney here. I am prosecuting the spleen as being useless. Are you Morgan Freeman? No, I'm just like a Southern lawyer. Let the record show that Dr. Smurrow McAroy has talked for 12 minutes and 45 seconds just made up stuff about the spleen, your honor. Just not a single fact in there. So let the

record show she is totally stalling. Just because the spleen will not by the end of this podcast turn out to be a left-sided liver does not mean that it has no use. Justin, I would pause it that you are not a left-sided liver and yet I have somehow found a use for you. You're on the prosecution rests. We will hear more of Dr. Smomacoroise case. I don't know why I keep it out and calling you Dr. Smomacoroise. I don't know. I don't know why I go by Dr. Smell Macro. I don't know, I don't know. I go by Dr., I mean my dad would love that, so you can call me that all day. Dr. Smell Macro. This also led maybe, this may be the reason that everybody agreed that the spleen had no real

useful function because that is what people thought at the time because the spleen was enlarged in many people. This is, again, we're going with this theory because of malaria. And so it was thought to be a hindrance to athletic performance. That you have it or just that it would like get inflamed and... Well, the theory was that it just inherently was, but the reason behind it may have been because so many people were enlarged.

So yes, having an enlarged spleen puts you at risk for it. It's the reason why we tell you if you have mono, don't play any contact sports because mono can cause your spleen to get big. And then if you get hit in the stomach where your spleen is, your spleen can rupture, which is bad. It's a very vascular organ. It's very bloody. It's bad. It's a very vascular organ. It's very bloody. It's bad.

So it may have been- Of all the organs to be felt by imagine being felt by the most useless one in the body. No, no. Okay, but it's not useless. But to your point, the appendix, so just saying,

many people are felt by the appendix and it's useless. Gotcha. Anyway. So it's like a left-sided appendix appendix and it's useless. Gotcha. Anyway. So it's like a left-sided appendix. No, it's not. It's like a left-sided appendix. Let me take this one step at a time.

Everybody, okay, at this time period, a lot of people had malaria. Hence, a lot of spleens were really big. Nobody knew that they were big because of malaria. They just thought, wow, that just spleen is just this really big cumbersome annoying organ. And nobody knows what it does. And it's really big. And if you play basketball with a big goal spleen and somebody elbows you and your big goal spleen,

it ruptures and you die. So spines are bad. And as a result, throughout like Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Babylonian writings, you can find all these references to ways to shrink your spleen. An ancient cosmos. I'm sure there were five ways to shrink your spleen now. Five sexy ways to shrink your spleen for summer. Give your man the tiny spleen he's always dreamed of.

So there were different kinds of potions that you could take and drink that might shrink your spleen. There were peltuses you could apply to your left side to try to make your spleen smaller. There were even descriptions of ways to cauterize. So like burn the left side of your body to try to shrink or destroy your spleen. These are all really bad ideas. Yeah. Because you, one, you need your spleen and two, if you just like damage it, that's, you can kill yourself. Galen being the staff surgeon for the Gladiators, which I didn't know he served as that.

Oh yeah. So he was a surgeon for all the Gladiators, which was probably a messy job. He was obviously able to look at a lot of spleens. He developed a theory that persisted for a while that the organ aided in digestion somehow, that it was somehow connected to the stomach. I mentioned that that was a thought for a long time, and that it would take fluid from the liver and then break it down and send whatever couldn't be broken

down to the stomach, and then it would go from the stomach through the GI tract, through the colon, and be excreted. But he also thought that the liver and the spleen's main function were to just kind of work together to warm the stomach. Like, he thought they kind of enveloped the stomach in like a warm hug, a warm liveriespliny hug, and that that was how you digested food, is that those organs would keep your stomach warm

and then you digest food. And obviously, that's not true. So that's not accurate. No, that is not the function of the liver in the spleen. So are you going to, can you tell me what the spleen actually does? I'm going to get to that Justin. But first things first, why don't you come with me to the billing department? Yeah, it's much telling.

All right, sounds good. Just let the gin up something. I'll give you, buy you a few minutes. It's a billing department. Yeah, it's much taller. All right, sounds good. Just let the gin up something. I'll give you by a few minutes. Billing department. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that I skilled at my cards for the mouth. So small, did you come up with anything yet? Well, just to pick up any more, uh, spleen, spleen tails.

Despite the fact that, uh, just as Justin today has no idea about a spleen, no one in the, uh, no one in the 1500s had any idea about spleen either. He said that a few times. You're running in circles. We felt compelled. Shows running out. We felt compelled to remove them. Uh, which is, I love that.

I love that about the human spirit. We have no idea what this does. Let's get it out. Let's take it out. That's the people I can relate to that though. I'm with it. I'm into it. Why the first surgeon who performed this procedure in 1549 in Naples did it, I'm actually

not clear. I don't know what happened that may have prompted him to attempt to remove a spleen. It was written up as a successful spleenectomy. There is evidence that he may have actually just removed an ovarian cyst instead of a spleen, which is quite another thing altogether. Either way, we know that by 1594, for sure, we successfully removed what we knew was a spleen after a trauma, which was the most common reason someone would have had their spleen removed at that point in time was somebody got punched or stabbed or kicked or something, and the spleen was found to be bleeding. And we didn't know how to stop bleeding other than just like get it out of there. Get it out of there before they bleed to death.

And there are a number of documented splinectomies after that, again, mainly for traumas. In the US, the first splinectomy was done in 1816, and it's kind of a crazy story, a prostitute stabbed a John, said one of our John's in the gut, in the spleen. stabbed a John, one of the John's in the gut, in the spleen. And the guy was basically bleeding to death through this big hole in his abdomen, where his spleen was poking out through. And so the doctor is not really knowing what to do because he just kept bleeding, just kind of locked off everything that was sticking out of the hole.

And the guy survived. Great. Proving that you didn't need the hole, at least he didn't need the was sticking out of the hole. And the guy survived. Great. Proving that you didn't need the hole, at least he didn't need the, whatever part of the spleen they managed to cut off. Really, any. Many more splint activities were done throughout the 1800s, but the results weren't very promising

for the most part due to bleeding and infection and all the other reasons that surgeries back then weren't very effective. And eventually we got good at it by the 1900s and survived about better and all that. But it's interesting that we have this, even before I'm going to tell you how we figured out what this bling did, we have this long history of removing splines. Because why not? Yeah, let's just get them out of there. What do you need them for? You already got a right-sided liver. It's nothing that can go wrong.

So throughout the 16 and 17 hundreds, we began to understand that all of our thoughts about digestion and black bile and all that kind of stuff were probably wrong as far as the spleen was concerned. We were pretty sketchy on what it did do. We still thought that it had something to do with mood and temperament, which is a weird thing. Even after we were starting to let go of this idea of black bile, we were still like, well,

but one way or another, we know that the spleen is involved with you being really down. Like EOR is very splinic. Right. You know, very spliny guy. I've never heard splinic, is that already came up with? Or is it a rowing? Well, it's not a, I don't think you, I don't think it's used that way.

Okay. It's a word. There's a Splenic vein, but I don't think you can use it in this context. We also expanded on the idea that maybe it is a storage organ of some sort. So even if it doesn't store this mythical black bile, maybe it stores something else like blood. Or gushers. Or hormones. Or gushers.

Like actual gushers? Yeah, gummy candy gushers. You gotta storm someone when you eat them. Do you mean like the spleen? It's like a package that stores many gushers? Are you envisioning the spleen as one giant spleen of gushers? No, it stores gushers. It's one place to keep your gushers.

Do you swallow your gushers whole? Oh, yeah, don't you? Otherwise, if you bite them, the goo comes out. It's disgusting. I think that's the whole idea. Sydney, we just hit 25 minutes. It's 26 minutes. Congratulations, everybody.

We basically did it. The spleen doesn't have any purpose. I'm not there yet. Hold on. So the spleen was thought to expand and contract to hold blood and hormones and whatever other fluids we needed it to hold. Like for instance, there was a thought

that if you got really angry, part of what was going on is that you had too much blood circulating and your arteries were all engorged with blood and you might have a stroke if that happens. So the thought was that the spleen was like your fail safe kind of mechanism, like, oh, there's too much blood quick and the spleen would expand and hold all the blood and your spleen would get really big.

So you calm down? Until you calm down. Hold on, let me take that. You need a child, buddy. It was also thought along these same lines that the reason that pregnant women got nauseous and vomited a lot was because another function of the spleen was to like hold the menstrual blood until period time.

And then it would somehow send it to the uterus. So the spleen basically in this permutations like the body's fanny pack. What if the body doesn't have room for it just moves to the spleen basically in this permutations like the body's fanny pack. What if the body doesn't have room for it, just moves to the spleen? Exactly. It's the zipper. It puts its map of tomorrow land. It puts the map of all of Epcot into there and it's wallets. It's a little disposable camera.

A little disposable camera with making in the corner and it just stores it all there on this plane. was a little camera with Mickey in the corner and it just stores it all there on this lane. And this was why if it was, you can see in this context, if it was storing all of this menstrual blood that you're not, you know, getting rid of because you're not having periods because you're pregnant, that you would get really sick because of all the period blood. That's not how that works. No. No. We did begin to understand the vascular chair of the spleen, so like the fact that there were all these blood vessels going in and out of the spleen and the existence of what I'm going to tell you about in a little bit is called the white pulp of the spleen. It wasn't until

the 1800s that we began to understand with the other part of the spleen, the red pulp does, which again I'm going to tell you about in a minute. But this, but this part was a particularly tough cell for people and it was a big hang-up as to why we didn't understand what the spleen did for a long time, is that the red pulp is responsible for removing old red blood cells from circulation. Okay. So like your red blood cells that carry hemoglobin, that carry oxygen, right? You need these. They have a time like they have a lifespan. They don't live forever.

They're not immortal. So they get old, they get damaged, they need to be removed from circulation, make room for new, better functioning, healthy red blood cells. This was a really tough cell for a lot of anatomists, like Virchow, for instance, who was very famous anatomist, who said, no, cell death only occurs if you're sick. There is no physiologic process where you just have cells destroyed and dying. Oh, of course, that's not true.

Right. So once we finally got over that hang-up, we were able to kind of accept part of what the spleen did. Throughout the 1800s, there was a lot of debate on did the spleen destroy red blood cells or did it maybe destroy white blood cells or did it maybe make them? We knew it had something to do with blood cells. There's this great series where this naturalist Edward Crisp in 1855 recorded descriptions

of 334 different species spleens, like to try to help settle the spleen debate. He just wrote about like the size and the appearance and the texture of the splines of 334 different species. I bet we learned a ton from that. No, we didn't really learn anything from it. No, no. No, I mean, it was just, he just recorded all this information. And that was it. The end.

But if you're ever, I think if you're having trouble sleeping one night, if you can dig up Edward Crisps, I'm sure there's like a treatise on this description of 3304. If I get a description of 3304. It goes in a low tone, that would be like ASMR heaven. I hope there are diagrams, I hope there are pictures. Next up we have the, that would be great. A spleen of a baby goat. You can hear it, see here it doesn't do anything.

There's no purpose whatsoever. Next slide. If we could get, if we could get that for Charlie for a birthday, for a birthday present this year, that would be really great. A spleen book. No. The bookleen book. No. The book, Edward Chris description of 334 species spleen. That makes 30 minutes.

Wow, I did not think you'd make it 30 minutes without ever saying that the spleen was in any way. Okay, in the 20th century we began to understand what the spleen does and doesn't do and why we need it. First of all, let me get my drink philium. Okay. The spleen basically has two functions. And as I kind of alluded to, they are tied to the white pulp, has one function and the

red pulp has another function. What do you mean by red and white pulp? It's just a, it's kind of a way we denote different sections of tissue within the spleen. One appears kind of whitish, one is reddish, and so there you go. The white pulp produces white blood cells, which obviously help you fight infection. So they're part of the system,

part of your body immune system. They help you fight off certain kinds of bacteria, and they also help these cells mature. What's important about specifically your spleen in terms of your immune function is that if you have your spleen removed while you still can fight off infections, you are very bad at fighting off infections from what we call encapsulated bacteria, which are certain kinds of bacteria like pneumococcus, for instance, pneumonia, or meningitis.

You've heard of that. Okay, you should look scared in there. Ooh, meningitis. Ooh, meningitis. Homoffelus influenza. There are some other encapsulated bacteria that can cause some really serious infections that if you don't have a spleen,

you lose your kind of natural, any immunity to that you have. So, which is why people who have a spleen, you lose your kind of natural, any immunity to that you have. So which is why people who have their spines removed have to get special vaccines that may be special boosters that maybe they wouldn't have had to get yet or wouldn't have had to get these boosters otherwise. The red pulp part of the spleen is the part that I already mentioned helps to remove old red blood cells from circulation, which is super important so that you just don't have countless numbers of damaged old dysfunctional red blood cells from circulation, which is super important so that you just don't have countless numbers of damaged, old dysfunctional red blood cells circulating.

It also can help store extra platelets and phageocytes, other kinds of cells that can rush to the sites of inflammation and infection when needed. So you need your spleen. You can live without it, yes, but the only reason you can live without it so well is because of our modern medical technology that allows us to do certain things for people who don't have spleens to help keep them safer and deal with any problems that may arise. Another cool thing about spleens is that there is a cell line that is used very prominently for research for different reasons called the MO is a cell line that is used very prominently for research for different

reasons called the MO, MO cell line, that was derived from a spleen that was removed from a leukemia patient back in 1976. The really cool thing or interesting thing about this case is it triggered this whole debate as to who owns an organ after it's been removed from you. Like is it your spleen anymore? Because then the University of California patented the cell line and started selling it and then the patient sued the university because they're like, hey, that was my spleen and you're making money off of it. But then the question was like,

could the patient have ever known the intrinsic value of the cells of a spleen? What did they decide? They ruled for the university. But then they did make certain, they did set certain terms where like you have to like telepation ahead of time, hey, we're going to remove your spleen. We might use it for research and you have to be cool with that. You have to be informed and be aware of that kind of thing. But it's a really interesting debate about like, so this modern era you don't need splines. No you do need a spleen. But you don't need a spleen. You need a spleen. You don't need a spline. No, you do need a spline. But you don't need a spline. You need a spline.

You don't need a spline. You need, okay. You don't need your spline today. You don't need your spline. Do you need your teeth? No, you can get dentures. Well, but, I mean, like, isn't it better if you can just keep your teeth?

Sure, it would also be better if I drank enough water, put them up, I do that. Do you can just keep your teeth? Sure. It would also be better if I like drank enough water. But I'm not going to do that. Do you need a, do you need an opposable thumb? Uh, yes. But you can live without it. No, without a night. Whoa. I am but an eight.

Whoa. You can live without it. What? This show's gone on too long. I wrote for Mr. I. The jury still out because they left on whether or not you need your spleen.

I hope you have all been educated as to the importance, the beauty and the wonder and the mystery. Nature's reject the spleen. The human spleen. The organ, what time forgot the spleen? Outdated and outclasses the John Henry of organs because technology has made it pointless. And I would call it the Austin Powers of organs. It is mysterious.

No one quite understands why it exists or where it came from, but we all appreciate it more than we are willing to admit. And it's in a nutshell. It says, help, this is me in a nutshell, baby. Yeah. Austin Powers jokes and more coming up in the next episode, but you're gonna have to wait.

Nope, that was it. That was the last one ever. I'm done with them forever. Listen, if you want a great new podcast, listen to, let me recommend Still Buffering. It is a show starring Sydney and her delightful sister, Riley, who is 15, as they talk about the age gap in between teens.

Cindy gives Riley some advice and Riley feels sitting in on what the teens are into. Let me tell you, I've listened to the second episode of the show and it kind of freaked me out about how little I knew about teenagers and how they do stuff these days. Considering it's going to be another, like I'm going to be before our daughter's a teenager, I want to be 10 years more out of touch. I'm like completely helpless. So you want to listen to that show so you can keep your finger on the pulse. It's called still buffering. You can find it on iTunes. It's another maximum fun show. Another one I want to recommend is Schmanners. You should also check out Schmanners. It's a lovely new show, just adorable

and funny and cute from Justin's brother Travis and his wonderful lovely wife Teresa, where she educates him on manners and etiquette. It's no joke Teresa says thank you notes for everything. She's like way way better at it than anybody. She's a perfect person to be doing this for Travis, who is the opposite of that? So it's funny and cute and charming and you should check it out. So I choose as well, Shmanner's spelled just the way it sounds and still by offering, listen, those all of the max fun shows,

actually maximum fun, not a lot of work. Oh, Rose Buddies, as long as we're talking about my brother's podcasts and my wife's podcast, Rose Buddies, if you like the Bachelor, you are crazy to not listen to Rose Buddies. It's my brother Griffin and his wife Rachel as they talk about the Bachelor, you are crazy to not listen Rosebuddies. It's, remember, they're Griffin and his wife Rachel, as they talk about the Bachelor, do recaps and stuff, and it is a wonderful,

wonderful companion. I wouldn't consider watching the Bachelor without it. It's called Rosebuddies, and you can find it on iTunes now. I think that's gonna do it for us. Thanks to the taxpayers for letting us use some medicine to see an intranotular program. Thank you also to Ashley for the lovely pictures of us.

I hung that one on the tree. She sent us some lovely pictures of us with our... That she framed and matted. And it's beautiful. The picture Charlie you sent with me, I put on the wall immediately, Ashley. So thank you so much. And thank you very much to Corinne,

who I had mentioned previously about my awesome knitted frog, dissected frog that she made me, and it's awesome and cool, and I love it, thank you. Folks, that's gonna do it for us until next Wednesday. My name is Justin McRoy. I'm Justin McRoy. And as always, don't jill a hole in your head. Maximumfund.org

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