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

Episode Date: August 25, 2017

Sawbones tries to lighten things up this week and Dr. Sydnee and Justin explore the chuckle-worthy history of tickling. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's lost it out. We pushed on through the broken glass and had ourselves hot like our own.

Some medicines, some medicines that escalate my cop for the mouth. Wow. Hello everybody and welcome to Saul Bones, a marital tour of Miss Guyed Medicine. I'm your co-host, Justin McAroy. And I'm Sydney McAroy. Sydney, I don't know why we've been wasting our time with medicine. Well, okay, I went to medical school for four years

and I've done a three-year residency in order to tell you about medicine. I mean, I don't know if I do a podcast. I didn't speak accurately. Wait, should I start right? Okay. Let me try again. Let's start with anatomy.

No, let me try again. I don't know why you've been wasting your time with medicine because I was reading on a poster that had a cat on it. And it said laughter. Those are the best sources of information. It's that laughter is the best medicine. So I don't know why what was the cat doing laughing just laughing the cat was laughing There's another cat doing something silly and that first cat was laughing laughing and

The cat was tickled. So I'm saying why didn't you learn just how to tickle great? Is that the first class in med school? No. But it's the best medicine. No, we're not directly discouraged from tickling our patients. Like there's not a, I mean, that's not like one of part of the Hi-Sooohy fratic o's. But generally speaking, it's assumed you won't tickle

your patients. Please don't tickle your patients. Please don't tickle your patients. But I, okay, so tickling not a medical treatment. Not a medical treatment. Laughter not the best medicine. You just can't keep on telling me the way. Well, no, I'm not saying, okay, I would not say that laughter is the best medicine. We've talked about laughter before on the show. I'm not saying laughter is bad for you. In fact, it's probably good for you, but I mean, in some cases,

like let's say you got syphilis, penicillin is better than laughter. Yeah, that's accurate. So, now tickling, I don't think that it could be used as medicine necessarily, but I do think it's interesting to talk about. It's a medical adjacent phenomenon. Well, then let's, right? It's a weird thing the human body does, and that falls within our jurisdiction. Let's do it. Let's talk about tickling. So Justin, what, do you know what tickling is? Yeah, it's when you squinch, squinch on somebody's tongue thumb or somebody's,

you squinch on them? You squinch on them under the tongue thumb or you do the cow bite thing, or a leg where you measure how big their hand is and then you tickle them that far from the kneecap, and that you just squeeze, and they don't, they're like, don't squeeze me there. Right.

Which, yeah. If they don't laugh, tickling is basically like assault. So you have to be very careful. Yeah, actually, it, well, we'll get into that. It can be. Okay. So tickling in general is is some sensation of something Either moving lightly across your skin. That's actually one kind of tickling like you know that like you feel something like like a hair

A straight hair brushes across your skin and on the roof your mouth that one always gets me You scrape something across the way for your mouth. Yeah, and then there's also obviously intentional tickling which can be a little, I don't want to say rougher. It's like squinches. Yeah, but like it is a more pressure-applied maneuver. And then in the associated response, laughing, smiling, withdrawing from it, that's part of tickling. You know, if that's not happening, you're not tickling. If that's not happening, if you're not laughing, you ain't be tickling. You're not doing it right. We all tend to be ticklish in fairly similar areas. I mean, it varies from person to person to degree in which spot is the most ticklish,

but generally speaking, underarms, sides of the torso, the neck, the knee, the middriff, the perineum is very ticklish. Ah, yes, the... Daint. Thank you, honey. the... Dane. Thank you, honey. Thank you very much. Also your belly button?

Well, no. I look across on this chest. Their taste is good as it gets here. I'm glad, just really indulge in that. I'm tickled now. Just really ticker yourself. I'm a saying, yeah. And your ribs.

Classically. Class of ribs, yeah. Aristotle talked about tickling. We've talked about tickling as long as we've talked, because it's interesting. And Aristotle thought that it was the privilege of humans. He thought that humans had that all of our senses were heightened above all of other animals. And so tickling being, you know, a form of our sense of touch, of our sensation feeling, would also be more heightened. And so that only humans would be able to tickle, be tickled. It was just a privilege of humanity.

Sorry, are you saying that no animals other than humans can be tickled? No, Aristotle was wrong. You can tickle a rat. No, I can't actually tickle. A lot of people do. We'll talk about the studies. A lot of people like tickle rats, but no, all primates can be tickled. And actually, there's something called trout tickling. I thought that was interesting. I was like Aristotle thinks only humans can be tickled, but so can trouts. Trouts? Okay. So trout tickling, as far as I can tell, is not like tickling as we think of it. I had to read about this because I thought this, surely I'm misinterpreting this.

If you gently stroke the underbelly of a trout, it will go into a trance. And then you can just grab it. It's a way easier way of catching them. Yeah, it's an easier way of catching trout, but they call it trout tickling. They're like other names for it, but trout tickling is one of them. Okay, fine. That's weird. Like Shakespeare wrote about it, like Tickling Trouts, it's like 12-night or something. Anyway. Not euphemistically. He wrote about it, literally. Yeah.

Okay. So Plato also pondered why do we tickle? Why do we tickle and be tickled? Why do we tickle? And he focused a lot on the angle of that it's a human's enjoy pleasure that's mixed with pain. And so, exactly. So tickling falls into that kind of, that kind of realm. Sugar and spice. And this is why there was actually throughout the centuries there were in some royal courts, court tick. Good gig. Good gig if you can get it. This is real. And usually anybody could be tickled, but for instance, a lot of the times this was done for like the Zarenas. So these were female royalty being tickled. So if you're

going to have female royalty being tickled, the only proper thing is to either have female ticklers or Unix actually would be. I was about to guess unix ticklers. Yeah. And what a what a noble reason to become a unix so you can so you can tickle those aren't as feet. Yeah. And that was basically what they would do. They would be positioned down at their feet. They would have their feet propped up probably on something very fancy looking and ornate. I bet they have like tickling stools. I didn't find those, but you know there was some sort of tickling footrests. And they would prop their feet up and then the court ticklers would stand at their feet and tickle them with feathers or their

fingers or whatever. And I don't know like this was like Catherine the great and Elizabeth and then they had their feet tickled and the idea and while they did this They would also have to like tell them kind of raunchy stories or sing songs that were make a whole afternoon of it Yeah, they were kind of inappropriate the whole idea was that this was trying to get Like to help these women get a rouse get like to help these women get a rouse. Oh, yes, that was the whole purpose. It was very intentional. This was like four play. This was something to get you in the mood so that later on for their their lovers, they would be pre tickled. There you go. Yeah, right. I get your ladies pre tickled. There you go. Yeah, right. Get your ladies pre tickled Anyway, so they're different uh

Valeria you being tickled in there. Uh, yes, Stephen. Uh Valeria. I have to go into the office tonight. I I know like No, that I know. Like, no. Okay. I'm assuming we are, you're assuming the women don't want to be tickled? No, I'm not. These aren't as many have very much enjoyed the tickling. I'm just saying that I have no reason to believe they did this.

I'm saying tickling is a wild precursor, but again, not going to get any yums, whatever fruits are loose. If you, if that's your bag, there are a lot of people very into tickling. Cool. That's cool. That's cool. That's not you. You're very ticklish. It's not you. It's not, it's not, okay. No, I don't want to get it twisted.

This is not about, I am, it's like, it's not your lover doing the tickling. Someone else is getting the, like, went out into the cold and put the key in the ignition and turn the car on and let it heat up. Like a sluffer. Okay, stop it. Move on.

There are different types of tickling. Clearly. I mean, clearly. There are two large categories of tickling. A lot of what we've been talking about is gargolysis. That's when you tickle someone. When you like intentionally go over and you're having a tickle fight

or when I'm just in hate's being tickled. I don't, no, do you know what? You do, you hate, you react very violently. You're very ticklish, you hate it. It's not that I hate being tickled. I hate when people I love tickle me because I'm always afraid I'm going to lash out out of my own control.

Sure. I don't wanna hurt anybody. You're just so strong and powerful. I'm very strong and very powerful to lash out out of my own control. Sure. I don't want to hurt anybody. You're just so strong and powerful. I'm very strong and very powerful and I don't want to hurt anyone. This is my flailing. This is different than Nizmesis, which is a different kind of tickling. We won't spend as much time on it, but it's that sensation, that kind of light, itchy sensation when, you know, like I said, like when a strand of hair kind of brushes across your neck and the wrong, what you know what I mean?

That feeling, it is a kind of tickling. It's the same sort of feeling you'd get like if a bug, like a small spider or something landed on you. And which is probably the purpose of it. Why do you get that sensation? Is there an attacker? Is there an insect on me? Is something about to crawl on me

that could bite me or sting me or kill me or whatever? And so that sensation makes you immediately grab at it, scratch at it, brush it off, that kind of thing. Okay. It's also helpful for grooming. This is probably also like a vestigial grooming prior to mirrors kind of thing.

To know what they're doing, those are the stuff things. Exactly. Because you have that sensation or like if you've got like a big clotted dirt or something, I don't know, on your face. You feel it and go, huh, I think there's something on my face. So that's one kind of tickling. Gargolisis, like I said, is that deeper, rougher touch that makes people laugh and this is humans and all primates and rats can be tickled.

There are lots of studies on tickling rats because they can be. And we're interested. And it's kind of cool. I actually read one researcher was saying, you know, we spend so much time researching the more negative sides of human emotions, you know, the more negative extremes so that we can understand better conditions like depression and anxiety and that kind of thing, but we don't spend a lot of time researching things that make us happy, like tickling. And so that's why he likes to go into it.

He likes to study tickling because it's a happy thing. It makes us happy. I think that that's, but I think that that's human. I think that the things that make us happy, we attribute a kind of magic to and we don't necessarily want to delve deeper into the scientific explanations of it because it's like trying to explain a joke where you lose the magic thing in the trying to understand it better. And I think with when we're talking about sad things or anger or whatever, trying to understand them clinically is a way, trying to understand them clinically

as a way for us to process them and make them seem comparable, make them seem like something we can handle. So it makes sense to me. Well, I can see that, but you're not a scientist. So do you? So scientists like to study everything. Tell that to the celery I dyed blue in fourth grade.

Our job is to, our job is to tell you that you know what magic may be real it may not, but this is science. So we'll talk to you about that. That's fine. I'm good over here. Go ahead though. So like I said, a lot of people like to tickle rats. They have very similar to reactions to humans, although it's more like a squeaking, not

like laughing, but they admit like a high-pitched squeal when you tickle them. Like, as if rats could not be worse, let's tickle them. They enjoy it. If you tickle a rat, it will kind of scurry away and then come back for more tickling. Can we just leave this big hand tickling?

I'm imagining someone like, ooh, tickling or anything. There's a reaction Morphus Well, excellent. I just spend my career tickling rats. Well, well, well, well, well, well, well, stop Ivan, please anything else. There's a reaction. I thought this was interesting. How do they know that rats enjoy it? There's something I found that scientists like to call joy jumps Which are which are not just in rats.

They see it in lots of different animals, including humans. They also see it in guinea pigs and dogs and foxes and lambs. Basically, they described it as jumping with both your legs together. They said, little kids will do this a lot when they're excited, when they're happy and full of joy, and rats do it too. And so it's a way of knowing like, oh, they're liking this, they did a joy jump. Okay.

I don't do that much, I don't think. No, no, we're in our thirties. No, all our joy jumps are in the rear view mirror. The purpose of these studies is that they've located a tickle center in the brain. So they can stimulate your tickle center and make you feel tickled, even if you're not being tickled. Yeah. There you go. Why do we tickle center and make you feel tickled even if you're not being tickled. Yeah.

There you go. Why do we tickle? Why, why, why in the world would this be something the human body does? I have no idea. I mean, because most things that we still have, like there was some sort of evolutionary advantage, there's a reason. It seems like if I had to take a wild shot at the dark and I have not looked at your notes, so please do not accuse me of it if I'm right on the off chance that I'm right.

But it seems like some of it would be a defense mechanism like, hey, you shouldn't be repeatedly causing trauma there. That is actually one theory. And I'm going to tell you there are several different theories on this and it has not been concretely answered. But the smartest people are on my side. There are people who believe this has to do with like the development of combat moves. So if you, if you look, yeah, if you look at the areas of the human body that are ticklish,

they're also fairly vulnerable areas for attack. Um, and the idea is that so we're tickled a lot as kids by like our parents. Mm hmm. And so we learn how to reflexively protect those areas. This is what, so it from. This is what I'm saying. Tickling. This is what I'm saying. I'm a green belt. My body's a weapon. If you tickle me, I cannot be held responsible for what happens. But the thing is what's really interesting is then so you tickle a kid, they reflexively learn how to protect those areas so you can't tickle them. But what also happens is they laugh and smile, which is a social signal to us as the parents who continue to tickle the child. So it's a feedback loop. It makes us keep tickling them and makes them learn how to protect

themselves through this positive social interaction. So it's like, I want you to stop, but my body is making me make it seem like I want you to do more so that I'll learn how to fight my dad. So I'll learn how to defend myself. Okay. In a safe way. So evolutionary advantage is another theory. And this is similar to the combat moves, but the other thing is just like that social

interaction. We learn how to like safely play, physically interact with. Again, a lot of these theories are based on the idea that siblings and parents are like the first ones to usually tickle a child. And so they learn like this is safe interaction. And then it also teaches us things like, you know, sometimes your parents are going to have to like, let's say that you got a splinter or you got, you scraped your knee and it's really dirty and they're going to have to wash it off.

They're going to do something to you that doesn't feel good. You know, when they pull that splinter out, it doesn't feel good, but it's for your own good. Like, it's a safe thing. And because of your parents, you can trust them to do that. And so sometimes your parents do things that don't seem like they would be a good idea, but they really are. Do you know that baby chimpanzees and baby humans both react to the like I'm going

to get you like you hold your hands up when you're tickling motion and they both laugh and giggle when you do that. They both get all excited. When I do it or when other monkeys do it. Well, I mean, I think for actually for chimpanzee, I mean, I think they've practiced this in the lab. So you can you can practice the same thing. Um, can you answer a question for me? Sure. Because it's one that I've wanted to know for sure along. Um, why can't I tickle myself? Oh, I have a whole section on that. I'm gonna get there, but first we're gonna go to the billing department. Let's go. Sydney, I have to know why can't I tickle myself? So just a lot of people have tried to figure out why we can't, why is that impossible?

And a lot of it has to do with the unpredictability that tickling, that's involved with tickling. When someone comes at you to tickle you, you don't know exactly where and when and how and what depth of pressure and all that kind of stuff, that sensation is going to occur. And that seems to be, that aspect has to be present for the tickling to occur. You have to not be able to predict. Now when you tickle yourself,

you know exactly where and when and how deep and all that kind of stuff you're going to be getting. You can't until it falls asleep and then dry it. I don't know if that would work. Probably not. I don't think so. But if you can predict it, then you can't. They practice this actually with people who could control a tickling machine to tickle them. So they moved the lever and had the little tickler come and tickle them in different they like they they moved the lever and had the little tickler come and tickle them in different places and they couldn't be tickled because they were they were in charge inherently social. It is an inherently social behavior. Maybe this is still debatable because the other part of this is that we have observed that

in some people who have schizophrenia, they can tickle themselves. Wow. And it has to do with that. And we talked about this, I think, before. We've mentioned this that it has to do within the auditory hallucinations, that your brain's inability to completely distinguish between external and internal stimuli.

Okay. That when you can't, you can't tell where the stimulus is coming from that you may be able to tickle yourself. So you can't tell if that is someone else's hand or your own. And since those signals are not firing exactly the same, then you might be able to tickle yourself. That's not across the board, but there are people who have schizophrenia who are able to

tickle themselves. That's fast. So, and what's also interesting is that tickling response is mood dependent. And they've observed this when they've seen the difference between like in experiments, a parent tickling a child and a stranger tickling a child. When a parent tickles a child, you get more of the laughing and smiling. And I mean, they might wiggle away, but it's, it looks enjoyable. Whereas when someone they doesn't, they don't know tickles the child, the child is more likely to yell

or withdraw. They're still being tickled, but it's a completely different response. So the way that you respond to tickling or how ticklish you are, what you do, it really depends on the situation. The more apprehension you have for it, which usually has to do with the more embarrassed you are by it, or maybe the more ticklish you are, the different your response will be, too. Is there any gender difference? Like, is there a man, a woman, either the more or less ticklish? No, we've never been able to tell any difference.

It seems to be pretty equally distributed. Obviously, some people are more ticklish than others, but it gender doesn't play a role. And it is interesting, people who tend to be more embarrassed by tickling tend to be more ticklish. That makes sense. Yeah, which kind of makes sense. And they have more anticipation and nervousness. So, like, even before you tickle them, they start laughing.

And I've seen that with you. If you think I'm about to tickle you, you start laughing. Yeah. In order to try to figure out exactly what you asked me, is this just a social thing? That's what a lot of people have theorized. It was just a social interaction thing then. They've, in adolescence, the theory is that when you see teenagers tickling each other, it's because they have a lot of sexual energy and they don't quite know what to do with it yet. And so this seems like a...

Let me try this. This seems like an outlet that nobody will yell at me for. I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing. Maybe we tickle each other now. So they thought, well, maybe it's just social. So in order to try to help answer that question, there were some researches in California, this was in the 90s, who decided to do it with

a tickle machine. So their idea was we'll make a tickle machine and then we'll tickle subjects with both the tickle machine and with human hands and we'll see what their response is and does it have to be a human because if tickling is a social thing, then a tickle machine shouldn't be able to replicate it, but if it is a just a reflex, then it wouldn't matter. But the problem is after they started working on this, they realized, well, how can you ever ensure that a tickle machine could either do as well as a human, or on the flip side, what a fatigle machine is the ideal tickler and is just so good at tickling.

Right. So there was no way to control for how. The singularity is here. There was no way to control for how good at tickling the machine might be. Right. So instead of actually tickling people with a machine, and I love the idea of this,

I kept trying to find a picture of this machine they built. They built this machine that was sort of like a box that looked like a about a computer size box, and it had like this hose attached to it with like a fake hand on it. And they led subjects into the room across sitting in a chair, across from the tickle machine.

And you're in this scenario, and you do not stand up and walk out. All of your biological instincts have been dulled by my mom's society. You are left. You are a babe in the woods. I have to imagine that for most of these experiments, they're like, their research is at a college somewhere doing it. And so they're just like paying poor college students like, yeah, you'll do anything for like $20,000, right? Even the most upsetting Twilight Zone jigsaw nonsense.

Just to keep you in Nadi Light for another weekend, you'll come in and let us tickle you with a machine. Anyway, they blindfolded them. And what they would say is, we'll tell you when you're being tickled by a human and we'll tell you when you're being tickled by a machine and you just react. And they lied hiding underneath the tickle machine.

They had like a table with like a tablecloth on it hiding underneath the tickle machine which was a person. A pervert? Is that what you're going to say? No, no, a person. A person. And in reality, they tickled the subject every time. So they were never being tickled by a machine, but they told them at times that they were

being tickled by a machine. And so if it was a social interaction, if they thought it was just a machine, whether it tickled or not, they wouldn't react. Right. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. Well, they laugh the same every time. There was absolutely no difference.

And so these researchers argued, this is not a social interaction. It's just a reflex. You're just ticklish. It just, when you touch these areas, it feels a certain way and you react this way and that's it. So, but I'm not saying that's the definitive answer, but there are still two schools of thought. Is this some sort of social thing? Is this just a reflex? Is it evolution? Is it what is it? But I'm not saying it's made a machine that could take you a tickle well. It's so hard to say. And we don't have an answer.

No. Like, because it could just be that something that we know instinctively, like the social exchange doesn't have to be, maybe it's not the tickled, but rather the tickle-lar. You know, that is making the connection. Like they know how to do it. I just, I can't imagine a machine tickling me the way a person gets it. Sorry. Maybe I'm a lot I tried to find tickle machines and it's a on eBay. It's a sketchy thing to start googling. I abandoned

that search pretty quickly. So, as you mentioned, like we've talked about, not everybody enjoys being tickled, and tickling has been used as torture at times, because it's actually similar to pain responses. They've tried to figure out exactly which nerves cause you to be tickled, and they're similar to some pain responses, and they can result in embarrassment. So you have cases of the Nazis using tickling. There's a punishment mentioned in ancient Japanese texts

for some crimes that fell outside of the criminal code. And the punishment is what translates to merciless tickling. The Romans would actually torture people by applying saltwater to the bottom of their feet. They would strap them to a table, put saltwater on the bottom of their feet and let a goat lick it off. And then just do that over and over and over again.

That does sound pretty rough. Yeah, which goes beyond tickling because eventually that's going to remove the skin from your feet. So initially it's a tickling torture but then it's something much worse. And then as I mentioned, it's also been used on the flip side as pleasure. In addition to the court ticklers and teen ticklers that we talked about. There are tickling spas where you can go get tickled treatments. There's a tickling leagues. You get check out the documentary tickled. I was hoping you'd mention that. Go on a journey with me and go watch that film. Don't listen to

anything else. Don't research it. No, don't, don't Google it. Don't read about it. Just go watch tickled. Go watch the film tickled. Uh, tickling, they claim that these tickling spots that it will relax you, basically like a regular massage. It's like 60 bucks an hour and you get a tickle treatment. Sure. So as far as any kind of medical application for tickling, I couldn't really find one that was well documented research. And we've talked about laughing, being beneficial, but that doesn't necessarily translate to tickling. I've seen like I found a couple places where there were privately advertised therapists who use tickling as part of their

personal treatment. I don't know that that's recognized by any like society. I mean, I'm not saying it's condemned. I'm just saying I don't think that's like an evidence-based thing. I think that's part of their personal treatment program and they use it for things like depression and PTSD. But I found, while I found it advertised, I found other people highly criticizing it. So I don't know, it's all, but it's not evidence-based. But I've just, I've seen that there are therapists who may apply this in certain cases. I think that's probably pretty rarely done. And is there a cure for tickling? Just stop. Well, I mean, if you're very ticklish, is there a way to not be ticklish?

No. No, there's not. That's true. You can, and I read this mainly when I was looking I was looking for a cure for tickling, and this is a lot in like sex problems, like people looking for sex advice. And my partner's really ticklish,

and I don't mean to tickle them, but it keeps, we keep trying to become intimate, and then it gets disturbed by this tickling, and what should I do? And in addition to lots of advice about making sure that your partner cares about the stuff and wants to be less ticklish, and all that kind of stuff,

obviously this is with consent. But you can actually let the person guide you as you tickle them. And if they have control of your hand, they won't be tickled. Okay. Because we talked about it. It'd be sort of like tickling yourself.

You're just involving another person's hand in the process. And that can actually kind of help ease you into whatever activity you're about to engage in. Doesn't cure the tickling, but it can alleviate the tickle response in those situations. But otherwise you just got to say don't tickle me. Just say don't tickle me. And is it is a rule of thumb if somebody says don't tickle me. Don't. Don't unless you're your child and you're training them for combat apparently, in which case you should just go back while. No, I always stop when

Charlie tells me to stop tickling or I always stop, it's just the thing is, then she says, okay, tickle me more. Yeah. Cause kids like being tickled. They like being. Generally, not all, but generally, generally. Uh, folks, that's going to do it for us. Thank you so much for tuning in this week.

We hope you had fun and enjoyed yourself. Um, thanks to the maximum fun.org network for letting us use their song medicines as the intro and outro of our program. And I actually want to say a quick thank you. We have a post office box Thanks Someone sent us the life and death game I'm not sure from TC and does this look infected Podcast sent neckos Thanks Matt for the cards Bonnie of buddy beam boutique for the beautiful dress Nina sent a lovely saw bones tumbler that we've used a ton Sandra sent a John Hunter book Adam for a cool mouse ear Sarah sent comics Angelique

sent her ant Cheryl's book Nick and Tiffany sent a gummy science kit that we had a lot of fun with with the chukster and just made beautiful troll stickers for Charlie's birthday she made herself in their lovely so thank you to all you find folks. You can find other shows that our family makes at MacroisHows.com along with those PO box addresses if you need those. And that is gonna do it for us for this week. So until next week, my name is Justin Macrois. I'm Sydney Macrois.

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