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

Episode Date: September 30, 2018

You had to see this one coming. Yes, just a few short weeks after Justin's surgery, Dr. Sydnee decides to explain the complete history of vasectomies in excruciating detail in front a few thousand of their closest friends. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. Hello everybody and welcome to Solvones, a deserve to have misguided medicine. For the mouth. Wow. Hello, everybody. And welcome to Saul Bones, a Maryland tour of misguided medicine.

I'm your co-host, Justin McElroy. And I'm Sydney McElroy. Can't hurt me. And that's a hurt. That used to hurt. Can't hurt me. That doesn't hurt. That used to hurt. That used to hurt. But now I've been through a lot of stuff. And it doesn't hurt anymore. I had to grow up a little bit. Was that foreshadowing?

It was foreshadowing, yes. Usually. Like all good foreshadowing, my wife has mentioned that after the foreshadowing my wife is mentioned After the foreshadowing that was in fact don't get it twisted foreshadow I just wanted to make sure You didn't you didn't tell me about the foreshadowing. I like to leave my art open to interpretation Usually when we go on tour and we do live shows, we like to do an episode about the place we are, something that's locally relevant.

This time, a little different, I brought what is locally relevant about our episode with me. He's right there. Hi. My name is Justin McAroy and I am still wearing a jock strap. Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! I don't know that I need it anymore. I just love being ready for sports. He definitely does not need the juxtap any more.

Okay, well I got to bisect me, anyway. If you're not clear what we're talking about here. I got a vasectomy. Got a vasectomy. Before I launch into the history of vasectomy and maybe some things you don't want to know, do you want to share any, like how you feel? You mean like coming to TLC this fall, my vasectomy story?

No, thank you. It's just pretty much. Yep. No, yeah,. It's just pretty much... Yep. No, yeah, it was rough. I talked about the experience of it on my brother, my brother me. I can say that I saw no regrets. Still want no more additional children. And pretty concrete on that.

Still for sure. You could be a little less emphatic if for no other reason than that our dollars are like backstage. No, it's like I nailed it twice. I'm done. You know how they made the first space jam and then it was like you got to make another space jam and then they were kind of like all make another space jam. And then they were kinda like, ah, all right, you're right.

But after they nail it a second time, then they'll be like, burn it down. Give me a space jam, but sec to me. Close up the tube that the tune stars are using to get to our world. We don't need any more space jams, they're perfect. Two space jams is plenty to care for you in your twilight years. It's what I'm saying. You know the term vasectomy is a little misleading. I always talk about the history of like where

we get these words and then the term vasectomy kind of implies that we're actually like an ectomy is like we're taking it out. And so it would imply that we're actually removing the whole vast deference, which we're not. That's not what happens in a vasectomy. So it's already misnamed, but it's okay. That didn't mean they did it wrong. What actually happens when you have a vasectomy,

well, I know this, but you do too now. Not really. I want me to let you. Not really, I know the effects. There was a very helpful, when I waited an hour for my consultation, there was a great video playing in the lobby that I very consciously avoided watching. I did not No, thanks. I'm good. Just go ahead and yeah, it's fine

So what actually happens is the vast deference which carries the sperm From me is it spermies? No, no my mistake I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, don't have sperm anymore, no sperm, which the desired result from that is no more pregnancies, hopefully. Cheers. Before we could do vasectomies, we had to find the vast deference where the sperm travel.

And we did that a really long time ago. 300 BCE Herophilus discovered. Like he described testicles and the vast deference and the whole thing. Of course, back then, we didn't really have a great idea about how conception happened, like what was going on. The Greek and Roman idea was something to the effect of. There was like a male seed, there was like a male seed, and there was like a female seed,

and they would join together and kind of intermingle and grow inside a woman, and that had to do, like if it was a boy or a girl, it had to do with how strong they were. If the man was very strong in his seed, then it was a man, and if the woman was very strong, then it was a woman. And then if they both were weak, it was a woman. I know.

I know. I know. Everybody's mad about that one. I didn't make that up. Aristotle believed that sperm were well within a sperm but the seed, male seed, were formed from the vital heat of men. Yes. So now you're speaking my language. The idea was that if your blood gets hot enough, it will turn into semen. And so men had a lot more vital heat than women.

So they had semen. And you could tell that women didn't because of minster blood. This was the whole ancient concept of very spotally fluids. And if menstrual blood could just get hot enough, it would also like, can geolandicemen? Okay. Diogenes expanded on this and argued that, well,

but the blood can only turn into semen and get really foamy if you're like, worked up and agitated. So it's like, it's like the lust itself that takes all the blood and then semen happens. I mean, keep in mind, they didn't have microscopes. They didn't know what they were talking about. They also thought that bones were made of semen. And medical science is still kind of not sure on this one.

No, we're pretty sure on that. It's not. The three to disagree. They're not. I saw some questions. Plenty of the elder. Oh, God. His family's here tonight, obviously.

Plenty thought that Simon from the right testicle made boys and Simon from the left testicle made girls. So if you wanted to choose the sex of a baby, you could just like bind one. Oh. Who is ready to make love? That's kind of like the twix ads, huh? And the wild thing is that even once we started,

even once we had microscopes, and we could look at Seaman and we could see sperm, and we were like, hey, look, there's little buggers. That's the thing. We still had these wild ideas. We called them anomacules, and we thought that they were basically little people. And you can find these pictures of sperm

that are just tiny little curled up people. Just like fully formed, tiny humans. And then they just like expand. Like those things we get Charlie that hatch out of the egg, that you just put them in water for like 48 hours. Hey, are there any parents there and aren't those the worst like the absolute? Here, kid, I got you this. Oh cool, what's it do?

Well, we put it in water. Is it fun yet? Not for a couple days. Well, I see the part where it is fun, probably not. It happens extremely slowly. Okay, it's cracking now. Can I take it out and play with it? Absolutely not.

Give it another week. All right, now it's full size. What I do with it now. Well, it's really grainy and disintegrating. So they're in the trash, I guess. That's a really great question. Those are really great. The worst.

It took us a while, obviously, to figure out the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the Hopefully we know now. I think. And even now, this is kind of wild to think about what sperm do when they enter the vaginal canal and that whole process. We're still figuring that out. We're still studying, I mean, we know where they go. But we're still studying the behavior of sperm and why they do what they do and how all that works, which is part of why you don't find a lot of contraceptive

methods for people with sperm. I mean, we get condoms, right? Yeah. Yeah. So that's part of why is because we're still studying that, which is kind of wild, and part of it is because we thought that sperm were little rolled up humans for a long time. Now as far as vasectomies, we didn't actually start performing these until 1823 and the first one that we tried was on a dog and it was successful. So I'm

I hope the dog was happy with their with their family size and desired no more puppies. That is my hope. I don't have documentation of that, but so they figured out how to do it, but it took a while for it to catch on in humans. I imagine because it was like, hey, we don't, you know anesthesia? No, you don't, because we don't have that yet. But I have an idea for you. It's kind of wild. Justin, what would you think? I'm going to cut a hole.

Now, bear with me. Well, hold on. Does it mean I won't have more kids? Go on. Probably. No, I would get hung up on the anesthesia thing, for sure. Now, before we get into like the modern day and the funnier stuff was vasectomies, there is an unfortunate dark period we have to talk about. Part of the reason vasectomies took off and became pretty popular in the early 1900s was because of a lot of forced sterilization. It was a really easy way to make people infertile whether or not they had any options. So, like, there was a lot of, this was during the time of eugenics, and so there was a lot

of thought that, like, if you have a prisoner who's in jail, who committed a violent crime, you could give them the option of getting out of jail if they were a degree to a vasectomy. So that was part of the way that a lot of vasectomy started being performed and a lot of advances in the technique and procedure and exactly how to do it. And part of why it became popular in the general public was because it was done on a lot of people, whether or not they agreed to it. Unfortunately, there was actually a big article that was very influential published in 1899, vasectomy is a means of preventing procreation and defectives. And that word, of course, could apply to exactly.

Exactly. You know where this is going. And so a lot of forced vasectomies were performed for a while. And the whole idea was purely for means of sterility to render people unable to have further children. What gets interesting to get out of the dark period of vasectomy, what gets interesting is that then you see doctors start to try to come up with other reasons that you might want to vasectomy. Maybe it has nothing to do with whether or not you want to have kids.

Maybe you want to have a vasectomy because your prostate's really big. Well, that fix it. No. But there was a history of this. In the 1880s, castration had been used sometimes to treat very large prostates. So people started thinking, well, that seems really extreme.

It doesn't work, but it's also very extreme. This other thing isn't as extreme. It also doesn't work. But maybe we should try that. And this was actually catalyzed by one patient who had gone to their doctor and said, they were having symptoms of an enlarged prostate They couldn't pee and they had like dribbling and it was very painful and the doctor castrated them and they did not like that and they killed their doctor and so This is true and so a lot of doctors were like let's do the vasectomy

Sure that that's not as bad and maybe you won't kill me afterwards. So for a while, it was a really popular treatment for enlarged prostate. And this was probably also due to the fact that the alternatives, if your prostate was enlarged at the time, were things like either one try to remove it, which you're gonna die. Look at your calendar, check the year. You're not surviving that in a way. Or maybe we'll just inject it with carbolic acid. You don't want that.

Or something called trans rectal galvanocottery. So, right through the rectum, a cottery that's like just zap it, zap the prostate from your rectum, or you could just over stretch the urethra. To what end? I mean, some of these things may have worked a little, but that's why Vasek to me became very popular. It would not have worked. I'm not sure why. I mean, people must have just been happy they didn't get the other stuff done. Their neighbor was like, you won't believe what they did. And they were like, well, I only have this. Did it work? No, but I'm in a better position than you, I guess. So.

From medicines to medicines, that I skill at my God for the mouth. So that made it pretty popular, but that wasn't enough. Every time we find a procedure, or a medicine, we're like, what else can we do with this? Let's try to find some other stuff. We'll see. We'll try it for some things that it

would have no physiological, or anatomical reason to work for, but hey, why not? Right? So a Viennese physiologist, Eugene Steinark, noticed that roosters and rats, roosters and rats that had vasectomies seemed more virile. Now I don't know what Eugene was doing with this time. I don't know if he was watching. Darryl, come over here every second. Does that look at that one, Matt? No, the other one.

Yeah. Is it just me or does he look ready to party? He also thought these roosters and rats that had had vasectomy seem smarter. Again, I don't know the metrics that were used. I assume there was a maze of some sort, perhaps treats. I don't know, what do you give roosters? Corn, I don't know. Rooster feed.

This is why we take the humans on this show. I don't know. So he started to think maybe vasectomies can make you, you know, more, more, like, manly, or something, or virile, tougher, more masculine. That was the idea, more masculine. And also, maybe they would be treatment for dementia. And like general senility, like, oh, are you

starting to forget some things? I have a treatment for you. So he got a buddy, a urologist, who could do these procedures, Robert Lichtenstein. And in 1918, they started performing vasectomies, specifically to make you more masculine. And if you came in and said, I'm just getting older, and I don't know where I left my old wouldn't be keys.

Be like your... Horse keys. LAUGHTER So they started doing these and supposedly it was, no, there is no reason this would be successful by the way. But as these things go, people thought it was working. Patients came back and went, yeah, I think I'm way better now. I feel way, I don't know, way less virtual.

Well that, but also like, you know, like, yeah. Right, like Tim, the tool man Taylor. Got it. And so it was so influential that Freud got a vasectomy for this reason. Which I didn't need. Did you know you're in the company of Freud? I didn't get it for that reason, but thank you, Sydney. So did WB8's, by the way.

They both went and got the sector means so that they would be more v-rile. And the thought process, because I had to look up, like, why would you think this wouldn't work? But why would you think that? What was even the theory behind it? So the idea is that if you cut the vast effrins, then the part of the testicle where sperm is generated

is going to atrophy. And so it allows all of the other parts that they thought made all of the masculine hormones, get bigger. And so you would have these really big hormone balls because the sperm balls were gone. And so the closer that you cut the vast evidence of the testicle, the bigger your hormone balls get and the more masculine you are. Okay. They call it for a while being Steinarked after Eugene who came up with it. So you could go and you could say I'm gonna get Steinarked.

You know. You're my balls. And it was thought, it was recommended for like people who wanted to be leaders or like Like if all you want to go into politics, you know what you got to do Get Steinhardt or or people who wanted a moment to themselves at some point in the next years of their lives People who were who wanted to go into any kind of field that was thought to be like requiring a lot of thinking, a lot of smarts, you should get Stein art before you do this because then you'll be better. I'm not disagreeing, like I'm thinking through it, yeah, yeah for sure, I think so.

For free time, yeah that would be good, a good reason to get Stein art for sure. If I want to be able to like think at all, like for a second, for sure, a Stein art, I get it. Do you wanna make a quick note? Like, you love our kids though, they're great. Oh no, no, no, I love these two great kids. I love how they're a prime number. It was also thought.

Wait, it's two? There's no way of knowing. I said there's no way of knowing. It was also thought to give you more hair. So you could do it if you wanted more hair. It was also thought to give you better erections, a better libido helped you like. There's like no reaction I can make to the things you're saying considering my circumstance. I would just sit stony face.

It was also. It was also. It was also. It was also. It was also. It was also. It was also. The next, this is perfect.

I'm so glad you said that Harry Sharp noted that he thought it made men master bail. That's often. It was also. The next, this is perfect. I'm so glad you said that Harry Sharp noted that he thought it made men master bail. I'm so glad you said that Harry Sharp noted that he thought it made men master bail. I'm so glad you said that Harry Sharp noted that he thought it made men master bail, it's often. I, sidebar, real quick, sidebar. Before I can go back and get tested to make sure everything things out, which means I have to whatever 20 times. And now I'm in this position where city is like, have you gone back yet? And now I'm having to like constantly run the mental math of like, what is a good amount of time before 20 would have?

It can't be like four days later, right? It can't be like, honey buns, I'm off to the doctor. Can't be that. I'm for the doctor. Can't be that. Also, I had a, I never mind. It's, oh no.

I just don't, not that. Are you gonna? I had a small complication and it's a third-tescal made of blood. That's fine. It's called a scurdle. It's called a hematoma. Scurdle hematoma, which is as good as it sounds.

And honestly, if we're all just being friends here, that's about the last thing on my mind is getting that doing that. That's like, it's so tremendously unappealing, 20 seems years away. I'm afraid they'll have changed locations. I'll drive an electric car to this. I'll drive a hover bike to this appointment.

So anyway, it's been fun. You feel better now? No. Thank you. No. So anyway. So all of these... Don't laugh. I was just adjusting.

Shut up. Just regular seat adjustment that you get from podcasting for a while regular Reviewed pre-visectomy tapes. I do the exact same thing, okay? We have a projector hold on Paul run it back So all of these claims that people with penises would master bait less often and be happier if they had vasectomies and be smarter and all that. I don't know if it was bias or people just lying or why they thought it worked. It doesn't. That is not a reason to get a vasectomy. We now know that if you want to get a vasectomy it should be because you don't want to have any more kids. And that's the reason.

And yes, they are, this is a common question. Are they reversible? Yes. But like, don't go into it with that thought. That's a very, they always give that caveat. But if you're thinking that, maybe don't get a vasectomy. Because it, I mean, it's kind of hard, like it's not the easiest thing in the world to do to reverse it.

It's rise in popularity, as means of family planning, was a result of a lot of different factors. But one thing that I found really interesting was in places where there weren't a lot of female doctors, in some parts of the world, it was very uncomfortable for female patients to go and discuss birth control. And so it was easier to come up with a way to get men to go to their doctors and discuss family planning, alternatives.

And in light of this, in 1971 in July, there was a family planning festival. This was in India, in Coaching City, Kerala, and basically there were like radio broadcasts and people standing on street corners with pamphlets, and they had a prized lottery where they handed out stuff for people getting vasectomies. Like they just were really, they were like, listen, this is something you can do. It's an option to you if you don't want to have any more kids. You can take care of this too, if there are two people in the family. Thank you.

You can take care of this too. Please. And they had huge cash prizes for this. And then lots and lots of people with penises went and got vasectomies as a result of this. They had like competitions between different areas of the country to see which area could get the most vasectumies.

And so you saw this huge rise in the sanctumies in this part of the world. They're not nearly as popular in the US, but in some states, like it varies wildly depending on where you are in the US. In the UK, one in five people with a vast deference have had of a sanctum. So in the UK, they're way more popular. In the US, the rate is like one in six over the age of 35,

but worldwide, it's only like 5% of people. So still, it's a great effective, safe. It can be reversed, but again, if you're asking that question, maybe don't get it done. But it's the radical idea that people with penises can also participate in the family planning, contraceptive conversation. And this is what I usually want to say things like this, you just kind of like, you know, look away.

Shrinking violent? No, but you can, you did it. I did it. Yeah. And please, it was a private matter between me and my physician. And I'll discuss it no more. Oh, there's a Dr. Snip here in Seattle, right? Somebody, we were planning on doing this and then somebody emailed me and was like, hey,

here's a funny topic. If you're ever in Seattle, there's a Dr. Snip who does vasectomies and I was like, well, we are going to do a podcast about this in Seattle. He does it with like a no needle though. He's got like a fancy injector that just like shoots light a cane through your skin. Oh, it's fancy. It's really fancy.

I had the gas, it was awesome. Thank you so much for enjoying our program. We wanted to let you know October 9th, the Salbones Book will be available. The first week of sales for any book is so important. If you can pre-order that, that gets folded in there, or tell everybody to pick up a copy and please buy a copy that first week,

it will mean the world to us bit.ly for slash the solbona's book and you can pre-order it there. So please do that. We really, we really appreciate it. My sister did the art for the book. Yes, it's amazing. My sister Taylor Smirlin, she's very talented, it's really cool. If you like solbona's, check it out. If you think somebody would like solbona's with the hate podcasts, well now it's a book. I you like solbons, check it out. If you think somebody would like solbons with the hate podcasts, well, now it's a book. I mean, got no excuses. Thank you to the taxpayers for the use of our song of medicines, since the intro and

outro of our program. Thank you to the maximum fun network as having as a part of their extended podcasting family. Thank you to Paul. Thank you to the Paramount. Everybody's been super cool here. And thank you to you. That is going to do it for this week. But until until next week my name is Justin McRoy. I'm Sydney McRoy and as always don't draw a hole in your head Alright! Maximumfund.org Comedy and Culture, Artistone,

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