Stuff You Should Know - How Lobotomies Work

Episode Date: May 19, 2009

Lobotomies -- brain surgeries to relieve psychiatric problems -- are rarely performed today, but they were once fairly common. Tune in to learn more about the controversial history and practice of lobotomies in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Wanderers, welcome. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. It's called Stuff You Should Know. It's Josh and Chuck coming in Long Beach together. Now you know you're in trouble. What's up, Chuck? How long have you been sitting on that one? A little week. That's good. Thanks. Thank you, Chuck. How you doing? I'm well, sir. You? Pretty good. I'm feeling great, actually, Chuck. I am glad to be alive. Yes, so, Chuck? Yes. I think this could arguably pan out to be our greatest podcast ever. You just jinxed us. No, I really don't think so. Chuck did the cheek thing twice before this one. He was kind of enough to do it a second time, and I don't think

we've ever had a topic that Chuck and I were more intensely interested in than this one. I know. It kind of just came out of nowhere, and it's really, well, not out of nowhere because it's historical, but in our eyes, out of nowhere. Which, if you? Funny I say, in our eyes. Yeah, Lil for Shadowing from Charles Bryant. Nice one, Chuck. If you will get off of LOL Cats for a second and go check your iTunes, you'll find that the title of this one is How Lobotomies Work. Yes. And that's what we're going to be talking about, or Lobotomies. So fascinating. It really is. Lobotomies kind of exist in this little segment of 20th century culture. Medical madness, I guess you could say, right? Right. And pop culture, because you still

hear it being thrown around like, boy, somebody lobotomized me, scrambled my brain, but it's kind of exactly the way it happened. Yeah. Yeah, so Chuck, you're a lover of great cinema, right? Of course. Of course, you've seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, right? Yeah, I have a poster. You do? Yeah, good one. Yeah, the one of Jack Nicholson laughing with the watch cap on? Yeah, that's a good one. So of course, you remember the pivotal scene of the movie where McMurphy is lobotomized for being unruly. He tries to kill Nurse Hatchet because... Nurse Hatchet. Nurse Hatchet. Hatchet. That was a Freudian slip right there. It was. She was a Hatchet. Yeah. So she was mean and... No, I'm totally with you. It was the Freudian slip part that got me. I had

like eight jokes going in my head at once, and I was like, can't say that, can't say that, can't say that. Like the Terminator scanning for possible... It's exactly right, yeah. So yeah, so he tries to kill Nurse Hatchet because she was a terrible nurse and kind of evil. Yeah, very evil. And so he gets lobotomized and they don't show the procedure. Don't worry if you ever want to know what one was like, we're going to go into grisly detail in a minute. And he comes out just kind of this drooling imbecile, which I have to remind everybody was actually a medical term before it was... Imbecile was? Imbecile, moron, and idiot were all degrees of mental retardation. Wow. Uh-huh. Isn't that weird? Yeah, of course, this is at the same time that people were performing

lobotomy. So it seems like very archaic even though it wasn't that long ago. Yeah, well let's set the scene, okay? Okay. All right, so we're talking the 1930s. Right. And the 1930s were a terrible time to be nuts. Basically, you got locked up in a straight jacket to keep you from eating your own feces or throwing it at orderlies or doing anything really crazy. Yeah. And that was about it. Right. They had certain techniques like shock therapy, right? What did they use? They still use shock therapy here and there actually. So you have like electroconvulsive therapy. Right, right. And apparently they also used to use insulin. Oh, okay. Insulin, right? We know how bad that is from... I can't remember one of our aging podcasts, right? Right.

And they would basically inject a hefty dose of insulin into a patient to... Is it okay, Chuck? Yeah. Okay. My paper wrestling was going to get the wrath of Jerry. They know we use crib sheets, buddy. Sure. So they'd inject a patient with a hefty dose of insulin and would basically shock their system, possibly causing convulsions. There was another drug... Was this just to subdue them? Hold on, I'm getting to that. This is the craziest part. This is... This was the grasp that medical science had on mental illness at the time. Right. There's another drug called a metrizol, which was a respiratory and circulatory stimulant. And then hefty doses it to produce shock and convulsions. Wow. So if you'll notice, all three of these produce

convulsions, shock therapy. And the reason that they did that was because there was a suspicion that there was a link between epilepsy, convulsions, and mental illness. And that if you had one, you couldn't have the other. Right. So by producing convulsions, they thought that they were treating mental illness. Wow. Unbelievable. Yeah. So you could have just had epilepsy and that they would sit you in the electroconvulsive shock therapy chair and to treat you. Yeah. They'd stick a little paddle in your mouth and turn on the juice. I'll tell you what, man. I, like I sometimes look back and say, boy, the 1950s, that would have been cool to look back then. But then you hear stories like this and you kind of forget about the downside.

Yeah. ECT is definitely one of the downsides of this era. Right. All right. So another problem with this was that the mental mental care. Wow. Have you had a lobotomy? I had a little bit of one. Yeah. No, I had some metros all early. I'm all jacked up. Nice. The state of mental hospitals in the US in the in the 30s and 40s was that they were overcrowded. Right. Because I mean, if you can't treat anybody, really, you can't treat their mental illness. Right. If they come in, they're in. Yeah. Right. And they wanted docile patients. They wanted people that didn't cause trouble. And really, any way that they could get there was kind of okay at the time. Right. And this was also before drug therapy was created. Right. So in the 30s, 1936, this new procedure

comes about. Right. Well, 1935. Oh, was it 35? I thought it was 36. In Portugal. 1935. You're right. Yeah. Sorry about that. Yeah. That was Dr. Antonio Egas Moniz. Nice. And Dr. Almeida Lima in Portugal performed the first lobotomies by drilling holes into the skull on either side of the prefrontal cortex and injecting alcohol in there to destroy the fibers connected it. And this was actually based on an earlier study from 1933 by a couple of Yale researchers who removed the prefrontal cortexes from a pair of monkeys. Yeah. Lucy and who was the other one? Binky, we'll say. Okay. Lucy and Binky. Yeah. These two monkeys had their prefrontal cortexes removed. And the researchers found that they could still, they still had intellect. Right. But

they were lacking the emotion that led to violent outbursts when they didn't get their way. Yeah. Becky, by the way. I like Binky better. Can we stay with Binky? Sure. Okay. So the the Dr. Oh, the Portuguese guy. Fulton and Carlisle. Oh, no, you're going back to Portugal? Yeah. Dr. Moniz. Yes. Saw Fulton present one of the Yale researchers saw Fulton present his findings. And he thought, huh, right, my mental patients act like monkeys in a violent outburst when they don't, you know, right, when they see things that aren't really there. Right. So let me get my hands on a cadaver and see what I can see what I can work out with the brain. So this early, this early, it was called the prefrontal lobotomy. Right. Started out, like you said, by drilling

holes in the skull and adding alcohol. And the whole reason why chuck the prefrontal cortex, why the frontal lobe? What's so important about that? Well, the the prefrontal lobe cortex, Josh, has a number of complex functions called executive functions is what they're known as. We're talking high level decision making, planning, reasoning, understanding, personality, personal expression, that kind of thing. So basically your personality, the way you create things, the way you see the world, and how you react to the world, the emotions. Right. This is all, this is all generated here. It originates in the prefrontal cortex. And you are stabbing the front of your head right now. Yes, thank you. Thanks. And so that,

as we all know, the brain is connected. It's all connected together. Sure. Sending and receiving signals like like mass email. And so what you have here, you got two types of matter, gray and white matter. Gray matter includes neurons and brain cells and blood vessels and things like that. White matter is axons and nerve fibers, and they connect the gray matter and carry messages with electric impulses. So the gray matter is where these impulses are generated. The white matter translates them or transfers them. Yeah, transmits. Transmits. Sure. One of the trans. So a lobotomy, what that does is it's intended to sever the white matter between the different areas of gray matter, thus interrupting the transmission essentially. Right. And the problem

with Dr. Moniz's technique, the early technique using alcohol, is like you said, the brain's all connected. And alcohol being a liquid is kind of hard to keep in one place. Right. So it started to go and destroy other areas of the brain, right? Yeah, not a very good idea. But he was onto something. He was onto something by destroying the white matter, right? Yes. So instead he decided to be a little more precise. And he kept with the whole drilling method, which is actually based on an ancient method of brain surgery called trepanation. Right. Which actually, gosh, I'm going to be in trouble here. We had a fan right in and suggest trepanation, and that's what got me on lobotomies in the first place. And I apologize. So if you're out there

listening. Oh, you don't remember the fan? No. Thank you, nameless fan. We love you. Binky. Thanks, Binky. Or Becky. For people who love food, there's no place on earth quite like Mississippi. We're a melting pot of culinary talent blends the flavors of yesterday and today. Sweet, savory, spicy and smoky flavors that'll satisfy your spirits wherever you choose to wander. Plan your next dining adventure at visitmississippi.org slash dining. Mississippi Wanderers Welcome. I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild present Bridgewater Season 2. A lot of people now actually believe that there is some kind of mystical force in this region that attracts monsters and paranormal activity. The Bridgewater Triangle. Now that sounds about right. You're still denying that

there's something beyond our understanding going on here? Starring Supernatural's Misha Collins, The Walking Dead's Melissa Ponzio and Rogue One's Alan Tudyk, written by Lauren Shippen and created by me, Erin Mankey. Something about all of this doesn't feel right. Hello? Is someone there? Something went wrong here. Olivia, we should hurry. We have a much bigger problem. What is that? Olivia, run! Listen to Bridgewater now on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and learn more over at grimandmild.com slash Bridgewater. Yeah, and actually in the article, How the Bodomies Work, there's a cool relief from a Heronimus Bach painting of some early physician trepanning a patient and he's got

like a little segment of the skull lifted off and the brain's exposed and he's just poking around in there. But okay, so he's still, Dr. Moniz is still using the drilling method, but now he's inserting instruments in there. He inserted this one that sounded like it's a handle with a little loopy wire that comes out, but it retracts. Lukatom? Yes, so when you push it, when you push down the back of it, the loop extends out and you can pull it in and then just basically remove hunks of prefrontal cortex. Yeah, of white matter. Right, and that's exactly what he did. Hopefully white matter. Yeah, you would think. And it was successful. Right. Well, yeah, sure. To, again, to varying degrees and maybe not again because I think

that's the first time we've said that, but yeah, the lobotomy was successful to varying degrees. Very, varying degrees. But there was this guy who went and saw Dr. Moniz perform one of these. Yeah, this where it gets good. And this guy was named Dr. Walter Freeman. And for probably about what, 50,000 people in the US alone, this meeting between these two men was the worst thing that ever happened in the history of humanity. Right, because it's about how many people were lobotomized between for about over about a seven year period in the US. Was it just seven years? Yeah. Wow. 9 to 56. Wow. Okay. Heavy work. So then there was many, many more actually. But yeah, the Dr. Walter Freeman became an immediate evangelist, he was called for lobotomies.

Right. He tried Moniz's technique with a partner and did it successfully for a while. But the problem is, is it was still surgery. Right. It required a surgeon to do it. Operating room. Right. And Freeman was actually not a neurosurgeon. He was a neurologist. Right. It required anesthetic. Yep. So there were some, some drawbacks to it in Freeman's opinion. Right. Expense being one of them time and resources. So he created something that was a lot handier, a lot easier and a lot quicker. And that is what we call the transorbital or ice pick lobotomy. Right. Can I say what this is? Yes. He determined that if you took something which is technically called an orbitoclast, but it's really looks sort of like an ice pick.

You said it yesterday on our webcast. It's an ice pick. Yeah. Call it a rose by any other name. Exactly. So you put this ice pick over, over the eyeball, but under the, the bone there, what's that called? Between the eyeball and the eyelid until the back of the orbital bone. Right. So once you get to the back of the orbital bone, there's a little resistance there because it's bone. And so enter a little silver hammer. And so he just pinks on that thing until it cracks through. And then he's got a pretty clean passageway to the frontal cortex. Yep. And so you've got an ice pick sticking out of your eye. He, he scrambles it up a little bit once it's in there. And then he does the same thing on the other side. Yep. And 10 minutes later,

you're lobotomized literally. So he'd do both sides, right? Right. He got kind of good at this. Yeah. Dr. Freeman got really, I guess you could say good at this or at least very fast. In one two week period in West Virginia, he performed lobotomies on 228 people. Yeah. And in one day he performed lobotomies on 25 patients, right? In one day. In one day. So he's just basically bringing them in and sending them out. He's exactly doing that actually. I read an interview with one of his assistants at the time and he said he would literally not take breaks as the patient left. Another one would be brought in 10 minutes later. Boom. And I don't think we mentioned yet. He, he, before he does this, he doesn't use anesthetic. He knocks them out with

electroshock. Right. So it's making use of two extremely primitive and violent techniques, right? And the result was, like we said, varied. I mean, it ranged anywhere from people being satisfied and, you know, seemingly successful, like a highly emotional people, suicidal, all of a sudden being more docile and not so worried to, to death. And people rendered vegetables literally. So yeah. Well, Dr. Freeman actually referred to lobotomies informally as soul surgery. Yeah. I hate that. The reason why is, is because he was basically removing what kind of, what makes us human. People could still function under a successful lobotomy. People could still function. They could still talk. Right. They weren't, they weren't doing anything. They weren't bringing

anything to the table. There was no reason for them to exist so much anymore. For the personality surgery. Exactly right. And he would, he did it again so fast, so, so often. And he had a touch of the showman to him that he basically did. He had a lobotomobile in which he performed demonstrations, right? He toured the country, went all over the place. I think he ended up doing estimates run from 2000 to 5000 between 1946 and 1967 transorbital lobotomies in 23 states in the U.S., right? He performed with both hands. He would stick the ice picks in with both hands at once to add a little flair in showmanship. Yeah. So he was basically performing shows, lobotomy shows. And not everybody reacted well to these. Right. There was seasoned surgeons

who had seen tons of gore and blood and horrible things in their lifetimes would vomit watching these things. Some had to leave. There was a nurse whose account I read of watching a lobotomy. He said the, when he moved the ice picks back and forth, it made the sound of tearing cloth. Yeah. Later on in the USSR, which actually banned lobotomies in, I think, 1953 before we did, which was embarrassing. Yeah. Well, 14 years before we did, right? Yeah. Yeah. A physician named Nikolai Orsarenski. Orsarenski? Orsarenski. Thanks, dude. Ossarenski. Ossarenski. He called, he said that lobotomies violate the principles of humanity and change an insane person into an idiot. Again, remember a medical term at the

time. Sure. So I imagine that there was something that affected you. Were you a human being, like a real human being, seeing this, this rough, violent, misguided or unguided procedure being performed, that it would affect you in some way, like some very primal part of you would say that's not supposed to happen. Right. Plus, there was no official scientific basis for this. It was basically, hey, look at the result in some cases. Right. Which is what they were kind of basing this whole thing on. And also, as we were saying about Freeman being a showman and doing it so fast, there was one visit to a mental institution in Iowa. I don't remember what year it was. But Freeman killed three people in one visit. Yeah. And one of the people, this

is so awful, he was doing his little show off thing with the two picks at once, instead of as his own procedure dictated one and then the other side. Right. He was doing two picks at once. So the patient's on the table with two ice picks sticking out of his eyes. And Freeman says, I'm going to take a photo of this. Steps back to take a photo. One of the ice picks slips and kills the patient instantly. Right. So apparently, Freeman was said to have basically just packed up right then and moved on to the next place without missing a beat or saying, geez, that's distinct. Packed up the lobotomobile. Yeah. Hit the road. You know, one person he lobotomized, Josh. I know you do. He lobotomized John F. Kennedy's sister, Rosemary. Yep. Dr. Freeman

did in 1941. Rosemary was 23 years old and early on in her childhood, she was shy and easy going, they say. But as a teenager, shocker, she became rebellious and moody, which, and that's what struck me in a lot of these cases is so many of them were just normal human emotions, like any thing from postpartum depression to, you know, a overactive child, you know, it's just unbelievable. Right. So she was lobotomized and afterward was rendered basically, she couldn't speak. She had the mental capacity of an infant couldn't control her bodily functions. And the Kennedy family, basically from that point on said that she was mentally retarded, which they claim that she may have been before, but who knows? You want to talk about another guy? Howie. Chuck and I have a

shared hero. He is an indomitable 350 pound six foot three bus driver who has this gentle, tender personality. Right. And his name is Howard Doley. And at the age of 12, Howard Doley met Dr. Freeman under unfortunate circumstances, meaning Dr. Freeman had a couple of ice picks on him when they met. Right. And Howard ended up under Freeman's care because of his stepmother. Right, Chuck? Yeah. He was kind of the classic story. The father gets remarried to a stepmother who is not very patient and understanding with her son that sounded like, you know, sound like he may have been a little rambunctious, but what 12 year old boy isn't. I think you have some good notes, actual notes. Yeah. Well, in Freeman's notes that Doley turned up later, and we should say Howard Doley created

this great radio piece that's on NPR. You can actually find by typing in my lobotomy in Google. I think it's the first thing that comes up. Right. It's one of the most amazing things you've ever heard where he just goes and retraces the steps of his lobotomy that he got when he was 12 and tries to get to the bottom of what happened. We typically don't recommend people go listen to other things that it's not us, but yeah, that's how good it is. Right. Yeah, exactly. It is that good. It's way better than us, actually. Yeah, sure. But he finds that Dr. Freeman's notes on his case and apparently a stepmother pled her case to get him lobotomized by pointing out that he daydreams a lot. And when you ask him what he's daydreaming about, he says, I don't know. Right. He doesn't

want to go to bed. And when he does, he sleeps well. Right. And my personal favorite, he turns on the lights in rooms when there's broad daylight streaming in. Unbelievable. I know. That kid deserves a lobotomy. Yeah. But one of the things that I think one of the reasons why you and I both look up to Howard Doley was because he has wondered his whole life. How different would he be? Right. I lived hard and fast as a younger man. Right. And I've often wondered calm days now. Right. Yeah. I hear it's anical days. Actually, way, way harder and faster. But I've often wondered, you know, how much sharper would I be had I not lived like that? Right. But this is my own doing. It was my own choosing. Sure. Howard Doley had to think that same thing like,

is there something wrong with me? Is there a part of me missing through no choice or fault of his own? We should also say that when Howard's stepmother found that he was not a vegetable, she just got him out of the house and he became a ward of the state. Yeah. So he went to an institution. He's an all-around fan of lady. Yeah. Yeah. So again, in the end, he finds, you know, there really isn't something wrong with him. He's a pretty terrific person as it turned out, lobotomy or not. Right. Took him a long time though. I mean, he battled addiction and various forms of mental illness his whole life after this. And I think going this, the special that aired, and he wrote a book and went and talked to his father after 40 years. He actually finally spoke

to his dad about it and that seems to have been the thing to get him over the edge to not feeling like a freak anymore as he called it. Yeah. You can actually hear him working it out in my lobotomy. Yeah. A big deep voice. Yeah. He sounds kind of like Sam, not Sam Shepard. What's the guy? Big Lebowski? Sam Elliott. Sam Elliott. Yeah. That's what he reminded me of. The dude. Yeah. He also had that big mustache too, sort of like Sam Elliott. Yeah. That handlebar biker mustache. Right. A day of travel brings a basket full of learning in Mississippi with family-friendly places like the Mississippi Aquarium, the Hattiesburg Zoo, and Tupelo Buffalo Park. Explore today at visitmississippi.org slash family fun. Mississippi, Wanderers, welcome.

I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild present Bridgewater Season 2. A lot of people now actually believe that there is some kind of mystical force in this region that attracts monsters and paranormal activity. The Bridgewater Triangle. And that sounds about right. You're still denying that there's something beyond our understanding going on here? Starring Supernatural's Misha Collins, The Walking Dead's Melissa Panzio, and Rogue One's Alan Tudyk, written by Lauren Shippen and created by me, Erin Mankey. Something about all of this doesn't feel right. Hello? Is someone there? Something went wrong here. Olivia, we should hurry. We have a much bigger problem. What is that? Olivia, run! Listen to Bridgewater now on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. And learn more over at grimandmild.com slash Bridgewater. So, Chuck, whatever happened to lobotomies? Why did they go the way of the dinosaur disco? Well, a couple of reasons. I mean, one, there was a lot of gaining steam with the criticism of it, because they found that they were lobotomizing criminals. They were lobotomizing soldiers from World War II because... Criminals against their will sometimes. Right, but they lobotomized soldiers because hospitals were overcrowded. Veterans. Unbelievable. And so that was kind of gaining steam. And then the introduction of Thorazine, basically, was kind of what started it all. Thorazine changed everything. I believe that somebody said that Thorazine was to the

treatment of schizophrenia, that insulin, or I'm sorry, that penicillin was to the treatment of infectious diseases, which is a pretty big comparison. Yeah, big time. So, Thorazine was developed in 1950. And as it began to fall into widespread use, lobotomies kind of fell out of widespread use. And Dr. Freeman himself, he had one last lobotomy in 1967, right? Yeah, he killed a woman with a brain hemorrhage after the third try, I think. This is her third lobotomy. And she wasn't just, you know, some mental patient in Iowa. This is a housewife. And when she died of, I believe, a hemorrhage after the procedure, that third procedure, that was it. He was banned from surgery, performing any kind of surgery,

from that point on. And actually spent the rest of his days until he died in 1972, traveling the country in a camper, which I wonder if it was his lobotomobile. Yeah, I don't know. He wasn't pitching it. He was actually going around trying to find, he was visiting old patients to prove that he had done good. And he had done some good in a couple of cases. In several cases, I imagine, his first one was a woman, I can't remember her first name, but it was Ionesco. And she was violently suicidal, as described by her daughter. And afterwards, she went on to live a happy, fulfilled life. Yeah, but you know, every successful case I read about, they would say things like they weren't violently suicidal anymore, and they were just, you know, kind of

happy, but it still seemed to be that lights are on, but no one's home thing. Like the couple, the married couple. They're Robert Palmer of you. Yeah. The married couple was, the husband had his wife lobotomized because she was so emotional. And she was suicidal as well. Yeah. And she says that she was happy as a clam. And he was satisfied. He said that she came home and she never caused any more trouble and she was just happy and she could still back talk. Yeah. She could still cook and clean and do all the things she could do before. And she agreed. I've just haven't been worried about things since then. And she was in her eighties, but you know, you read that and emotions are normal. Mood swings are normal. It's agreed. But I do, I do think that

there is a certain threshold. And if you're violently suicidal, you know, maybe a lobotomy was a better option. Yeah. But I also want to know what the criteria for all this was back then. There wasn't any. So, yeah. So put that in your pipe and smoke it. But one of the most unsettling things, one of the most unsettling things that I found from this article is that lobotomies are still performed today. Yeah. In England, right? The UK is one of a few countries where it's no longer called lobotomies because lobotomy is such a horrible stigma attached to it for good reason. Neurosurgery for a mental disorder. NMD. Yeah. And today, apparently, they use MRIs as guides to be more precise. But pretty much this type of surgery, psychosurgery, as it's called,

is pretty much the same thing. It's destroying white matter connections. And you're removing people's emotional selves. Right. I mean, there may be something to that. But certainly, it was so nonspecific and non-technical to jam ice picks and just blindly move them back and forth. No wonder there was all kinds of results. Yeah. So, Chuck, we are both kind of nuts, and I'm really glad it's not like 1946 because we'd be in big trouble. Oh, yeah. Yeah. My wife, Emily, and I would both be on the lobotomy table, I think. I'd drive you to see Freeman. Thanks. Sure. I appreciate that. Yeah. Well, that's it. That's it for lobotomies, buddy. Yeah. I encourage people to go out and listen to Howard Dully's radio show there. It's really great. Okay.

Hopefully, you guys enjoyed this one. You can read all about lobotomies on howstuffworks.com. You know what to do. You know, handy search bar, et cetera. And, Chuck, let's talk some Audible stuff, shall we? Our sponsor, audible.com. Hit it. Okay. So, if everyone goes to www.audiblepodcast.com slash stuff and sign up to get one free download from audible.com's 50,000 plus titles of audiobooks, stand-up comedy, spoken word, speeches, pretty much anything you can listen to is right there. Yes. And I was on there browsing just this morning, and I found one of my all-time favorite books, 1491 by Charles Mann. Good one. Great one. And I read that. Mann runs around the Americas, basically, to archaeological sites and gets the scoop on the most recent findings and finds that

there were way more people in the Americas before Columbus showed up than we realized. Really? And, yeah, there's a lag between the arrival of Columbus to Hispaniola and the second wave that followed within the next 50 years. The second wave found that, you know, it was virgin territory. There's almost no one there. Turns out it's because about 100 million people died of smallpox from Columbus's first arrival between then and the second wave. It's fascinating. That's a mini-soad. Right there, you just did one. Maybe we'll do a bigger soad on it. A bigger soad. Yeah, what about you? You've been on? Yeah, I'm going to recommend just quickly Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report. Oh, I saw his portrait, his National Gallery portrait. It was Smithsonian

recently. It was awesome. With his familiar scowl. Yeah. I love that guy. So, yeah, he has a very popular book that he reads himself called I'm an American and So Can You. And that's all I need to say about that. Yeah. It's hysterical. Nice to check. So, you can get either one of those titles for free by going to www.audiblepodcast.com slash stop and signing up. And that is audible right there, baby. Let's do Listener Mail. Let's do it. Josh, I'm just going to call this. We got a lot of great feedback for the high fructose corn syrup. Yeah. So much so that we're going to have probably like three podcasts in a row. We're going to be reading some of that mail. I don't know what it is yet. Really? We should. I can bring back high coos. Okay. All right. So, I'm just going to

call it Intelligent Listener Mail because Max is a smart guy and I like these most of all. I'm a graduating senior in the business college, but when I'm not in class or listening to podcasts, I almost always enjoy listening to philosophy. It's more or less my passion. More specifically, I'm interested in world religion, metaphysical theory, and man's relationship to nature in the universe. So, this guy is obviously smarter than we are. Heavy. To say that fructose corn syrup or any other man-made chemical compound does not occur naturally, you're speaking with a basic assumption that man is something different than nature. Unfortunately, for those who can find themselves above nature in importance or authority, this is not the case. It's our western culture

and religion that strengthens this point of view. Man didn't plop into nature as a separate and flawed phenomenon in a stupid natural universe. Man came out of nature. Man is nature. Man is the universe. To borrow a quote from my favorite philosopher, Alan Watts, in your seeing, your hearing, your talking, your thinking, your moving, you express that which it is which moves the sun and other stars. So, to perceive yourself as something different is only an inability to identify yourself with the cosmos. So, Josh, man's manipulation of chemical compounds is really the world's manipulation of itself, or perhaps the universe manipulating itself, and that is certainly a natural occurrence. Boom. And that is what happens when I offhandedly say

something is man-made. Right. Nice. Well, what's the guy's name? Max. And I take philosophy too, so I thought it was kind of cool. We dig you, Max, and we really dig anybody who sends us something, especially if it's as intelligent as that. If you want to show off your ginormous brain, send us an email to stuffpodcastathowstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. And today, sweet, savory, spicy, and smoky flavors that'll satisfy your spirits. Wherever you choose to wander, plan your next dining adventure at visitmississippi.org slash dining. Mississippi, Wanderers Welcome. In 1980, cocaine was captivating and corrupting Miami. The cartels, they just killed everybody that was home. Setting an aspiring private investigator on a

collision course with corruption and multiple murders. The detective agency would turn out to be a front for a drug pilot. Would claim he did it all for this CIA. I'm Lauren Bright-Pacheco. Join me for Murder in Miami. Talk about walking into the devil's den. Listen to Murder in Miami on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.