Boo_ep004

Kat [00:00:00]:
What follows may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:00:06]:
The world is full of stories. Stories of mysteries, of curiosities, of oddities. Join Cat and Jethro Gilligan Toth for the strange, the bizarre, the unexpected, as they lift the lid and cautiously peer ins the box of oddities.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:00:35]:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3.

Kat [00:00:38]:
Hold on. I run over my headphones again.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:00:41]:
Are you ready?

Kat [00:00:43]:
Yes. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:00:44]:
Okay. Welcome back to the Box of Oddities. I'm Jethro Gilligan Toth. And that lady running over her headphone cord is Cat.

Kat [00:00:55]:
Okay, I got him.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:00:55]:
All right, y'all see?

Kat [00:00:56]:
Hello.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:00:57]:
Hi.

Kat [00:00:58]:
Okay, I'm ready.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:00:59]:
I'm really excited about today's episode. I got something that I kind of st upon. I wasn't even looking for this, and I found it while I was researching another topic.

Kat [00:01:08]:
Sometimes that happens, and sometimes those end up being the best topics.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:01:13]:
Well, that remains to be seen. We'll see. I'm excited about it. Thanks to everybody who has taken the time to give us a five star rating and a positive review on itunes. That helps us to be able to continue to grow this podcast. We greatly appreciate it.

Kat [00:01:29]:
Also, you can find us on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter, and smoke signals. That's what we do.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:01:38]:
Our website is the boxofoddities.com theboxofodddities.com and by the way, if you have any ideas for topics or subjects on the podcast, you can send your ideas to curatorheboxofoddities.com yeah, the powers that be.

Kat [00:01:56]:
We'd love to hear your suggestions.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:01:58]:
Right. Our box of oddity overlord, if you will. Okay, so are we gonna spin the blue glass head again to determine who's gonna go first today?

Kat [00:02:09]:
Well, since neither of us ever seems to have any change, apparently. Where did the blue glass head go?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:15]:
It's right here.

Kat [00:02:16]:
Yeah, that'll work.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:17]:
All right, here we go. Spin the blue glass head, which, by the way, you posted a picture of on our social media. You get to go first.

Kat [00:02:26]:
Ooh, this is very exciting.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:28]:
All right.

Kat [00:02:28]:
I like going first because then I get to get my story out and then I just get to sit and listen and it feels more. Okay, I've done my job and now I can move on to the fun stuff.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:39]:
Okay.

Kat [00:02:39]:
Which I guess sharing is fun too. But I don't know, as we've discussed before, it's nice to just kind of sit. I enjoy sitting very much.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:49]:
You are a world class sitter. In fact, you're probably ready to join the pro Tour.

Kat [00:02:55]:
Thank you.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:02:56]:
The pro sitters Tour.

Kat [00:02:57]:
I want to stay at the amateur level, though, because then I can make.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:01]:
Money and you can compete in the Olympics, which I guess they. They. They changed that rule anyway, so.

Kat [00:03:07]:
Did they.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:08]:
Yeah. Oh, you can be a professional sitter and still be in the Olympics.

Kat [00:03:11]:
Oh, I didn't know. I don't follow the Olympics, as I hate it. Anyway, okay, so here we go. Ready? Ready. So we see all the time new and sometimes strange body modifications, Corset piercings, subdermal implants.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:32]:
Let me just stop you right there. This isn't about genital piercing, is it? Because next to having somebody stick something in their eye, that really is the most horrifying thing I can think of.

Kat [00:03:43]:
Piercing? No.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:44]:
Okay.

Kat [00:03:44]:
I've got tattoos, you know, but today we're gonna talk about the traditional, the tribal body mods.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:03:54]:
All right.

Kat [00:03:54]:
And there are many. I really had to kind of narrow down. I was overwhelmed with information once I started. So much and so incredible. And this is one of those topics that there's definitely going to be photos and links on the Instagram and Facebook and such, because some of it's just. It's hard to fully grasp without seeing pics.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:04:19]:
Now, when you mentioned that, the first picture that came to my mind was, like, with a big lip disc.

Kat [00:04:27]:
Lip stretching.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:04:28]:
Is that what we're talking about here?

Kat [00:04:29]:
That's the first thing that we're talking about. It's a form of body moisture modification that began over 10,000 years ago, and it's been practiced in many parts of the world, from Africa and South America to Europe. At present, the only remaining tribe still practicing lip stretching is the Mercy tribe. And according to the tradition, lip stretching takes place before a Mercy woman gets married, but only according to her will. It's not one of those forced mods. She chooses to do it because it makes her more attractive, and she's more likely to snap a man, depending on how far she can stretch her lip.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:10]:
That's like a sign of beauty.

Kat [00:05:12]:
That's right.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:13]:
The more you can stretch your lip out, the more beautiful you are.

Kat [00:05:16]:
Correct. The procedure starts by piercing the lower lip, and then a slender stick is inserted into the small hole. And as time passages bigger discs made from clay or wood are fitted into the lip hole until it just can't stretch anymore.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:33]:
So you start with a toothpick kind of thing.

Kat [00:05:36]:
Right.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:36]:
And then you get to the point where it's like.

Kat [00:05:38]:
Right. Like gauging any other piercing. You know, you start small, and then you just stretch it wider and wider.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:05:44]:
Until you can get a log in there.

Kat [00:05:46]:
Right. Like many forms of body modifications, it's seen as an expression of social adulthood and reproductive potential. Often the size of the plate is correlated with the size of the woman's bride wealth. So you can see how these women persevered until their lips could take plates of up to 12cm or more in diameter.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:06:09]:
How much is that?

Kat [00:06:11]:
Think about the size of a traditional stove burner.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:06:17]:
Wow.

Kat [00:06:18]:
Yeah, wow.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:06:20]:
We do this show in America. If you're listening to this globally, and because of that, we're probably thought of as idiots because we don't understand the metric system.

Kat [00:06:31]:
It doesn't make any sense. No, it's different.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:06:34]:
Yeah, Stove burner.

Kat [00:06:36]:
I get stove burner. Yes, the smaller one. No, not the big one, because that'd be crazy. All right, moving on. Tooth sharpening. Tooth sharpening is a practice of manually sharpening the teeth, usually the front incisors, using a chisel or a knife to file them into desirable shapes. In Bali, the teeth were filed because they believed that the teeth represented negative emotions like anger or jealousy. Teeth filing, which in some traditional cultures, shamans will perform. They use crude tools and no anesthetic. It's believed to satisfy the soul and make women more beautiful. Teeth filing was used by aborigines for spiritual reasons, as well as a sort of Vietnamese and Sudanese tribes. In Mayan culture, the teeth were sharpened and sometimes designed Carved designs were carved into the front of them to distinguish upper class. And many cultures would sharpen their teeth to imitate animals. To say that this is a painful process is an understatement.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:07:49]:
I can't even imagine. I mean, just the idea that my butthole is like clinching shut.

Kat [00:07:56]:
Multiple people are needed to hold down the person that it's happening to. Yeah. Some cultures sharpen their teeth to imitate sharks. And there are some Asian cultures that kick out your teeth to show that you are ready for reproduction.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:08:15]:
They kick them out.

Kat [00:08:16]:
Kick them out.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:08:16]:
Like with their foot.

Kat [00:08:17]:
Like with their foot.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:08:18]:
They hold you down and then stomp.

Kat [00:08:20]:
On your mouth, kick your face until your teeth come out.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:08:23]:
And this is a ritual for what?

Kat [00:08:26]:
It shows that you're ready to have the babies. Hey, hey. Okay, let's respect other cultures. It's weird and different.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:08:37]:
I'm trying to do that. I'm trying to remember that it's just a different culture and that we have our own bizarre rituals.

Kat [00:08:44]:
We absolutely do that.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:08:46]:
We think make us look beautiful. And in reality, when we get a little distance between particular fads, we realize.

Kat [00:08:53]:
How stupid they were, remember, 80s hair?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:08:56]:
I was just gonna say the big permed hair that I had in the 80s.

Kat [00:09:00]:
It was pretty insane, right?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:09:02]:
Yeah.

Kat [00:09:03]:
Those Aborigines would laugh at you.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:09:06]:
They probably would.

Kat [00:09:07]:
They would be like, is that a mullet?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:09:08]:
But we wouldn't be able to tell if they were smiling because all their teeth had been kicked out.

Kat [00:09:12]:
Stop. All right. So you've heard of foot binding? Of course, yes. How about skull binding?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:09:20]:
I have heard of that, yeah.

Kat [00:09:21]:
Artificial cranial deformation.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:09:24]:
That's like a. It's appeared not only in Egyptian culture, but also like Mayan culture.

Kat [00:09:31]:
It's shocking to me how widespread this practice is, you know why?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:09:36]:
Ancient aliens.

Kat [00:09:38]:
Yeah. So it's done by distorting the normal growth of a child's skull by applying force. Intentional cranial deformation predates written history. It was practiced commonly in a number of cultures and so widespread geographically and chronologically. And it still occurs today in a.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:09:56]:
Few places because they want to look like their space brothers.

Kat [00:09:59]:
In the Americas, the Maya, the Incan and certain tribes of North American natives performed the custom. Some strapping babies, heads to cradleboards to flatten. The practice of cranial deformation was also practiced by the Lusayan there in the Bahamas. And it was thought to have been practiced among the aboriginal Australians. So a guy named Friedrich ratzel reported in 1896. That deformation of the skull, both by flattening it behind and elongating it toward the vertex, was found in isolated instances in Tahiti, in Samoa, in Hawaii, and in other places. It actually was pretty widespread in Europe as well. Binding heads in Europe in the 20th century, though dying out at the time was predominant in France and Russia and Scandinavia. All over the place, really. And there is some thought that in parts of France and Europe it was kind of an accidental thing because they would pack the baby's head to avoid head damage, like right after birth. And then you kind of. You messed up their head. You can't do that. And you gotta keep rolling them. I'm not a mom, but that's. Apparently, you've gotta keep.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:11:27]:
Like a hot dog on a rotisserie at 7:11.

Kat [00:11:30]:
You gotta keep rolling em.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:11:31]:
Gotta keep turning them.

Kat [00:11:32]:
Yeah. The reasons, of course, varied over time and for different groups, from aesthetic to pseudoscientific ideas about the brain's ability to hold certain types of thought depending on its shape, which you'd think, you know, that would be something that would occur naturally. But no, you've got to make your head real, real tall in order to be able to think about science. I don't know, I don't know. It's.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:11:57]:
Is that what it means when they say you gotta put your thinking cap on? Because they had to have like special shaped hats maybe for the smart people.

Kat [00:12:05]:
Yes. Well, there are. I found some photos of people who live today with these heads. And some are very conehead looking. Some go out backwards and they have various ways of doing it, as I mentioned, the cradle board. But some use ropes tied very tightly around baby's head to squish it out backwards. It's not for me. I'm a roll that baby kind of person.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:12:37]:
You're a hot dog, rotisserie baby kind of person.

Kat [00:12:41]:
All right. Neck accentuation. So this one I obviously have heard of and you know about. It's the tribes known with the coils on their necks. Yes, but it's actually a little different than I thought it was. The women of the Kayan Lawai tribe in Northern Thailand are known for their long necks decorated with coils. And the girls start wearing coils at the age of five and they increase the number of coils. As the children age, they can get up to a maximum of 25 coils. And the neck, of course, seems elongated, but it's actually not your neck elongating. It's the weight of the coils pressing down on your collarbone. It forces the rest of your body downward. So it doesn't.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:13:32]:
Yeah, so it's kind of like an optical illusion in a sense.

Kat [00:13:35]:
Yeah, it's just, you know, destroying the rest of your body. No big deal. So I don't know how to pronounce this word. L E B L O U H le block, le bleu, la bleu. Tribal fattening. So in parts of West Africa, there exists a practice called. Yeah, okay, so it involves the brutal. This is actually horrendous and it was hard to read about, but it's the brutal force feeding of girls at a very early age to achieve proper obese proportions. At a certain age, the girls are moved into a small hut called a fattening house. And the head fattener plies them with an extreme amount of food and drink, sometimes in excess of 16,000 calories a day. If the girls stop eating, they are beaten or have a limb pinched between two sticks. There's a very specific tool that they use to.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:14:48]:
To keep them eating.

Kat [00:14:49]:
To keep them eating because they believe that being large in size is a sign of wealth and beauty. And thus the women will have a better chance of finding a husband. So often, in so many of these instances, the tribal Fattening the lip, stretching. There's one that involves nose plugs. And it's all about keeping those ladies marryable, which, you know, is hard to read being me. And. And I'm all like, I'm not wearing heels for you.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:15:22]:
Yeah, well, that's exactly right. But we have the same types of situation, same types of body altering for that purpose, you know, in Western civilization in the form of like, say, plastic surgery.

Kat [00:15:38]:
That actually came up in my. In my body mod research. You know that a lot of people don't consider plastic surgery body modification, but it 100% absolutely is because you're. You're modifying your body.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:15:52]:
Yeah. To get a man or a woman.

Kat [00:15:55]:
That's not always why.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:15:56]:
Yes. I think really at the bottom, at the heart of it, that's what it's all about.

Kat [00:15:59]:
Well, I don't think that that's accurate.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:16:01]:
I think so. I realize why does a person want to be attractive?

Kat [00:16:05]:
To attract another person, maybe on a primal level in the beginning stages of things. But I don't think that currently. I mean, I don't have tattoos because I think it's going to get a man.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:16:17]:
Got me.

Kat [00:16:18]:
That's gross. No, it did not. My. My sexy ass brain got you Your sexy ass. Stop it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:16:26]:
Got me.

Kat [00:16:27]:
Don't. All right, so finger cutting. Let's move on. Cultures and individuals obviously handle grief in different ways. Some internalize it, others seek solace in community. Either way, the death of a loved one takes a toll. And for certain members of a tribe in New guinea, grief takes the form of a bizarre body mod called finger cutting. So every time a loved one passes, you lose a chunk of your finger. You have it chopped off ceremonially.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:17:00]:
So the end of the digit.

Kat [00:17:01]:
Yes.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:17:02]:
Okay, so it's not just. You're just cutting it, making a scar. You're actually cutting off.

Kat [00:17:06]:
You're cutting off the ends of your fingers.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:17:09]:
So if you have a big family and they've all died.

Kat [00:17:11]:
Correct. You're done.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:17:13]:
You're like stumpy.

Kat [00:17:14]:
Stumpy. Yeah. And they usually will start with the first knuckle, and that's where you cut down to. And then, of course, you know, as you get older, more people die. So you go down to the second knuckle, and various people perform it in various ways. But there were some older gentlemen who posed with their palms sans fingers.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:17:40]:
No fingers at all.

Kat [00:17:41]:
No fingers at all. They're just very sad and fingerless.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:17:45]:
It just doesn't seem fair because when you're older, you need all the help you can get. You don't need to be handicapped.

Kat [00:17:52]:
I think those. But also in those cultures, the elderly are treated differently. They're respected in.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:17:59]:
It's a weird way to respect them.

Kat [00:18:01]:
But they also take care of them. They move their family into their homes. I mean, if they ever moved out.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:07]:
In the first place, it's easier for them to cut their fingers off, but.

Kat [00:18:10]:
Also to care for them. And the more that these people have suffered emotionally and physically, obviously, the more that you respect and you care for them. Okay, Right.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:22]:
I'm just gonna chalk that up to different culture.

Kat [00:18:26]:
Well, yeah, you should. That's the way that it works. All right, let's move on to penis splitting, so.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:32]:
Whoa. I'm glad you saved that one for last.

Kat [00:18:36]:
Penile sub incision is a form of body modification that consists of. Of urethratomy, in which the underside of the penis is incised at the urethra and split open lengthwise.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:18:53]:
I'm sorry, guys.

Kat [00:18:55]:
So imagine I'm holding up two of my fingers now. And this is your wiener, right? And then they start the cut here.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:19:02]:
Wait, no. Two fingers. If you're going to use my wiener as an example, could you at least use your wrist?

Kat [00:19:08]:
Stop it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:19:10]:
Just to make me feel better.

Kat [00:19:11]:
The split, of course, can vary in lengths, but in extreme cases, it goes the entire length of the peen. And that means that their pee hole is now at the base of their penis, which means they have to sit to urinate. Some men would have tubes that they would use to pee. It's traditionally performed around the world, notably in Australia, but also in Africa, South America, and Polynesian and Malaysian cultures of the Pacific. As a coming of age ritual, there is obviously a long list of disadvantages. You suddenly got very quiet over there.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:19:51]:
I'm just. I had to put my head down for a moment.

Kat [00:19:56]:
So I have a picture.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:19:58]:
Gonna put that on our website. That'll drive traffic there. Oh, my God.

Kat [00:20:08]:
It also happens to some people in the central desert of Australia. It was a rite of passage for young men. And in one culture, those who chose to have it done were the only ones who were allowed to learn a sacred language of their culture, which is really interesting. And because the practice is no longer practiced, that language subsequently has died out, which is really kind of sad. I mean, I'm not a fan of genital mutilation by any means, but it's sad that parts of the culture have died because we don't cut into weans anymore. There was actually a story about a specific culture that, because of where the end is, you can Do Pini to peony when the hole is all the way down at the base. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:12]:
I do understand what you're saying.

Kat [00:21:14]:
So split a hot dog all the way down to the bottom and then stick a hot dog in the bottom of that hole. That can happen.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:23]:
That's enjoyable.

Kat [00:21:24]:
It's not enjoyable. No.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:25]:
Why would somebody.

Kat [00:21:26]:
It's part of a rite of passage.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:27]:
Oh, I see.

Kat [00:21:28]:
Yeah. And it apparently pretty painful.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:32]:
I would rather just stick with the 80s hair.

Kat [00:21:35]:
You prefer your mullet?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:36]:
I prefer the mullet.

Kat [00:21:38]:
I've seen pictures of that mullet and there are some of these body mods. I would choose over that hair. That was. That was really gross. But yeah, that was my last. My last body mod. I hope that you enjoyed it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:21:50]:
Holy crap. So how long has it been since the whole peens wean split thing stopped being a rite of passage?

Kat [00:21:59]:
It's hard to say because some of these cultures are so removed from, you know, the. The rest of the world. But there are, you know, there are photos and fairly recent photos of wiens that have had it done. So it still happens is what I'm saying.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:22:20]:
But this went on for people still do it for what, thousands of years? I don't know.

Kat [00:22:25]:
Sometime it went on for a while.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:22:26]:
Yeah, For a long time. What was the moment when they said, you know what, let's stop doing this, this is crazy.

Kat [00:22:33]:
That's a really interesting question.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:22:35]:
What was the driving force?

Kat [00:22:37]:
Yeah, I bet it was like a guy in the tribe who is like, Dave. And Dave was like, you know what? No, no, I'm not gonna let you hot dog skewer me. I'm keeping everything round. And the way that. Don't flay my painter.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:22:53]:
Yeah, yeah, mate, because it's Australia.

Kat [00:23:00]:
Yeah, I got it.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:23:01]:
Oh. So anyway, yeah, I need a moment to recover.

Kat [00:23:04]:
Sure.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:23:04]:
From. From that. But fascinating stuff. Really fascinating.

Kat [00:23:09]:
And I love how you're saying it and you are just as sheet wide as you can be. That's really fascinating.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:23:15]:
I need that. Thanks. Need a moment. All right. That was great, sweetie.

Kat [00:23:20]:
Thank you.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:23:21]:
Good stuff.

Kat [00:23:22]:
Do you want to see a penal sub incision?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:23:24]:
No.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:23:25]:
You're listening to the box of oddities. The question is why?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:23:31]:
Here are five weird facts. Really quick. Number five. More people have been killed by molasses than by Coyotes in 2015.

Kat [00:23:40]:
More people were killed from injuries caused by taking a selfie than by shark attacks.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:23:46]:
Number three, Betty White is literally older than sliced bread.

Kat [00:23:50]:
Billy goats urinate on their own heads to smell. More attractive for females.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:23:57]:
I'm glad we're not billy goats.

Kat [00:23:58]:
Billy. I can't. I'm not you. You know what I was getting at.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:24:02]:
And the number one weird fact. More photos were taken in the last two minutes than in the entire 19 century.

Kat [00:24:11]:
Wow. Yeah. No, I believe that.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:24:13]:
Yeah, for sure.

Kat [00:24:14]:
I've taken six.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:24:16]:
The Box of Oddities with Kat and Jethro Gilligan Toth.

Kat [00:24:20]:
We're on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. I just watched a video of a billy goat peeing on his own face and he looks really upset about it. He doesn't look pleased with his choice.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:24:32]:
Right. Today I'm going to talk about Encephalitis Lethargica. That doesn't sound very exciting, does it?

Kat [00:24:39]:
No, it sounds unpleasant, for sure.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:24:41]:
How about this? The Sleeping Plague. Okay, that's more catchy.

Kat [00:24:45]:
Okay. I think I'm somewhat familiar with this.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:24:48]:
After the First World War, an epidemic of Encephalitis Lethargica. And by the way, this is According to the U.S. library of Medicine, National Institute of Health.

Kat [00:24:57]:
Okay.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:24:57]:
An epidemic of Encephalitis Lethargica started in Vienna and spread across the world. Many of those who survived developed a range of post encephalitic syndromes. You've seen the movie Awakenings, the one with Robin Williams?

Kat [00:25:13]:
I don't think I've seen it. I know of it vaguely.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:25:17]:
It's based on a book written by a doctor named Oliver Sacks who worked at Mount Carmel, an institution outside of New York which had 80 patients that were still suffering from the sleeping sickness. What happened was they would get this type of encephalitis and many cases they would just kind of go into a locked in state or almost a coma like state.

Kat [00:25:45]:
Like locked in syndrome.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:25:46]:
Kind of like that. Yeah, but not just for a little while. For a long time. Here's an example. One of the patients named Rose was struck by sleeping sickness when she was 21 years old. That was 1926. She was out at a party. She was a bit of a party girl.

Kat [00:26:03]:
Sure.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:26:04]:
She was out at a party and I wasn't feeling very well. And so she came home and she went to bed and apparently had a really rough night. That night, Rose apparently was talking in her sleep. She had a series of dreams about one central theme. She dreamed that she was imprisoned in an inaccessible castle, but the castle had the form and shape of herself. She dreamed of enchantments and bewitchments and she couldn't move. She dreamed that she had become a living statue of stone.

Kat [00:26:37]:
Oh, my gosh. That's terrifying.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:26:38]:
And these are things she was talking about in her feverish state that first night that her family had overheard and witnessed.

Kat [00:26:45]:
Sure.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:26:46]:
So she went to sleep in 1926 and woke up in 1969.

Kat [00:26:51]:
Oh, my gosh.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:26:52]:
That's when.

Kat [00:26:53]:
That's terrifying.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:26:54]:
All of her sex. I know Oliver Sacks was experimenting with a drug called L Dopa. Why is that funny to you?

Kat [00:27:06]:
L Dopa. When I was young, my mom used to refer to all drugs as L Dopa.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:27:15]:
L Dopa. Hey, those kids are out behind the.

Kat [00:27:19]:
711 smoking the L Dopa.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:27:21]:
The L Dopa.

Kat [00:27:23]:
Okay, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:27:24]:
This is a different.

Kat [00:27:25]:
This is serious. This is horrible.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:27:26]:
Different type of Eldo.

Kat [00:27:27]:
Sure, different.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:27:28]:
One of her sisters said that before they took her to the Institute that she looked as if she was trying hard to remember something or maybe doing her damnedest to forget something. Whatever it was, it took all of her attention. But then she just slipped away slower and slower. And they never saw her beloved kid sister again.

Kat [00:27:48]:
Awful.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:27:50]:
So she wakes up in 1969. She can't believe it, obviously.

Kat [00:27:54]:
Yeah.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:27:55]:
She's like, what? It's 1926. And they said, no, it's 1969. And you're no longer 21. You're like 63, or whatever. It figures out. I'm not a math guy. She tried to understand it, but she had not had those 40 some odd years of experience. She still felt like she was 21 years old. And understandably so. She told dirty jokes. She wanted to drink bathtub gin.

Kat [00:28:24]:
No, you don't, dear.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:28:26]:
She was still a flapper during Prohibition in her mind. And she just could not understand that all these years had gone by.

Kat [00:28:34]:
Oh, man. That's terrifying, because you said that she was having these dreams during her fevered state where she was trapped in a castle that looked like her. I've been having a lot of peeing dreams lately. And her dreams came true.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:28:53]:
So you're afraid that you might pee on the couch?

Kat [00:28:55]:
Yeah, yeah, I told you about that one.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:28:56]:
Yeah, yeah, that was a scary dream. Was, we have a new couch. But other than the fact that she couldn't understand where her, you know, four decades of her life had gone, she seemed to be pretty well adjusted. She. She would call out to the doctor, Dr. Sachs. I walked to and from the building today. It was a distance of a couple hundred yards. She says, it's fabulous. It's gorgeous. She really was starting to, at one point, embrace her new life.

Kat [00:29:24]:
Sure.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:29:25]:
But then she would start to slow down, and they would have to give her more and more of the L dopa. Fifteen minutes after receiving her medication, she'd be up again. Her voice was great. She'd be walking fully restored. She'd be cheerful, smiling, talkative. And then she would start to fade again. And it just got to a point where they knew that it wasn't going to last one day. She said breathlessly, this is from Oliver Sacks book. I feel great today, Dr. Sacks. I want to fly. I love you, Dr. Sacks. I love you. I love you. You know, you're the kindest doctor in the world. And then the next minute, she'd be, like, yelling at people in her room. Like this one person that was drinking out of a water fountain. She would yell, dolores, get away. Stop sucking on that water fountain. We all know what you want to be sucking on.

Kat [00:30:12]:
Oh, man.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:13]:
Yeah, she was a saucy flapper. Any. Anyway, they decided that she just wasn't going to respond, and they stopped giving her the L dopa, and she just went back to her stone statue state.

Kat [00:30:25]:
Oh, my gosh.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:26]:
Sadly, wait, there's no happy ending.

Kat [00:30:28]:
She was cool with that?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:30]:
Yeah, she just decided that she was better off because she couldn't understand where the 40 years went.

Kat [00:30:37]:
That's terrifying and so sad.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:40]:
Another example is that of Leonard. Now, he was portrayed in the movie Awakenings by Robert De Niro.

Kat [00:30:46]:
Okay, okay.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:48]:
But Hollywood kind of sanitized his story.

Kat [00:30:51]:
As they so often do.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:30:53]:
In the story, he fell in love with somebody, and he was very romantic and sensitive, and, you know, that wasn't really quite the case. When he came out, he was drooling and he was sweating a lot, and he was delusional and had hallucinations. And apparently once he came because he was in that locked in state, that stone Statue State for 40 years, he couldn't stop masturbating.

Kat [00:31:22]:
Oh. Oh, yeah.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:31:24]:
And they didn't mention that in the movie.

Kat [00:31:25]:
No.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:31:26]:
Yeah. He apparently would lock himself in his room and masturbate just chronically, all the time. But, you know, to be fair, it had been 40 years.

Kat [00:31:34]:
Right? Yeah. So, I mean, it makes sense that you're sharing his story now because of how you identify with him.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:31:41]:
Right? I am a chronic masturbator. No, seriously, if I had been sitting there in a chair for 40 years with my hands folded in my lap, and I suddenly wake up, that's the first thing I'd want to do. I'd be like, yeah, just give me some hand lotion and a subscription to pornhub. And, yeah, just toodle off. Leave me alone. I'll be in here bopping the bishop, as the kids say these days.

Kat [00:32:07]:
Sure. Yeah.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:08]:
No, seriously. I mean, that'd be the first thing I'd think of, but I guess after a while you'd stop. But he didn't. He just. At one point, he got loose and he went outside and climbed a tree. And he was just yelling, I want a woman.

Kat [00:32:22]:
Sure.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:22]:
And he couldn't understand why they wouldn't bring him a prostitute. All he wanted was a prostitute.

Kat [00:32:31]:
We call them sex workers now.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:33]:
Well, okay, this is according to Dr. Sacks book. He called them a prostitute.

Kat [00:32:38]:
Sure, yeah.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:39]:
Sex worker, whatever you want to call it. So, yeah, so eventually. But he faded away too. They stopped giving him his medicine because of similar types of situation where they kind of built up an immunity to it.

Kat [00:32:51]:
Oh, yeah, yeah. My mom said that would happen.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:32:56]:
Apparently he didn't build up an immunity to his chronic masturbation.

Kat [00:32:59]:
No. Oh, that's so sad.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:33:02]:
In our final story, according to Scientific American, Eleanor Carey, an eloquent young woman living in New York City, fell into a beauty, sleeping Beauty like trance in February of 1923. Many years later, she described these symptoms in a magazine article. She was one of the success stories where she did wake up, but didn't have immunity developed to the L dopa.

Kat [00:33:27]:
Oh, good. I'm glad that you're sharing one of these stories too. Otherwise it's just sad.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:33:31]:
Just one. After two months. This is what she said in a magazine article. After two months of illness, I was in little pain. In fact, I was very comfortable, provided they did not prod me, nor stand me on my head, or turn me over in bed, nor dash cold water on my face to awaken me. It was so heavenly just to be allowed to sleep. But these people around me seemed determined to prevent me from being comfortable. When the idea finally crept through my sleeping brain that I must awaken, it seemed to be physically impossible. I wanted to be obliging, but I just could not do it. It seemed to me to be just as difficult to come to consciousness as it would have been if I had been buried in a pit as deep as the center of the earth, where the circular walls around me were so shiny and made of polished marble, I could not find a crevice for my fingers on either side or any place to put my foot. But I must climb out of the pit with my bare hands. Perhaps it will give the reader a vague inkling of the dreadful lethargy which completely overpowers the victim of this disease and renders him impotent to make the effort to help himself.

Kat [00:34:40]:
Yeah, it's like after Thanksgiving dinner, that's how I feel. Just having eaten all that, I just feel like I'm in a.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:34:46]:
Like a food coma. Yeah, I think this is a little bit of a difference.

Kat [00:34:49]:
Oh, all right.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:34:50]:
From Encephalitis Lethargica and too much pie.

Kat [00:34:53]:
No, you're right. You're right. Let's just ruin my fun.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:34:56]:
No, I wouldn't want to do that. Fortunately, there has not been an outbreak of Encephalitis lethargica of that magnitude for. For many decades. Let's hope it doesn't happen again.

Kat [00:35:08]:
That is terribly sad. Also incredibly fascinating. It is. And I brought up Locked In Syndrome earlier. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is one of my favorite movies. It's heartbreaking and amazing, and the way that the brain works is mind blowing. And so it sounds like it's kind of a similar state.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:35:30]:
And there's another book that I read recently, and it was a different situation, but it was written by a guy named Martin Pistoris, and it's called Ghost Boy, and it's a autobiographical account of what happened to him when he was 16. He went into this locked in. He was totally aware of what was going on, but nobody knew it. And he was abused in the care facility, and he was aware of what was going on, but he could. Couldn't do anything. But then one day he woke up. That's a good book.

Kat [00:35:59]:
Yes. Oh, did he get his revenge?

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:36:02]:
Yes, he did.

Kat [00:36:03]:
Yes.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:36:04]:
Yeah. Yeah, he did.

Kat [00:36:05]:
I want to watch that movie.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:36:06]:
It's not a movie, it's a book.

Kat [00:36:07]:
It should be a movie.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:36:08]:
It probably will be at some point.

Kat [00:36:10]:
Yes.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:36:10]:
Yeah. So now we gotta watch Awakenings. We'll go home and watch that.

Kat [00:36:14]:
Yes, please. And the Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Okay, that sounds good. And that new movie that hasn't been made yet.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:36:19]:
Yeah, we'll look forward to that. Maybe we can time travel.

Kat [00:36:22]:
Sleeping Revenge. Bom, bom, bom. Sounds like a Hallmark movie.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:36:28]:
Thanks for joining us. At the boxofoddities.com we have social media all up at the wazoo.

Kat [00:36:34]:
Yeah. I will share a picture of one of them split hot dog wieners on our Instagram page, so you'll want to see that. Also, follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:36:45]:
And if you have suggestions for a topic you'd like to research and explore, you can send it to curatorheboxofoddities.com so I guess that's it. Goodbye.

Kat [00:36:57]:
Yeah. Okay.

Jethro Gilligan Toth [00:36:58]:
And so let it be known that the Box of Oddities belongs to you and its fate is in your hands. Therefore, it's been requested by those of whom I report to to beseech you for assistance. The Box of Oddities is free. We ask but one thing of you to provide a five star rating and a positive review. True, that is two things. However, tis merely a five star rating and a positive review also. Subscribe to Us ok, so three things is all we ask. Three things and three things only. Henceforth, the Box of Oddities commits to the telling of stories. Stories, stories of the strange, the bizarre, the unexpected. We wish to offer our deeply felt gratitude and appreciation for your patronage. The boxofoddities.com on Facebook at facebook.com boxofodditiespodcast on Twitter boxofodities and Instagram boxofoddities podcast Copyright 2018. All rights reserved.