King Ferdinand’s Royal Rooster, Prehistoric Trees, Unusual Body Disposal Methods & Tobacco Smoke Enemas

This week on The Oddities Department, Gavin and Lindsay drag you through four exhibits that somehow connect royal anatomy, prehistoric swamp forests, death rituals, and one of the worst medical ideas humanity ever committed to paper.

We start with King Ferdinand VII of Spain, a terrible ruler with an allegedly massive, malformed royal problem that required doctors, strategy, and possibly furniture. Then we travel back more than 300 million years to the Carboniferous Period, when trees refused to rot, oxygen levels went wild, and bugs grew large enough to make eye contact with your soul.

From there, Lindsay builds Gavin a deeply cursed post-death menu featuring sky burial, Famadihana, mellification, and possibly the most annoying afterlife option of all: becoming glitter. Finally, Gavin closes the tour with the truly real history of tobacco smoke enemas, the 18th-century medical practice where doctors believed the cure for drowning, disease, and general inconvenience was blowing smoke directly up someone’s backside.

This episode has everything: bizarre history, strange science, royal scandals, giant prehistoric insects, creative corpse disposal, questionable medicine, and enough wood jokes to get us escorted out of our own museum.

Stay curious. Stay weird. And please… keep the tobacco out of your chocolate starfish.

Topics include: King Ferdinand VII, Spanish royalty, bizarre medical history, Carboniferous Era trees, prehistoric insects, odd burial practices, sky burial, Famadihana, mellification, tobacco smoke enemas, weird history, strange science, and The Oddities Department.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Lindsay, please tell me that you reinforced the body disposal exhibit with extra tarp and duct tape.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

How was I supposed to know the exhibit would leak into the Carboniferous Forest exhibit? The trees are thriving in it, though.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

They're not just thriving, they're overgrowing. One of them just punched through the ceiling. We've got 300 million-year-old wood refusing to rot in real time. Also, why is this box so heavy? Wait a minute. Lindsay. Why does this box have a rooster wearing a crown on it?

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Don't open that one! It's King Ferdinand's special collection. His Royal Rooster does not need to be let out just yet. Um, why does the museum smell like old tobacco smoke? Like a fancy Cuban cigar. Getting notes of cherry?

SPEAKER_00 1:01

You're never gonna believe me, but I'll definitely be showing you later.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Uhhhhhhhhhhh, this museum is something special.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Nah, this is just a normal Tuesday. Come on. The guests are waiting for the tour. Who are we? I'm Lindsay.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

And I'm Gavin. Welcome to the Oddities Department, where the bodies are never properly buried. And the trees never properly rot. And the kings are never properly proportioned. This is episode 19. Tonight's tour is pretty heavy on the wood. We're going to start off the tour by meeting one very unlucky Spanish king and his tragically oversized mangle member.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Then we'll jump back into a prehistoric nightmare where trees took over the world and insects grew way too big.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

From there, we'll look at some of the most creative, disgusting, and downright hilarious ways humans have tried to dispose of bodies throughout history.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

And we'll finish the night learning why your great, great, great grandfather's doctor thought the cure for drowning was blowing tobacco smoke straight up your ass.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

We have two quick rules before we dive in.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Rule number one don't touch anything in the Carboniferous Tree Exhibit. Don't make eye contact with any of the bugs either. They are large and in charge and very hungry. Rule two.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

If anything in tonight's tour gives you any ideas, don't. Just don't. We're not responsible for what happens to your body, your furniture, or your dignity. Alright, Gabin, let's start this thing before the royal rooster escapes again.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

First up, Exhibit one hundred and eleven, King Ferdinand's giant MAC. Lindsay, take the floor.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Alright, let's dive right in. We're kicking this episode off with King Ferdinand VII of Spain. Born in 1784, he ruled sort of, starting in 1808 for a hot second, then again, properly, from 1814 until his death in 1833. This dude inherited a whole mess and managed to make it worse. At first, he was nicknamed El Desado. I like that. I had to say it like that. El Desado.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Which means Sounds bougie.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Bougie dangerous even. That translates to the desired, because everyone hoped he'd be better than his parents. They led a very chaotic court. Turns out he was El Rey Felon, or the felon or criminal king. Because he was a repressive, backstabbing, absolutist nightmare.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

That's what they called him El Rey Felon.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Can you imagine? When you're younger, he's like, oh, he's the desired. Fuck that. He's the felon. That sounds familiar. Interesting. This may not be applicable to current events as we continue. We'll see. We'll see.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Judging by the title, I do not think that it is.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Polar opposites, probably. Yeah. Alright, so as a kid, Ferdinand straight up got kidnapped by Napoleon. There was a whole pile of messy royal family drama in a palace coup against his dad. Anyway, Napoleon lured him into France, detained his ass for six years in fancy captivity, and casually stole the Spanish throne for his own brother, while the whole country went to war. By 1813, Napoleon was getting his ass kicked across Europe, especially in Spain, so he cut a deal, the Treaty of Valence, and sent Ferdinand back to Spain in 1814 to reclaim the throne. Joseph Bonaparte got the boot, and Ferdinand swaggered home as king again while pretending he'd play nice. When he came back, instead of thanking everyone with some sweet liberal reforms like the Constitution of Cadiz, he went nah, tore it up, brought back the Spanish Inquisition, persecuted liberals, and he spent the rest of his reign yo-yoing between absolute tyranny and brief, forced periods of constitutionalism. Oh, also, under his watch, Spain lost basically all its American colonies. Solid rain, bro. Ten out of ten for making everyone miserable.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Damn.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

But none of that is really why we're here today. So here's where things get odd. Ferdinand the Seventh was packing something that made court doctors write secret notes and probably question every life choice that led them to the Spanish palace. His Weinar was legendary. Not in a fun way. Not even a little bit. Contemporary accounts describe it as grotesquely oversized and freakishly shaped. Narrow and thin at the base, like a stick of sealing wax or the width of a thumb, then ballooning out into a massive, bulbous, fist thick head. Long too. What? Yep. Reportedly, it was exceeding 10 inches in some, you know, whispered medical descriptions. So he was just carrying around a baseball bat. Swing bada bada bada.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Cause that whole description sounds exactly like a baseball.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

It really does. I I wrote this and I still did not even. You complete me.

unknown 6:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Keep telling me about this massive baseball dog.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

So it wasn't just big. It was a biological horror show that defied the elegant Greek ideals of the time. They called it monstrous.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

I never thought about that.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

They really did. I mean, don't mean all. Anyway.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

You speak for yourself.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Can we just take a moment to be very thankful that HIPAA did not exist in 19th century Spain? Thank you. Thank you. So one of his personal doctors, Francisco Flores, apparently kept notes on this royal nightmare, because of course he did. The descriptions paint a picture of something that swelled to anatomical impossibility levels. Narrow base, grotesque girth at the tip. Doctors at the time were horrified. This wasn't congratulations, Your Majesty. This was we need to call reinforcements and maybe a priest. So to make things workable, because as we know, royal duty demands airs. They had to engineer a special cushion contraption. So picture this a custom pillow with strategic support for that narrow little pencil dick base, propping things up so only the bulbous monster tip had to do the business. It was basically a royal dick harness made of velvet and desperation. And the goal was that he could actually consummate his marriages without turning the Queen's insides into modern art. Or worse.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

I beg your finest pardon.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

We could probably call it a marital aid of sorts. And with a dick like that, it's not too hard to believe that he went through four wives. They were all named Maria because royal naming conventions were as creative as his personality. First, Maria Antonio of Naples and Sicily. This was his cousin. Married young, she had miscarriages, and died in 1806 without kids. Second, Maria Isabel of Braganza. This was his niece. She had one stillborn daughter and died in childbirth in 1818. Third, Maria Josefa Amelia of Saxony. No kids at all. She died in 1829. Fourth and final, Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies. Another niece. This one finally stuck. They had two daughters, Isabella, who became Isabella II, and another girl. No surviving sons. Ever. I do imagine that the second delivery was much easier than the first. I mean, their second daughter likely just walked out. Zero pushing needed. There ha that has to be a bit of a perk. Maybe the only perk. I digress.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Probably the only perk. I can't imagine having sex with this man would be very fun if he had to prop it up on a pillow.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

And can you imagine being a woman and not knowing? And he's like, come on, just the tip. And you're like, okay. Here's a fist. A pork! A pork!

SPEAKER_00 10:42

So they're I'm also hung up on the fact that he was marrying his nieces.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Really? Are you?

SPEAKER_00 10:48

I mean, I understand that's something they did back then, but it still feels weird.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yeah, yeah. We we will get into that a little further towards the end of the story. So details, details incoming. Now, there were some dark whispers that some of the earlier wives were seriously injured during attempts at royal baby making. The equipment was simply not compatible with human women.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Definitely compatible for a big old bottom game animal.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

It was wrong born in the wrong time. Wrong time. So, whether his big old bit contributed to their deaths is debated in polite historical circles. But in this circle, I'm side-eyeing it hard. I mean, the man needed a complex contraption to aid in baby batter delivery that tells you everything you need to know. Jesus Christ Am I wrong? Where's the lie?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

No, there's no lie.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

No lie.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

No lies detected.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

So here's the thing. The lack of a male heir became a full blown national crisis. Spanish succession at the time heavily favored males. Ferdinand's younger brother, Carlos, was next in line and a hardcore absolutist. But Ferdinand, desperate not to let his brother take over, pushed through the pragmatic sanction in 1830, allowing his daughter, Isabella, to inherit. He died in 1833 when she was still a toddler, sparking the First Carlist War. A nasty civil war between liberals backing Isabella and conservatives backing Uncle Carlos.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

That sounds on brand.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

And Spain literally tore itself apart, in part because Ferdinand's Christ Peepee couldn't get the job done. One malformed penis, multiple wars. That's iconic. So what exactly caused this biological train wreck? Heavy, heavy inbreeding. There it is. The Spanish Bourbons and before them the Hasbergs loved keeping it in the family. Uncles with nieces, first cousins, the whole genetic slot machine. Ferdinand's bloodline was a closed loop of royal cousin fucking for generations, Scabin. I can sound like Alabama. So while the Hasburg side of the family got the famous jawline, Ferdinand got the legendary hog deformity. I'm sorry, quit laughing. That is a medical term, and that is very insensitive of you. So basically, centuries of keeping the blood pure gave us a king whose dick needed its own furniture.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Oh, now that line makes a lot more sense. I see what you did there.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Ferdinand the Seventh, terrible king, walking cautionary tale about inbreeding, and the undisputed champion of bigger is not always better. Next time someone complains about their dating life, just remind them. At least you don't need a penile support pillow and a team of traumatized doctors just to get late. You're welcome. Alright, Gavin, let's see what you got. Can you top the baseball bat pork sword? I cannot top that try. Try. What do you got?

SPEAKER_00 14:41

But I fear we are still going to be talking about wood. A different kind of wood, though. Before we take another step into this exhibit, I need everyone on this tour to understand something. We are not looking through the glass today. We are fully immersing ourselves into a place and time no human has ever stepped before.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Should I grab my tower?

SPEAKER_00 15:03

You will definitely need a hook. And a lot of bug spray. I'm already in hell. You're all my worst nightmare. You're all hold on. You're also going to feel very weird. Because the oxygen concentration here is thirty five percent. Back home in the year 2026, oxygen levels sit at around 21%. Now this may not seem like a huge jump, but for organic life forms, it is a massive boost to some and comes at a serious cost to others. For a moment, the air feels incredible. Like someone just plugged you into a wall socket. You feel alert, sharp, maybe even a little elevated or high. That's because you walk it. You're basically huffing pure energy right now. For now, you're not concerned. But in just a little bit, you will not be feeling so hot, because your body was not designed for this. Eventually, your body will be overcome with symptoms of oxygen toxicity. So we're kinda on a time crunch here. Right now, your blood is becoming super saturated with oxygen, significantly increasing your stamina and reducing muscle fatigue. Moving around feels like you're wearing a mechanical exercise. Oh no, thank you. The euphoria your brain is feeling is dope, bruh. Until you start to get dizzy and the tunnel vision hits you. Not to mention the seizures. But we're gonna speed run through this exhibit before any of that affects us, okay? Alright, alright, I'm down. Cool. So take a look around you, because your brain is trying to convince you that we are standing in a forest, and technically we are. There are trunks rising all around us, tall, straight, packed close together, like they're in a paleolithic mosh pit. You see green in every direction. The growth surrounding you is dense, endless vegetation, and it appears like something you should recognize. But the longer we stand here, the more we realize that this is a much different place than back home. The illusion begins to crack. Because nothing here looks quite right. Even the ground is off. Every step your feet sink into the soil. It gives its squishes. It squishes? I don't like squishes. It's very squishy. It's almost like you're standing on something that hasn't fully decided what it wants to be yet. Like the earth is still workshopping its texture. And the sounds Oh the sounds. There are no birds, no animal calls in the distance, there is no discernible background noise that your brain knows how to organize. No rustling mammals, no chirping, not anything familiar to you nor I. Perhaps just the sound of an eight foot long millipede and its hundreds of feet tick tick ticking across a downed lycophyte. Nope, nope, hard no. Yes. You heard that right, a six foot millipede. I hate it. More specifically, it's crawling across more specifically, it's crawling across a lepidodendron. Which honest which honestly sounds like something out of a dinosaur documentary. But this thing is way older and way bigger. Lepidodendron, also known as the scale tree, is not a tree at all. Their closest living relative today is a quilwartz, or a spike moss, a type of aquatic lycopod, which has existed since the Jurassic Epoch, which are tiny little grass like mosses that grow near or in ponds and slow moving streams. But this is their gigantic prehistoric ancestor. Its name comes from the Greek lepis, meaning scale, and dendron meaning tree. Its trunk is covered in diamond shaped leaf scars and resembles snakeskin, or something akin to the skin of a pineapple. If a pineapple and a reptile had a baby that decided to grow one hundred and fifty feet tall. These scales were actually the bases of long, grass like leaves that fell as the tree grew. You know what's fucking me up? When I was reading this earlier, I was reading it in a British accent.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

These scales. I was. Do it. We should we should just make you British one day.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

We're talking 120 to 150 feet tall in just ten to fifteen years. That's faster than most people can pay off a car loan. They only branch out at the top of the tree towards the end of their life. Its root system is a shallow, bifurcating network known as stigmaria, which anchors this massive plant in the soft waterlogg soil of tropical swamps. It didn't produce seeds or flowers. Instead, it reproduced via spores contained in cone-like structures called shiboli that hang from the tips of its branches.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

By the way, pause pause. I get it. That is magnificent. I feel like I am watching a documentary.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Perfect.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Please proceed with a giant plant of terror.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Spore cones. Like a fawn on steroids. Imagine that. If you look around even more, you'll see a ciglaria. A close relative of the lepidodendron. But this one looks even more alien. Standing at a hundred feet tall, a little shy of its cousin, the sigl The Siglaria Like technology. Technologia.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

I don't know what the fuck is going on.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

You've never heard that video or seen that video on TikTok? No. The like technologia. No.

unknown 21:27

No.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Hold well. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

So confused. And also, on behalf of everyone, I'd like to apologize to any people that have an actual British accent. Gavin, you're doing fantastic, but let's not get canceled.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

I've done it before. I've done it before.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

That's it. I'm French for my next one.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Standing at a hundred feet tall, a It'll shy of its cousin, the sigilaria, like technologia, is shorter and sturdier than the scale tree. To identify it, look closer at the vertical wax seal pattern on its trunk. Vertical rows of circular or hexagonal leaf scars that look like wax seals pressed into the bark, like somebody went absolutely ham with a stamp collection. The sigillaria has minimal branching. The trunk is often a single column that only forks once or twice towards the very top, which gives it a distinct forked appearance compared to the branched canopy of its cousin. On the tippy tippy tops of its crowns, you'll find long grass like leaves, which we call microfills. They grow directly from the trunk, making the tree look like a giant prehistoric paintbrush. The trunk of the tree contains photosynthetic tissue, giving it a green hue from top to bottom and allowing it to produce energy even where it doesn't have any leaves. It's basically photosynthesizing its entire body. The wild thing about these plants is that their entire lives are all about speed, which is funny to think about when you're thinking about a tree. Trees are supposed to be slow, patient, and wise. But not these guys. They are sprinting. They spend all of their energy growing as fast and as tall as they can in order to reach the top of the canopy. Their only purpose is to find sunlight. Once they get there, they reproduce, sending off their little spore cones, and then they die. That's it. That's their whole life plan. Grow, bone, die. I mean same. Fair. These trees don't have trunks like we think of tree trunks though. Their trunks are mostly made up of a soft inner tissue called the pith. It sounds like Mike Tyson's trying to say the word piss.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

Pissin me off.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Pissin' me off, man. Was really hoping you would go there. So they have this pith, and they also have a very thick, tough layer of outer cortex, otherwise known as bark, that provided structure for the tree. So they're not quite like the trees we know today, which are just pretty much solid thrown through. Once these structures die, they easily collapse into the soggy, swampy floor, and this is where shake gets even worse. But it's already weird, Gavin. Because when a lepidodendron, or a cigalaria tree, falls 300 million years ago, it doesn't just turn into wood dust within a few years like trees do today. Oh no, in this era, there is a huge lack of tree eating organisms. Today, fungi bacteria and insects pretty much take care of most of the trees that fall on the forest floor. They're nature's cleanup crew. Here, during the Carboniferous period, those fungi have not yet evolved the specialized mechanisms for digesting lignin. Lignin is the tough glue that makes wood hard. Oh. Rot fungi wouldn't even appear for another thirty to sixty million years. The fuck? On top of that, there aren't any termites or wood boring beetles to chew up the fallen trunks either. Nothing has figured out how to eat these things yet. And you have to remember, we are in a marshy, swampy, wet environment. When these trees fall, a huge number of them are falling into an anaerobic mud bog. Oxygen free zones where decomposition just doesn't exist. Trees fall and more trees fall, creating massive tangled piles of huge ass swamp trees slowly being buried by thick, stinky swamp mud. As more trees fall and sediment washes over them, the weight becomes immense. This pressure squeezes out all of the water and gases, leaving only the carbon behind. Do you know what happens next?

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Uh no.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Okay, I'll tell you. Over the course of millions of years, these compressed layers of unrotted wood eventually turn into peat. Then, through a geological biochemical transformation, kind of like a butterfly's metamorphosis, it becomes lignite. Not to be confused with ligma.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

I'm learning v very many new words today. Me too. It is also known as brown coal. Lignite is the first tried and true step in the transformation of plant matter into coal. Think of it as baby coal. Lignite eventually turns into higher grade coal through a geological process called coalfication.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Aw, that's adorable.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Such big fancy word that those very silly smart men chose because I'm sure it was a man. Very scientific. Very smarty smutty pants.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

And I'm sorry, uh I wonder if the word ignite already existed and they're just like Because of Lignite? But was it because of Lignite? Or did they name Lignite after the word ignite? Because that was not very imaginative. Let's a that is a very good thing.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Lazy bastards. Coalification is driven by heat, pressure, and time. As lignite is compressed by a bajillion pounds of earth sitting on top of it, it leaches water and impurities and increases its carbon concentration. There are four total stages of coiffication, and I cannot stop thinking about koalas now because of this new word I have just learned.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

I told you, adorable.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

Stage one. Lignite. This is baby coal.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

It's just a weaker baby.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Soft, crumbly, low energy. If coal had a childhood phase where it ate dirt and cried a lot, this would be it. It's brown, it's wet, it barely burns. Lignite is coal, which hasn't quite earned its GED yet. Stage two. Sub bituminous coal. Like girl, you look bituminous today.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

The leg queen. If you do not call me out and say I am what is that? Butinimous? Bituminous. Girl, you are bituminous. Like I expect that the next time I come to the show. I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

I will be using that forever. So now we're getting somewhere. More pressure, more heat, or time. The coal becomes darker, slightly harder. It's like Lignite went to the gym for a few million years and came back as a super tan swole bro. Still not great, but better. Think of it as coal's awkward teenage face. I told you I'd be back three. Stage three. Bituminous coal or soft coal. And now we're talking. We're cooking. This is the coal that actually gets shit done. Less moisture, much harder, significantly higher carbon content. This is the most common type of coal used today for electricity generation and steel production. If coal were a person, bituminous coal would be the only one with a steady job, a mortgage in a 401k. Reliable, productive, boring, but unfortunately essentially.

SPEAKER_01 29:13

Why am I suddenly attracted to coal? What the fuck?

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Some tree I'm trying really hard.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Steady job. Morgan. To make coal sound fit. Ooh, talk daddy to me.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Continue. And last but not least, stage four. Anthracite, or hard coal. This is peak coal, the final form, the final boss. The coal that coal dreams of becoming. This stage only happens under the most intense metamorphic conditions. We're talking extreme heat and pressure that would make a diamond jelly beans. Anthracite is shiny black, very hard, and contains up to ninety-seven percent carbon, almost no moisture, almost no volatile matter, just pure compressed, ancient big deal energy. Exactly how I like my coffee and my men. It is the cleanest burning coal with the highest energy output. If bituminous coal is the dependable office worker, anthracite is the CEO who retired at forty and has a vacation house on the beach in Mexico. The crazy thing about the Carboniferous period is that this whole process, the growing of these massive trees, them dying and falling and growing and dying and falling, this went on for millions of years before any living organism came along and decided to start eating them. The scale of that is absolutely insane. Millions of years of trees just piling up, and here's where it gets even weirder. It gets weirder. Oh yes. Normally when trees rot, decomposers break them down and release all that stored carbon back into the air as CO2. That's the cycle. Rot releases carbon, rot consumes oxygen, except these trees are not rotting. At this point in time, no fungi has evolved yet to digest lignin. No bacteria, no termites, nothing. So all that carbon stays locked in the wood, and all that oxygen that would have been consumed by decomposition, it just stays in the air. Millions of years of trees piling up, not decomposing, not releasing their carbon, and not consuming oxygen. And the result? Atmospheric oxygen climbs from the normal twenty one percent to a bonkers thirty-five percent. The air itself becomes supercharged, and the consequences of that gigantism. Oh no. And by that I mean very large bugs. Oh no. Meganura, imagine a dragonfly with a two-foot wingspan. An Arthropleura, a giant relative of the millipede that reached lengths of over eight feet.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Let's not forget about Pulmonoscorpius, a massive terrestrial scorpion the size of a large candle. Can't him out. I was out before, but I'm out how Mm-hmm. That's a whole lot of note from me, dog. Arthropods the size of small dogs roaming the forest floor. Breathing is expensive. It takes a lot of energy, and a lot of it. But with 35% oxygen in the air instead of 21%, insects didn't have to work as hard just to stay alive. Their respiratory systems could chill, which meant all that energy they used to waste on breathing, they could now spend it on something way more fun. Like getting huge swole. Growing bigger and bigger and bigger until you've got a scorpion the size of a cocker spaniel. All because the air was doing half of the work for them. Now insects weren't the only ones losing their minds in this oxygen rich fever dream. Amphibians also looked at this oxygen rich environment and said, yeah, we go and do that too. They started crawling out of the water, staying longer, breathing easier, and also getting very, very big. Because why not? The air was basically handing them free energy. But here's the thing about amphibians, they still need water to breed. Eggs in water, tadpoles. The whole cycle, like we know the drill. Until one day, evolution said, What if we just didn't need water anymore? Enter the amniot egg, which is something I learned today. Same, literally right now at this moment. A self-contained life support system, a portable water bottle for baby reptiles. Suddenly, reptiles could breed on land. No more trips back to the swamp, no more dependence on water, just dry land, a lot of oxygen, and the freedom to literally go anywhere. And they did. They went everywhere. Now fast forward, millions of years pass by, those giant tree corpses piling up in the swamp. They're getting buried deeper, hotter, more compressed than ever. Here's the kicker. Here's where shit gets even more wild. It is more wild? What the Alright, I'm ready. I'm invested. I'm straightening up. It gets wild in the most darkest, most cosmically ironic way possible. Coal, this stuff that we've been talking about, is the single largest source of global carbon dioxide emissions today. As of right now, as we speak. By burning it, we are literally returning the carbon that these ancient forests spent millions of years removing from the air. Oh the same carbon that triggered ice ages when it was locked away. The carbon that cooled the entire planet. Oh and caused ice ages. We're putting it all back.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

All of it. On on some level, I've I I've known this. Like, of course, we know this. Coal, global warming, carbon emissions. This context is what the fuck.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

And this context is exactly why I was like, that's crazy. I need to tell people about this.

SPEAKER_01 34:57

We must alert the press. No one has ever I was like, when they hear it like this, they'll understand. Well, that is literally me. I mean I get it, but now I'm like, oh I get it.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Uh-oh. So it's almost as if someone spent 300 million years meticulously cleaning their house, and then when we walked in, we dumped all the trash back on the floor and said, You're welcome. In just a few centuries, a mere geological blink in time, just a teasyweezy little blip, we are undoing hundreds of millions of years of planetary cleanup. The trees that saved the planet from our runaway greenhouse effect were reversing their work with enthusiasm, with all too much confidence, causing the planet to warm in ways not seen since before these forests even existed. One lump of coal at a time, one power plant at a time. But we need the energy, we kept saying. We are literally speedrunning the undoing of an entire geological era. And you know what's wild? We can't stop. I hate us. We suck. I hate us too. Because we built literally everything, our cities, our infrastructure, our entire modern civilization on top of burning coal. It's like we found the planet's emergency savings account, spent it all on a party, and now we're shocked that there are consequences. The Carboniferous Forest locked away that carbon, and we dug it back up, burned it, and now we're standing here like wow, why is it so hot in here? I cannot make this shit up. It is real. This is what we did and what we are doing, and it will become our undoing. I hope you learned something because Planet Earth did, but we chose not to listen.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Uh Kevin. Right, I know. That was the most interesting and just depressing to the core exhibit.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

Let me punch you in the gut with some facts.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

Oh, God. Wow. It's crazy when you think about it on that scale, though, isn't it? And then in true human fashion, uh my first thought was, oh, I will be I I'm I'm happy I will be long dead. Before that's Or will you?

SPEAKER_02 37:24

Ooh dun dun dun.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

The one thing I would like to point out though, um, is how excited would you be to get some kind of fossilized giant millipede in a jar.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

That would be That would be so cool.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Right? We would need a really big jar. Yeah, we definitely need to find a bigger jar. Well, we could use up the coal to make one. Bad timing. We really need to do better. By the way, I want this thing. I need coal for it.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

On the note of decomposing, Lindsay, what is exhibit number 113?

SPEAKER_01 38:06

Oh, Gavin. Alright. So this exhibit was inspired by none other than our fearless leader and mastermind, Gavin. Oh dear. Oh dear. I would like to state for the record that Gavin has not read this story. This is brand new. So context.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

I'm intrigued and also a little afraid.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

It'll be fine. Not too long ago, on the Book of Faces, I see a post pop up from you that says, end I quote, is it weird that I don't want to be buried or cremated? I don't want to slowly rot or be burnt to a crispy. I want to be eaten. Feed my lifeless corpse to a zoo lion or something useful. I want my flesh to provide actual purpose after I'm gone. Laugh emoji, shrug emoji, end quote. Facts. Straight bars. I honestly should have had you read that, read that in your voice.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

No, it was way more fun hearing someone else read it.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

So that is right. Gavin James, creator of this beautiful chaos, collector of dead things and jars, our favorite faux tog karaoke DJ, dropped a post saying that he doesn't want to rot in a box or get turned into crispy cremains. He wants to be useful. He wants to be eaten. He wants his bag of bones to provide purpose. I stand on God. Since I've told you many times that you, Gavin, are solely responsible for securing my notes app when I die, as well as to take possession of my phone so that you can send text to people at my funeral, I fear that I am a really good person to talk this through with you.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

I love this so much.

SPEAKER_01 40:01

I have built you a menu of sorts. Three, absolutely unhinged, culturally respectful, but not really options that fuck, whole thing over. Three, absolutely unhinged, culturally respectful, but kinda not really options for what to do with your meat suit when you finally tap out. So let's see what odd and weird ways that we might honor your final wishes.

SPEAKER_02 40:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

Quick disclaimer. I am not a mortician, I'm not a lawyer, I am not a cultural anthropologist with a PhD. I am simply a degenerate who loves you and thinks your dead body deserves more than boring dirt.

SPEAKER_00 40:46

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

Let's start with the most metal one. Picture this, Gavin. You're high in the Himalayas. Jagged snow covered peaks stretch endlessly into clouds, prayer flags snapping in the wind, distant bells echo through the valleys. But also remember, you're dead, so you probably don't care. Anywho Your lifeless body gets carried into a special stone platform by people who do this for a living. They call them don't you fucking dare Roigiopa They call them Roigiopa or Body Break. Damn, that's that does sound metal as fuck. Peaceful sky burial body breakers. Body breakers. So here's what they do. They take your clothes off, say some prayers, and then they go to town. But not in a good way. Don't get excited. They basically smash you up, slice you up, grind your bones into powder, and mix it with barley flour and yak butter called sampa and lay it all out like the world's most exclusive buffet.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

Sounds kinky.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

Don't shame. But then the vultures show up. Hundreds of them. Yes. Himalayan griffins with nine foot wingspans. Yes. They can polish off an entire human body in under an hour if they're feeling motivated. It is. Maybe it isn't zoo lions, but I feel like you might approve. I feel like you're definitely. Anywho. In Tibetan Buddhism, this is called jator, or giving alms to the birds. Your soul's already gone, the body's just an empty rental car. Why waste perfectly good protein when it can help sacred birds? Fair. Now, while this does feel like the you option and your reactions have just reinforced that, this one comes with a bit of a catch. Uh-oh. The catch? Vultures are notoriously picky. If they leave parts behind, it's considered bad karma. Oh no. So if a bunch of vultures take one look at your corpse and go, nah, we're good, the whole community is going to be whispering about what you did in your 30s.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

Oh gosh. That was up to no good.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

Also, side note, good luck getting permits for this in most countries. You'd probably have to die in Tibet or convince a zoo to let you be the main course for their big cats. Would it be badass? Yes. Would tourists try to take selfies with your rib cage? Also, yes. Yes. If this option does feel right though, I can try my hardest to make it happen.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Let's be real though. It does sound incredible.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

You know me, let's keep it real. I'm old, fat, and can't outrun any kind of authority. So the headline would probably read something like Woman Foundation. Passed out in a stairwell of the morgue with a cadaver strapped to her back. We'll take this offline. Let's move on before this turns into actual evidence in a body snatching case.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

This is incredible.

SPEAKER_01 44:12

Alright, we're gonna keep going. You like that first one? Let's let's let's see what option two brings. So, option two is not, I'm not gonna lie, it's horrible for you, but in the most hilarious ways possible. I giggled the entire time I wrote this. Alright. It's called Famadihana in Madagascar. So here's the deal. Every five to seven years, families go out to the ancestral tomb, pull their relatives out, wrap them in fresh silk, spray them with a little bit of smell good, and then they party with the corpse. Yes. They dance, they tell stories, they parade the bodies around like it's a family reunion, and grandpa just won the lottery, kids are running around, music blasting, everyone's drunk on rum, and then they put you back in. Till next time. It's joyful.

SPEAKER_00 45:09

I love this for me.

SPEAKER_01 45:11

It's intimate, it's deeply loving, and Gavin, don't get ahead of yourself because if I know anything about you, this would be your personal hell. This is where the comedy gold comes in. You're the karaoke DJ. You're the life of every party. Parties aren't the same without you. So every five to seven years, me, your friends, all of your karaoke regulars would drag your increasingly skeletonized ass out, prop you up with a microphone, and make you host the party one more time. And if I had my way, because I'm a true friend, I would also have some kind of contraption so you could relive your viral twerking escapades. We'd put sunglasses on your skull, play your favorite tracks. You'd more than likely be forced to do it picture and love shack. Oh, you are so cruel. Gavin's back, everybody. He's looking a little uh gaunt, but he still got it. You would hate this. You're the guy that doesn't want to rot slowly. This is the slowest, most social, most look at me, I'm still here option that we have available on this menu.

SPEAKER_00 46:26

It sounded good in the beginning, but I'm not here for it anymore.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

I was so happy when you were cheering because I knew that was gonna change.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

If anybody plays picture at my whatever, I'm gonna be having after I'm gone, I will haunt you for eternity.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

This is the most torturous option on the menu. And we would do it with love. Alright, every single time. But still, I'm only I'm only here to give you the options. This is ultimately your choice. So let's keep it moving. As your Death Somalier, I think this next one is a winner. Option three is for when we're feeling bougie, as we sometimes do. Ancient, possibly legendary, malification.

SPEAKER_00 47:17

That word concerns me.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

While there's this is a new word for me. Okay, so on this one, while there's no direct archaeological evidence of malefication of human remains, it's mentioned in 16th century Chinese medical texts. The most detailed account comes from Li Xin's medical text Bangkao Gangmu. That's the best I can do. Don't at me. That sounds good to me. So this medical text was completed somewhere around 1578, 1596 in the section on men as medicine. Here's the rundown. The idea is that you spend your final months or years eating and drinking nothing but honey. Then after your death, your body is submerged into a giant vat of honey for decades. The honey supposedly preserves you and turns you into this like uh marinated, edible, semi-mummified corpse candy.

SPEAKER_00 48:22

This sounds like Winnie the Pooh would love me.

SPEAKER_01 48:26

I I do believe, yeah, because people are supposed to eat you later as medicine or a delicacy. A fun. Gavin, I would like you to just stop for one second and imagine all of us sitting at a giant table in warm candlelight. Our friends are making smoked tequila cocktails, then the sound of clanking on a glass. After ten year waits, brunch is finally served. Today's special is marinated Gavy candy with aged bold stomach and a nice rose. Hell yeah. We would invite everyone over. Charcuterie board with little slices of you. We would also offer suggested pairings. This piece from the thigh goes beautifully with our 2029 Hunty Honey Vintage. This one's fancy, and it's horrifying, and it is so deeply on brand for people who collect dead things in jars. You would be And cannibals. You would be the ultimate bougie snack. Eternal. Shelf stable, possibly medicinal, and occasionally passed around at parties like a really fucked-up fruitcake.

SPEAKER_00 49:34

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

Actually, full disclosure, I I think I might start calling you bougie snack while you're still amongst the living for funsies. And just think at these tasting parties, we could do tasting notes. Hmm, yes, notes of Gavin's terrible life choices with a hint of regret. Ooh, you can really taste the 2011 nightclub scene.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

It's a little hint of erbs. Circa 2011.

SPEAKER_01 50:06

Alright, so on your original Facebook post, of course, our friends, our community, they all commented saying, you know, turn yourself back into soil or plant a tree or maybe even put your ashes into an hourglass so that you can still participate in game night.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

That one does sound funny.

SPEAKER_01 50:25

Hear me out. What about turning you into glitter? Look, modern science can press ashes into diamonds. They can turn you into fireworks, they can probably suspend your cremanes and resin and make you into craft curpies that gets everywhere for eternity. We could literally make Gavin. Yes. Eternal. Fabulous. You would be at every party, every event, every drag show, stuck in people's hair and carpet for the next 10,000 years.

SPEAKER_00 50:55

If I don't end up in a stripper's boobies, I will be so mad.

SPEAKER_01 50:58

I thought you might say that. Yep. Gavin, whatever you pick. Vultures, dancing skeletons, honey candy, or becoming the world's most annoying glitter, I've got your back. The least I can do is make sure your meat suit goes out in the most oddities department way possible. So what's it gonna be? There's there's no need to make a choice now. When you're ready, just write your final wishes on a piece of paper and throw it in a jar with one of your dead things. I'll try to honor it, probably. Let me contact my lawyer.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

Please don't. And see, see what we can get away with here. Please don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 51:38

Don't name me. Just theoretical only.

SPEAKER_00 51:41

Poor Lindsay.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

She's like, I've gotta go out before him. For sure. Your job is so easy compared to mine, really. Delete the notes, text that stupid bitch from 2010. Oh, I'm on it. I know you. That was incredible. All right, Gavin. Well, that is my um exhibit, I guess. I my brain has gone blank. Uh I need uh more oxygen. I need those conipo-five percent. I need coniciferous trees and wall of carbon.

SPEAKER_00 52:23

I kept calling them coniferous trees, and every time as I'm writing it, it's like carboniferous. Carbon. Carbon.

SPEAKER_01 52:32

I just kept I just kept reading carnivorous. So I really thought it was gonna be about trees that ate things. Uh put that note in my back pocket.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

That's carnivorous prehistoric trees. I know there is a burial method where they literally put your body inside of a hollowed-out tree. I've seen that too. We could we could do a combo.

SPEAKER_01 52:59

We could soak you in honey, wrap you in silk, shove you in a tree.

SPEAKER_00 53:04

Resurrect me every seven years for a karaoke party.

SPEAKER_01 53:07

But only a private party. Yes. No picture singers allowed. No. Alright. Only the bangers. I'll make a playlist. Only the bangers. Alright, Gavin. So now that we've gone over your uh post-mortem death options, what have you got for the next exhibit?

SPEAKER_00 53:25

Oh, exhibit 114. This one slapped me in the face. Also slapped me in the ass. Okay. Done. I'm gonna need you to take a deep breath. This next exhibit is something that I came across yesterday, and I could not believe what I was reading, and I am so, so sorry for what I'm about to subject you to. Or am I? I'm probably not sorry. This is just what I think. I still can't believe this is my job. I'm a little terrified, but alright, let's go. We all know by now that medicine has evolved in so many ways over the course of history. This specific technique or treatment, I'm not really sure what to call it, was something that was considered good medicine for a really long time. That can't be good. Something that doctors train medical professionals, and we say that a lot here at the Odyssey department. These motherfuckers were doing this with absolute confidence and zero hesitation. Are you ready? I don't think so. You are correct. I was not ready. Here we go. In the eighteenth century, doctors blew smoke up people's butts.

unknown 54:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 54:43

And I'm not talking figuratively. I mean literally. Pipe to mouth, mouth to ass. This was not done as a prank. This was not even a joke. Even if it sounds like one. This was medicine. Mainstream, legitimatized, widely accepted medicine. The phrase blowing smoke up your ass didn't start as slang. Oh god. It started as a literal medical procedure, and we're about to take a deep dive into exactly what happened here. Real deep. And but but and a huge emphasis on but not mature enough for this exhibit. So fuck. But before we go any further, we need to establish something very important. Our First Nations people, including Native Americans, were first on the scene. Indigenous people didn't just discover tobacco smoke enemas. They had been working with tobacco smoke for at least twelve thousand three hundred years. Oh isn't that bottom?

SPEAKER_01 55:55

That is wild. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 55:58

Archaeological evidence from a site in Utah shows that Pleistocene hunter gatherers, people living at the end of the ice age, were already using wild tobacco seeds. This was thousands of years before the plant was ever formally domesticated. twelve thousand years, people. This is not a trend. That's millennia of accumulated botanical knowledge and practical use. Different species of tobacco grew natively across North America, which is something I did not know. Same I have no idea. Nicotiana rustica, sometimes called Aztec tobacco, was widely cultivated by tribes across the entire eastern half of North America and Canada long before Europeans even knew the continent existed. Other wild varieties like Nicotiana Atuana Atenuita Walla Nicatina Nicatiana Atenuada Coyote tobacco grew in the drier western regions. Indigenous peoples understood these plants. They knew their properties, they knew how to use them medicinally. They developed careful, thoughtful practices within a framework of knowledge passed down over hundreds of generations. Tobacco smoke enemas were a part of that tradition. Used carefully, used correctly, used with purpose, and they had two distinct methods, which, with its own logic, is its own application, its own understanding. Take it. The smoke method. They were literally blowing smoke. An assistant would take a mouthful of smoke from a pipe and blow it through a hollow reed, a bone, or a specialized tube directly into the patient's rectum. This was used for emergencies, people who had lost consciousness, and for certain rituals. The logic, the smoke was seen as a powerful carrier of prayer and life force. The warmth and spirit of the tobacco smoke would stimulate the internal organs, shock the person back into consciousness, and bring them back from the edge. It wasn't just medicine, it was spiritual intervention delivered through the body via the cornhole. The liquid method for deeper medicinal treatments or extreme spiritual trances, they used liquid infusions. Tobacco leaves were steeped in water to create a potent tea. This was administered using a bulb syringe made from an animal bladder attached to a hollow bone or reed. Here's the thing. The rectal lining absorbs substances into the bloodstream much faster than the stomach. Using an enema allowed shamans to reach extreme levels of intoxication, often for visions, with without the nicotine causing the immediate violent vomiting that would happen if they drank that much tobacco tea. It was efficient, it was very intentional, and it was controlled. But why the rectum specifically? Why not? Indigenous right hashtag bot stuff. Indigenous practitioners understood that the lower intestine was a fast track to the body's systems. Medical efficiency. It was used to treat parasites, constipation, even hernias. Ritual secrecy. In some Mesoamerican cultures, these were private, sacred rituals, not public, no party party, more like a meet and greet with your soul and the spirit world. And we know this wasn't just oral tradition or guesswork. Mayan pottery from the classic period actually depicts figures using enema jars and tubes. The evidence is right there. This was just sacred practice with thousands of years of refinement behind it. Then the Europeans showed. And as the Europeans tend to do, they saw something that worked in a specific cultural and medical context and ripped it completely out of that context. They also ignored 12,000 years of accumulated knowledge and said, we can make this worse, and boy did they ever. Word of this treatment crossed the Atlantic to England in the early 1700s. British doctors heard about it and thought tobacco smoke in the butt. Brilliant. But here's the thing. First Nations people used this practice carefully, thoughtfully, within a framework of understanding built over millennia. Europeans? Europeans saw a new toy and decided to use it on everything. They took a tradition older than agriculture itself and turned it into a party trick. So the year is 1745. A physician named Richard Mead, bless his confident, misguided heart, becomes the first Western scholar to formally recommend tobacco smoke enemas for resuscitation. Back then, the practice was called glisters. Which sounds horrific. It's like blisters, but with a G, and I don't like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:17

You want some glisters on your blisters? Call dick Mead.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:25

But here's what makes this even more absurd. Meade wasn't even treating random drowning victims at first. He was treating iatrogenic drowning. What's that? That's medical jargon for drowning caused by doctors. Murder. That is murder. Murder Merdy. See, in the 1740s, immersion therapy was all the rage. Doctors would dunk patients suffering from rabies or mania into cold water as a treatment. Just submerge them, hold them underwater, let the cold water quote unquote shock the madness out of them. Except sometimes the patients would accidentally drown during the treatment. Is it really an accident? Whoopsie Whoops. My bad. I know we can do it. Meade faced I got another but meade faced with patients who drowned because of a treatment he administered needed a solution. And tobacco smoke and mus seemed like the perfect fix. Now you might be thinking, why tobacco smoke? And why the butt? Why not? Great question. Let me walk you through the elaborate pseudoscientific reasoning that made this seem not just plausible, but logical to eighteenth century physicians. Reason number one. The drying effect. The logic Drowning fills the body with water. Tobacco smoke is dry. Therefore, blowing dry smoke into the body will absorb the water and dry the internal passages. It's like using a hairdryer, except it's tobacco, and it's in your booty hole.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:07

Um what did rice did rice not exist? Why were they not just putting the people in rice? They went straight to smoking a cigar and blowing it up their the rice in their rectums. That's a whole nother episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:26

Reason number two Internal Warmth. Mead viewed drowning not as a lack of oxygen, but as a loss of internal heat. Cold water extinguished the body's vital fire, the spark of life that kept everything running. Which is kind of there.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:45

I can see how people would put that together in their beings.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:50

Smoke obviously is hot. So blowing hot smoke directly into the core of the body would provide immediate direct heat. This would restart the vital fire and bring the person back to life. It's like jump starting a car, except the car is a human and the jumper cables are tobacco smoke. In your pink eye.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:10

Not gonna lie, I mean in certain contexts that might be a good time.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:15

It might but we'll get it, but Reason number three nicotine as a powerful irritant. Well they didn't fully understand the chemistry. It made people cough, it made them gag, it made their bodies react. So the thinking was if you blast someone's insides with a powerful irritant, it will shock the heart into beating again and stimulate the lungs to resume breathing. It's like slapping someone awake, except instead of slapping them in the face, you're chemically assaulting their colon.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:49

Alright, so Oh like the paddles, what are they called?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:54

Defibulators.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:55

Ah defibulators before electricity exists. Was it before electricity existed? I know nothing.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:01

Yes. Proceed. I'm an idiot. So Meade publishes all of this in a medical journal with all of the confidence, with elaborate reasoning, with the weight of his professional reputation behind it. And the European medical community reads it and collectively says, Yes, this is what we've been missing. We love it. But it gets better. In 1746, just one year after Meade's publication, a famous case report circulates through London. A woman is pulled from a canal, she appears dead. On the advice of a passing sailor, her husband uses the sailor's pipe to blow smoke into her rectum, and she revives. It's a miracle. The story spreads like wildfire. Meade's theories are now validated. Not by rigorous testing, not by controlled studies, but by By one anecdotal case involving a sailor's pipe and a very unlucky lady. Lucky or unlucky? Suddenly every doctor with a tobacco pouch thinks he's a resuscitation expert. The fad spreads across Europe like wildfire or tobacco smoke through a rectum, I guess. By the mid-1700s, tobacco smoke enemas are the hot new medical. Of course they are. Right up there with bloodletting and leeches, and drilling holes into people's skulls to let the bad spirits out. You know, it's science. Now let's talk about where this really took off. London, 1700s, the Thames River is filthy. It's basically an open sewer. People fall in a lot. Some of them drown. Some of them almost drown. And when they get pulled out, cold, wet, and unresponsive, volunteers from the Royal Humane Society are standing by with their tobacco enema kits, ready to go. So picture this. You're a Londoner. You've just been fished out of the Thames. You're coughing up disgusting poopy river water. You're disoriented, you're cold, and then someone says, Don't worry, we're going to blow tobacco smoke up your bungus. And then they do it. Whether you like it or not. The Royal Humane Society, an actual legitimate organization, standardized this procedure. They trained volunteers, they distributed kits, they kept records. Well, sort of. The documentation was, let's say, optimistic. Some patients lived, some patients died. The society declared it a success either way. Because if the patient lived, the tobacco enema worked. And if the patient died, well, they were already dead. So the tobacco enema didn't Might as well try. I mean come on, the logic is flawless.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:50

I'm on need some alone time in a cigarette while I watch it.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:53

You do it. Right of my ash home. In the early days of tobacco smoke enemas before the invention of specialized equipment, doctors and medical assistants had to administer the treatment directly. Do you know what that means?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:12

Uh no. Mouth tooth. Those kinky motherfuckers, that was on purpose.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:19

No bellows, no tubes, no barriers, just a doctor. A patient's chocolate starfish and commitment. The procedure went like this. Step one, light tobacco in a pipe or smoldering vessel. Step two, place your mouth on patient's anus. Step three, blow. Step four, hang your head in shame. Or pretend shame. I don't believe it. Can you imagine? Also, 1700 people's buttholes? Mm-mm. Not very clean place.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:49

Kevin, not only am I imagining it, I'm making plans for later. Uh I can smell this. Come here, baby. We got some science to do.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:02

So, just imagine. You go to medical school. You're studying anatomy, physiology, the humors. You take an oath, and then one day your supervising physician hands you a pipe full of burning tobacco and says, Alright, new guy, pucker up. This is not an exaggeration. This is something that we did. It happened for years. Medical practitioners, trained professionals, put their mouths on strangers on strangers' stinkle wrinkle, and blew tobacco smoke into their rectums in the name of science. The phrase taking one for the team doesn't even begin to cover it. Thank God for human ingenuity, because there has got to be a better way, and there was. The bellows and rectal tubes. Suddenly doctors didn't have to face plant on a patient's fudge tunnel anymore. They could stand at a respectful distance, and they could use a tool. They could maintain some semblance of dignity. This was considered progress, and it was progress. The bar was low, but they cleared it.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:16

Good job, Doc.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:17

The bellows and tube system became the standard. A small hand pumped bellows, just like you'd use to stoke a fire attached to a flexible tube with a rectal nozzle on the end. You'd load the bellow chamber with smodling tobacco, insert the nozzle, and pump. The smoke was expected to warm and stimulate that victim. And I just want to use that word victim light. Not lightly, absolutely not lightly.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:41

That is the word.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:42

They were a victim. Here's where shit gets really out of hand though, if you think it hasn't already. Once the bellows were standardized, doctors didn't just use tobacco enemies for draining victims. Oh no. They used them for everything. Hernnias? Tobacco enema. Bowel obstruction? Tobacco enema. Convulsions? Tobacco enema. Cholera? You guessed it. Colds? Yep. Headaches? Why not? Typhoid fever? Sure. The logic was simple. If heat and stimulation help with one thing, they've got to help with everything. It's the same logic that makes people think essential oils cure cancer. Or that drinking celery juice will fix your thyroid. Except in this case, the cure involved shoving a tube up your butt and pumping you full of tobacco smoke. Doctors genuinely believe that this was good medicine. They wrote about it, they taught it to other doctors, and they recommended it to patients. And patients, bless them, trusted their doctors. And turns out we still can't trust our doctors. This is giving me pause. So tobacco enemas rode high for decades. Doctors were confident in the treatment. And then in 1811, a scientist named Benjamin Brody decided to do something absolutely wild for the era. But I mean, was it really, given all that we've learned about historical medicine, after he decided to test it. Oh god.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:11

I was gonna say, after all that, you do just say, Oh, he decided to do something absolutely wild. This has not been wild yet. It always gets wilder. This is why peer review was invented. I'm just saying okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:26

Will Smith wasn't fucking around, it really was the wild, wild west.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:30

Ha ha ha, desperado. Go.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:33

Beroti was an English surgeon and physiologist, and he had a hunch that maybe just maybe nicotine wasn't the miracle stimulant everyone thought it was. So he ran an experiment on animals. Dick move. But anyhow, he administered nicotine in controlled doses and observed what happened to their cardiovascular systems, and what he found was catastrophic for the tobacco enema industry. Nicotine did in fact not restart hearts. It actually stopped them. Brody proved that nicotine was cardiotoxic, a literal poison to the heart. In large doses, absorbed rapidly through the coal and thin lining, nicotine didn't stimulate circulation, it halted it completely. Oopsie! My bad. Brody published his findings and the medical community slowly but reluctantly began to realize that they may have been catastrophically wrong. But here's the thing, it didn't stop immediately because medical hubris is a hell of a job. It took decades for the practice to fully die out, because even with Brody's evidence, doctors kept finding reasons to justify it. Well maybe the dose was wrong. Maybe it works for some conditions. Maybe Brody's experiments don't apply to humans. But gradually other problems started piling up. Problems that were later very hard to ignore. Problem number one. It didn't actually address drowning, you you think. Yeah. Yeah, don't mad in that. Because drowning means that water has filled your lungs. Yes. And oxygen cannot get into your bloodstream. And the oxygen can't get to your brain. Blowing smoke up someone's ass does nothing to solve that problem. It doesn't clear the lungs, it doesn't oxygenate the blood, and it does not restart breathing. It just fills the colon with smoke. Once doctors figured that out, the entire justification for tobacco animas collapsed. Problem number two. It was dangerous to the rescuer. Remember the early days before the bellows when the doctors had to blow through a pipe with their own breath? Yeah, that was a nightmare.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:44

Backfire.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:46

Because here's what nobody thought about. You're blowing into someone, into somebody's butt hole, and you have to be very careful not to accidentally inhale. And if you do inhale, you're sucking in contaminated fluids, fecal matter, and potential disease directly into your mouth and lungs. Cholera, dysentery, typhoid, all of the fun juicy stuff. Yum. As germ theory started to take hold in the mid-1800s, people began to realize maybe this isn't the best of ideas. Problem number three. Better alternatives already existed.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:30

Wait. At the same time, there were better alternatives. They stuck with the smoke up the butthole.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:39

By the 1830s and 1840s, doctors were developing more effective resuscitation techniques. Actual respiration, early forms of CPR that actually worked. You could manually compress the chest and force air into the lungs. You could clear airways, and you could address the actual problem. Once those techniques became standardized, tobacco enemas looked increasingly ridiculous. Just a little bit. Why use a complicated, dangerous, unproven method when you could just push air into someone's lungs? And the final nail was public discredit. By the mid eighteen hundreds, the Royal Humane Society, the same organization that had championed tobacco enemas, officially removed them from their list of recommended treatments. Quietly, I imagine. Oh probably. And that was it. The practice was done. Medical schools stopped teaching it. Kits were taken off the walls, and the bellows and rectal tubes were packed away and forgotten. Here's the thing though, tobacco smoke enemas are gone, but the phrase has survived. Blowin' smoke up your ass. It took me far too long into researching this to actually understand what that actually meant. They were literally blowing smoke up their ass because it didn't actually work. So when you are blowing smoke up someone's ass, it's because whatever you're talking about isn't real or it doesn't work.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:58

It's it's it's yeah, it's a big show. It seems like you're doing something great, but ultimately useless and probably harmful.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:06

And we use it all the time. It means lying, flattering, manipulating, bullshitting. And it comes directly from this era. From La Rectum.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:17

Ah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:19

We think that we are smarter. We think that we are better. We think that we never fall for something that stupid, but here's the uncomfortable truth. Somewhere right now, we are absolutely doing the equivalent of tobacco smoke enemas. We are confidently prescribing treatments that don't work. We are promoting procedures that have no evidence. Medical tomfoolery is a feature of every era. We are just blind to our own bullshit. In two hundred years people will look back at us and say, Can you believe that they did that? And they'll laugh, just like we're laughing now. So the next time someone tries to blow smoke up your ass, literally or figuratively, remember, it was once considered good medicine. And ask yourself, what are we doing right now that future generations will find just as absurd? Because I guarantee you, there's something. We just don't know what it is yet. That's terrifying. And that is exhibit 114. You are welcome, and I am sorry. I am traumatized. Well But now I wanna know, and I shouldn't be saying this publicly. But what happens when you blow pot smoke up someone's butthole? Do you get more high? Well, looks like I have plans this weekend. I will keep you informed. I will need you to report back with your scientific diagnosis. Gonna need a funnel, but I can make this happen, for sure. I'm here for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:49

For science. Oh, Gavin. Well, we started this tour talking about a Spanish king's tragically mangled oversized wienar.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:02

And we leaned into those wood ponds pretty hard. We really did. With pride. Of course. Then we immediately went back 300 million years to a time when trees refused to rot and bugs were the size of dogs.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:15

You know, that part actually felt educational for about 30 seconds.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:20

And then we went full gremlin mode with creative body disposal methods. You've got a lot to think about.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:26

And finally, we ended the night by learning that 18th century doctors were out here blowing tobacco smoke up people's asses like it was legitimate medicine.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:36

This tour went from royal dick jokes to immortal trees to suspits to assmoke.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:41

We really said nothing, just vibes. And I'm okay with it. Thank you for joining us on what was possibly our most unhinged tour yet.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:51

And every time it just keeps getting better or worse, depending on how you look at it. But if you made it from the front door to the end of the tour, you're a certified weirdo.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:03

Unfortunately, the museum is kicking us out. Don't worry. We've got more exhibits waiting that are somehow even worse than this one. Next week's lineup is per usual.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:13

Friggin' weird. Very excited. You should be concerned. If you enjoyed this episode, drop us a rating and a review wherever you listen. It really helps other weirdos find the show and helps us grow.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:25

And if you want even more chaos, come find us on Facebook and TikTok.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:29

We post bonus clips, behind-the-scenes nonsense, and way too many cursed beans.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:34

Alright, let's get out of here before the janitor gets here. He is really not a fan of us.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:39

Oh man, he's not gonna like enough for this one.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:42

Stay curious, y'all. Stay weird, and whatever you do, do not blow smoke up anyone's ass.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:50

Okay, bye. Bye. Dude, nice. That was solid.