1 00:00:33,960 --> 00:00:35,800 Good evening! 2 00:00:35,800 --> 00:00:38,400 Welcome to QI. 3 00:00:38,400 --> 00:00:41,480 Tonight we are sawing bones and de-oiling snakes 4 00:00:41,480 --> 00:00:43,959 in a show all about quackery. 5 00:00:43,959 --> 00:00:45,959 Joining me on Queasy Street 6 00:00:45,959 --> 00:00:48,519 are the miraculous and rejuvenating 7 00:00:48,519 --> 00:00:49,999 Claudia Winkleman. 8 00:00:49,999 --> 00:00:53,239 APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 9 00:00:54,439 --> 00:00:56,839 Guaranteed to take years off your life, 10 00:00:56,839 --> 00:00:58,998 it's Victoria Coren Mitchell. 11 00:00:58,998 --> 00:01:00,838 APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 12 00:01:01,878 --> 00:01:03,478 Good for anything that ails you, 13 00:01:03,478 --> 00:01:04,758 it's Stephen K Amos. 14 00:01:04,758 --> 00:01:06,598 APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 15 00:01:10,598 --> 00:01:12,278 And the late Alan Davies. 16 00:01:12,278 --> 00:01:14,677 APPLAUSE AND CHEERING 17 00:01:19,037 --> 00:01:21,637 And their buzzers don't sound well at all. 18 00:01:21,637 --> 00:01:22,917 Claudia goes... 19 00:01:22,917 --> 00:01:24,397 VIOLENT SNEEZE 20 00:01:24,397 --> 00:01:25,957 Wow. I like! 21 00:01:25,957 --> 00:01:27,477 Victoria goes... 22 00:01:27,477 --> 00:01:30,876 WOMAN CRIES OUT IN PAIN 23 00:01:30,876 --> 00:01:33,196 It's someone literally dying. 24 00:01:33,196 --> 00:01:34,876 Stephen goes... 25 00:01:34,876 --> 00:01:37,996 COUGHING 26 00:01:37,996 --> 00:01:40,436 COUGHING DIES DOWN 27 00:01:40,436 --> 00:01:42,676 COUGHING CONTINUES LOUDLY 28 00:01:44,476 --> 00:01:45,996 It's my dad's car. 29 00:01:47,195 --> 00:01:48,515 And Alan goes... 30 00:01:48,515 --> 00:01:51,795 BREAKING WIND AND SQUELCHING 31 00:01:59,515 --> 00:02:01,435 Anybody else feel the need for a mop? 32 00:02:02,994 --> 00:02:05,514 I've given you all some quack medicines. 33 00:02:05,514 --> 00:02:08,074 I would like you to persuade me to buy them. 34 00:02:08,074 --> 00:02:10,154 So, we're going to start with Stephen. 35 00:02:10,154 --> 00:02:11,754 What is your quack medicine? 36 00:02:11,754 --> 00:02:13,834 It's a jar of... 37 00:02:13,834 --> 00:02:17,674 ..Princess Lotus Blossom's Vital Sparks. 38 00:02:17,674 --> 00:02:19,553 Marvellous. And what do you suppose it does? 39 00:02:19,553 --> 00:02:21,313 The lotus blossoms, of course, 40 00:02:21,313 --> 00:02:24,793 one of the most famous flowering flowers, er... Hm. 41 00:02:26,113 --> 00:02:28,553 I love a flowering flower. Don't you? 42 00:02:28,553 --> 00:02:31,713 ..from Japan. Yes. Obviously, it gives you vital sparks, energy. 43 00:02:31,713 --> 00:02:35,992 Right. Basically, a modern-day superhero supplement. 44 00:02:35,992 --> 00:02:37,312 Right. Yeah. 45 00:02:37,312 --> 00:02:39,472 There is a wave of superhero films at the moment. 46 00:02:39,472 --> 00:02:41,592 We should all embrace those. Yeah. Right. 47 00:02:41,592 --> 00:02:44,432 One of the biggest ones for me last year was, of course, Black Panther. 48 00:02:44,432 --> 00:02:47,232 The Black Panther gets his superpowers by consuming 49 00:02:47,232 --> 00:02:48,872 a special herb. OK. 50 00:02:51,671 --> 00:02:53,751 Why don't we just go the whole hog 51 00:02:53,751 --> 00:02:55,471 and just call him "Ganjaman"? 52 00:02:57,151 --> 00:03:00,311 These were actually sold at the World Fair in 1904 53 00:03:00,311 --> 00:03:03,271 by somebody pretending to be Princess Lotus Blossom 54 00:03:03,271 --> 00:03:05,431 and she was trying to give men a vital spark. 55 00:03:05,431 --> 00:03:08,550 What might be the idea behind the pill that men might want to...? 56 00:03:08,550 --> 00:03:10,030 Oh! Like a... 57 00:03:10,030 --> 00:03:11,710 ..prop to action? 58 00:03:11,710 --> 00:03:13,750 Yes, exactly that. 59 00:03:13,750 --> 00:03:15,990 She was actually a woman called Violet McNeal. 60 00:03:15,990 --> 00:03:18,550 She was from the Midwest and she had nothing to do 61 00:03:18,550 --> 00:03:20,910 with being a princess but she claimed to be Chinese. 62 00:03:20,910 --> 00:03:23,429 And does anybody know why she could claim to be Chinese 63 00:03:23,429 --> 00:03:25,429 and nobody would know? She used to put on a bit of 64 00:03:25,429 --> 00:03:27,149 what they used to call "yellowface". 65 00:03:27,149 --> 00:03:28,189 STEPHEN SNORTS 66 00:03:28,189 --> 00:03:30,789 I know! That's what it was called - it was called "yellowface". 67 00:03:30,789 --> 00:03:34,229 Because the Americans had banned all Chinese people in 1882, 68 00:03:34,229 --> 00:03:36,869 so people didn't know what a Chinese person looked like. 69 00:03:36,869 --> 00:03:38,748 They just banned them? They just banned them. 70 00:03:38,748 --> 00:03:41,308 The Chinese Exclusion Act. It's a pretty clear name for an act, 71 00:03:41,308 --> 00:03:43,428 isn't it? They just got rid of them. On what grounds? 72 00:03:43,428 --> 00:03:45,388 Well, that there were too many of them working 73 00:03:45,388 --> 00:03:47,748 and what they wanted to do was to have jobs for, you know, 74 00:03:47,748 --> 00:03:49,348 "Americans", who were not Chinese. 75 00:03:49,348 --> 00:03:50,668 And so they got rid of them. 76 00:03:50,668 --> 00:03:52,588 In fact, they got rid of them until 1943, 77 00:03:52,588 --> 00:03:54,587 when they allowed in 105. 78 00:03:54,587 --> 00:03:56,067 That was... That's extraordinary! 79 00:03:56,067 --> 00:03:57,907 Yeah. So they didn't know if she was Chinese? 80 00:03:57,907 --> 00:04:01,147 No, they didn't know she wasn't Chinese. She was this woman from the Midwest. 81 00:04:01,147 --> 00:04:03,587 FAUX AMERICAN ACCENT: "Hell, that's Violet! 82 00:04:03,587 --> 00:04:06,947 "She ain't Chinese! That's Violet! 83 00:04:06,947 --> 00:04:09,867 "Violet, what are you doing?!" 84 00:04:11,546 --> 00:04:13,546 They're basically boiled sweets, 85 00:04:13,546 --> 00:04:15,826 but she told everybody that this was something that had 86 00:04:15,826 --> 00:04:18,906 come from a pouch in the turtle brain called the "Quali Quah". 87 00:04:18,906 --> 00:04:21,986 FAUX AMERICAN ACCENT: "Violet, where'd you get them pills?" 88 00:04:23,426 --> 00:04:24,626 There it is, the Quali Quah. 89 00:04:24,626 --> 00:04:27,825 And she would say, "A man who takes these pills will shout out, 90 00:04:27,825 --> 00:04:29,025 "'Pong-Woo-Kee!'" - 91 00:04:29,025 --> 00:04:31,665 which is, she claimed, Chinese for "Eureka". 92 00:04:33,785 --> 00:04:35,105 So, are these from that era? 93 00:04:35,105 --> 00:04:37,225 If I take a couple, will the desk rise? 94 00:04:40,825 --> 00:04:42,144 You might just... 95 00:04:42,144 --> 00:04:44,024 You might just come through it, like that. 96 00:04:46,344 --> 00:04:49,184 Like that tunnelling thing, you know, in Thunderbirds. 97 00:04:50,864 --> 00:04:53,424 I suddenly really want them to work, actually. 98 00:04:53,424 --> 00:04:57,304 Right, let's try another one. Alan, you've got some medicine. 99 00:04:57,304 --> 00:04:58,783 What have you got? 100 00:04:58,783 --> 00:05:01,343 Oh, well, it's Dr Brinkley's Formula 1020. 101 00:05:01,343 --> 00:05:02,783 And what do you think's in it? 102 00:05:02,783 --> 00:05:04,983 I think something drawn from an animal of some sort. 103 00:05:04,983 --> 00:05:06,583 A bodily fluid. 104 00:05:06,583 --> 00:05:10,263 Hm. And then you add it to your own self. 105 00:05:10,263 --> 00:05:12,383 Cheaply priced and almost odourless. 106 00:05:13,583 --> 00:05:15,902 I'm describing myself there. 107 00:05:15,902 --> 00:05:19,702 It was a distillation of goat glands. 108 00:05:19,702 --> 00:05:21,702 Oh, for God's sake! What?! Yeah. 109 00:05:21,702 --> 00:05:23,902 Well, it wasn't actually, it was just coloured water. 110 00:05:23,902 --> 00:05:26,582 The temptation to fire it at the audience is almost... 111 00:05:26,582 --> 00:05:27,942 Oh! Oh! 112 00:05:27,942 --> 00:05:30,102 LAUGHTER 113 00:05:31,581 --> 00:05:34,381 I'm glad I was looking at you. I would have thought it was Stephen. 114 00:05:35,901 --> 00:05:39,181 APPLAUSE AND LAUGHTER 115 00:05:41,181 --> 00:05:42,981 He promoted this as a distillation 116 00:05:42,981 --> 00:05:45,941 that would cure anything from emphysema to flatulence. 117 00:05:45,941 --> 00:05:48,500 What?! Which is quite a range, isn't it, of diseases? Yes. 118 00:05:48,500 --> 00:05:51,140 So, I was quite close! "Cure anything", a cure-all? 119 00:05:51,140 --> 00:05:53,300 Yes, but he also looked part goat, I think. 120 00:05:53,300 --> 00:05:55,820 Yes! Goatee. Yes, exactly. 121 00:05:55,820 --> 00:05:57,740 And goats were a big thing for him because, 122 00:05:57,740 --> 00:05:59,060 after the coloured water, 123 00:05:59,060 --> 00:06:01,340 he thought, "Something more significant is needed." 124 00:06:01,340 --> 00:06:05,459 And he started transplanting goats' testicles into men's scrotums 125 00:06:05,459 --> 00:06:08,339 as a... Wait a min... Yeah? 126 00:06:08,339 --> 00:06:11,179 You can't put a goat's testicle into a man's scrotum. 127 00:06:11,179 --> 00:06:13,419 Well, as they discovered. And, God knows, I've tried. 128 00:06:15,219 --> 00:06:17,059 He was the Goat Gland Doctor 129 00:06:17,059 --> 00:06:18,858 and you would select your goat 130 00:06:18,858 --> 00:06:20,738 and the goat would then be castrated 131 00:06:20,738 --> 00:06:23,178 and the testicles inserted into the patient's scrotum. 132 00:06:23,178 --> 00:06:24,978 But no, no, that didn't happen. Yes! 133 00:06:24,978 --> 00:06:26,218 No, it did happen. 134 00:06:26,218 --> 00:06:28,258 And lots and lots of people did it 135 00:06:28,258 --> 00:06:31,458 without checking whether he was medically qualified to do this. 136 00:06:31,458 --> 00:06:34,737 Well, these people, were they maybe impotent and concerned 137 00:06:34,737 --> 00:06:36,737 with whether they could or could not have kids? 138 00:06:36,737 --> 00:06:38,417 A-ha! Ah! 139 00:06:44,417 --> 00:06:46,337 Baby goats. Yeah. Yeah. 140 00:06:47,817 --> 00:06:49,577 It's better when you explain it. 141 00:06:51,616 --> 00:06:54,296 He went to something called Eclectical Medical College in 142 00:06:54,296 --> 00:06:57,376 Kansas, but he didn't actually graduate, and anyway the college was 143 00:06:57,376 --> 00:06:58,816 one of homoeopathy. 144 00:06:58,816 --> 00:07:01,256 But he became unbelievably famous as the Goat Gland Doctor. 145 00:07:01,256 --> 00:07:03,656 He started his own radio station in Kansas. 146 00:07:03,656 --> 00:07:06,815 He became so popular that he paid for the town that he lived in to 147 00:07:06,815 --> 00:07:11,415 have a second post office, to receive all the letters that he got. 148 00:07:11,415 --> 00:07:14,575 He did kill hundreds of people... 149 00:07:15,935 --> 00:07:19,135 And in the end, in 1939, he sued the American Medical Association. 150 00:07:19,135 --> 00:07:22,055 Somebody had dared to say he was a fraud and he sued them for libel, 151 00:07:22,055 --> 00:07:25,534 then when he gave evidence it was quite clear that he was a fraud 152 00:07:25,534 --> 00:07:27,174 and he was stripped of his licence. 153 00:07:27,174 --> 00:07:28,734 He died in poverty. 154 00:07:28,734 --> 00:07:31,254 Don't feel bad for him. Big fan of Hitler. 155 00:07:31,254 --> 00:07:34,254 Right. Yeah. Had a swimming pool decorated with miniature swastikas, 156 00:07:34,254 --> 00:07:36,694 you know the kind.... Wow! Yeah. So... 157 00:07:36,694 --> 00:07:38,253 When they castrate... 158 00:07:41,013 --> 00:07:42,613 ..sheep and goats... Yeah. 159 00:07:42,613 --> 00:07:44,293 ..then the testicles just drop off 160 00:07:44,293 --> 00:07:46,173 and shrivel up in the sac, don't they? 161 00:07:46,173 --> 00:07:47,653 Actually, that's not true, 162 00:07:47,653 --> 00:07:51,893 because I have held a pair of ram's testicles and... 163 00:07:51,893 --> 00:07:55,172 Ram's testicles? Yes, they weren't attached to the ram at the time. 164 00:07:55,172 --> 00:07:56,972 I was making a series about the dictionary 165 00:07:56,972 --> 00:07:59,692 and we were investigating the origins of the word "codswallop"... 166 00:07:59,692 --> 00:08:00,972 Yep. 167 00:08:00,972 --> 00:08:04,532 ..because nobody quite knows where it comes from, and one theory was 168 00:08:04,532 --> 00:08:07,332 that it's related to "cods", which is slang for "testicles". 169 00:08:07,332 --> 00:08:10,172 And, you know, television being what it is, 170 00:08:10,172 --> 00:08:12,011 apparently I had to explain this on camera 171 00:08:12,011 --> 00:08:13,731 while holding a pair of ram's testicles. 172 00:08:13,731 --> 00:08:16,611 So, as in "codpiece"? Yeah, cods, knackers, it's sort of common slang. 173 00:08:16,611 --> 00:08:18,091 No! Yes. 174 00:08:18,091 --> 00:08:20,651 And we went to a butcher's shop... 175 00:08:20,651 --> 00:08:23,131 This is good! 176 00:08:23,131 --> 00:08:25,051 No, but they're enormous! 177 00:08:25,051 --> 00:08:26,890 Describe... Like that? 178 00:08:26,890 --> 00:08:28,570 I mean... 179 00:08:28,570 --> 00:08:29,850 Can I just say, 180 00:08:29,850 --> 00:08:33,170 this is not the direction I thought this was going to go? 181 00:08:33,170 --> 00:08:36,170 So, here's the thing, lots and lots of cures for virility, and I'm 182 00:08:36,170 --> 00:08:39,010 just going to pass this on as a piece of general knowledge. 183 00:08:39,010 --> 00:08:44,209 If you put Viagra into a vase of flowers, the flowers will stay 184 00:08:44,209 --> 00:08:46,529 erect for a week longer than normal. 185 00:08:48,249 --> 00:08:50,329 Right, Claudia, your medicine. Yes? 186 00:08:50,329 --> 00:08:51,769 What are you going to sell to us? 187 00:08:51,769 --> 00:08:53,649 OK. Let's come away, shall we, from virility? 188 00:08:53,649 --> 00:08:55,409 Oh, this is excellent. 189 00:08:55,409 --> 00:08:57,529 Theodore Roosevelt's Baldness Salve. 190 00:08:57,529 --> 00:08:59,208 Ah! Yeah. 191 00:08:59,208 --> 00:09:01,448 It might not be your head, just an area of your body where 192 00:09:01,448 --> 00:09:04,328 you want some more hair! Forearms, legs... 193 00:09:04,328 --> 00:09:06,208 "Hot, cool. Check me out!" 194 00:09:06,208 --> 00:09:07,928 Yeah. You use this. Right. 195 00:09:07,928 --> 00:09:09,608 I...I use this. 196 00:09:11,768 --> 00:09:15,567 Yeah, before this, I didn't have hair and now...yeah. 197 00:09:15,567 --> 00:09:18,367 Well, it was sold by something called the Scholder Institute 198 00:09:18,367 --> 00:09:20,327 and it was sold as something that had been used 199 00:09:20,327 --> 00:09:22,047 by both Roosevelt and Houdini. 200 00:09:22,047 --> 00:09:24,607 As it happens, both of them had recently died just before this 201 00:09:24,607 --> 00:09:27,807 product came out, so they couldn't say whether it was true or not. 202 00:09:27,807 --> 00:09:30,686 You sent samples of your hair through the post 203 00:09:30,686 --> 00:09:33,646 for an "individual diagnosis" by Professor Scholder 204 00:09:33,646 --> 00:09:36,406 and he got his diagnosis from a Dominican friar. 205 00:09:36,406 --> 00:09:38,166 It was rather a complicated process. 206 00:09:38,166 --> 00:09:42,006 But a guy called Arthur J Cramp, who was a rather tenacious member 207 00:09:42,006 --> 00:09:44,086 of the American Medical Association, 208 00:09:44,086 --> 00:09:46,246 he sent in hairs from a fox fur coat, 209 00:09:46,246 --> 00:09:47,645 from a Japanese wolf dog, 210 00:09:47,645 --> 00:09:49,845 and then a woman with extremely long, lustrous hair, 211 00:09:49,845 --> 00:09:52,205 and finally a piece of wrapping twine, 212 00:09:52,205 --> 00:09:55,005 and each time he got the same response, which was that the hair 213 00:09:55,005 --> 00:09:57,805 was severely undernourished and needed Dr Scholder's cure. 214 00:09:57,805 --> 00:09:59,365 It's actually just Vaseline. 215 00:09:59,365 --> 00:10:00,845 Yeah, but good. Good, excellent. 216 00:10:00,845 --> 00:10:03,164 But I think I did... I mean, we all want some, right? Yes. 217 00:10:03,164 --> 00:10:04,764 You've sold that to us. 218 00:10:04,764 --> 00:10:07,444 People have asked me whether I have experienced hair loss 219 00:10:07,444 --> 00:10:10,004 due to the fact that I'm wearing what is called a "do-rag". 220 00:10:10,004 --> 00:10:11,724 I thought I'd wear it tonight... Right. 221 00:10:11,724 --> 00:10:14,204 ..to bring attention to the Great British public that that is 222 00:10:14,204 --> 00:10:15,884 what this is. OK. 223 00:10:15,884 --> 00:10:17,884 It's not a hat, it's not a hairnet. 224 00:10:17,884 --> 00:10:19,483 It's a do-rag. 225 00:10:19,483 --> 00:10:22,403 I get confused... People at the airport, immigration - 226 00:10:22,403 --> 00:10:24,923 "Excuse me, sir, can you take off your... 227 00:10:27,163 --> 00:10:28,723 "..bonnet?" 228 00:10:30,003 --> 00:10:32,523 And I get quite defensive, I say, "It's actually a do-rag." 229 00:10:32,523 --> 00:10:34,243 I long... It is a hat. 230 00:10:34,243 --> 00:10:35,922 Yeah. I... 231 00:10:38,322 --> 00:10:40,802 I mean, not to get too existential, but... Please do. 232 00:10:40,802 --> 00:10:42,042 What is a hat? 233 00:10:43,202 --> 00:10:44,722 Well, where do we draw the line? 234 00:10:44,722 --> 00:10:46,042 A plastic bag? 235 00:10:46,042 --> 00:10:48,122 If you put it on your head, it's a hat. 236 00:10:50,202 --> 00:10:51,761 Right, Victoria. A cure, please. 237 00:10:51,761 --> 00:10:53,641 Yes, OK. I have... 238 00:10:54,641 --> 00:10:56,121 Oh! Tupperware. 239 00:10:57,201 --> 00:10:59,921 Do-Nothing Mitchell's Rest Cure. 240 00:10:59,921 --> 00:11:01,041 Yeah. 241 00:11:01,041 --> 00:11:04,201 My guess is going to be that it's just fresh air in some way. 242 00:11:04,201 --> 00:11:07,120 Well, it used to be known as Dr Diet And Dr Quiet. 243 00:11:07,120 --> 00:11:09,000 And, actually, this guy... 244 00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:11,800 That's him there holding a clinic, Dr Silas Mitchell. 245 00:11:11,800 --> 00:11:13,280 He's not really a quack 246 00:11:13,280 --> 00:11:16,160 but sometimes good doctors come up with kind of quacky ideas. 247 00:11:16,160 --> 00:11:18,360 Look at the do-rags on them three! 248 00:11:24,199 --> 00:11:26,399 Said no-one ever. 249 00:11:28,679 --> 00:11:31,119 But what era is that? Turn of the 20th century. 250 00:11:31,119 --> 00:11:33,759 Because, until the turn of the 20th century, I think the 251 00:11:33,759 --> 00:11:36,239 distinction between doctors and quacks was quite moot. 252 00:11:36,239 --> 00:11:38,998 Oh, yeah, but this guy, he's the father of neurology. 253 00:11:38,998 --> 00:11:40,918 But he also came up with this idea, 254 00:11:40,918 --> 00:11:42,318 women in particular, 255 00:11:42,318 --> 00:11:44,318 that it was incredibly good for them to lie down, 256 00:11:44,318 --> 00:11:45,878 do absolutely nothing for six weeks. 257 00:11:45,878 --> 00:11:48,358 And they were not allowed to do anything except be spoon-fed, 258 00:11:48,358 --> 00:11:51,158 maybe get up and go to the loo. They had to drink pint after pint of milk 259 00:11:51,158 --> 00:11:53,198 and they were banned from reading and writing. 260 00:11:53,198 --> 00:11:54,637 So, Virginia Woolf did the cure. 261 00:11:54,637 --> 00:11:57,157 Her doctor prescribed it when she'd had a nervous breakdown. 262 00:11:57,157 --> 00:11:58,797 She writes about it in Mrs Dalloway. 263 00:11:58,797 --> 00:12:00,717 Charlotte Gilman wrote The Yellow Wallpaper, 264 00:12:00,717 --> 00:12:03,317 which is a book about a woman going mad because of this rest cure. 265 00:12:03,317 --> 00:12:05,357 But it was particularly given to women 266 00:12:05,357 --> 00:12:07,877 and it was thought that this would cure them of, I don't know, 267 00:12:07,877 --> 00:12:10,117 the hysterical idea that they wanted to work. 268 00:12:10,117 --> 00:12:11,876 Or read a book. Or read a book. 269 00:12:11,876 --> 00:12:14,756 Think of all the laundry that's mounted up after six weeks. 270 00:12:18,276 --> 00:12:19,556 But he was also a good doctor. 271 00:12:19,556 --> 00:12:21,716 He coined the term "phantom limb syndrome". 272 00:12:21,716 --> 00:12:24,276 He in fact was the first reported case of something called 273 00:12:24,276 --> 00:12:26,715 "Mitchell's Disease". We've all been there. 274 00:12:28,235 --> 00:12:31,195 Does anyone know where we get the word "quack" from? Ducks. 275 00:12:33,115 --> 00:12:35,875 Extra point for Alan there. I think that's marvellous. 276 00:12:35,875 --> 00:12:38,075 I feel like something's going to go off. 277 00:12:38,075 --> 00:12:39,635 APPLAUSE 278 00:12:40,875 --> 00:12:43,714 It's quack salve, it's somebody just bragging about their ointment. 279 00:12:43,714 --> 00:12:46,594 There was a fantastic golden age in the United States of quackery, 280 00:12:46,594 --> 00:12:48,594 it's pretty much post-Andrew Jackson. 281 00:12:48,594 --> 00:12:51,434 He was the seventh president and he generally believed that the 282 00:12:51,434 --> 00:12:53,474 common man knew more than experts. 283 00:12:53,474 --> 00:12:56,674 He was the Michael Gove of his day, if you like. 284 00:12:56,674 --> 00:12:59,433 All but three states repealed all their laws regarding medicine so 285 00:12:59,433 --> 00:13:02,153 people were free to just go and sell whatever they liked at medicine 286 00:13:02,153 --> 00:13:04,633 shows. I mean, Europe had them as well. We had what were called 287 00:13:04,633 --> 00:13:08,153 mountebanks, who used to go and sell medicines, literally climbing 288 00:13:08,153 --> 00:13:10,793 up onto a bench. It's Italian for mounting a bench. 289 00:13:10,793 --> 00:13:13,913 Right, this next question makes me all of aquiver. 290 00:13:13,913 --> 00:13:17,232 Why might you invest in a vibratory chair? 291 00:13:17,232 --> 00:13:19,832 VICTORIA'S BUZZER: Oh! Perfect noise for it. 292 00:13:21,192 --> 00:13:23,472 Because you're furnishing your vibratory? 293 00:13:23,472 --> 00:13:25,792 Oh! I want a vibratory! 294 00:13:25,792 --> 00:13:28,432 Yes! 295 00:13:28,432 --> 00:13:30,751 It's a new room in Sexy Cluedo. 296 00:13:33,031 --> 00:13:34,791 Go in there, you get beaten to death 297 00:13:34,791 --> 00:13:37,431 by an Art Deco vibrator. Yes. 298 00:13:37,431 --> 00:13:41,631 It's a good place to go if you're mixing something in a bowl. 299 00:13:41,631 --> 00:13:44,351 Well, there is an entire museum in the United States 300 00:13:44,351 --> 00:13:47,830 called the Museum Of Questionable Medical Devices. 301 00:13:47,830 --> 00:13:50,390 It's in the Science Museum in Minnesota. 302 00:13:50,390 --> 00:13:52,590 It was called the Battle Creek Vibratory Chair 303 00:13:52,590 --> 00:13:54,190 and it's from 1900. 304 00:13:54,190 --> 00:13:55,910 There it is there. 305 00:13:55,910 --> 00:13:57,510 It shook the patient violently 306 00:13:57,510 --> 00:14:01,070 to help waste pass through the intestines. 307 00:14:01,070 --> 00:14:03,029 It also cured headaches, apparently. 308 00:14:03,029 --> 00:14:05,789 It was installed in John Harvey Kellogg's sanatorium 309 00:14:05,789 --> 00:14:07,229 in Battle Creek. 310 00:14:07,229 --> 00:14:08,789 Kellogg...famous for? 311 00:14:08,789 --> 00:14:10,629 Cornflakes. Cornflakes, absolutely. 312 00:14:10,629 --> 00:14:12,149 He was an odd fellow. 313 00:14:12,149 --> 00:14:13,789 He believed that all sex was bad. 314 00:14:13,789 --> 00:14:15,709 I mean, everything. All sex? All sex, yeah. 315 00:14:15,709 --> 00:14:18,509 He was married for a long time but it's said it was never consummated. 316 00:14:18,509 --> 00:14:20,628 And he produced huge quantities of semen. 317 00:14:35,307 --> 00:14:37,347 I can't look at that now! 318 00:14:40,427 --> 00:14:42,747 "I just shook this in my chair." 319 00:14:44,947 --> 00:14:48,787 Joking aside, vibrators were used as medical equipment... Yes. 320 00:14:48,787 --> 00:14:51,906 ..I think in the '20s. To temper the hysteria of women when they go 321 00:14:51,906 --> 00:14:55,706 getting ideas, you calm them down with a vibrator. 322 00:14:55,706 --> 00:14:58,386 And, you know, some doctors I think had queues around the block. 323 00:14:58,386 --> 00:15:02,786 But that's again the border, isn't it, between quackery and medicine. 324 00:15:02,786 --> 00:15:06,146 Because it's sort of a nonsense in a way, and yet... 325 00:15:06,146 --> 00:15:09,105 Well worth doing the research. It is, yeah. 326 00:15:10,625 --> 00:15:12,945 I'm not sure that isn't an urban myth. You think it's true, 327 00:15:12,945 --> 00:15:15,785 though? Yes, I've been to a vibrator museum. 328 00:15:18,065 --> 00:15:21,345 Where is there a vibrator museum? In Holland. I mean, genuinely, a woman 329 00:15:21,345 --> 00:15:24,344 would go and see the doctor and the doctor would perform the exercise 330 00:15:24,344 --> 00:15:27,304 for her. And, you know, nobody ever came out feeling worse. 331 00:15:27,304 --> 00:15:29,184 ALAN MIMICS VIBRATOR BUZZ 332 00:15:30,864 --> 00:15:32,944 You feeling better yet? 333 00:15:34,664 --> 00:15:36,464 HE CONTINUES BUZZING 334 00:15:42,583 --> 00:15:45,383 There's also, in this Museum Of Questionable Medical Devices, 335 00:15:45,383 --> 00:15:49,663 there's a 1970s foot-operated breast-enlarging pump, 336 00:15:49,663 --> 00:15:51,783 which looks completely... 337 00:15:51,783 --> 00:15:53,303 There it is! Yeah. 338 00:15:53,303 --> 00:15:55,822 Oh, is that so you can be discreet under the desk? 339 00:15:57,742 --> 00:15:59,942 LAUGHTER 340 00:16:03,542 --> 00:16:06,102 Psshhh! 341 00:16:06,102 --> 00:16:07,822 Pfffft! 342 00:16:09,022 --> 00:16:10,901 Do you mean, to pump milk out? 343 00:16:10,901 --> 00:16:13,741 Nope! The idea was it would make your breasts larger 344 00:16:13,741 --> 00:16:15,421 if you pumped at them. 345 00:16:15,421 --> 00:16:18,461 I think one of the most horrible ads I've ever seen for a dubious 346 00:16:18,461 --> 00:16:23,221 medical device is for Dr Scott's electric hairbrush, sold in the 347 00:16:23,221 --> 00:16:27,260 1890s. Look at this. "Dr Scott's electric hairbrush will not save an 348 00:16:27,260 --> 00:16:30,340 "Indian's scalp from his enemies, but it will preserve yours 349 00:16:30,340 --> 00:16:33,020 "from dandruff, baldness..." 350 00:16:33,020 --> 00:16:37,940 What I like is at the very bottom it just says, "Valuable book free." 351 00:16:37,940 --> 00:16:40,700 It came with a compass, and the compass... A compass? Yes. 352 00:16:40,700 --> 00:16:43,659 If you passed it over the brush, it jumped and it was supposed to show 353 00:16:43,659 --> 00:16:46,659 that the brush was properly working. I mean, obviously it just showed it 354 00:16:46,659 --> 00:16:48,579 had magnetised iron in it. 355 00:16:48,579 --> 00:16:51,299 And then there was a guy who was the... I think he was the kind of 356 00:16:51,299 --> 00:16:54,219 dean of gadget quacks, Albert Abrams, and he invented lots of 357 00:16:54,219 --> 00:16:56,819 things but one of the things he invented was the Dynomizer. 358 00:16:56,819 --> 00:17:00,738 And he claimed he could diagnose any known disease with a single drop of 359 00:17:00,738 --> 00:17:02,898 a patient's blood or their handwriting, 360 00:17:02,898 --> 00:17:05,458 or do it over the phone. Oh! 361 00:17:07,338 --> 00:17:10,178 A blood sample was sent to him by a member of the American Medical 362 00:17:10,178 --> 00:17:13,538 Association and got back a diagnosis that the patient had malaria, 363 00:17:13,538 --> 00:17:15,897 diabetes, cancer and syphilis, 364 00:17:15,897 --> 00:17:18,257 and in fact the blood had come from a rooster. 365 00:17:19,497 --> 00:17:21,217 Now, to a different kind of quack. 366 00:17:21,217 --> 00:17:23,017 What am I saying here? 367 00:17:24,337 --> 00:17:25,497 SHE BLOWS A BIRD CALLER 368 00:17:25,497 --> 00:17:27,817 Oh, adorable. Thank you. 369 00:17:27,817 --> 00:17:29,457 I mean, "It's time for tea! 370 00:17:29,457 --> 00:17:32,296 "Get all your mallard friends. I've laid out the area." 371 00:17:32,296 --> 00:17:33,896 "But do not bring bread!" 372 00:17:33,896 --> 00:17:36,576 Yes, no, bread is very bad for ducks, that's a very good point. Hm. 373 00:17:36,576 --> 00:17:38,016 But you mentioned mallards. 374 00:17:38,016 --> 00:17:39,296 Most ducks don't quack. 375 00:17:39,296 --> 00:17:41,896 But it is predominately female mallards who make 376 00:17:41,896 --> 00:17:44,576 this particular noise. And why do you think they make it? 377 00:17:44,576 --> 00:17:46,496 Is it a duck rape alarm? 378 00:17:48,055 --> 00:17:49,895 Because isn't that a famous...? 379 00:17:49,895 --> 00:17:52,615 Consent is not big in the duck world. No, not at all. 380 00:17:52,615 --> 00:17:54,695 They're nasty to each other sometimes, yeah. Yes. 381 00:17:54,695 --> 00:17:57,975 And I think the mating thing is pretty horrible - 382 00:17:57,975 --> 00:17:59,575 hashtag quack-quack. 383 00:18:00,935 --> 00:18:03,014 They mate for life and they're in love. 384 00:18:03,014 --> 00:18:05,454 I believe that. I saw it on a Valentine's card. 385 00:18:07,214 --> 00:18:08,734 Oh, no, that's swans. 386 00:18:08,734 --> 00:18:11,374 Yeah. Yes, the sex act is a forced one for ducks. 387 00:18:11,374 --> 00:18:15,054 Yeah, and they chase them down and then they keep their face 388 00:18:15,054 --> 00:18:17,334 out of the water by holding their neck up with their beak. 389 00:18:17,334 --> 00:18:18,933 It's very unpleasant. 390 00:18:18,933 --> 00:18:21,413 And then they impose themselves upon the female. 391 00:18:21,413 --> 00:18:23,253 In the middle of Hampstead Heath! 392 00:18:23,253 --> 00:18:24,333 It's not right. 393 00:18:25,533 --> 00:18:28,173 So, the females give these bouts of loud monotonous quacks, 394 00:18:28,173 --> 00:18:31,053 particularly during their pre-laying period. Why might they do that? 395 00:18:31,053 --> 00:18:33,213 So, but is it because they're fertile? 396 00:18:33,213 --> 00:18:35,972 It is because they're fertile but it isn't what you might think, 397 00:18:35,972 --> 00:18:37,772 which is that they are looking for a mate. 398 00:18:37,772 --> 00:18:40,492 Because they quite often will do it when the mate is right there. 399 00:18:40,492 --> 00:18:42,812 Weirdly, we now think it's because they're drawing 400 00:18:42,812 --> 00:18:45,412 the attention of any predatory mammals who might be in the area. 401 00:18:45,412 --> 00:18:47,892 So, what they want to do is, if the predators come, 402 00:18:47,892 --> 00:18:50,372 they think, "Not going to stay here and nest, it's not safe." 403 00:18:50,372 --> 00:18:52,851 And so they're actually trying to attract the very thing 404 00:18:52,851 --> 00:18:54,291 that might have a go at them. 405 00:18:54,291 --> 00:18:56,691 Gosh, that's clever, isn't it? It is clever, isn't it? Yes. 406 00:18:56,691 --> 00:18:58,691 Yes, like leaving your car doors unlocked 407 00:18:58,691 --> 00:19:00,291 if you go to look round a house. 408 00:19:00,291 --> 00:19:01,691 Yeah, exactly that, yeah. 409 00:19:01,691 --> 00:19:02,891 Exactly. 410 00:19:02,891 --> 00:19:05,691 OK, I hadn't thought of doing that, but that's very clever. 411 00:19:06,611 --> 00:19:08,370 The other possibility, of course, 412 00:19:08,370 --> 00:19:10,210 is that there's already a pair of ducks there 413 00:19:10,210 --> 00:19:12,610 and they're sending out a message saying, "We've moved in. 414 00:19:12,610 --> 00:19:15,650 "Don't any other ducks come, because this is our...this is our place. 415 00:19:15,650 --> 00:19:19,490 "So go away." Now, let's all have a go. You've all got a duck caller. 416 00:19:19,490 --> 00:19:23,889 There is a human sport of duck calling, 417 00:19:23,889 --> 00:19:26,449 so trying to get the waterfowl to come in order to be shot, 418 00:19:26,449 --> 00:19:28,129 and the best duck callers take part 419 00:19:28,129 --> 00:19:31,529 in a World Championship Duck Calling Contest, which is in Arkansas 420 00:19:31,529 --> 00:19:32,769 in every Thanksgiving. 421 00:19:32,769 --> 00:19:34,449 Well, why don't we all go? 422 00:19:34,449 --> 00:19:35,689 I don't know! 423 00:19:35,689 --> 00:19:37,569 Why aren't we there? I know! 424 00:19:37,569 --> 00:19:39,248 Let's see if we're good enough. 425 00:19:39,248 --> 00:19:42,288 THEY BLOW ON THEIR BIRD CALLERS 426 00:19:44,488 --> 00:19:47,088 LAUGHTER 427 00:19:53,768 --> 00:19:56,527 Only one woman has ever won, and rather pleasingly, she won in 428 00:19:56,527 --> 00:20:00,207 1955-56, she was called Pat Peacock. Brilliant. 429 00:20:02,207 --> 00:20:04,687 The very first person who won didn't have a duck caller at all, 430 00:20:04,687 --> 00:20:06,527 just made the sound with their own throat. 431 00:20:06,527 --> 00:20:09,847 Victorian children used to make their bird callers 432 00:20:09,847 --> 00:20:12,726 by cutting the larynx from a recently dead goose. 433 00:20:12,726 --> 00:20:15,166 AUDIENCE: Urgh! Yeah. And blowing through it. 434 00:20:15,166 --> 00:20:17,966 Oh, thank God television was invented. I know. 435 00:20:19,046 --> 00:20:21,686 But look what they used to do if a child had no legs! 436 00:20:27,405 --> 00:20:29,125 You just had to muck in. 437 00:20:29,125 --> 00:20:30,845 Yeah. 438 00:20:30,845 --> 00:20:34,045 Anyway, in 1850 there was a 12-year-old who accidentally 439 00:20:34,045 --> 00:20:36,445 swallowed his goose's larynx that he was blowing through 440 00:20:36,445 --> 00:20:39,845 and he started honking like a goose every... 441 00:20:39,845 --> 00:20:41,205 ..every time he breathed. 442 00:20:41,205 --> 00:20:43,444 And there was a German doctor who eventually performed 443 00:20:43,444 --> 00:20:44,764 a tracheotomy on him 444 00:20:44,764 --> 00:20:46,724 and there's a medical paper entitled 445 00:20:46,724 --> 00:20:51,764 On The Removal Of A Larynx Of A Goose From That Of A Child. 446 00:20:51,764 --> 00:20:53,804 Mallards quack to check for predators 447 00:20:53,804 --> 00:20:55,764 and avoid becoming a sitting duck. 448 00:20:55,764 --> 00:20:57,564 AUDIENCE GROANS 449 00:20:57,564 --> 00:20:59,123 Ugh! 450 00:20:59,123 --> 00:21:01,363 Well, what would you have to do to find yourself 451 00:21:01,363 --> 00:21:03,203 imprisoned in Reading for two years? 452 00:21:03,203 --> 00:21:06,843 Oh, a sort of a BA in town planning or something like that. 453 00:21:06,843 --> 00:21:08,803 LAUGHTER 454 00:21:08,803 --> 00:21:10,243 APPLAUSE 455 00:21:14,443 --> 00:21:18,002 I've done... I've actually done shows in Reading, and for a laugh 456 00:21:18,002 --> 00:21:22,602 I would just go, "Good evening, it's great to be here in REE-ding." 457 00:21:22,602 --> 00:21:27,162 And I heard this woman say, "Oh, he's trying to say RED-ing!" 458 00:21:27,162 --> 00:21:29,762 I'm like, "You know you're here for a comedy show?" 459 00:21:29,762 --> 00:21:32,761 I thought I was going to be imprisoned because I couldn't 460 00:21:32,761 --> 00:21:36,241 pronounce Reading correctly. I was on a bus not very long ago and 461 00:21:36,241 --> 00:21:39,401 I was going past the pub and there was a sign outside. I thought it 462 00:21:39,401 --> 00:21:41,241 said "REE-ding versus..." 463 00:21:41,241 --> 00:21:44,161 And I couldn't read the bottom bit because there was somebody standing 464 00:21:44,161 --> 00:21:47,240 in the way. And I thought, "Reading versus..." Colouring in. 465 00:21:47,240 --> 00:21:50,000 Colouring in... Singing. 466 00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:52,520 Yes. Anyway, it turned out to be football, 467 00:21:52,520 --> 00:21:55,880 and it was Reading versus... Who would Reading play, darling? 468 00:21:55,880 --> 00:21:57,680 Another team. 469 00:21:59,560 --> 00:22:02,999 That's pretty much the amount of interest I paid to it, yeah. 470 00:22:02,999 --> 00:22:06,159 So, come on, what would you have to do... Oscar Wilde, Reading Gaol? 471 00:22:06,159 --> 00:22:07,959 It is not connected to Oscar Wilde. 472 00:22:07,959 --> 00:22:11,279 There's a special quarantine centre there... Is there? ..in Reading. 473 00:22:11,279 --> 00:22:13,519 Nits. No. 474 00:22:13,519 --> 00:22:19,398 There is the International Cocoa Quarantine Centre in Reading, 475 00:22:19,398 --> 00:22:21,238 part of the University of Reading. 476 00:22:21,238 --> 00:22:23,958 There are lots of terrible diseases that chocolate can get. 477 00:22:23,958 --> 00:22:26,798 Frosty pod, Witches' Broom. 478 00:22:26,798 --> 00:22:29,838 I knew they did silly courses in Reading, I knew it. 479 00:22:29,838 --> 00:22:32,838 Well, these are really serious, Alan, because they can destroy up to 480 00:22:32,838 --> 00:22:36,877 40% of the crop every year, and so when cocoa plants are transported 481 00:22:36,877 --> 00:22:39,677 from one country to another, it's very important to make sure that the 482 00:22:39,677 --> 00:22:42,877 diseases are not moved with them, and so chocolate plants will spend 483 00:22:42,877 --> 00:22:46,437 two years in Reading being... Relaxing. Relaxing... 484 00:22:46,437 --> 00:22:49,237 Relaxing, hanging out. Being tested, hanging out. Yeah, yeah. 485 00:22:49,237 --> 00:22:51,796 If they're healthy after two years, then they can go on to their 486 00:22:51,796 --> 00:22:54,236 destination, but otherwise they are kept in quarantine. 487 00:22:54,236 --> 00:22:56,236 Do you know why it's in Britain? 488 00:22:56,236 --> 00:22:59,636 Is there some kind of...per capita thing where we're the biggest 489 00:22:59,636 --> 00:23:01,916 chocolate consumers? No, it's really simple. 490 00:23:01,916 --> 00:23:04,836 The weather's so bad that the diseases wouldn't possibly 491 00:23:04,836 --> 00:23:07,435 survive. It is one of the major perks of living here. 492 00:23:07,435 --> 00:23:09,835 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. 493 00:23:10,835 --> 00:23:14,435 OK, why might you quarantine five million people? 494 00:23:14,435 --> 00:23:16,115 Wales? 495 00:23:16,115 --> 00:23:17,915 LAUGHTER 496 00:23:24,474 --> 00:23:27,274 Five million people, largest quarantine in history. 497 00:23:27,274 --> 00:23:29,914 I'm going to help you out, I'm going to tell you 1918. 498 00:23:29,914 --> 00:23:32,074 Oh, is it the flu? Yes. Flu epidemic. 499 00:23:32,074 --> 00:23:35,594 The whole of Australia was quarantined in 1918. 500 00:23:35,594 --> 00:23:39,593 The flu epidemic, pandemic started in the USA and in Europe, and the 501 00:23:39,593 --> 00:23:42,553 Australian government decided to quarantine the entire country. 502 00:23:42,553 --> 00:23:45,873 All ships were intercepted, all forced to moor offshore and see if 503 00:23:45,873 --> 00:23:48,873 any symptoms developed. The flu did eventually get through, but it 504 00:23:48,873 --> 00:23:51,353 wasn't anywhere near as bad as it could have been. 505 00:23:51,353 --> 00:23:54,873 I mean, still very bad, 40% of the country got flu, 15,000 people died. 506 00:23:54,873 --> 00:23:57,272 However, if you put that against the rest of the world, 507 00:23:57,272 --> 00:24:01,112 50 million to 100 million people died of the flu. 508 00:24:01,112 --> 00:24:02,752 There were 500 million cases. 509 00:24:02,752 --> 00:24:05,592 And, tragically, the celebrations at the end of the First World War 510 00:24:05,592 --> 00:24:08,792 helped to spread it, because people who'd been keeping in their houses 511 00:24:08,792 --> 00:24:11,671 suddenly came out to celebrate and then the flu was passed from 512 00:24:11,671 --> 00:24:14,911 one person to another. Anybody know why it was called the Spanish flu? 513 00:24:14,911 --> 00:24:17,831 Because it started in the United States and probably in France as 514 00:24:17,831 --> 00:24:21,271 well. It's one of those weird things where the censors didn't want 515 00:24:21,271 --> 00:24:24,271 anybody to write about the fact that there was a flu epidemic, because 516 00:24:24,271 --> 00:24:27,710 they thought it would cause panic. But you could write about it being 517 00:24:27,710 --> 00:24:30,190 in Spain, because Spain was neutral and not part of the war. 518 00:24:30,190 --> 00:24:33,030 So we just blamed the Spanish. 519 00:24:33,030 --> 00:24:37,910 "Not only not fighting, but now they've given us flu, the swines!" 520 00:24:37,910 --> 00:24:40,550 That's a really good fact. Yeah. Thank you very much. 521 00:24:40,550 --> 00:24:42,630 Yeah, I like that. Here's the thing about Australia, 522 00:24:42,630 --> 00:24:45,349 they even quarantine rocks. Did you know this? I love this fact. 523 00:24:45,349 --> 00:24:49,349 Yeah, they're called "sorry rocks". Aw! Lumps of Uluru, or Ayers Rock, 524 00:24:49,349 --> 00:24:52,909 is sometimes taken by tourists, and then they feel really guilty about 525 00:24:52,909 --> 00:24:57,829 it and they post them back to the park rangers. No! 526 00:24:57,829 --> 00:24:59,868 Yeah, they get about one a day. Stop! 527 00:24:59,868 --> 00:25:03,428 The largest ever returned weighed 32 kilos! 528 00:25:03,428 --> 00:25:06,628 Somebody had taken a 32 kilo rock! 529 00:25:06,628 --> 00:25:08,868 But, also, don't you find when you're on holiday, 530 00:25:08,868 --> 00:25:12,708 you buy stuff that's inappropriate? Yeah. You go, "Oh, a Stetson. I'm going to live in a 531 00:25:12,708 --> 00:25:15,987 "Stetson, because I'm in Texas." Yeah. And then you go home and you 532 00:25:15,987 --> 00:25:19,067 go, "Why?" Yeah. But the worry is that there's a small threat of 533 00:25:19,067 --> 00:25:22,267 pathogens being introduced through the rocks, and so they actually put 534 00:25:22,267 --> 00:25:24,707 the rocks in a neutral area. 535 00:25:24,707 --> 00:25:27,907 Would you like to meet Vomiting Larry? 536 00:25:27,907 --> 00:25:29,627 No. 537 00:25:29,627 --> 00:25:31,506 Yes. What? Have you got a thing about vomit? 538 00:25:31,506 --> 00:25:33,186 I'm just closing my eyes. You continue. 539 00:25:33,186 --> 00:25:35,106 No, we're not actually going to show vomit. OK. 540 00:25:35,106 --> 00:25:36,826 We're just going to talk about it a lot. 541 00:25:36,826 --> 00:25:40,426 Oh, I thought somebody called Larry was just going to come and be sick. 542 00:25:40,426 --> 00:25:42,706 Yeah, it's going to be a volcano 543 00:25:42,706 --> 00:25:45,946 or some kind of weird beetle... Of course. ..or something. 544 00:25:45,946 --> 00:25:50,465 It's not a volcano, it is a humanoid simulated vomiting system 545 00:25:50,465 --> 00:25:53,345 developed by a UK's Health and Safety Laboratory in Derbyshire 546 00:25:53,345 --> 00:25:56,105 by researcher Dr Cat Makison Booth. 547 00:25:56,105 --> 00:25:58,505 And there is Cat and there is Vomiting Larry. Sorry. 548 00:25:58,505 --> 00:26:00,265 Hello. Sorry! 549 00:26:03,264 --> 00:26:05,464 Sorry. It's fine. 550 00:26:05,464 --> 00:26:08,664 Cat, I believe that Larry can vomit on command. 551 00:26:08,664 --> 00:26:11,464 He can. But why would you invent such a thing? 552 00:26:11,464 --> 00:26:14,504 So we're looking at infection transmission, 553 00:26:14,504 --> 00:26:18,024 so we want to identify how far vomit spreads so that we can help 554 00:26:18,024 --> 00:26:20,783 clear it all back up again and prevent transmission of fluid. 555 00:26:20,783 --> 00:26:22,503 I kind of wish he was full, though, now, 556 00:26:22,503 --> 00:26:25,503 so we could get Alan back for earlier on. Yes, for shooting you 557 00:26:25,503 --> 00:26:27,663 with goat gland. Presumably, I'm going to guess, 558 00:26:27,663 --> 00:26:30,063 it's further than we think the little pool of vomit...? 559 00:26:30,063 --> 00:26:33,023 Yeah, it would kind of fill, with all the droplets and splash, 560 00:26:33,023 --> 00:26:35,062 most of this bit of the studio. 561 00:26:35,062 --> 00:26:37,862 No! Wow! Yeah, but you wouldn't be able to see it, so when you come to 562 00:26:37,862 --> 00:26:40,462 clean up the main bulk, you'd stand in it, spread it everywhere. 563 00:26:40,462 --> 00:26:42,822 So you're just carrying on spreading, even when you think 564 00:26:42,822 --> 00:26:44,622 you've cleaned it all up? Yeah, yeah. 565 00:26:44,622 --> 00:26:46,262 Can I...? Why is he called Larry? 566 00:26:46,262 --> 00:26:48,822 Because the head of the system is called Airway Larry. 567 00:26:48,822 --> 00:26:51,781 So it's for when medical students are practising laryngoscopies. 568 00:26:51,781 --> 00:26:54,701 Yeah, obviously. So that's where the Larry came from. Oh! 569 00:26:54,701 --> 00:26:57,821 Do the medical students not provide enough vomit? I mean... 570 00:27:00,181 --> 00:27:02,301 But they can't do it on command, so, you know... 571 00:27:02,301 --> 00:27:05,581 I think it has to be one, two, three, go. Yeah. Like that. 572 00:27:05,581 --> 00:27:08,300 OK, so now, we can't have Larry actually vomit, 573 00:27:08,300 --> 00:27:09,660 you'll be very pleased to know. 574 00:27:09,660 --> 00:27:12,940 However... Vomit! Vomit! Vomit! 575 00:27:12,940 --> 00:27:14,260 Come on, Laurence. 576 00:27:14,260 --> 00:27:16,820 We do have a film of Larry. 577 00:27:16,820 --> 00:27:18,980 We're going to have the film without sound, 578 00:27:18,980 --> 00:27:22,380 but if any of you lovely people would like to join in and create 579 00:27:22,380 --> 00:27:25,339 the sounds that you imagine Larry might make, then help yourselves. 580 00:27:25,339 --> 00:27:27,619 Why, of course. Yeah, let's have a look. 581 00:27:27,619 --> 00:27:30,739 You only have to ask once! Here we go. 582 00:27:30,739 --> 00:27:33,539 ALAN: Urrrgh! 583 00:27:33,539 --> 00:27:35,059 LAUGHTER 584 00:27:35,059 --> 00:27:37,419 Urrgh, God, I'm dying! 585 00:27:37,419 --> 00:27:41,018 Arrrrrgh! 586 00:27:41,018 --> 00:27:43,098 It's coming out of my arse as well! 587 00:27:43,098 --> 00:27:45,818 LAUGHTER 588 00:27:45,818 --> 00:27:47,698 APPLAUSE 589 00:27:50,658 --> 00:27:52,098 You know when you're being sick 590 00:27:52,098 --> 00:27:54,538 and you can't turn round quick enough, 591 00:27:54,538 --> 00:27:56,937 because you know it's going to...? 592 00:27:56,937 --> 00:27:58,697 "Oh, no, oh, no! No!" 593 00:28:02,817 --> 00:28:04,697 Pffft! 594 00:28:04,697 --> 00:28:07,577 "Argh, argh, God! Flush it, flush it, flush it!" 595 00:28:09,177 --> 00:28:10,897 Cat, I'm so sorry, darling. 596 00:28:10,897 --> 00:28:13,536 The norovirus, presumably one of the things that you've been 597 00:28:13,536 --> 00:28:14,816 looking at, is that right? 598 00:28:14,816 --> 00:28:18,176 Yeah, that's the key thing we're looking at. So it's really infectious, 599 00:28:18,176 --> 00:28:20,536 can be infected with ten viruses 600 00:28:20,536 --> 00:28:23,536 and you can have kind of a thousand million in a litre of fluid. 601 00:28:23,536 --> 00:28:26,616 So, highly transmissible. Wow! It's like the Ferrari of the virus world, 602 00:28:26,616 --> 00:28:29,255 isn't it? Definitely. This is actually the norovirus here. 603 00:28:29,255 --> 00:28:31,615 Oh. I mean, it looks like candied popcorn. 604 00:28:31,615 --> 00:28:34,175 But it's actually the norovirus. Yeah. Well, thank you so much 605 00:28:34,175 --> 00:28:37,375 for bringing Larry in. Dr Cat Makison Booth. 606 00:28:42,135 --> 00:28:44,774 Here's a thing, they found the world's oldest vomit. 607 00:28:44,774 --> 00:28:46,734 They found it in Peterborough. What?! 608 00:28:48,334 --> 00:28:50,814 Just round the back of the Wetherspoons. Yes. 609 00:28:50,814 --> 00:28:53,814 Can you guess how old it is? 4,000 years. 610 00:28:53,814 --> 00:28:56,414 No. A little bit older than that. Is it a fossil? It is a fossil? 611 00:28:56,414 --> 00:28:59,973 Yeah. Millions of years. 160 million years, and it 612 00:28:59,973 --> 00:29:03,053 was this creature here, an ichthyosaur. 613 00:29:03,053 --> 00:29:05,493 So that's an ancient marine reptile. 614 00:29:05,493 --> 00:29:08,133 And this is where vomit becomes exciting. This is where it is 615 00:29:08,133 --> 00:29:10,893 actually scientifically very exciting. Best sentence I've ever 616 00:29:10,893 --> 00:29:14,453 heard. I know. We now know that ichthyosaurs behaved much as 617 00:29:14,453 --> 00:29:19,452 sperm whales do today. They would eat shellfish whole and then they 618 00:29:19,452 --> 00:29:23,452 would vomit up the indigestible shells because that would otherwise 619 00:29:23,452 --> 00:29:25,092 rip their intestines. 620 00:29:25,092 --> 00:29:27,612 So we've learned a huge amount just from that. 621 00:29:27,612 --> 00:29:30,612 It's a funny thing, vomit, there's an extraordinary story. You remember 622 00:29:30,612 --> 00:29:33,291 Ted Hughes, the poet? There's a story that a woman who met him found 623 00:29:33,291 --> 00:29:36,331 him so physically attractive at a party that she had to leave 624 00:29:36,331 --> 00:29:39,371 and vomit. No! I know. Is that one of his stories? Yeah. 625 00:29:39,371 --> 00:29:41,131 LAUGHTER 626 00:29:41,131 --> 00:29:43,891 "She was quite overcome by my attractiveness. 627 00:29:43,891 --> 00:29:46,011 "The woman over there who threw up." 628 00:29:46,011 --> 00:29:49,170 Ted, Ted, come here... LAUGHTER 629 00:29:49,170 --> 00:29:52,290 I had a really good... I went to a really good party and on the way 630 00:29:52,290 --> 00:29:56,730 home, I was on the tube, and you know those old litter boxes? 631 00:29:56,730 --> 00:29:59,890 And I had one of those, like... HE RETCHES 632 00:29:59,890 --> 00:30:02,090 I was like, "It's coming! It's coming!" 633 00:30:02,090 --> 00:30:04,929 HE RETCHES "It's coming! 634 00:30:04,929 --> 00:30:08,649 "Oooooh!" And everything came out, but there was no bottom on the bin. 635 00:30:08,649 --> 00:30:10,129 Oh! 636 00:30:12,369 --> 00:30:14,369 Filled my shoes. 637 00:30:15,849 --> 00:30:18,489 I love the things that scientists discover. 638 00:30:18,489 --> 00:30:21,608 Apparently they only discovered that flu can travel between different 639 00:30:21,608 --> 00:30:25,288 species after a ferret sneezed in a scientist's face. 640 00:30:28,048 --> 00:30:29,648 1933. 641 00:30:29,648 --> 00:30:32,728 Now, here's another question to make you queasy. 642 00:30:32,728 --> 00:30:36,327 What happened when Michelangelo took his socks off? 643 00:30:36,327 --> 00:30:39,687 Oh, don't say some of his foot came away. 644 00:30:39,687 --> 00:30:42,487 Oh, no. Oh! 645 00:30:42,487 --> 00:30:43,927 Apparently, he didn't wash, 646 00:30:43,927 --> 00:30:46,167 but his skin used to come off if he took his clothes off. 647 00:30:46,167 --> 00:30:49,007 So, this is thought to be a portrait of him by Raphael. 648 00:30:49,007 --> 00:30:51,646 It's sort of having a go at him. Raphael was a kind of young buck 649 00:30:51,646 --> 00:30:53,406 and Michelangelo was quite old by then. 650 00:30:53,406 --> 00:30:56,086 And he has Michelangelo playing Heraclitus, sort of the weeping, 651 00:30:56,086 --> 00:30:58,886 grumpy philosopher, because Michelangelo was incredibly grumpy. 652 00:30:58,886 --> 00:31:02,486 But according to Michelangelo's biographer, "He wore stockings 653 00:31:02,486 --> 00:31:04,806 "of dog skin constantly for months together, 654 00:31:04,806 --> 00:31:06,446 "so that when he took them off, 655 00:31:06,446 --> 00:31:09,005 "the skin of the leg often came away with them." 656 00:31:09,005 --> 00:31:11,245 AUDIENCE GROANS I know. He was very busy. 657 00:31:11,245 --> 00:31:14,365 I mean, he was incredibly busy. How long did the Sistine ceiling take? 658 00:31:14,365 --> 00:31:17,005 Well, it took years and years and years, and he wrote that he 659 00:31:17,005 --> 00:31:19,165 constantly had his "beard to heaven". 660 00:31:19,165 --> 00:31:22,045 He used to talk about, "the brush is always above my face, my haunches 661 00:31:22,045 --> 00:31:24,804 "are grinding into my gut, and my poor arse strains 662 00:31:24,804 --> 00:31:26,364 "to work as a counterweight." 663 00:31:26,364 --> 00:31:28,284 Actually, there's a really fascinating thing 664 00:31:28,284 --> 00:31:30,884 about Michelangelo that they've fairly recently discovered, 665 00:31:30,884 --> 00:31:33,084 that you can probably tell a Michelangelo sculpture. 666 00:31:33,084 --> 00:31:35,484 So, if you take something like the Rothschild Bronzes, 667 00:31:35,484 --> 00:31:37,884 there are three ways, in fact, the experts now say 668 00:31:37,884 --> 00:31:39,763 you can find that it's a Michelangelo. 669 00:31:39,763 --> 00:31:42,883 The first thing is that the first and second toes are splayed 670 00:31:42,883 --> 00:31:47,163 in the figure. And he always depicts the abdomen as not having a six-pack 671 00:31:47,163 --> 00:31:49,243 but an eight-pack. 672 00:31:49,243 --> 00:31:52,323 And he gives his sculptures unruly pubic hair. 673 00:31:52,323 --> 00:31:55,083 And the suggestion is that one of his favourite models must 674 00:31:55,083 --> 00:31:56,762 have had all of those attributes. 675 00:31:56,762 --> 00:31:59,722 The toes and the eight-pack and the unruly pubic hair. 676 00:31:59,722 --> 00:32:01,322 I wouldn't say that's unruly. 677 00:32:03,802 --> 00:32:06,522 Well, it's not had a comb, has it? 678 00:32:06,522 --> 00:32:10,202 I like that that's now what we're all looking at. 679 00:32:10,202 --> 00:32:11,881 Yeah. 680 00:32:11,881 --> 00:32:14,681 It was what we were all looking at anyway. 681 00:32:14,681 --> 00:32:17,401 I'll tell you what, the Milk Tray man's let himself go. 682 00:32:20,721 --> 00:32:23,761 Michelangelo used to get his marble from the Carrara quarries in 683 00:32:23,761 --> 00:32:27,680 Tuscany. He used to visit the quarry and pick the exact piece of marble 684 00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:32,080 that he wanted. And David - that was discarded, nobody wanted... 685 00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:34,840 That's absolutely right. In fact, you should have an extra point for 686 00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:37,720 that, because it had been discarded by two previous artists. Yes. 687 00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:40,920 Agostino de Duccio and Antonio Rossellino, they both had tried, and 688 00:32:40,920 --> 00:32:44,319 the trouble with it is that it's not actually very good marble. 689 00:32:44,319 --> 00:32:46,879 And one of the reasons why we know this, there was a guy who 690 00:32:46,879 --> 00:32:49,639 smashed a bit of David's toe off and they've now been able to analyse 691 00:32:49,639 --> 00:32:52,279 the splinters from that. It was a guy called Piero Cannata. 692 00:32:52,279 --> 00:32:55,119 But you're absolutely right that David is unfortunately made of not 693 00:32:55,119 --> 00:32:56,719 such good stuff. 694 00:32:56,719 --> 00:33:01,638 Now, Alan, why might I syphon four gallons of gas up your bottom? 695 00:33:08,038 --> 00:33:11,318 How did you get a photograph of that, you swine? 696 00:33:11,318 --> 00:33:14,518 I'm talking about hydrogen. Is it going to have an enema effect? 697 00:33:14,518 --> 00:33:16,037 Is it a colon cleanser? 698 00:33:16,037 --> 00:33:18,277 It is a... It is a medical thing, so... Is it flammable? 699 00:33:18,277 --> 00:33:20,357 It is exactly flammable and that is why it matters. 700 00:33:20,357 --> 00:33:22,997 Oh, ho, ho! Yeah. So... Boof! 701 00:33:22,997 --> 00:33:24,757 This is not exactly... Wow! 702 00:33:24,757 --> 00:33:27,077 Oh, are you actually going to do it? Yeah. 703 00:33:28,317 --> 00:33:30,997 There was an American military surgeon who was called 704 00:33:30,997 --> 00:33:33,356 Nicholas Senn, and he came up with a system for checking 705 00:33:33,356 --> 00:33:35,796 whether you'd been shot in the guts. 706 00:33:35,796 --> 00:33:38,396 So one of the things they would do is, they would pump hydrogen 707 00:33:38,396 --> 00:33:42,116 up your backside and then set fire to the gas as it escaped 708 00:33:42,116 --> 00:33:43,836 from the wound in your stomach. 709 00:33:43,836 --> 00:33:46,036 So we're talking about the late 19th century. 710 00:33:46,036 --> 00:33:47,595 It was a huge problem for surgeons 711 00:33:47,595 --> 00:33:50,275 to work out whether a wounded patient had their intestinal canal 712 00:33:50,275 --> 00:33:51,875 pierced by a bullet. 713 00:33:51,875 --> 00:33:54,635 Can't you just put them under water, like an inner tube? Yes. 714 00:33:54,635 --> 00:33:58,595 If you did the surgery and it wasn't necessary, it could kill somebody. 715 00:33:58,595 --> 00:33:59,795 So they needed to work it out. 716 00:33:59,795 --> 00:34:01,595 And so he came up with this system. 717 00:34:01,595 --> 00:34:05,554 It was called rectal insufflation of hydrogen gas. 718 00:34:05,554 --> 00:34:08,474 And it's a bit like a plumber looking for a leak in a gas pipe. 719 00:34:08,474 --> 00:34:12,074 If it had gone in, it would escape through the hole. 720 00:34:12,074 --> 00:34:13,234 And he did try it. 721 00:34:13,234 --> 00:34:15,954 And if there was no hole, they would just explode. 722 00:34:15,954 --> 00:34:19,314 Yes, well, he did try it on several dogs first, 723 00:34:19,314 --> 00:34:22,313 to the point where their intestines ruptured. Oh, God! 724 00:34:22,313 --> 00:34:23,353 I know. 725 00:34:23,353 --> 00:34:24,873 HE HOWLS 726 00:34:24,873 --> 00:34:27,633 Pfft! But then he decided to try it on himself 727 00:34:27,633 --> 00:34:30,633 and he had his assistant pump six litres of gas up his bottom. 728 00:34:30,633 --> 00:34:32,833 Can I just read this, cos it's awful? 729 00:34:32,833 --> 00:34:35,432 "He found that the escape of air or gas from the rectum 730 00:34:35,432 --> 00:34:38,032 "was prevented by an assistant pressing the margins of the anus 731 00:34:38,032 --> 00:34:40,792 "firmly above the rectal tube." 732 00:34:40,792 --> 00:34:43,792 He tried it on two patients. It never really caught on. 733 00:34:43,792 --> 00:34:46,432 He's quite clear that the entire thing was devised 734 00:34:46,432 --> 00:34:48,232 because he fancied his assistant. 735 00:34:48,232 --> 00:34:51,871 Also, sometimes I think with these stories about research, 736 00:34:51,871 --> 00:34:55,071 they just get to the end of a long day 737 00:34:55,071 --> 00:34:57,551 and they think, let's see what happens if you stick a load of 738 00:34:57,551 --> 00:35:00,271 hydrogen up their arse. 739 00:35:00,271 --> 00:35:02,711 But there are lots of self-experimenters. 740 00:35:02,711 --> 00:35:05,591 There was a guy called Dr Stubbins Ffirth and he was fascinated 741 00:35:05,591 --> 00:35:07,710 by how yellow fever was transmitted, 742 00:35:07,710 --> 00:35:09,870 but, I mean, he was slightly bonkers. 743 00:35:09,870 --> 00:35:12,870 He wanted to prove it wasn't contagious, so he did things 744 00:35:12,870 --> 00:35:17,190 like he dribbled infected patients' vomit into a cut on himself. 745 00:35:17,190 --> 00:35:18,430 Oh! I know. 746 00:35:18,430 --> 00:35:22,270 He put it into his own eyes and he tried frying the vomit from a yellow 747 00:35:22,270 --> 00:35:24,709 fever patient and inhaling the fumes 748 00:35:24,709 --> 00:35:27,149 and then he also sat in a vomit sauna. 749 00:35:27,149 --> 00:35:28,709 Who knew there was such a thing. Wow. 750 00:35:28,709 --> 00:35:30,829 It's another word for a night bus. 751 00:35:32,229 --> 00:35:33,749 APPLAUSE 752 00:35:35,389 --> 00:35:38,189 You know, he didn't catch it because you can only get it, of course, 753 00:35:38,189 --> 00:35:39,908 if it goes straight into the bloodstream, 754 00:35:39,908 --> 00:35:42,188 like, by a mosquito, which wasn't discovered 755 00:35:42,188 --> 00:35:44,388 until six decades after he died. 756 00:35:44,388 --> 00:35:46,788 He died when he was 36. It doesn't say of what. 757 00:35:48,508 --> 00:35:50,988 Take your pick. Yeah. 758 00:35:50,988 --> 00:35:53,868 And in 2004, there was a biologist called David Pritchard. 759 00:35:53,868 --> 00:35:58,227 He allowed 50 bookworm larvae to burrow into his skin and 760 00:35:58,227 --> 00:36:02,267 he wanted to see if the infestation could fight hay fever and asthma, 761 00:36:02,267 --> 00:36:04,787 so he applied a dressing... Urgh! I know, it's horrible. 762 00:36:04,787 --> 00:36:06,947 A dressing with pin-sized hookworm larvae. 763 00:36:06,947 --> 00:36:09,707 They're like, sort of, maggots on the surface of meat 764 00:36:09,707 --> 00:36:14,426 and he said the itch when they cross through your skin is indescribable! 765 00:36:14,426 --> 00:36:16,346 But here is the thing, it worked. 766 00:36:16,346 --> 00:36:17,786 That for some reason, 767 00:36:17,786 --> 00:36:21,706 the worms somehow seem to switch off the immune system. 768 00:36:21,706 --> 00:36:25,426 OK, so he didn't have hay fever but he had worms inside his arm! 769 00:36:25,426 --> 00:36:26,946 That's not better! 770 00:36:26,946 --> 00:36:29,745 I had pins and needles, I shot my foot off, so that worked. 771 00:36:32,905 --> 00:36:35,625 Some people go a little bit too far, I agree. 772 00:36:35,625 --> 00:36:38,745 I think that's enough from the ANALS of medical history. 773 00:36:38,745 --> 00:36:40,945 AUDIENCE GROANS 774 00:36:42,945 --> 00:36:45,864 It's time to move on to that sick puppy that is General Ignorance. 775 00:36:45,864 --> 00:36:48,384 So, tell me, what's the technical name of the first patient 776 00:36:48,384 --> 00:36:50,144 in a disease outbreak? 777 00:36:50,144 --> 00:36:51,504 Keith. 778 00:36:53,944 --> 00:36:55,984 Oh, the audience will know. Who... What is it? 779 00:36:55,984 --> 00:36:57,864 AUDIENCE: Patient Zero. 780 00:36:57,864 --> 00:36:59,663 KLAXON 781 00:37:00,623 --> 00:37:02,623 Ha-ha-ha! 782 00:37:02,623 --> 00:37:05,423 See, you fell into that trap immediately. 783 00:37:05,423 --> 00:37:08,223 No, it's the Index Case, or Index Patient. 784 00:37:08,223 --> 00:37:10,863 People do think that it's Patient Zero and actually it's based 785 00:37:10,863 --> 00:37:13,903 on a mistake. The very first time that was given was to a man 786 00:37:13,903 --> 00:37:17,262 called Gaetan Dugas and he was a French Canadian flight attendant, 787 00:37:17,262 --> 00:37:20,062 who allegedly contracted HIV in Haiti. 788 00:37:20,062 --> 00:37:23,502 And he spread it, allegedly, to lots of men during his lifetime. 789 00:37:23,502 --> 00:37:27,422 And he wasn't referred to as Patient Zero, he was Patient O, 790 00:37:27,422 --> 00:37:29,422 and the O stood for Outside California. 791 00:37:29,422 --> 00:37:31,981 But people now think that it was Patient Zero. 792 00:37:31,981 --> 00:37:34,061 While we are on the origins of disease, 793 00:37:34,061 --> 00:37:36,621 can you name someone who had Lou Gehrig's disease? 794 00:37:37,741 --> 00:37:39,661 Lou Gehrig. 795 00:37:41,741 --> 00:37:43,381 No, it turns out he may not have had it. 796 00:37:43,381 --> 00:37:46,101 He was a baseball player? He was a New York Yankees baseball player. 797 00:37:46,101 --> 00:37:49,180 He died in 1941 and even though it's named after him, 798 00:37:49,180 --> 00:37:51,140 the chances are he didn't have it. 799 00:37:51,140 --> 00:37:54,020 It's most likely that he had some kind of brain trauma 800 00:37:54,020 --> 00:37:55,740 brought on by the long-term effects... 801 00:37:55,740 --> 00:37:58,180 Very, very tight cap. ..of concussion. 802 00:37:58,180 --> 00:38:00,620 So Lou Gehrig's disease is actually motor neurone disease. 803 00:38:00,620 --> 00:38:02,260 It's also known as ALS. 804 00:38:02,260 --> 00:38:04,859 It's a specific disease which causes the death of neurones 805 00:38:04,859 --> 00:38:07,539 controlling voluntary muscles. It became famous actually with 806 00:38:07,539 --> 00:38:08,899 the ice bucket challenge. 807 00:38:08,899 --> 00:38:12,459 There is £90 million in just one month with the ice bucket challenge. 808 00:38:12,459 --> 00:38:15,899 Which is cleaner, the gents' or the ladies'? 809 00:38:15,899 --> 00:38:17,379 CLAUDIA'S BUZZER Yeah? 810 00:38:17,379 --> 00:38:19,498 I mean, I haven't used that enough. No. We all agree. 811 00:38:19,498 --> 00:38:21,178 Yeah, that's a very good noise, isn't it? 812 00:38:21,178 --> 00:38:23,338 Ladies'. KLAXON 813 00:38:25,458 --> 00:38:26,498 I know! 814 00:38:26,498 --> 00:38:27,658 I mean, come on! 815 00:38:27,658 --> 00:38:29,778 So there was a study at the University of Arizona, 816 00:38:29,778 --> 00:38:32,978 and apparently ladies' loos are germier. 817 00:38:32,978 --> 00:38:34,978 Why might that be, do you think? 818 00:38:34,978 --> 00:38:36,937 Cos we chat in there for quite a long time. 819 00:38:36,937 --> 00:38:39,897 We spend longer in there, but also we take children in. Ah. 820 00:38:39,897 --> 00:38:42,177 You know, crazy germ-carriers. 821 00:38:42,177 --> 00:38:45,737 How are those two floating through the doors like that? 822 00:38:47,137 --> 00:38:49,337 That is slightly disturbing, isn't it? 823 00:38:49,337 --> 00:38:51,417 Women wash their hands a lot more than men. 824 00:38:51,417 --> 00:38:53,936 Men less likely to wash their hands at sporting venues. 825 00:38:53,936 --> 00:38:57,216 They had a study at Turner Field Baseball Stadium in Atlanta - 826 00:38:57,216 --> 00:38:59,656 men wash their hands just 65% of the time 827 00:38:59,656 --> 00:39:01,296 when they're at a sporting venue. 828 00:39:01,296 --> 00:39:03,736 I don't know how this works. It says here the study involved 829 00:39:03,736 --> 00:39:05,736 "researchers discreetly observing." 830 00:39:07,376 --> 00:39:10,775 I would say it's considerably less than 65% of men... 831 00:39:10,775 --> 00:39:13,455 Oh, would you say? ..wash their hands after they've had a wee 832 00:39:13,455 --> 00:39:14,695 at the Arsenal. 833 00:39:14,695 --> 00:39:17,775 I think there's about five of us who use those sinks. 834 00:39:17,775 --> 00:39:20,815 In fact, at the old Wembley Stadium, you'd go to wash your hands 835 00:39:20,815 --> 00:39:23,734 and then usually there'd be about six blokes pissing in the sink. 836 00:39:26,454 --> 00:39:29,414 Either of you ladies think that it's worth putting down 837 00:39:29,414 --> 00:39:31,974 toilet paper on the seat? No. No, why? 838 00:39:31,974 --> 00:39:34,094 No, because you slide off, don't you? 839 00:39:34,094 --> 00:39:35,614 I don't have the time. Yeah. 840 00:39:35,614 --> 00:39:37,334 Can't go, "I'll be out in a minute, 841 00:39:37,334 --> 00:39:38,814 "to have fun with my friends." 842 00:39:38,814 --> 00:39:40,453 "Don't worry, we'll see 843 00:39:40,453 --> 00:39:42,453 "the fireworks another time." 844 00:39:42,453 --> 00:39:45,333 Every time I've ever used a public loo, I've always stood there going, 845 00:39:45,333 --> 00:39:47,573 "What are they doing in there?!" That's that. Yeah. 846 00:39:47,573 --> 00:39:51,613 Is that what it is? Yeah. It's that. Sort of crocheting their own seats? 847 00:39:51,613 --> 00:39:54,773 No, but here's the good news - it's a complete waste of time. 848 00:39:54,773 --> 00:39:58,812 The toilet seat is designed to not keep bacteria on it, 849 00:39:58,812 --> 00:40:01,852 whereas toilet paper - unbelievably absorbent. 850 00:40:03,172 --> 00:40:05,732 And squatting? Well, I'm more inclined to hover myself. 851 00:40:05,732 --> 00:40:08,852 Yeah, so hovering, hmm, also a bad idea. 852 00:40:10,332 --> 00:40:11,891 The pelvic floor muscles can't relax 853 00:40:11,891 --> 00:40:13,891 and so your bladder doesn't fully empty. 854 00:40:13,891 --> 00:40:15,451 It's also a waste of a superpower. 855 00:40:19,131 --> 00:40:20,651 I mean, if you can hover... Yeah. 856 00:40:22,571 --> 00:40:24,251 APPLAUSE 857 00:40:29,530 --> 00:40:31,690 Apparently the only way you can get really, 858 00:40:31,690 --> 00:40:34,890 really sick in a public lavatory is licking the toilet seat. 859 00:40:34,890 --> 00:40:36,530 AUDIENCE GROANS 860 00:40:36,530 --> 00:40:39,970 I'm just saying, that's what they've discovered. Ha! All been there. 861 00:40:42,650 --> 00:40:44,729 It turns out that the gentlemen's lavs 862 00:40:44,729 --> 00:40:47,529 are cleaner than the ladies', despite the smell. 863 00:40:48,689 --> 00:40:52,009 After you've been drawn, hanged and quartered, 864 00:40:52,009 --> 00:40:54,049 how many parts do you end up in? 865 00:40:55,809 --> 00:40:59,169 Hmm, quartered would suggest, um, what, is it? 866 00:41:00,928 --> 00:41:01,968 Is it four? 867 00:41:01,968 --> 00:41:04,048 KLAXON No! 868 00:41:06,968 --> 00:41:08,608 Five. It is five. Why is it five? 869 00:41:08,608 --> 00:41:11,168 Do they put your head somewhere else? Head, yeah, absolutely. 870 00:41:11,168 --> 00:41:13,368 So it's your head plus the four quarters of your body. 871 00:41:13,368 --> 00:41:16,127 What used to happen sometimes is that the various body parts 872 00:41:16,127 --> 00:41:18,007 could be spread all over the country. 873 00:41:18,007 --> 00:41:21,407 So, William Wallace, after his execution, his four quarters 874 00:41:21,407 --> 00:41:23,807 were sent to Newcastle, Berwick, Perth and Stirling. 875 00:41:23,807 --> 00:41:26,087 But his head remained on London Bridge. 876 00:41:26,087 --> 00:41:28,607 And there used to be a thing called the Keeper of the Heads. 877 00:41:28,607 --> 00:41:30,967 So about 300 years, the London Bridge Gatehouse 878 00:41:30,967 --> 00:41:33,566 was home to the Keeper of the Heads, and his job was to display 879 00:41:33,566 --> 00:41:36,126 the traitors' heads to good effect. Take down the old ones. 880 00:41:36,126 --> 00:41:38,406 You know, "Oh, that one's looking a bit tired. 881 00:41:38,406 --> 00:41:40,686 "I'll take that one down." A bit maggoty. 882 00:41:40,686 --> 00:41:42,486 But also some of them are higher than others. 883 00:41:42,486 --> 00:41:45,046 If you had died as a rather senior nobleman, 884 00:41:45,046 --> 00:41:47,845 your head on a pole would go higher. Quite right, that's quite right. 885 00:41:47,845 --> 00:41:49,845 Yes, quite right, than a junior one. 886 00:41:49,845 --> 00:41:52,485 "I hope you're going to put that in a very high..." 887 00:41:52,485 --> 00:41:54,925 Everybody worried about being quartered because then you 888 00:41:54,925 --> 00:41:56,405 couldn't have a Christian burial. 889 00:41:56,405 --> 00:42:01,205 So, under the 1752 Murder Act and the 1832 Anatomy Act, 890 00:42:01,205 --> 00:42:03,485 it ruled that criminals could be sentenced to 891 00:42:03,485 --> 00:42:05,164 dissection as a punishment, 892 00:42:05,164 --> 00:42:08,404 because it meant that you could no longer go to God at the very end. 893 00:42:08,404 --> 00:42:10,604 That's really recent, isn't it, for that? 894 00:42:10,604 --> 00:42:13,964 I mean, now, really they're not far off finding penicillin then. 895 00:42:13,964 --> 00:42:16,684 No, I know. It's about the age of my house. 896 00:42:17,804 --> 00:42:20,843 All of which brings us to the cruel and unusual punishment 897 00:42:20,843 --> 00:42:22,203 of the scores. 898 00:42:22,203 --> 00:42:25,403 Coming in first, with surgical precision, oh, my goodness, 899 00:42:25,403 --> 00:42:27,723 with eight points, it's Stephen. 900 00:42:27,723 --> 00:42:30,083 Oh, my goodness. 901 00:42:30,083 --> 00:42:32,403 Thank you so much. 902 00:42:32,403 --> 00:42:34,683 Thank you. 903 00:42:34,683 --> 00:42:36,602 In second place, it's Alan. 904 00:42:41,042 --> 00:42:42,242 Seven actual points. 905 00:42:42,242 --> 00:42:44,322 And in third place, with minus five, Victoria. 906 00:42:47,962 --> 00:42:49,442 Minus six, it's Claudia. 907 00:42:52,321 --> 00:42:55,001 But Claudia is not last. In last place, with minus ten, 908 00:42:55,001 --> 00:42:56,881 it's the audience! 909 00:42:56,881 --> 00:42:58,721 AUDIENCE CHEER 910 00:43:04,841 --> 00:43:07,960 Which means I only have to thank Claudia, Stephen, Victoria and Alan. 911 00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:11,280 And I leave you with this quirky quotation from George Carlin. 912 00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:12,880 "Isn't it a bit unnerving 913 00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:15,680 "that doctors call what they do 'practise'?" 914 00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:17,120 Thank you and goodnight.