Joe Rogan Experience #1272 - Lindsey Fitzharris

1. 0:00 – 2:06

   Victorian amputation saws, medical failure, and surviving surgery before antisepsis

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      ... (sniffs) four, three-

   2. LFLindsey Fitzharris0:03

      Hold on a second.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:03

      Whoops. We got an issue?

   4. LFLindsey Fitzharris0:04

      Uh, uh, maybe. Let me check.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      Okay, here we go. Five, four, three, two... Yes! And we're live. Hello, Lindsay.

   6. LFLindsey Fitzharris0:24

      Hey. (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:24

      What's happening?

   8. LFLindsey Fitzharris0:25

      Not much. Thanks for having me here.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:26

      Pleasure to meet you.

   10. LFLindsey Fitzharris0:27

       Yeah. Yeah. Good to meet you. I'm, I'm the girl who tags you in all the disgusting-

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:30

       (laughs)

   12. LFLindsey Fitzharris0:30

       ... medical history photos. (laughs)

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:32

       Well-

   14. LFLindsey Fitzharris0:32

       And I'm really looking forward to grossing out your audience today.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       I, I'm looking forward you, to you doing that as well. You have, uh, fascinated me-

   16. LFLindsey Fitzharris0:39

       (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:40

       ... with your, uh, Twitter page. And you, like, uh, first of all, how... You are a doctor, right?

   18. LFLindsey Fitzharris0:46

       Well, I'm a PhD. I can't save anybody's life.

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:48

       Okay.

   20. LFLindsey Fitzharris0:49

       I could perform, you know, Victorian surgery amputation or something, but-

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:52

       I think anybody can, right?

   22. LFLindsey Fitzharris0:53

       Yeah. Yeah. Probably.

   23. JRJoe Rogan0:54

       Is that a real one, that saw?

   24. LFLindsey Fitzharris0:55

       No. This is, this is a prop.

   25. JRJoe Rogan0:56

       Oh.

   26. LFLindsey Fitzharris0:57

       Um, so this is-

   27. JRJoe Rogan0:59

       (laughs)

   28. LFLindsey Fitzharris0:59

       This was a, was a real fun thing to get through, uh, customs, uh, when I was coming in from Britain. It's, uh, a Victorian amputation saw. It's called the clockwork saw and, um, for people who are just listening, it's, it's a circular saw, and there would have been a crank that you wound it with, and then you'd release it, and it would spin sort of automatically.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:17

       Oh, God.

   30. LFLindsey Fitzharris1:18

       Yeah. And the idea was that it would make it faster, but the reason why I love this saw so much is that it was a massive failure. (laughs) And, um, I don't think we talk about failure enough in science and medicine. You know, all the things that work, there's a lot of things that don't work. And so this guy who invented this saw, when he tried it out, it was spinning so fast that he took off his assistant's fingers.
2. 2:06 – 3:31

   Joseph Lister, germ theory in practice, and why Listerine was named after him

   1. LFLindsey Fitzharris2:06

      So my book, uh, The Butchering Art, really focuses on this one guy named Joseph Lister who applies germ theory and develops antisepsis, so germ-fighting techniques.

   2. JRJoe Rogan2:15

      Right.

   3. LFLindsey Fitzharris2:16

      And most people don't know who he is, but they know the product Listerine.

   4. JRJoe Rogan2:19

      Mm-hmm.

   5. LFLindsey Fitzharris2:20

      So Listerine was named after him, but-

   6. JRJoe Rogan2:23

      Oh.

   7. LFLindsey Fitzharris2:23

      ... uh, I, I always, uh, tell people that, so basically, uh, Lister was a British surgeon, and he came to America in 1876 to convince the medical community of germs. And there was a guy in the audience, and he decided to create this product Listerine, but it wasn't even a mouthwash in the 19th century. It was used to treat gonorrhea. (laughs)

   8. JRJoe Rogan2:40

      Whoa.

   9. LFLindsey Fitzharris2:42

      So, but also, I don't endorse that. (laughs) Don't-

   10. JRJoe Rogan2:44

       (laughs)

   11. LFLindsey Fitzharris2:44

       Don't throw a little g- listerine on it.

   12. JRJoe Rogan2:46

       Yeah. Go to a doctor, man.

   13. LFLindsey Fitzharris2:47

       Yeah. I can just see all the comments already on the YouTube, you know, "She told me to throw listerine on it." No. I, I, (laughs) I don't endorse that, and I'm sure the Listerine company is not too pleased I'm talking about that either. (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan2:57

       So Listerine now just is for breath, right?

   15. LFLindsey Fitzharris3:01

       Yeah. Yeah. It's-

   16. JRJoe Rogan3:01

       That's all it does.

   17. LFLindsey Fitzharris3:02

       Yeah. It's, it's, it's an antiseptic mouthwash, and so-

   18. JRJoe Rogan3:05

       Is it even any good for you? Like is it good to kill all that stuff inside your mouth? Like...

   19. LFLindsey Fitzharris3:10

       I, I'm not a real doctor. (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan3:11

       Right, but you're a medical historian.

   21. LFLindsey Fitzharris3:13

       I'm a medical historian.

   22. JRJoe Rogan3:14

       Yeah.

   23. LFLindsey Fitzharris3:14

       I would say that dentists would say that, that Listerine's still a good product.

   24. JRJoe Rogan3:17

       Do you use it, Jim?

   25. LFLindsey Fitzharris3:18

       Kills a lot of bacteria. Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan3:20

       All right.

   27. LFLindsey Fitzharris3:20

       (laughs) Some form of it, something like that. I just use something. I don't know if it's Crest or Listerine.

   28. JRJoe Rogan3:22

       Some mouthwash? Yeah.

   29. LFLindsey Fitzharris3:23

       You gotta switch to Listerine now. Yeah. That's what I do. In, in honor of, of Joseph Lister.

   30. JRJoe Rogan3:27

       So how did he know? How did he know that there was b- germs, that they were real?

3. 3:31 – 7:32

   Operating theaters as entertainment: speed-surgeons, showmanship, and horror stories

   1. LFLindsey Fitzharris3:31

      Well, so let me, let me take you back to sort of before he walks on the scene. So these operating theaters, they were filled to the rafters with ticketed spectators. People actually bought tickets to see someone get their leg hacked off.

   2. JRJoe Rogan3:41

      Oh, God.

   3. LFLindsey Fitzharris3:41

      You know? (laughs) And, uh-

   4. JRJoe Rogan3:42

      How much did it cost?

   5. LFLindsey Fitzharris3:44

      Uh, well, I, you know what? No one's asked me that. I don't know how much a ticket would cost, uh, for that-

   6. JRJoe Rogan3:48

      (laughs)

   7. LFLindsey Fitzharris3:49

      ... for that spectacle. Now I really need to look into that. Um, but people would.

   8. JRJoe Rogan3:53

      Oh, God. People would pay to watch that?

   9. LFLindsey Fitzharris3:54

      They paid, but for what they pay to watch now, right?

   10. JRJoe Rogan3:56

       Yeah. I guess. Yeah.

   11. LFLindsey Fitzharris3:56

       You know, we could say... You know, and when I sent you my book, I, I signed it, and I said, "I thought that being strapped to the Victorian operating table was the original Fear Factor because I can't imagine anything worse than being strapped to this table."

   12. JRJoe Rogan4:10

       Yeah.

   13. LFLindsey Fitzharris4:10

       And so we're talking about before anesthesia, so you're fully awake.

   14. JRJoe Rogan4:14

       Mm-hmm.

   15. LFLindsey Fitzharris4:14

       Um, and one of my favorite surgeons is this guy named Robert Liston. He's 6'2". He's really tall for the 19th century, and he could hold you down with his left arm, and he could take your leg off in about 30 seconds.

   16. JRJoe Rogan4:25

       Oh, Jesus.

   17. LFLindsey Fitzharris4:26

       (laughs) Which is what you'd want. That's what you'd want. Um-

   18. JRJoe Rogan4:29

       You would, but that's still a long time.

   19. LFLindsey Fitzharris4:31

       It is, yeah. I mean, if we just sat here for 30 seconds with dead air time, and you could think about, you know, s-

   20. JRJoe Rogan4:37

       Yeah.

   21. LFLindsey Fitzharris4:37

       ... hacking through that leg.

   22. JRJoe Rogan4:38

       Or just scream for 30 seconds.

   23. LFLindsey Fitzharris4:40

       And... (laughs) I wonder how many people would be, at the end of this podcast, like five people would be still out there listening.

   24. JRJoe Rogan4:47

       (laughs)

   25. LFLindsey Fitzharris4:47

       Um, so, so he was incredibly fast. He was known as the fastest knife in the West End.

   26. JRJoe Rogan4:52

       Jesus.

   27. LFLindsey Fitzharris4:52

       He would walk in. He was a showman, so he'd walk in, and he'd say, "Time, ye gentlemen." And you could just hear the ripple of pocket watches as they came out.

   28. JRJoe Rogan4:59

       There he is. There's a dr- a drawing of him.

   29. LFLindsey Fitzharris4:59

       There he is. Yep. There he is. Um, hacking.

   30. JRJoe Rogan5:02

       And he's using a knife in that photo.
4. 7:32 – 12:45

   Desperation medicine: bladder stones, lithotomy, and lethal incompetence

   1. LFLindsey Fitzharris7:32

      ... was this story about this guy who was suffering from a bladder stone and it got stuck in his urethra. And so out of desperation, he stuck a nail down his penis and he hammered it to break it up.

   2. JRJoe Rogan7:44

      Yeah, I remember that one.

   3. LFLindsey Fitzharris7:45

      Yeah. And, uh, yeah, people went nuts on your platform for that story, so they, they obviously are ready for this interview.

   4. JRJoe Rogan7:51

      How did that work again? That didn't work, right?

   5. LFLindsey Fitzharris7:52

      It did not work. No, he died.

   6. JRJoe Rogan7:54

      Yeah, whoops.

   7. LFLindsey Fitzharris7:54

      That guy definitely died. Um, but it's ... It really illustrates how desperate people were back then and how few options-

   8. JRJoe Rogan8:01

      Yeah.

   9. LFLindsey Fitzharris8:02

      ... they had. Um-

   10. JRJoe Rogan8:03

       Yeah, there, there's the image of it. I don't think you're allowed to show this on YouTube, Jamie.

   11. JVJamie Vernon8:08

       Yeah, what?

   12. JRJoe Rogan8:08

       You'll get banned.

   13. LFLindsey Fitzharris8:08

       Oh, that was when I said.

   14. JRJoe Rogan8:10

       So this is, this is definitely a medical, medical e- uh ...

   15. LFLindsey Fitzharris8:12

       It is, it is a medical image, it's-

   16. JRJoe Rogan8:12

       Yeah, I'm sure it is, but I don't think you can show that on YouTube.

   17. LFLindsey Fitzharris8:15

       Really?

   18. JRJoe Rogan8:15

       That's clearly a penis.

   19. LFLindsey Fitzharris8:16

       (laughs)

   20. JVJamie Vernon8:17

       (laughs)

   21. JRJoe Rogan8:17

       There's, there's penises and breasts on YouTube.

   22. LFLindsey Fitzharris8:19

       I sent Jamie a lot of penis photos.

   23. JRJoe Rogan8:20

       Yeah, but I think they look at those more carefully.

   24. JVJamie Vernon8:22

       (laughs) All right. Well, it's not on there, I'm just ...

   25. JRJoe Rogan8:24

       Oh, okay, good. (laughs)

   26. LFLindsey Fitzharris8:26

       (laughs)

   27. JVJamie Vernon8:26

       (laughs)

   28. JRJoe Rogan8:26

       Well, just to shelve, shelve folks. If they wanna see-

   29. LFLindsey Fitzharris8:28

       I'll tweet it later for people who want to see that. (laughs)

   30. JRJoe Rogan8:29

       There you go. If people wanna see it, well, tweet ... Twitter is the most open of all platforms. They'll let you get away with almost everything. You can have porn on Twitter.
5. 12:45 – 19:05

   Hospitals as infection factories: home surgery, lice, and amputations after fractures

   1. LFLindsey Fitzharris12:45

      Um, but he doesn't look too deformed considering what he went through. So it is incredible. Um, you get such crazy stories, like there's a woman who has a mastectomy in 1840 without any anesthetic.

   2. JRJoe Rogan12:58

      (gasps)

   3. LFLindsey Fitzharris12:58

      Now, at this time, you would've... If you were wealthy or if you were middle class, you'd have this operation in your home.

   4. JRJoe Rogan13:03

      Oh, God.

   5. LFLindsey Fitzharris13:03

      So you just have it on like your kitchen table.

   6. JRJoe Rogan13:04

      Oh, Jesus.

   7. LFLindsey Fitzharris13:05

      (laughs) Um, which is... Which would've been safer than going (laughs) into the hospitals.

   8. JRJoe Rogan13:08

      Really?

   9. LFLindsey Fitzharris13:09

      Yeah, because the hospitals were crawling with all kinds of infection. So hospitals were places for the poor, and, um-

   10. JRJoe Rogan13:15

       Oh.

   11. LFLindsey Fitzharris13:15

       ... to give you an idea of how gross it was, the bug catcher who would rid, um, the beds of lice, he was paid more than the doctors and surgeons in this time.

   12. JRJoe Rogan13:24

       What?

   13. LFLindsey Fitzharris13:24

       Yeah. 'Cause I mean, that's pretty important, right? There's maggots, all kinds of things crawling around in these hospitals. So if you were wealthy or middle class, you had your surgeon come to your home. And so she, uh, has a surgeon come and the surgeon determines that yes, the breast has to come off, and says, "I'm gonna return, but I'm not gonna tell you the day," which would make me more anxious. He thought it was gonna help her not focus on it, but-

   14. JRJoe Rogan13:47

       No.

   15. LFLindsey Fitzharris13:47

       ... all you would be thinking about, right, is, "When is this guy gonna show up?"

   16. JRJoe Rogan13:49

       That's a, that's a person without breasts.

   17. LFLindsey Fitzharris13:51

       Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

   18. JRJoe Rogan13:53

       (laughs)

   19. LFLindsey Fitzharris13:53

       He was like, "I'll just show up. It'll be easy." Um, and so he, he shows up and he goes into her bedroom and he opens his hand and shows her the knife he's gonna use, and he says, to prepare her soul for death. Like, this isn't very confidence inspiring.

   20. JRJoe Rogan14:06

       Oh, boy.

   21. LFLindsey Fitzharris14:06

       Any doctors listening, don't tell your patients to prepare their soul for death. And, um, and she's... She does survive and she talks about how it's so vascular that the blood blinds him at one point.

   22. JRJoe Rogan14:18

       Oh, God.

   23. LFLindsey Fitzharris14:18

       And so, like, just when you think it can't get worse, he can't see, and he's under... Um, she is under-

   24. JRJoe Rogan14:23

       Oh.

   25. LFLindsey Fitzharris14:23

       ... his hand for an hour and a half-

   26. JRJoe Rogan14:25

       Oh, my God.

   27. LFLindsey Fitzharris14:25

       ... when he cuts away. And she survives.

   28. JRJoe Rogan14:27

       Hm.

   29. LFLindsey Fitzharris14:27

       She, she ends up living a long and somewhat happy life. I'm sure she had a lot of nightmares. Yeah. There we see a-

   30. JRJoe Rogan14:32

       So do they tie this woman down? Like, how do they handle this?
6. 19:05 – 24:23

   From barber-surgeons to bloodletting: the origin of the barber pole and medical folklore

   1. JRJoe Rogan19:05

      But, um, this, th- this s- surgery a- as we know it, when did it first start? Like, what is the first historical re- re- recounting of an, an actual doctor?

   2. LFLindsey Fitzharris19:19

      Oh, uh, or you mean, um, someone-

   3. JRJoe Rogan19:21

      Someone-

   4. LFLindsey Fitzharris19:22

      ... saying they're a licensed doctor or, or calling them-

   5. JRJoe Rogan19:23

      Well, when did it start? Like, like, uh-

   6. LFLindsey Fitzharris19:25

      You're asking really hard questions.

   7. JRJoe Rogan19:27

      I'm sorry.

   8. LFLindsey Fitzharris19:27

      Uh, no, no, (laughs) I was... I know so little about history. It's like 19th-

   9. JRJoe Rogan19:30

      Hmm.

   10. LFLindsey Fitzharris19:30

       ... 18th century. Um, it's, it, you know, we have evidence again in the archaeological records of, of surgical procedures going far back.

   11. JRJoe Rogan19:37

       But who did them?

   12. LFLindsey Fitzharris19:39

       They would've been, um, you know, sometimes wi- they called them wise women, comi- cunning women, um, barber surgeons.

   13. JRJoe Rogan19:46

       Hmm. Barber, so... (laughs)

   14. LFLindsey Fitzharris19:46

       So one of my... Yeah, the barbers.

   15. JRJoe Rogan19:49

       Part barber, part... Well, I guess they were good with razors, right?

   16. LFLindsey Fitzharris19:51

       Yes. Yeah, actually, barber surgeons used to do things like pull your teeth. They used to bloodlet.

   17. JRJoe Rogan19:56

       Wow.

   18. LFLindsey Fitzharris19:56

       And so the barber pole, which is red and white, is red and white because it was advertising their services as bloodletters. So what they would do-

   19. JRJoe Rogan20:04

       What?

   20. LFLindsey Fitzharris20:04

       ... is they would tie these bloody rags around the pole, and it would whip around the pole. (laughs) I know, it's one of my favorite stories.

   21. JRJoe Rogan20:11

       Oh my God.

   22. LFLindsey Fitzharris20:12

       And, um, and the, the ball at the top represented the bowl that would catch the blood, and the stick would've been the stick that you held to kind of get your veins to stick out. And people were bloodlet for all kinds of reasons. Like, you would do it, like, a purge or a diet, or, or you would do it because you were ill, um, the idea being that you had produced too much blood and you needed the blood to be let to, to kind of restore balance in your body.

   23. JRJoe Rogan20:34

       What do you think it would be like to go back in time and hear someone say something that stupid?

   24. LFLindsey Fitzharris20:38

       (laughs)

   25. JRJoe Rogan20:39

       Like, "You're sick."

   26. LFLindsey Fitzharris20:40

       (laughs) Well-

   27. JRJoe Rogan20:40

       "We need to remove some of your blood. You have too much blood in your system, Lindsey."

   28. LFLindsey Fitzharris20:44

       You're gonna send, you're gonna s- Joe, you're gonna send all these, like, crazy academic historians-

   29. JRJoe Rogan20:47

       Look at this.

   30. LFLindsey Fitzharris20:47

       ... who are like, "We can't..." Yeah, there you go. There is, you got the-
7. 24:23 – 31:55

   Corpse medicine and cannibal cures: blood at the scaffold, mummy powder, and organ donation parallels

   1. LFLindsey Fitzharris24:23

      Well, it's funny because that actually segues into, into this lovely object, this half skull here, um-

   2. JRJoe Rogan24:29

      Hmm.

   3. LFLindsey Fitzharris24:29

      ... my friend, Zane Wiley, creates these. These are actually cereal bowls. (laughs)

   4. JRJoe Rogan24:33

      Oh, great.

   5. LFLindsey Fitzharris24:33

      But, uh, and the reason why I brought it was because it, um, opens up a conversation about something that I like to talk about, which is corpse medicine, so people used to actually eat dead bodies-

   6. JRJoe Rogan24:42

      (gasps)

   7. LFLindsey Fitzharris24:44

      ... um, for medicinal purposes. Um-

   8. JRJoe Rogan24:45

      What parts?

   9. LFLindsey Fitzharris24:47

      So if you had epilepsy in the early modern period, so we're like talking like 16th, 17th, 18th centuries, um, people would drink the blood of an executed criminal-

   10. JRJoe Rogan24:56

       Oh.

   11. LFLindsey Fitzharris24:56

       ... so someone who lost their head.

   12. JRJoe Rogan24:58

       Oh, boy.

   13. LFLindsey Fitzharris24:58

       Like the idea was that the life cut short, that the blood was very powerful force. And so you get these sort of, um, drawings of people gathered at the scaffold, you know, this poor bastard's gonna lose his head and these people are like holding cups up to catch the blood. And it- and it didn't work, and epilepsy was so awful because it was so misunderstood. And you can imagine, you know, when someone goes into a seizure, it's, it's, um, it's scary and if you don't understand what's happening, you could think that it's witchcraft or there's all-

   14. JRJoe Rogan25:27

       Hmm.

   15. LFLindsey Fitzharris25:27

       ... kinds of things that, um, people thought about that disease, so these people were quite desperate, so they were drinking the blood of executed criminals.

   16. JRJoe Rogan25:35

       Good Lord.

   17. LFLindsey Fitzharris25:35

       They ground up, um, mummies, ancient mummies and they would make-

   18. JRJoe Rogan25:39

       (laughs)

   19. LFLindsey Fitzharris25:39

       ... it into pills.

   20. JRJoe Rogan25:40

       Really?

   21. LFLindsey Fitzharris25:41

       And did all kinds of things, right? So I, so I always point this out, we eat the placenta today, it's kind of like, you know, a form of, um, ingesting bodily, uh, yeah, see there you go, you got the-

   22. JRJoe Rogan25:53

       Yeah, the gruesome history view.

   23. LFLindsey Fitzharris25:53

       Yes.

   24. JRJoe Rogan25:53

       So people were just super, super desperate back then.

   25. LFLindsey Fitzharris25:57

       Yeah. Peop- I mean, of course, there was not much that could be done, right? But it w- but we do some kind of form of corpse medicine in organ donation, so we're taking dead body parts, we're not eating them, but we're taking-

   26. JRJoe Rogan26:07

       Right.

   27. LFLindsey Fitzharris26:07

       ... them into our body to cure ourselves.

   28. JRJoe Rogan26:10

       Yeah, I have a, uh, cadaver graft on my right knee.

   29. LFLindsey Fitzharris26:13

       Oh, yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan26:14

       With ACL.
8. 31:55 – 41:12

   Anesthesia and the drug age: ether, cocaine, heroin—and unintended consequences

   1. LFLindsey Fitzharris31:55

      The... It was just a crazy time. So ether is... So my book, um, begins with the first operation under anesthesia. And I wanted to start there because I think if anybody has ever thought about the history of surgery, which they might not have until they (laughs) turned into this podcast, they tend to think of that moment. That's the big moment. But actually, surgery becomes much more dangerous because the surgeon still doesn't understand germs, but he doesn't have the patient fighting him anymore.

   2. JRJoe Rogan32:23

      Mm.

   3. LFLindsey Fitzharris32:23

      Um, so he's more willing to pick up the knife and go deeper in the body, and so postoperative infection rises. And it, and it opens with the great Robert Liston, and he performs the first operation under ether in, um, 1846 in London. And, um, and he doesn't think it's going to work. It comes from America. He calls it the Yankee Dodge. Um, and it's a miracle. It works, and the age of agony is over. When ether was discovered, everybody wanted to try it, this drug that made you insensible. What was that like? And so you get these kinds of stories of medical students sniffing it and drinking it. In fact, I believe there's still a place in London you can get an ether cocktail.

   4. JRJoe Rogan33:00

      What?

   5. LFLindsey Fitzharris33:00

      Um, again, I don't, (laughs) I don't endorse it. It's highly flammable. So people also smoked a lot in operating theaters, so you can imagine that there were a lot of-

   6. JRJoe Rogan33:09

      Oh, Christ.

   7. LFLindsey Fitzharris33:09

      Yeah, there were a lot of accidents. Um, but, but you drop it on a... Basically, 'cause it evaporates really quickly, you drop it on a strawberry, and then you dunk it into champagne, and it's supposed to get you really high very quickly, and then it wears off equally quickly.

   8. JRJoe Rogan33:23

      Hm.

   9. LFLindsey Fitzharris33:23

      I tried to convince my publisher to have ether cocktails (laughs) at the book launch, but they were like, "Mm, not gonna happen."

   10. JRJoe Rogan33:27

       Just have a bunch of Ubers ready to stand by.

   11. LFLindsey Fitzharris33:29

       Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Just, yeah. Or carriages, like in the Victorian... Um, so, so people were, yeah, definitely trying. And then, of course-

   12. JRJoe Rogan33:37

       Have you tried it?

   13. LFLindsey Fitzharris33:38

       I've not tried it. I haven't found that bar yet.

   14. JRJoe Rogan33:39

       But yet you were willing-

   15. LFLindsey Fitzharris33:40

       But there's rumor...

   16. JRJoe Rogan33:40

       ... to experiment on the people that came to your book launch.

   17. LFLindsey Fitzharris33:42

       Hell, yeah. Why not?

   18. JRJoe Rogan33:43

       (laughs)

   19. LFLindsey Fitzharris33:43

       That would be the best thing. Great story, you know? Um, instead of people-

   20. JRJoe Rogan33:46

       I would feel like you should probably dip your toe in first.

   21. LFLindsey Fitzharris33:49

       Yeah, maybe, maybe try it out.

   22. JRJoe Rogan33:51

       Yeah.

   23. LFLindsey Fitzharris33:51

       Um, maybe for the next book.

   24. JRJoe Rogan33:53

       Yeah.

   25. LFLindsey Fitzharris33:53

       Um, but, uh, yeah. And so, so you have ether in sort of the mid-19th century, and then, of course, later you have cocaine, you have, um, opium, which is, um... Well, actually, cocaine comes along and is presented as sort of a, a cure to the opiate, uh, the morphine addiction. So, like, take cocaine-

   26. JRJoe Rogan34:11

       Oh, wow.

   27. LFLindsey Fitzharris34:11

       ... instead. And, um, I had brought... It's in my Mary Poppins bag. Um, I'll show it to you later after the show. I brought a, a postcard that shows a dentist, and he's pulling a tooth, and the person wrote underneath, "Just had a tooth pulled with cocaine." So they were, they were using it for all kinds of things, and doctors were becoming addicted themselves to these drugs. Um, then heroin comes along. Bayer invents heroin. Heroin is, uh, given to your children. It's put in all kinds of things. Again, it's, um, it's positioned as, you know, break your cocaine addiction now with heroin. So it just, it was-

   28. JRJoe Rogan34:44

       Whoa.

   29. LFLindsey Fitzharris34:44

       ... just a crazy period, and it was really sort of in the early 20th century when a lot of this stuff started to be regulated finally.

   30. JRJoe Rogan34:50

       Wow.
9. 41:12 – 45:52

   Plague doctor masks, miasma theory, and how people understood contagion before germs

   1. LFLindsey Fitzharris41:12

      Um, and, and, you know, actually, do you know what this is that I brought, this, um ... If people are just listening, it's, it's a long-beaked mask. I don't know if I'm holding this up.

   2. JRJoe Rogan41:20

      Like a bird mask.

   3. LFLindsey Fitzharris41:22

      Yeah.

   4. JRJoe Rogan41:23

      I do not know what that is.

   5. LFLindsey Fitzharris41:24

      Okay. So this, a lot of people think this is a Venetian mask. This is actually particularly, um, a particular example from Venice. It is, um, what people would have, doctors would have worn during the bubonic plague.

   6. JRJoe Rogan41:35

      Whoa.

   7. LFLindsey Fitzharris41:35

      So it's called the plague doctor mask. And so, um, it was invented in the 17th century, um, eh, by a French doctor, and the idea behind it was, so people thought that disease was spread by this thing called miasma, which are like little particles in the air. They're sort of associated with bad smells, so if, if something smells bad, it's probably not good for you is what they thought. And it kind of makes sense because if like, you know, you're in a really, um, if you're in a slummy area of the Victorian period, it probably has a lot of disease. It probably doesn't smell good. So that was sort of the thinking behind it. So what you would do is you would put sweet-smelling herbs into the beak, and so you would be smelling this and it would protect you from those evil miasma.

   8. JRJoe Rogan42:15

      Whoa.

   9. LFLindsey Fitzharris42:15

      Yeah. It's ... And you know.

   10. JRJoe Rogan42:17

       Is that a real one?

   11. LFLindsey Fitzharris42:19

       No. We don't actually have, um ... I don't believe there's an example of a real one from the 17th century, but there's a lot of illustrations of the plague doctor, and he would have been wearing, um, a hat. He would have been wearing a cape, um, eh, leather gloves, like sort of just protecting himself. Oh, there you go.

   12. JRJoe Rogan42:35

       That's a real one? Authentic 16th century plague doctor mask preserved and on display at the ... Whoa, there you go, another one, Deutsches Medizinisches...

   13. LFLindsey Fitzharris42:45

       Yeah. That-

   14. JRJoe Rogan42:45

       Museum, German Museum of Medical History.

   15. LFLindsey Fitzharris42:47

       But I question that because it was invented in the 17th century. So if it's real, it's going to be a little bit later. Um-

   16. JRJoe Rogan42:54

       Interesting.

   17. LFLindsey Fitzharris42:54

       But we don't know how much they were worn because they would have been expensive. A lot of doctors weren't very noble, so if the plague broke out, they got the hell out of there. Um, there was sort of a phrase, "Go far and go long," (laughs) you know, get out and don't come back for a while.

   18. JRJoe Rogan43:08

       God.

   19. LFLindsey Fitzharris43:08

       There wasn't much they could do for you. They had a, a stick as well that they would sort of poke the patient with, so they wouldn't have to touch the patient and kind of have them turn over and they can, you know, yes, you have the plague. There wasn't much they could do for you. Um, we can cure the plague-

   20. JRJoe Rogan43:23

       A- and again, this is, they did not know what, what, what germs were.

   21. LFLindsey Fitzharris43:26

       Right.

   22. JRJoe Rogan43:26

       So they really didn't understand what the plague was.

   23. LFLindsey Fitzharris43:28

       They, they had sort of a concept of, of contagion. So if you broke out with the plague, they would probably quarantine you in your house, um, and they put a big cross on the door. And so people would bring food and, um, you, you'd, um, you know, put a basket outside of your window with a rope and you'd take ... And so they'd do that until everybody was dead in the house or that the plague had passed and they felt that you were, uh, safe to come out into the general population. So there was an idea that these things were contagious, um, but not, again, in the way that we kind of understand disease, diseases being spread today.

   24. JRJoe Rogan44:01

       God, that's so strange that they would ... Uh, like, you would not know what was going on. Like people would just-

   25. LFLindsey Fitzharris44:07

       No.

   26. JRJoe Rogan44:07

       ... start dying and you'd be like, "What is ... Is this a curse?"

   27. LFLindsey Fitzharris44:09

       You would think that it was ... Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan44:11

       Yeah.

   29. LFLindsey Fitzharris44:11

       It could be God's curse. Um, uh, and, and people say, you know, "Oh, the plague mask is so terrifying." Um, and-

   30. JRJoe Rogan44:18

       It is pretty creepy. Can I put it on?
10. 45:52 – 52:50

    Childbirth myths and medicalization: midwives, early C-sections, and shifting authority

    1. JRJoe Rogan45:52

       Are you aware of the theory of alien abduction being a distant memory of childbirth?

    2. LFLindsey Fitzharris45:59

       No.

    3. JRJoe Rogan46:00

       Yeah. There's a, there's a theory that is actually being, um, uh, tossed about that these people that have this ancient ... well, they have this memory of childbirth, right?

    4. LFLindsey Fitzharris46:12

       Okay.

    5. JRJoe Rogan46:12

       So all of a sudden you're being born, there's bright lights above you. There's a, uh, a man or a woman who's the surgeon with a mask that covers their face, so all you see is their eyes.

    6. LFLindsey Fitzharris46:21

       Okay.

    7. JRJoe Rogan46:22

       And everything looks bright and, and it's terrifying and clinical and you're on this table-

    8. LFLindsey Fitzharris46:27

       Mm-hmm.

    9. JRJoe Rogan46:27

       ... and everything's cold. M- most of these alien abduction experiences that people recount, they take place in some sort of, uh, a medical facility.

    10. LFLindsey Fitzharris46:37

        Hospital setting. Yeah.

    11. JRJoe Rogan46:38

        Yeah.

    12. LFLindsey Fitzharris46:38

        Yeah.

    13. JRJoe Rogan46:38

        And everything is bright and strange-

    14. LFLindsey Fitzharris46:43

        Mm-hmm.

    15. JRJoe Rogan46:43

        ... and cold, and they think that what this is, is ... They're, they're saying that we had this idea that children don't have memories, that babies don't have memories. And-

    16. LFLindsey Fitzharris46:52

        Oh, I've seen it, yeah.

    17. JRJoe Rogan46:52

        ... and so they said, "Well, why wouldn't they have memories? That's ridiculous."

    18. LFLindsey Fitzharris46:54

        Right. Yeah.

    19. JRJoe Rogan46:54

        Of course, they have memories. They have brains. They, they grab your finger.

    20. LFLindsey Fitzharris46:57

        Right.

    21. JRJoe Rogan46:57

        They look you in the eye. They would have a memory of every second that they were born.

    22. LFLindsey Fitzharris47:01

        Mm-hmm.

    23. JRJoe Rogan47:02

        And-... it's probably one of the most profound and disturbing memories, because before that, everything is incredibly-

    24. LFLindsey Fitzharris47:08

        Yeah.

    25. JRJoe Rogan47:08

        ... peaceful.

    26. LFLindsey Fitzharris47:09

        Yeah.

    27. JRJoe Rogan47:09

        They're inside the mother's womb. You know?

    28. LFLindsey Fitzharris47:11

        And then you're just, like, taken out and-

    29. JRJoe Rogan47:12

        And then you're pulled out.

    30. LFLindsey Fitzharris47:13

        ... yeah.
11. 52:50 – 59:41

    From academic historian to public storyteller: shrunken heads, media work, and popular-history backlash

    1. JRJoe Rogan52:50

       But as a medical historian, like when... What... First of all, what led you to that?

    2. LFLindsey Fitzharris52:54

       (laughs)

    3. JRJoe Rogan52:54

       Like why... You seem so normal.

    4. LFLindsey Fitzharris52:55

       It's a real thing. (laughs)

    5. JRJoe Rogan52:56

       (laughs)

    6. LFLindsey Fitzharris52:57

       Oh, yeah. I'm super normal. Look at all these skulls and stuff in front of me.

    7. JRJoe Rogan52:59

       (laughs)

    8. LFLindsey Fitzharris53:00

       Um, (laughs) , I, you know, I'm like that kid who never grew out of the obsession with Tales from the Crypt. And, uh-

    9. JRJoe Rogan53:06

       Oh, me too.

    10. LFLindsey Fitzharris53:06

        Yeah, Ripley's Believe It or Not!.

    11. JRJoe Rogan53:07

        I love that stuff.

    12. LFLindsey Fitzharris53:07

        You know, the shrunken heads.

    13. JRJoe Rogan53:08

        Yeah.

    14. LFLindsey Fitzharris53:08

        I actually did a, um, a, a segment for a documentary on the shrunken heads, and I had to go out to Poland. I actually got to hold these things that I was always fascinated with growing up.

    15. JRJoe Rogan53:18

        Well, people don't know that... Like, they think the skull's in there. That's why they don't understand-

    16. LFLindsey Fitzharris53:22

        Yes, that's right. Yeah.

    17. JRJoe Rogan53:22

        ... like, "How do you shrink a head?"

    18. LFLindsey Fitzharris53:23

        Yeah.

    19. JRJoe Rogan53:23

        Yeah.

    20. LFLindsey Fitzharris53:23

        And it's, it's amazing because, um, what they do is they, obviously, like, they take the skull out, and it's a process. And this documentary was looking at... They were DNA testing them because, um, the tribe that makes these skulls, they were done for a specific purpose, to trap the soul of the warrior that they killed so that... It- there was a spiritual reason behind it.

    21. JRJoe Rogan53:43

        Mm-hmm.

    22. LFLindsey Fitzharris53:43

        But what they were finding was that some of these shrunken heads were female, um, which probably means that, um, as Westerners came into these areas, they wanted to collect these shrunken heads as curiosities, of course. And so, they traded guns for heads. And so, it kinda drove up the, uh, the demand for these, these shrunken heads.

    23. JRJoe Rogan54:02

        So, they started killing women.

    24. LFLindsey Fitzharris54:03

        Well, i- it wasn't just wo- it, it... Just anybody. And it might not have been, um, killing them. It might have just been taking bodies of people who had already died.

    25. JRJoe Rogan54:10

        Right.

    26. LFLindsey Fitzharris54:10

        But they definitely aren't all authentic in the sense that they were, um-

    27. JRJoe Rogan54:15

        Killed in battle.

    28. LFLindsey Fitzharris54:15

        Yeah, killed in battle.

    29. JRJoe Rogan54:16

        Wow.

    30. LFLindsey Fitzharris54:16

        And so, it's just kind of an interesting... But I got to interact and, and see these shrunken heads. So, I was that weird creepy kid that, you know, no one really wanted to talk to. I joke that I was... I also, um, looked like Barb from Stranger Things (laughs) for once.
12. 59:41 – 1:19:53

    Bodies on display, consent, and grave-robbing: resurrection men, cemetery guns, and dissection risks

    1. JRJoe Rogan59:41

       Yeah, what do you think about that?

    2. LFLindsey Fitzharris59:42

       ... Gontherfin.

    3. JRJoe Rogan59:43

       I was very torn when I was walking around this, because what a part of me was saying this is really fascinating.

    4. LFLindsey Fitzharris59:49

       It is, yeah.

    5. JRJoe Rogan59:49

       And the other part of me was saying, "What is the difference between this and, like, fucking Ed Gein's house where he made lampshades out of people?"

    6. LFLindsey Fitzharris59:56

       Well, yeah. I mean, one would hope the, the difference is consent. Um, but I-

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:01

       One would hope though. That's-

    8. LFLindsey Fitzharris1:00:02

       Yeah, one would ho-... Well, there, there has been controversies with certain ex- uh, exhibitions, maybe not Body Worlds, but there's been some spin-offs where there's been-

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:10

       Mm-hmm.

    10. LFLindsey Fitzharris1:00:10

        ... a question of where they got those bodies.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:00:12

        Yes.

    12. LFLindsey Fitzharris1:00:12

        And of course if, if you're also going into sort of poorer areas and asking people to hand over their bodies, is it really consent? Because sometimes these families don't have money for funerals-

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:00:21

        Right.

    14. LFLindsey Fitzharris1:00:21

        ... and-

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:00:21

        Yes.

    16. LFLindsey Fitzharris1:00:21

        ... so there's other incentives. But I, I think... My view is w- you know, it's, it's given under the guise of science, that we can only view dead bodies through the lens of science today, that's the only acceptable way, but it really is art. Um, and I wish that it would just be more openly recognized as just art, whether it's, you know-

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:00:42

        Yeah.

    18. LFLindsey Fitzharris1:00:42

        ... your kind of thing or not, because some of it is posed in really shocking ways-

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:00:46

        Right.

    20. LFLindsey Fitzharris1:00:47

        ... that are unnecessary to teach anatomy.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:00:49

        Right, right, right.

    22. LFLindsey Fitzharris1:00:50

        S- so, so, you know, if you're going to say it's an anatomical lesson, why does the person have to be posed in this sort of dramatic way?

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:00:58

        Mm-hmm.

    24. LFLindsey Fitzharris1:00:58

        So I think that, you know, it would be better if we just called it for what it was, it's art and it's supposed to be provocative and shocking, and that's why people come to see it-

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:01:06

        It's ab-

    26. LFLindsey Fitzharris1:01:06

        ... and we're morbidly curious.

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:01:07

        It is absolutely interesting.

    28. LFLindsey Fitzharris1:01:09

        Yeah. I mean, and, and people say, "Oh my gosh, uh, the Victorians bought tickets to the operating theater?" Well, people come to my Instagram account, you know? I mean, we're still morbidly curious.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:01:18

        Yeah. Oh, for sure. I- it's really interesting that it's called a theater as well.

    30. LFLindsey Fitzharris1:01:22

        Yes.

Episode duration: 1:48:35