Poison and the Rhino Horn

Can a chalice made of rhino horn detect poison? Can its ground powder serve as an aphrodisiac? The science is at best sketchy on both fronts, but such beliefs continue to endanger the world’s remaining rhinoceros species. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe explore the magical beliefs surrounding rhino horn and exactly what science has to say about the matter.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:46):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind from How Stuff Works dot com.
Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My
name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. Now I
want you to imagine yourself for a second, to do
a little mental time travel here, a little uh, a
little fantasizing. Okay, wait, no, am I going to the

(01:09):
future where the crab monsters rule. No, no, no no, You're
gonna go to the past, but not so far back
in time that you encounter the crab monsters again from
their first visit. Right, No, No, I want you to
imagine yourself as a king or a queen ruling over
a troubled kingdom. Okay, not hard to do. Yeah, especially
after a recent episode on Greek Fire we talked about
the Byzantine Empire. Right exactly, You're constantly warring against rival

(01:33):
powers on all borders. Your enemies are Legion, every stranger
is a potential assassin, and every cup of wine is
a potential poison plot. I have often gotten the feeling
that it is a natural part of the sort of
unique decadence of hereditary monarchs to be terrified of poison
above all other things. I know. It was after a

(01:55):
guy named Richard Russ tried to poison the Bishop of
Rochester to death in fifteen thirty one that Henry the
eighth in Parliament decided in England, people found guilty of
poisoning would be punished by being boiled alive. I mean
you could tell it bothered him, Yeah, like he didn't
like the idea. Well, you can get in Henry's head
a little bit like he's there feasting, having some lamprey

(02:16):
pie or something, and he's like, somebody must have it
in for me. And what if they came at me
straight through the food? It would be the worst possible thing.
What's such a subtle weapon? Yeah, and maybe it has
something to do with like kings and queens feasting while
their people starve. So you know, the poisoning of their
food seems like this unbearably ironic reward and thus the

(02:37):
thing they fear above all else. Oh yes, and of
course we have so many different fictional, mythological and historic
examples of this type of thing happening. Right, How many
different rulers or or at least characters get poisoned in Shakespeare? Okay,
so if you're Henry the Eighth, they're really you're any king, queen,
somebody who fears being attacked right in the food. What

(03:00):
are your options? Well, you know you could you could
have a food taster, a wine taster and sort of
try everything out on an individual before it comes to
your lips. What if nobody wants that job, Well, in
that case, you need to turn to your trusted advisory
King Joe. You're because you're trusted Advisor has has traveled far,

(03:22):
and he's he spent a lot of time with with
with crumbling tons of arcane knowledge and secrets. And one day,
this wizard presents you with an ornate drinking vessel carved
from a mysterious substance. It's unlike any wood or stone
you've ever seen. And he tells you that this cup
will alert you to the presence of any poison poured

(03:44):
within it, for it is crafted from the sacred horn
of the unicorn. Wow, So the unicorn goblet is like
a tattle tale cup. It's a chemical tattle tale and
it will somehow let you know if you are entering
the danger zone. Yeah, that's well, that's the idea that
it's a it's I mean, you can ask the wizard.
You might say, well, does it does it light up?

(04:06):
Does it is it gonna flash it? You know, what's
going to be the effect? How am I going to know? Now? Unfortunately,
I think I would have a hard time coming across
this cup because the unicorns don't exist. That that is
certainly a design flaw here. Yeah, they're the natural world
has never known a true unicorn, but it has long
known the thundering footsteps of the rhinoceros. Oh okay, and

(04:28):
humans have long sought it's horn for alleged medicinal and
magical purposes, a fact that is both intriguing and kind
of sad because you have to imagine how they get
the horn. That's right. So pretty much our entire episode
is going to be intriguing and sad. It's going to
be uh magical, But we're also going to dive into

(04:49):
the possible scientific basis for some of these alleged properties
of rhino horn. Most of them do not pan out.
We'll go ahead and let you know that right up
front in case you are considering buying rhino horn for
some purpose or another. But the science is still interesting. Right. So,
when you see a rhinoceros, I think it's pretty clear
the first thing you're gonna notice about it is the horn.

(05:11):
In fact, the word rhinoceros comes from the observation of
the horn. Literally it means nose horn. Well, if not
the nose horn, they're just the sheer size of these creatures. Um,
if you happen to see one at a zoo, I
mean they're a megaphon that they are enormous. I was
in the past year. I was at the zoo down
in New Orleans, and if they're right their rhino habitat,

(05:34):
they have it laid out in such a way that
you can there's certainly a divider between you and the rhinos.
But but you're you're sort of at level, or perhaps
a little lower than the rhinos because they're kind of
they're kind of on a hill, a slight incline anyway,
So you're you're you're kind of instead of looking down
on them as if they're in a pit, like you

(05:54):
encountered a lot of zoos, uh, You're you're kind of
viewing them on their level, on your level, and it
just it just makes you realize even more just how
enormous these creatures are. Also makes it harder for a
suicidal person to jump down into the rhino pit, right, yeah,
because it's going to be a little more effort to
to meet your death in the hands of the rhino. Now.

(06:15):
A funny kind of linguistic connection, of course, is that
when when I look at a rhinoceros, one of the
things I often think is I see a dinosaur, and
I see that in in plenty of mammals. Actually, this
is this might be a weird peek into my messed
up brain. But when I see horses, I think of dinosaurs.
I'm not quite sure why. It's something about the elongation
of the face paired with the size of the animal.

(06:38):
But with the rhinoceros, it's it's definitely that horn. I mean,
it makes me think of the try sarratops. But the
linguistic connection is, you know, they've got the same thing
in the name the try sarah tops three horned face
and the rhinos seras the sarah there both comes from
the Greek keros for horn, nose, horn basically. Okay, Now,
currently there are five species and eleven subspecies of rhino.

(07:02):
Some have two horns while others have one. And uh,
we should really drive home a few facts about that horn.
Uh you can you can argue that it's not even
a true horn because it doesn't have a bone core.
So and if you see a skeleton of a rhino
in a museum, uh, sometimes you'll notice that there's no
that they won't have any kind of a horn fixture attached. Um.

(07:24):
I know this was the case at the Field Museum
in Chicago. They had some rhino skeletons. I can't recall
if they were um extent rhinos or some sort of
prehistoric rhino beast, but there was no horn present on
the skeleton. Interesting. The rhino horn actually has more in
common with horse hoofs or the beak of a of

(07:45):
a bird or turtle. It's made of keraton. This is
the stuff you find in hair and fingernails, and the
core of the horn contains dense mental deposits of calcium
and melanin. But it's not like a true bony core,
so it's more like a big, densely packed protein horn
rather than a bone horn. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of

(08:05):
like just a big enormous fingernail in many respects. Now,
don't let that be deceiving, because it's still probably hurts
if it comes at you at high speed. Yes, yeah,
it's still a formidable weapon. That that the horns can
be cracked. The horns can be removed. I know that
the male rhino they previously had at Zoo Atlanta, Uh,
the horn became cracked and then they had to remove

(08:26):
it entirely. Yeah. Because so the horns can be removed,
the material of the horn can be ground down into
a powder, or it can be made in shavings. Uh,
And it can be carved, and it can be polished,
and when it's polished it it often takes on a
translucent quality and the luster allegedly increases with age. Now,
on one hand, it's hard to deny that many of

(08:48):
the artifacts that people make out of rhinoceros horns are
truly very beautiful. They're astonishing to look at. But we
shouldn't lose sight of the fact that you know, these
are acquired through the coaching of rhinoceroses, and in many
cases rhinoceroses are endangered or critically endangered species. Yeah, and
we'll get into some of those those numbers here in

(09:09):
a bit, but if you want to see examples of
these these rhino horn drinking vessels, we will include two
images of them as well as some images of rhinos
on the landing page for this episode. It's stuff to
blow your mind dot Com. Now, I know throughout history
that the rhinoceros horn has had not just decorative purposes,

(09:30):
but believe it's believed to have had magical purposes as well.
That's right. Yeah, a lot of the magical uses for
rhino horns are rooted in ancient Asian practices, and these
entered into European culture as early as the Middle Ages
and intensified in the sixteenth and seventeen centuries within along
with increased European trade with the East and West Indies.

(09:50):
I found an excellent source on all of this from
an author by the name of Marnie P. Stark. Came
out in two thousand three, and it it's uh titled
mounted bees or stones, say, shells, nuts, and rhinoceros horns
decorative objects as antidotes in early modern Europe. So the
idea here is if if maybe you are that king

(10:14):
and you already had some poison, that in some sense
it was believed that some of these things might cure you,
or might save you, Yeah, or just serve as magical
protective elements. Uh. So the author here points out that,
you know, the thirteenth century in particular saw the European
introduction of quote, poison detectors or proofs of mounted griffin claws, serpents, tongues, toadstones,

(10:38):
and a host of other materials as quote part of
the rituals of dining, as well as rich collections. Oh
I like that, So like maybe one thing that you
truly think is functional. In one century at detecting poison
just becomes a sort of enjoyable and traditional part of
how you have dinner. Yeah, I mean, and and I
imagine you know, you may have somebody trying your food

(10:59):
for you to keep poison, uh from entering your system.
You may have spies everywhere and guards on hand, and
you're threatening everyone with with boiling if they try to
to get some sort of deadly poison into your body.
But it also helps to have a few magical trinkets
on hand just in case, just ahead your bat now, uh.
You you might be wondering. You know, we're not gonna

(11:20):
spend a lot of time on this, but you might think,
what are bees or stones? Well, these were allegedly un
obtained indigestible stone from the gas gastrow intestinal tract of
an animal such as a goat, and you would wear
it as an ambulant. And this is probably had an
Arabic origin. And sometimes these were mounted with bands of
metal or gold around them, so it would be kind
of like a paperweight that you know, I guess sets

(11:43):
on the table with you while you eat. I think
I recall them having something to do with the plot
of one of the Harry Potter books. Don't somebody swallow
a bees or to cure some kind of poison? Oh?
Maybe they do? Okay, that does that does ring about
our Potter fans will have to clue us in there.
She was always throwing an all sort of wonderful little
occult tidbits. Uh. And as far as Saychelle nuts go,

(12:06):
these are sa coconuts. It's so I said. You know,
it's just a it's just a coconut essentially, but it
is it has an exotic quality to it. Hey, if
you're in the fifteenth century Europe, you know, coconut looks
pretty magical. Now. The idea that that that horn, particularly
uh rhino horn, could have some sort of healing properties

(12:28):
or or poison detecting property properties, you see, that go
back at least as far as uh well, in one
case fifth century see Persia, where they believed that the
horn vessel could detect poisons and would cause a bubbling
in the liquid that was in the horn. Right. So,
if you're a lord who fears poisoning and somebody brings

(12:48):
you your rhino horn goblet of wine, you sit it
down for a while, and you observe it, and if
it starts to froth up, you know that your servant
is well you probably don't actually know, but you might
as well accuse your servant of trying to kill you. Well,
you have to boil somebody at that point, otherwise who's
gonna fear you? Right, there's a wonderful quote here that
Stark included uh in in the paper, and this is

(13:11):
from Swedish traveler Carl Peter Thunberg seventeen seventy three. Around
the Cape of Good Hope, the horn of the rhinoceros
were kept by some people not only as rarities, but
also as useful in disease and for the purpose of
detecting poisons. As to the former of these intentions, the
fine shavings of the horn taken internally were supposed to

(13:33):
cure convulsions and spasms and children. With regard to the later,
it was generally believed that goblets made of these horns
in a turner's lathe could would discover a poisonous draft
that was put into them by making the liquor ferment
until it ran quite out of the goblet. Such horns
as were taken from a young rhinoceros calf were said

(13:55):
to be the best and the most to be depended on.
Of these goblets are may which are set in gold
and silver and made presents to kings, people of distinction,
and particular friends or else sold at high high price,
sometimes at the rate of fixed fifty six dollars a goblin.
Now those are seventeen seventy three dollars. Yes, fifty six
dollars went a lot further back then. Yeah, you know,

(14:16):
I got to imagine that if you're thinking the rhino
horn cup has these powers, it may tie in via
the type of magical thinking that was common then to
the powers of the rhinoceros itself. Surely, right, I mean,
I think that was a common mode of thought. Like
a powerful beast that you know in life has some
has a strong body and can do great harm or

(14:39):
something if it's enraged, can also be powerful in a
magical sense if you take objects from its body or
some kind of sympathetic magic things that have touched it
or come from it. Yeah, and so many of these
these vessels also had rhinos carved on them, so they
really didn't want you to forget where this came from.
That was part of the branding, right. The rhin know

(15:00):
long had a reputation in the West as a ferocious
beast chat capable of conquering all others, and this was
thanks in no small part to observations by Pompey the
Great and the writings of Plenty of the Elder frequent
a frequent topic here on the show, one of our
favorite sources of ancient misinformation. Yes, uh so, one of

(15:22):
these rhinos is said to have fought an elephant in
the Games of POMPEII, and another one came to Europe
in fifteen fifteen as a gift to King Manuel of Lisbon,
and he he also you know, since he had a
rhino and apparently had an elephant as well, he planned
to just recreate the battle. What was wrong with these people,
I know, to fight animals to get this amazing creature,

(15:44):
you know, imported, and then the first thing you want
to do do is fight them. I mean even Pablo Escobar. Uh,
I don't think he did that. I think he just
kept the exotic animals around. Whatever. Yeah, so, in this case,
in case you're wondering, the rhino allegedly won the barbaric sport. Uh.
But but before it died, an artist sketched the animal
and he sent it to a certain artist of note,

(16:06):
right albreat Dearer in in Nuremberg. And so this is
where we get this classic image. If you have not
seen it, you should look up Dearer's Rhinoceros. D u
r e er So Juror did many of these drawings
and woodcuts of the sixteenth century, and this image is
just out of this world. It looks like an hr

(16:27):
Geeger creation. And I'm not making that up, am I Robert.
It's this bio mechanical robot alien or Also, I can
imagine that you could look at it as a melancholy
animal with these sad, downcast eyes covered in finally machined
metal armor with psychedelic designs. Yeah, I mean that that

(16:49):
describes it to a t. It seems like something that
you would see tromping around in a like a weird
psychedelic fringe animated film, like something Mobius would have created. Yeah,
It's it's like some thing out of the Codex Saraphoninus,
except it's it's a real animal. Yeah, And you know
he was, of course, he was going off of this
this illustration. He's going off, you know, you know, secondhand

(17:10):
information here and uh and he but he did get
the idea of the rhino down, especially if this was
indeed an Indian rhino, which has more sort of skin
flaps going on, it does have more of an armor
plating appearance. And he just in his interpretation of the rhino,
he really takes us and runs with it. He just

(17:31):
exaggerates it to fantastic effect. Yeah, that does appear to
be what's going on, because here we see the rhino
in the image has one horn, and it's got these
long ridges going across its armor plates, and it also
has an extra little no if you noticed this on
the illustration near the word rhinos, there's a horn above
the shoulder blade. Yeah, which is interesting. And it looks
a lot like a small unicorn horn, which I think

(17:54):
is interesting and it ties into our topic here because
in Stark's paper, she nights that the antidotal powers of
the horn, the idea that you could, you know, take
the powder of the horn and it would cure some
ailment or cure a poison inside you. Uh, that these
were barred from tales of the mythical unicorn. She writes

(18:14):
that since at least the fourteenth century, the horn of
the unicorn, which was in turn usually a narwhal or
walrus tusk um to begin with, oh, those walls, those
narwhal horns are great. By the way, that narwhal horn,
it's a tooth. Did you know that? Yeah? I I
And there was some recent news about the narwhale. There's
some new footage I want to say. I mean, can

(18:35):
you imagine if like a human was like this, like
if you had like one six foot tooth just shooting
straight out the front of your mouth, we could probably
do a whole episode on all the teeth were thankful
we don't have, I mean you count narwhale teeth and
uh or the barbar russo where the you know, the
tusk will grow up, grows up through the like the

(18:55):
basically the roof of its snout and curve back around
and die eve into their brain if if they're, if
they're they're left to grow that long yeah uh yeah,
but we'll let me believe that for another another episode.
The long front tooth. It certainly makes kissing hard. Yes, uh,
well with the barbarousa. Not to get too off topic,

(19:16):
the other I mean, the weird thing is they when
they fight, these things are brittle, so they just they
break off. So it's like I said, be thankful. It's
weird as human teeth are as awful as they can be. Um,
they're worst way to have teeth. Well anyway, So we
have all these ancient teeth, tusks, horns, things that people
think are from unicorns, and they're believed to have these

(19:36):
magical powers. Oh yeah, yeah, with the unicorn horn or
the alleged unicorn horn. They believe that you could use
as a remedy for poison, you could use it to
to cure diseases, even the plague. And then when Europeans
began encountering the rhinoceros and it's and uh and it's
horn uh, you know, out when they were traveling and abroad,
then the reality in the myth became intertwined. So they

(19:56):
took what what they observed about the rhino, and then
in turn, they took what others and farm lands told
them about the rhino and their magical beliefs, and then
they took their own ideas about the unicorn, and it
all just came kind of became meshed together. Um, they
you know, they encountered all these uh, additional traditions of
magico medicinal powers that were associated with the rhino horn,

(20:19):
and they incorporated them into their own beliefs. And weirdly enough,
some accounts indicate that even when rhino horn and unicorn
were considered distinct, uh you know, so people believed in
both unicorn horns and rhino horns and thought they were
separate things. Yeah, you know, and that even in these
cases there are instances where where they talk about, well,

(20:40):
if you can't get unicorn horn, rhino horn will do,
you're giving away the game go on. So what's the
point of the unicorn horn? Now? In terms of of
other uh nationalities and other cultural beliefs regarding the rhino horn, um,
there are various tidbits about this. For starters, a fourth
century Chinese writer Old Kung believed that horns were antidotal

(21:03):
because the rhino eight poisonous plants and trees, enabling it
to conquer the poison. Oh okay, so there's a slightly
more you know, proto scientific way of thinking about it,
not you know, not quite fully rigorous, but you can
you can see the chain of cause and effect going on. Yeah,
it's not just Hey, it's magic. There's an attempt to

(21:25):
understand what could be underlying this presumed effect. Now, in
terms of all the various medicinal qualities alleged medicinal qualities
of of the rhino horn, this is pretty common in
the traditional medicine systems of Malaysia, South Korea, India, and
of course China. So so you've got it in Chinese

(21:45):
traditional medicine. What did they think it did well? The
idea was that you could take shaved or powdered horn
and it could be boiled in water to treat fever, rheumatism, gout,
and various other conditions. Sixteenth century. That's a mean dynas
Chinese pharmacist and just general polly math. This guy was
really amazing. Lee shi Jin wrote that it could even

(22:08):
cure snake bites, hallucinations, typhoid headaches, carbuncles, vomiting, food poisoning,
and devil possession. Now, the interesting thing is that you'll
find various sources out there there that say, you know,
I'm rather scandalously Oh well, you know, we have all
these problem with rhino poaching because people in Asia use
it as an aphrodisiac, which the thing is where I

(22:31):
could run across of no verifiable information about that being
the case, no actual cases of of of brno horn
being prescribed as an aphrodisiac, for instance, in traditional Chinese medicine. Now,
on the other hand, I will say that it seems
like almost anything is sometimes prescribed as an aphrodisiac. Yeah,

(22:52):
and you know that's not I mean you can see where,
even if it's not part of traditional medical medical systems,
it would not take mutt for something to for a
belief to become tweaked in that direction, you know. I
mean I could start a rumor today that canned crab
is an aphrodisiac. It wasn't this, This was on something
what was there was something about canned crab as you

(23:13):
know this is on Game of Thrones, right, no spoilers, Yeah, okay,
I knew it was. It was like is it Rick
and Morty or is it Game of Thrones? Could go
either way. Um, but yeah, as far as as far
as I could tell, and if anyone out there has
more information on illicit any legal aphrodisiacs, let me know.
But I found like multiple like spokespeople on behalf of

(23:35):
Chinese traditional medicine who were saying, no, this is not
that's that's not something we use it for. Uh though,
of course they're having to they've been they've had to
address the other uses and come up with botanical alternatives
to rhino horn. Now the hm you mean because of
ecological considerations, yes, yes, Now the ancient Greeks they also

(23:57):
used the horn as well, and they said that he
could purify water. So we see sort of similar overlap there. Now,
on top of all these magical medicinal uses, it's worth
noting that with it you can just have a purely
ornamental use of the horn as well. I mean as
far as you can you know, have any purely ornamental
use of of a man made material, right, but just

(24:21):
using it for various ornamental purposes that dates back at
least two seventh centuries see each China, and it's long
been a Yeminy practice where you have these a special daggers,
these jambilla daggers, and you would have the hilt of
the thing carved out of rhino horn. I mean, I
think I already mentioned this earlier, but it is something

(24:41):
that struck me multiple times when I was looking through
the images of these artifacts, which is that it's I
want to acknowledge the artistry and the beauty that goes
into crafting these well, at the same time not approving
of things that are made out of the bodies of
endangered animals. Yeah, because you you want to admire them

(25:01):
for their beauty, but you don't want to admire them
so much that you're sort of contributing to a cultural
desire for these items. So if you're if you're even
thinking about acquiring a rhino horn artifact, Uh, then make
sure you listen to the rest of the episode because
we'll get into some of the the ramifications of all
of this. All Right, we're gonna take a quick break,

(25:23):
and when we come back, we will talk more about
what science has to say about the chemistry of the
rhino horn. All right, we're back. So, Robert, is their
solid scientific evidence that we should use the rhinoceros horn
for its magical and scientific medicinal properties? Uh No, there's not.

(25:45):
I mean, science can certainly but in and say, well,
first of all, there's no such thing as magic. Uh
there's there's such thing as medicine, and to a certain extent,
there's such things you know, there there is the placebo
effect that has to be taken to account in all adders.
But you can have you know, wood chips, and that
can have a placebo effect if you have you know,

(26:06):
a belief in the wood chip as a curative element. Okay,
But so while there is not broad agreement in the
scientific community that rhino horn even I mean even ecological
consideration consideration society, even if you could get synthetic stuff,
like if the horns fell off and we're just you know,
laying over the ground, right, even then there's not good

(26:27):
evidence that we should use it for whatever. All these
purposes are, curing fever, curing devil possession, or food poisoning. Um.
There might be some tidbits, right, some little areas where
there's some crossover there in just talking about the idea
of consuming the horn for as as a medicinal element.

(26:50):
There's there's almost no evidence to support it. And what
little evidence there is, it's just so miniscule that it
does not it doesn't make it worth anybody's while it
doesn't make it worth you know, breaking the law risking
um um, you know, arrest or death trying to cut
off a rhino's horn, and and it's not worth the

(27:10):
money or the or the you know, the risk of
engaging in the legal activity to consume it. Um, let
me get into the examples here. So in uh In
Ninete researchers at Chinese University in Hong Kong, they found
that large doses of horn could slightly lower fever in rats.
But the concentration here was so it was, it was
so great that it was it far exceeded what was

(27:33):
used in traditional Chinese medicine. Anyway, I wonder what the
long term side effects are of just eating a bunch
of ground up keratin. Well, I mean it's it would
be it would I guess, be like if you just
chewed your fingernails your whole life and like not counting
any you know, damage to your your nail beds or whatever.
But just if you eight fingernail clippings all the time,
or ground up fingernail clippings into a fine powder and

(27:53):
put it in your smoothie every morning, and in fact,
in an interview with PBS Nature, ecologist raj Amen of
the Zoological Society of London says you'd be better off
doing just that than engaging in the consumption of rhino horn.
So like, if you want to lower your fever a
little bit, and you don't have access to aspirin or

(28:13):
any of the normal stuff you'd used to do that,
you might just eat all your fingernails and hair. I guess, yeah,
But you know you probably have access to these other
things that would work much better and are far more verified. Uh.
In his seven Jama Dermatology article skin Potions, which is
just a lovely title for a paper, Leonard M. Millstone

(28:36):
m D wrote that powders of rhino horn amount to
quote no more than compacted stratum corneum. That's the outermost
layer of the epidermist, consisting of dead skin. Right, so
we're back to the keratin. Yeah. And according to a
two thousand fourteen New Scientists article, like Curtis Abraham, a
Taiwanese human study found that rhino horn could temporarily reduce

(29:00):
fever in children, but was no more effective than aspirint,
and animal studies in the UK and South Africa discovered
no pharmacological effects of this or any animal horn at all. Well,
I think that's about what what we would expect right now,
to just go back to traditional Chinese medicine for a second.

(29:21):
I do want to mention as well, then in in
most of those models, you wouldn't you wouldn't have someone
just consuming the horn. The horn would would have be
the ground up horn would be utilized with other ingredients,
herbs or what have you. So you know, you could
make the argue, well, some concoction that contained the horn
might work, but if it did work, it's not the

(29:44):
horn that's probably causing it. It's something else in the
in the potion, if you will. I mean, this is
the classic potion trick, right, if you just throw a
whole bunch of stuff into a cauldron and get somebody
to take it. On one hand, you've got placebo effect working.
On the other hand, you threw a bunch of stuff
in there and something might do something. And then third,

(30:05):
there's this thing that that I think we've talked about before,
like the idea that essentially any detectable effect can sort
of be interpreted as the desired effect. Yeah, and now
you can also say some cost probably plays a role
as well, because at this point you've gone to the
apothecary store, You've you've paid for this stuff, and you've

(30:25):
probably had to sort of choke it back. You've so
you've gone through sort of three trials to get there,
so it better do something. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna.
I'm gonna believe it did something. Otherwise I wasted all
this time and energy. You're riding my favorite horse. The
some cost fallacy explains a lot. Now, Luckily, in China, Taiwan,
and South Korea, rhino horn has been completely banned from

(30:46):
use in medicine since about and in China it can
only be used in research. So, as we'll discuss, there's
been a lot of efforts to curb the poaching of
rhinos in the illicit trade of rhino horn. Now, what
about this old belief that we started off with that
you know, if you're a king or a queen and
you fear poisoning, you could have a rhino horn cup

(31:10):
that would detect any poisons placed within it. Is there
any scientific evidence that that could be true? Well, as
it turns out, there is, and it comes down to
the fact that, you know, as we've mentioned, there's this
idea that the poison would bubble or froth or froth
and bubble out over the the edge of the cup
if there was a poison in it. And so therefore

(31:32):
we have what appears to be an account of a
chemical reaction. And where there's chemical, where there's chemistry, there's
there's science. Right, there's a potential for there to be
some actual chemical reaction taking place. So I'm I've had
trouble finding a primary source on this, but it's it's
been widely reported by PPS Nature, rhino conservation groups, in

(31:54):
various academic patriot papers that there may be scientific grounds
for this in some cases. So as you'll remember, the
rhino horn is keratin, right, stuff in your hair and fingernails,
and what do many poisons contain alkaline? This is a
like like a base as opposed to an acid, uh,

(32:14):
and this may react chemically with the kerotene, and this
can produce fropping, foaming, or bubbles. So in in the
instance that someone is trying to poison you with a
with a with an alkaline poison, there is the possibility
that the cup could detect it. Now, Joe, I know
you looked into this as well. Were you able to

(32:34):
find any additional information on this, uh, this possible chemical reaction? Well,
I I yeah, I mean I I thought about this,
and I want to start with one claim about because
as you said, you know, this is claimed all over
the place, but nobody has exactly explained how it would work.
Uh So, one of one of the claims I found
on this was from a paper, or actually it was

(32:58):
a It was a sort of a book length work
published in or X the International Journal of Conservation called
a Look at Threatened Species by Lee Miriam Talbot in
nineteen sixty. And the author here is talking about how
rhino horns are used with regard to poisons. And this
is what the author claims. Quote in Sumatra, it should

(33:18):
be drunk as a purgative if one feels the first
signs of poisoning. In Burma, a belief exists that when
one puts rhino horn shavings into a cup containing poison,
they will bubble and smoke. In Nepal. In parts of India,
the belief is that if poison is placed into a
rhino horn cup, the poison will bubble, discolor or become harmless,

(33:39):
or else the coup will slowly disintegrate or shatter. Interestingly enough,
there may be some basis for this latter belief. Many
of the old poisons were strong alkaloids, and the horn
is what amounts to an agglutination of hair closer in
structure to toenails than to cattle horns or deer antlers.
Such a structure would indeed be a afected by a

(34:00):
strong alkaloid. Although the shattering and other dramatic behavior is
probably an embellishment. It's a wonderful embellishment though, because it
just sounds fantastic that the king is at his table,
the wine is poured into this vessel and it is
so poisonous that it just shatters the magical vessel. Yeah,
and so like he says, that might be an embellishment,

(34:21):
But I think there's a chance that there's something to
this for certain kinds of poisons. Like we said, most
of the sources we found that claim this don't really
explain how it would work. But I think I've got
an idea. Um it might work for any poisons that
are relatively strong bases. As we mentioned. And here's my example.
When your shower drain gets clogged and the water gets

(34:41):
backed up and starts to collect around your ankles, what's
going on, Well, unless you're doing something really weird in
the shower, the substance most likely clogging your shower or
bathtub drain pipe is what well, it's hair, right, yeah,
I mean unless you're like eating olives in the shower
and spitting the pits down the during it. Anyway, Yeah,
it's hair. It's gonna be mostly hair made of keratin.

(35:03):
So what do you do? Well? You can't just run
water over the hair until it dissolves. That's never gonna happen. Keratin,
which is what hair is made of, is highly stable
in water and resists dissolution. So you will have to
avail yourself of some different weapons. Now, if you've got
special equipment like a drain snake and a d i
y attitude, you might be able to do that, but

(35:24):
most people probably I know what you do? What do
you do? You go out, you snag a bottle of
what you get some of that drain o, right, Because,
like you said, the snake option is uh is good
if you really want to get in there and if
you want to behold what is down there, pull that
wolf tail out, yeah, which I don't recommend, but I

(35:45):
mean sometimes that's what you gotta do. Well, But the
draino is is great because you just pour it down
there and you just let it sit for a little
bit and you're done. Right now, I'm not necessarily advocating
the use of chemical drain cleaners, especially because they can
be dangerous if they splash back on you or something
like that. So, uh, you know, it is what it is.
People use this stuff. Now, what's the main active ingredient

(36:06):
in most chemical drain cleaners, for example, drain O It's
gonna be sodium hydroxide, which is in a O H
also known as LIE. Sodium hydroxide is this highly alkaline
inorganic substance that has a caustic reaction with proteins, proteins
like the carrot like in hair. So essentially it fizzes

(36:27):
and eats right through organic matter, including the protein keratin,
which is the main ingredient in hair and in rhinoceros horns.
So now it's more complicated than this because medieval poisoners,
probably we're not putting drain cleaner into the lord's wine goblet. Uh.
And the source I mentioned a minute ago called out alkaloids,

(36:48):
and there is a difference between an alkaline and an alkaloid,
though most but not all, alkaloids are alkaline. But anyway,
if the poisoning question is a reasonably strong bait, if
it's if it's strongly alkaline. I think there is a
good chance it would react with a keratin based cup.
Dissolving and reacting with the walls of the vessel would

(37:09):
be kind of like storing drain cleaner in a chalice
of tightly woven hair. Disgusting, well, the chalice of tightly
woven hair. This makes me think of of of a
piece of art titled Breakfast and Fur. Have you ever
seen this? No? I don't think it's like like dinnerware
made out of hair or fur? You know? So who

(37:32):
did that? I can't remember the name. I have a
friend of mine from from high school studied like a
fabric art material art and this was a piece that
she uh that inspired her her email address. So it's
always stuck in my head. All right, Well, on that note,
let's take one more break, and when we come back,

(37:52):
we're going to discuss the rhinoceros a little bit more,
the various extinct and extant species out there, as well
as the whole conundrum of of of anti poaching efforts
and rhino conservation. Alright, we're back, So Joe, let's let's

(38:14):
talk about extinct rhinos. First, do you have any any favorites. Well,
I know you're going to mention Elasmothereum. Oh yeah, that's
the big one. That the ugly unicorn. The ugly unicorn.
Why do people think it's ugly? I mean, I think
it's beautiful. It's I think the problem is that sometimes
well there's some actual unicorn mythology to consider here, but

(38:35):
you'll have these in these situations where the science papers,
the science journalism will pick up elasmotherium news and they'll
talk about it as if it's a unicorn. And then
people will look at this big, uh, ferocious beast and
they'll compare it to those beautiful unicorns from say the
Last Unicorn or Legend, and they don't quite they don't

(38:56):
think the comparison doesn't stack up. Was there a unicorn
in legend? There were two unicorns? What did they do? Oh?
That that was the whole deal, right that the goblins
like took the unicorns horn and oh yeah, and the
big Tim Curry devil creature had the horn and it
was in I don't know, I only remember Tim Curry
from that movie. And the soundtrack, oh yeah, the soundtrack

(39:18):
is wonderful. Tangerine Dream soundtrack on that one Um, yeah,
I don't. It's a film where the visuals in the
sound stick with me, but I'm not really sure I
remember the plot at all. But yeah, at any rate,
Elasmothereum the and in particular Elasmotherium sibericum is an interesting
case that ties in with all the stuff we've been

(39:38):
talking about because there was a recent study in the
American Journal of Applied Sciences that placed the beast in
modern day Kazakhstan a mere twenty nine thousand years ago,
while previous estimates placed it outside the two hundred thousand
year run of human history. Okay, so that means we
could have been interacting, right, And this supports an argument
that myths of the Western unicorn and even the various

(40:01):
Eastern beasts such as the Chinese quillon or the Japanese kiran,
are based on accounts of human interactions with the actual
unihorned beasts now in China. There's also the counter argument
that the Asian rhino populations once existed in grade in
number throughout ancient China, and that's what these myths are

(40:23):
referring to. And indeed this is based on historical writings,
art and even uh, you know, fossil evidence UH, and
this would have this would have been the northern Sumatra
and rhino in particular. Now, in terms of other extinct
rhino species, we have some some recent, fairly recent additions

(40:44):
to that list. The Western black rhinoceros, the sub This
is a sub Saharan Africa UH species. Primarily it was
found in Cameroon. This was just declared extinct in twleven
and it may have been extinct for some five or
six years at that point. Now, but there is till
a black rhinoceros that exists right, yes, but these are
just variations of the black rhino that have blinked out.

(41:08):
For instance, the Southern black rhinoceros disappeared around eighteen fifty
and the Northeastern black rhino also went extinct sometime in
the twentieth century. And of course there are all these
additional cool prehistoric rhinos and rhino like beasts that we
don't really have time to get into. But you have
like the Wooly rhino, the Titanic hornless rhinos known as

(41:31):
the parasceratherium, and the wonderful sort of sling shot horned
mega serops. These were and these were not technically rhinos.
They were just rhino like that. I was always intrigued
by the images of them in my childhood, like prehistoric
animal books, because it looks like the formation for a slingshot,
you know, it's like a a y shaped horn. Oh,

(41:54):
I know what you're talking about. Yeah, you can just
imagine them, you know, somehow acquiring large rubber bands and
outfitting them and I don't know, finding smaller mammals to
ride atop their their neck can fire projectiles out of it.
I mean they also kind of just look like they're
perfectly designed to like skewer your buttocks if the thing
tosses you into the air. Yeah, true, Yeah, and that

(42:17):
was probably more in keeping with the actual purpose of
the of the horn. Now, in terms of the rhinos
that we have today that are still left in the world,
we have, as we mentioned earlier, five different varieties. There's
the white rhino and this is found in northern, northern,
and southern varieties in Africa. Um, the northern is extinct

(42:40):
in the wild, but the southern rhino, they're in estimated
roughly twenty thousand, four hundred and five individuals left in
the world, and that's the most abundant one right right,
that's the if you want to call a success story,
that's the success story. Um, some of these other the
numbers are gonna gonna dip as we proceed, though. There's
a black rhino that's still found in eastern and Southern Africa.

(43:03):
This one has has two horns, by the way, much
like the white, and this one is you're looking at
around five thousand or five thousand and fifty five individuals left.
Then we have the Indian rhino, and this is found
in India, Nepal, part of Pakistan. It has one horn.
This is the one with the fabulous skin folds. It
looks really cool, and you'll find somewhere around three thousand,

(43:26):
five hundred and fifty five of these left in the wild.
Then you have the Java and rhino, and this is
only found in Java, Indonesia. The male has one horn,
the females are hornless, and as of two thousand sixteen,
only sixty three individuals remained in the wild and in
captivity combined. So are they thinking that could come back

(43:48):
or is that passed the point in no return? I don't,
I don't know. You know, that's you're getting down to
such slim numbers. There that you, Well, we've seen cases
with other species where the numbers become so reduced that
even if you are able to bounce the species back,
then there's not gonna be a lot of genetic diversity there.
So it's gonna be a continuing uphill battle and you're

(44:10):
certainly not going to have what you once had. Uh.
And then finally we have the Sumatran rhino, which is
one of the ones that I really like. You only
find this in the very high altitudes of Borneo and Sumatra.
It has two horns, and then it's it's hairy. It
has this kind of reddish looking hair. They're really they're
really cool if you if you look up videos or
photos of these guys. They're also relatively small, aren't they. Yeah,

(44:33):
they're the smallest of the of the extent rhinos, and
they're only around two hundred seventy five left in the world.
All told, there were around five hundred thousand rhinos left
in African Asia at the beginning of the twentieth century,
and today it's more like twenty nine thousand in the
wild due to poaching and loss of habitat. Now, if

(44:53):
we're looking to act on this immediately, to try to
turn that around and help populations bounce back. It seems
like it'll it'll take longer to restore damaged or lost habitats. Right,
But is there anything that can be done about poaching
immediately or is this just one of those wicked problems
that you know, it's uh, it's like the gopher game,

(45:14):
like you can't stop it. Well, there's some there have
been some wonderful proposals on how to deal with it.
We'll we'll touch on some of these, but it it
does seem more and more like a wicked problem, like
they're just they're a number of converging elements here. And
there's some very well being initiatives that have come out
to try and curb the poaching of of rhino horn

(45:35):
and the illicit trade of rhino horn, but you know,
nothing is really stuck. Nothing has really managed to cut
into that trade too much. And then, you know, to
your point, when you couple this with tremendous habitat loss,
which has challenged a number of of animals and certainly
the megafauna that used to you know, roam free in
these areas, uh, you have quite a problem. Now poaching

(46:00):
again has been a major factor in rhino endangerment and extinction.
And while you you can eat rhino meat and they
have been killed in the past for their meat and
their skin, uh, the horn seems to be the main
thing that's that's causing the poaching. And that's because the
corn is the part of the rhino that fetches the
highest price. That's that's what they're being poached for. Uh.
And sometimes the poachers drugged the animal and saw the

(46:22):
horn off, but other times they are taking more than
the horn after drugging the animal, or they're just straight
up killing the animal. So what what kind of efforts
can be established to prevent poaching or at least discourage it. Well,
we've touched on some of the legal efforts. So it's
it's currently illegal for rhino horn sales to take place
between countries, but interestingly enough, it's not illegal in South Africa,

(46:46):
not anymore so. In April of this year, South African
courts ruled that sales of rhino horns could take place
provided the seller had a permit. And with these permitted
cases were generally talking breeding farm um. The horns in
these cases are removed painlessly and humanely, The leading a
rhino farmer a John Hume, according to BBC News, he

(47:09):
believes that it's such a legal and open trade is
is going to be beneficial because as the trade, because
the trade first of all can raise money that can
help but conserve the species. And he also thinks that
these open, legal sales will drive down the price of
illicit horn and reduce poaching. Now, critics say that this
practice will only increase the demand for for the horn.

(47:31):
It will you know, perhaps even normalize it. Plus, if
you have a legitimate trade taking place, then that can
provide cover for illegitimate trade to take place, you know. Right,
So if you're if you're trying to create a stigma
around the sale of rhino horns, even if you've been failing,
it's going to be even harder to establish that stigma
if you're also selling legit horns next door. Well yeah,

(47:53):
And also like let's say that you're you're traveling out
of South Africa and some you know, an official opens
your bag and it has rhino horns in it and
they say what's this and you go, oh, these are
legal rhino horns. I have a permit um and maybe
you have a fake permit like if permits exist, you
have a leg up on deceiving the system. But if
there's no such thing as a legal uh um, you know,

(48:16):
a legal sale of rhino horns, then there's no way
you could pass that off. Just to put it in
very simple terms, now, I guess one big question would
be or the farmed humane horns cheaper than the poached horns?
I think that would be the idea right there. You
would do this to drive down the price, like why
why pay all this, uh this additional money for an

(48:37):
illegitimate horn when you can get the real thing for
cheaper uh and it's official and it's verifiable. Now, there
have there have been efforts to curb poaching by practicing
horn removal, uh you know in the wild as well
as as well as a tactic that actually brings this
full circle poisoning the rhino horn to prevent its eventual consumption.

(48:57):
What Yeah, So the ideas you would drew two holes
into it and then you would you would pump in
a poison in particular would be a highly toxic ectoparasiticide
and it would have a die with it as well.
So you would have this drilled, discolored horn that would ideally, uh,

(49:18):
announced to any poachers, don't steal this horn. This horn
is poisoned and if you if you claim this horn
and sell it, it could kill somebody or make them sick. Now,
obviously the goal would not be too just poison people
for consuming rhino horn. The goal would be to prevent
the poaching in the first place. Well, I saw I
saw some quotes that seemed to imply the former as well.

(49:40):
They're saying like this, this will punish somebody who take
who consumes it, which is, you know, a weird moral
leg to try and stand on. I think, well, I
don't know that's great. I mean, I believe very much
in rhino conservation, but I don't think the answer is
poisoning humans. I think that the larger idea here would be, well,
first of all, create the idea that there are poisoned

(50:02):
rhino horns, and then this would discourage the poaching. But though,
one of the problems here is that the individuals doing
the poaching they really don't care about the consumer. They're
they're selling to a middleman anyway, so well, what does
it matter to them? And then they're and they're you're
probably not thinking really long term about the illicit rhinal
horn industry. Well, I guess the question is does it

(50:24):
work well? Based on what I've been reading, it has not,
so savvy sands. This is a private game reserve adjacent
to the Kruger National Park. Uh, they tried the poison
method and it didn't work. Poachers still came middle of
then still presumably bought the horn. Didn't make any difference. Plus,
as pointed out by Save the Rhino Dot Org, as

(50:46):
Asian traditional medicines reduced the need for rhino horn as
they sort of try and spread the message that you
don't need rhino horn, that there are other, uh, you know,
various ingredients that will supposedly do the same job. And
the poison horn could just be used for ornamental purposes
and you know, would would still would still drive up
the demand for rhino horn. And then there are some

(51:08):
additional criticisms as well. There's the idea that the poison
could wind up driving up the cost of unpoisoned horn.
So you've polluted the market. But that means there's even
less rhino horn out there for individuals wanting to consume it,
and therefore it would be more expensive. And then Finally,
this is a big one, too big area too. If
you're going to go out and start, you know, doing

(51:28):
widespread rhino horn poisoning, well then you need people to
go out find the rhinos, uh, subdue them, you know,
assume I assume drug them, then you know, do the
performedive procedure on the horn. And uh, you're talking about
a treatment of hundreds and hundreds of rhinos in these cases. Now,
even though the poison in this scheme wouldn't get into

(51:50):
the rhino and harm it directly, you can imagine blood
flow to the in the horn. Yeah, you can still
imagine that just the process of like drugging the rhinos
so that this could be done, could lead to some
injuries or could harm some rhinos. Yeah, I mean it
kind of comes back to the same situation as with
widespread horn removal, like somebody has to do it, somebody

(52:10):
has to pay for it, and uh, and it's just
generally not going to be the manpower and the money
on hand. Now, there are some other interesting schemes that
have come into place to try and uh and raise
funds for rhino conservation efforts, perhaps such as these and
some of those, oddly enough, include hunting permits for rhinos.

(52:33):
Various areas have offered a very limited number of these
for you know, you know, big ticket westerners to come
in and uh and shoot a rhino, with the money
presumably going for going to rhino conservation efforts, you know,
along the same lines as warning people about poisoned horns.
I mean, I just wonder if so if the basis

(52:53):
of medicinal demand for rhino horn or belief in the
magical powers of the rhino horn is pernicious false rumors
about what the horns can do to help you, I mean,
I wonder if it would be possible to to combat
that just with pernicious rumors about the dangers of rhino horns.
I mean, I guess that would be That's tough because

(53:16):
you would also in that case be lying about it.
You'd have it to be intentionally spreading lies. But if
you tried to spread a rumor that the horns would
cause intense pain of the teeth or something or whatever, well,
I mean, you you look to our various situations with
with illicit drugs, though, where there have been public information

(53:36):
campaigns that have that if you know that that have
really uh push the idea that say, oh, if you
do meth all all your teeth are cana fall out,
You're gonna have this meth mouth scenario, which I've I've
read I've read criticism that you know that says that
that's not really a one to one situation. Uh. Likewise,
steroid use, there's the the warning messaging all that if

(53:59):
you use of steroids, are all these additional problems that
aren't occur with your body. But people still use them
still people people still use performance enhancing drugs. Uh. And
then you know, earlier you mentioned something about about the
use of various alleged medicinal properties. That something is happening
idea that actually ties into one of the criticisms of

(54:20):
poisoning the horn, because what have you poisoned the horn?
And it does make its way, you know, through the
various middlemen. It ends up as a powder in somebody's
smoothie if you if you will uh. And so if
there's enough poison in there to cause some sort of
reaction in the person's body, then something is happening and
they can attribute that to to the to the positive

(54:42):
effects of the horn. I feel something, I feel a
little sick that must be the horn getting on top
of me. And if and if you spread these ideas
then that the horn is dangerous that might feed into
it as well. Like of course, it's of course rhino
horn is going to make you feel a little weird
because it's the power of the horn, right, Like, I
can see how that backfire. Yeah, absolutely, But I agree

(55:03):
it is all kind of insane, right because the science
is pretty clear. Consuming rhino horn is going to do
nothing for you. This is a purely uh supernatural exercise
on an individual's part, and yet it continues. Maybe what
you could do is try to replace this with a
belief in the power of consuming hair and fingernails. Like

(55:25):
if you, instead of spreading a false, pernicious rumor about
the dangers of rhino horn, spread a true, infectious rumor
about the equivalence of rhino horn and fingernails and hair,
so you so, instead you would just create a demand
for the widely available substances that can be acquired without
harming people. And unless this leads leads to poaching of

(55:48):
humans for their hair and fingernails, oh no, no. But
the great thing about this, I see how this could work.
We just needed an initiative where certain powerful individuals or
individuals are at least you know, icons of physical prowess.
They must donate all of their fingernails and maybe their
hair clippings, uh to to be used in these traditional

(56:08):
medicines instead. So like a like a John Cena or
Arnold Schwarzenegger, people of this stature, uh, they need to
donate those clippings and then those will be ground up
and used in traditional medicines instead. Man, what does Arnold's
hair tastes like? I don't know, but but you know,
if you have enough, you've put enough fruit in the smoothie,
you don't really taste it. I guess this is my

(56:31):
Arnold hair goblet. Al right, Well, hopefully we were able
to give you, uh, you know, an interesting insight into
the history of rhino horn as it's been used for
various magical and slightly scientific slightly in the case of
poison detection, slightly scientific uh uses and and rituals, as

(56:55):
well as just the dire state of the rhino species
that we still have with us in the world. Now,
if anyone out there wants to learn more about rhino conservation,
there are a number of different organizations UM we already
we already mentioned I think one of them. But there's
also the International Rhino Foundation. You can go to rhinos
dot org for that. There's also International Anti Poaching Foundation

(57:18):
and that is i APF dot org. Alright, so hey,
if you want to see any of the pictures that
we were talking about earlier, check out the landing page
for this episode. It's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
That's the mothership, that's we will find all of the
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