March 16, 2023 • 42 mins
The idea of healing via immersion in sacred or special waters dates back to prehistory, and it’s still alive and well in the modern world. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe consider the myth, history and reality and healing waters.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Hey are you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind?
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
we're back with part two in our series about healing waters,
the belief held by many people throughout history that you
(00:25):
could heal your body from illness and restore your health
by bathing or by immersing yourself, sometimes just in hot
or cold waters, sometimes in the waters of a special
spring or location. Now, in the last episode, we discuss
the prehistoric origins of bathing, as well as some evidence
(00:46):
of ideas that became attached to bathing in the ancient world,
for example, ritual and religious ideas about purity. You can
see this in the ritual bathing by priests in ancient
Egypt or as or ritual washing bait procedures outlined in
the Bible. And then also the segue into the belief
that became especially popular among the physicians of ancient Greece
(01:08):
and Rome that you could cure diseases by immersing the
body in hot or cold water, often though not always
connected to explanations based on the theory of the four
humors in today's episode, I wanted to kick things off
by returning to talk about a few more aspects of
a paper we discussed in the previous episode. This was
(01:30):
the paper Water and Spas in the Classical World in
the Journal Medical History nineteen ninety by Ralph Jackson, who
was at the time a scholar working for the Department
of Prehistoric and Romano British Antiquities at the British Museum
in London. Now, as this paper addresses not only beliefs
about the healing powers of bathing in water, but also
(01:52):
of specific dedicated spa locations, I got interested in the
origins of the English word spa, and it seems to
me that the most commonly accepted etymology of the word
today is that Spa is derived from the name of
a particular curative mineral spring resort in eastern Belgium, which
(02:14):
is called Spa. So Spa the common noun derives from Spa,
the proper noun, the name of the place, which, by
the way, is a city that still exists today. You
can go to Spa, Belgium. And I saw on the
Wikipedia page that one of the violinists on the Titanic
was from Spa. Belgium, but the proper noun seems in
(02:35):
turn derived from a common noun in the Walloon language,
which is a Romance language spoken in eastern Belgium, and
the original noun there would have been spa, meaning a
fountain or perhaps also referring to a spring. Now, another
thing we talked about in the previous episode was a
number of names for healing by immersion in water and
(02:57):
related practices. So you have the idea of balneotherapy, that
is healing by bathing, often in mineral springs. Hydrotherapy a
more general term referring to all kinds of water based
treatments for disease. And I wanted to add to that
another one that is mentioned in this paper. This is
a phrase taken from what the Caesar Augustus did when
(03:20):
he was practicing some balneotherapy. He did a practice called
taking the waters. So in most cases that seems to
refer to, yeah, just immersion like bathing in waters, but
also maybe in some cases drinking the waters. And so
I like that because it sounds kind of like you're
taking the waters, almost like you take a pill. But
it also makes me think of the competitive aspect referenced
(03:44):
by plenty of the elder when he talks about people
bragging about how much of the thermal springs they can take,
either like you know, I can soak in this way
too long, I can soak in there so long, and
then also by allegedly drinking so much from the sulfurous
springs that you could no longer see their jewelry because
their skin would close over their rings. Sounds like an
(04:04):
exaggeration to me, or at least I hope. Yeah. And
I've seen this pop up with various springs we've been
looking at in our research, where there will be traditions
of bathing or soaking in the waters, but also of
drinking the waters. So it seems like these two are
easily in us. It's good enough for the epidermis, is
good enough for the digestive track. I guess yeah. It
(04:24):
invites kind of gross questions, like in what order do
you do those two things? Well, I mean, these are
the source of questions one I always have to ask
about one's water supply. I guess, well, I guess and
since that yes, every glass of water you drink contains
water that you know was poop and pea and everything else.
The water cycle just continues around the world, but at
(04:46):
least we hope today that water goes through some kind
of purification process before you can drink it. I'm just imagining,
I don't know, people soaking in sulfur springs and then
just scooping that ride up on and like a child
in about yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you have that one
to look forward to as well. Don't drink the bathwater.
See how many times you get to say that? Real
(05:09):
quick though, I was thinking about this, I think a
lot of this is what we're talking about here. It
kind of comes down to a few different realities that
are worth pointing out. One, we need water, and two
sources of water in the world are not all equal.
There are better sources than others, and a lot of
the human experience has has has had to do with
(05:31):
trying to figure out what are the best sources and
and so a lot of this, you could maybe even
look at it is just kind of like a human
over complication of that basic scenario, like I want the
best water for me, the water that's not going to
make me sick, the water that's going to ensure my
continued life, and then we kind of build up everything
on top of that. Well, yeah, that's exactly right. And
(05:53):
this brings us back to the next thing from this
paper I wanted to talk about, which is when we
discussed Jackson last time, we were talking about more general
ancient Greek and Roman beliefs about the healing powers of bathing,
but I mentioned there were also beliefs about the medicinal
virtues of specific water sources, either for bathing or drinking,
or sometimes both, and Jackson lists a number of examples
(06:17):
of this, And of course Plenty talked about specific waters
in the sense of waters with specific properties, so maybe
a sulfur springs versus alum springs and the different ailments
that those could address. But here you can actually get
into specific localities. So a few mentioned in Jackson's paper.
One is the aqui Cutility, which is a mineral spring
(06:42):
northeast of the city of Rome. Both Plenty and Kelsus
mentioned the cold waters of the spring as having the
power to cure stomach disorders. In particular, Jackson also mentions
the sulfur springs of aqui Abulee. This is near the
town of tiv also northeast of Rome, and Jackson writes
(07:02):
quote described by Vitruvius, Strabo, and Marshall, recommended by Plenty
for the healing of wounds, and frequented by Augustus when
he was troubled with rheumatism. But one of the most
famous locations in the ancient Roman world for bathing was
the facilities in the city of bay Ye, which is
(07:23):
near Naples, famous for its baths fed by hot springs,
and Jackson writes quote Kelsus recommended the sulfurous sweat baths
in the myrtle groves above bay. Strabo characterized the place
by its hot springs that were quotes suited both to
the taste of the fastidious and to the cure of disease,
(07:45):
and Plenty believed that quote nowhere is water more bountiful
than in the bay of Baye, or with more variety
of relief, meaning relief from disease. However, Baye and its
hot baths interestingly combined multiple reputation, so it was a
place of healing from disease, but it also had a
(08:07):
reputation as sort of a vice magnet or a party town.
So imagine what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But
for ancient Rome, which was already had, you know, sort
of a kind of baseline vegasiness to it. You get
you get hints of this reputation in the writings of
ancient authors. For example, Marshall described a story of a
(08:30):
virtuous woman who went to Baye and while she was there,
you know, she hung out in the baths and then
ended up deciding to leave her husband for a youth
that she met there. And Marshall Wrights quote she arrived
a penelope and departed a Helen, which very judgy but
gives you gives you an idea of what they thought. Yeah,
and you know, and this strikes to something that's kind
(08:52):
of key to the the overall history of certainly baths
and spas in European history, like that at times they
become morally suspect, and that can of course lead to
the downfall of various bath and spat cultures in different areas. Sure,
and of course it was also a place this is
another aspect of the kind of the Vegas equality of it.
(09:13):
It was a place of opulence and extravagance for the rich,
hosting private villas of emperors, fancy spa facilities that had
a lot of amenities. Jackson writes quote. Nevertheless, a vast
sector of baths, imposing buildings to enclose the hot springs
and sulfurous vapors. Grandiose rooms and extensive loggias and porticos
(09:34):
have all been identified in the multi level complex terraced
into the volcanic slope above the bay and Gulf, and
the paper goes on to describe a number of sort
of individual buildings here. One misleadingly named the Temple of Mercury,
misleading because it appears to not actually have been a
temple but a place for soaking in hot spa waters.
(09:54):
And this was this gigantic rotunda that was again built
up on the the volcanic slope, and it had these
big windows to let light in from the top, but
also to ventilate these sulfurous fumes. And it was said
to in some ways resentable the design of Hadrian's pantheon.
Another interesting thing about the area of bay is that
(10:16):
there have been found artifacts from the time which are
glass bottles that have engravings on them that are supposed
to depict this area, the region of Bayee like. There
was one example sited in the paper and included on
a plate that has all these engravings on the glass
(10:38):
that is described as a quote bulbous glass bottle that
was found in North Africa, and it has like these
drawings that are supposed to represent this area near Naples.
And it's thought that maybe these were glass bottles where
the water from Bayee was bottled so people could take
it away as a souvenir and I don't know, maybe
just hang onto it or drink it later or something.
(11:00):
That's that's fascinating. And of course we still see that
today with various waters that even if they're not considered sacred,
and in many cases they are still considered sacred at
the very least. It's it's it's some sort of a
curio you take home with you, some sort of keepsake
of a trip. Yeah uh. Now, though most were not
(11:21):
as luxurious as the facilities of bay which were for
for for the rich and powerful, many regions of the
Roman Empire had their own spa facilities, even kind of
far flung regions that were far away from the imperial center.
Jackson mentions, especially regions where the locals practiced Celtic religions.
So this would have included parts of Gaul, which is
(11:41):
sort of modern day France in Germany because water deities
in Celtic mythology held a special importance. And this also
brings up an association between the development of Roman baths
or spas and the presence of the Roman military in
places far away from from Rome itself, from the imperial core.
(12:02):
When the legion moved in, this would often lead to
the development of a spa resort at a natural thermal spring,
and a spa would become a place for wounded soldiers
to heal, or a place for recreation and sort of
maintenance of good health among the ranks. And Jackson mentions that,
so you know, the Romans come in, their military comes
(12:24):
in and they build a spa. That this was not
done out of a sense of kind heartedness to the locals,
like look what we're doing for you. It was out
of self interest, because it was for the Roman troops,
or at least for their benefit, even if it was
also open to locals. But certainly it does speak to
the value that the Romans placed on this spa culture. Yes,
(12:46):
And it's also interesting how that cultural importance means it
gets sort of wrapped up in religious ideas as well,
because Jackson writes that under Roman rule. In one of
these areas of the empire, you build a spa, and
a deity of the local religion would usually be conflated
with a Greco Roman deity that had similar powers or patronage,
(13:08):
and thus you'd get situations like you had in the
German city of Aachen, where the local Celtic deity Granis
was combined with the Greco Roman figure of Apollo the Healer,
and thus the composite cult figure Apollo Granis is born
and rules over the local hot springs the spa there.
And this is interesting because it helps give you a
(13:30):
sense of on the ground how these spas were used.
Jackson includes an image from an early second century votive
altar found near Achen, appearing to depict Apollo Granis. Here
this composite figure of the Greco Roman and the Celtic deity,
and in describing it, Jackson writes, quote, the enthroned god
(13:51):
holds a liar and a plectrum to musical instruments, and
carries his bow and quiver of arrows over his right shoulder.
An inscription records that the altar was dedicated in fulfillment
of a vow by l latinious Massaire, a native of
Verona and senior officer or Prefectus castorum of the ninth Legion,
(14:14):
who may have been restored to health at the spa.
So you get healed at the spa, that may mean
that you have to now make a donation there. Maybe
you made a vow to the local deity and said, like, Okay,
if these waters heal my wound or heal my sickness,
I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna be the sponsor of
this altar or something. Now, this paper also gets into
(14:37):
another major spa location, a very historically important and interesting
one at Bath in England. But I think I'm gonna
save that one for the next episode in the series
because that brings up its own fascinating mysteries and histories.
So we'll come back to Bath now for the next
(15:03):
example we're going to look at here. I wanted to
hit on something from Irish tradition, in part because the
week this episode is coming out, it's the week of
Saint Patrick's Day, and I'd like to spend my research
time a little bit on something Ireland related. And I
found a great example in the waters of Leek Slip Spa.
(15:25):
Now you'll find numerous thermal springs in Ireland, and you
also find this tradition of healing wells and holy wells
that you also see throughout England. You know, you'll find
sacred wells in Ireland as well, different wells and different
springs or attribute to different healing properties for different maladies.
And you'll also find them connected to such figures as
(15:46):
Saint Patrick, but also to older gods and goddesses of
Irish tradition. But at any rate, balneotherapeutic medicine in Ireland
was especially big in the seventeenth, eighteenth and at least
the early nineteenth centuries. Yes, And this sort of correlates
with how it seems that after the Roman so you know,
Greco Roman world, medical treatments involving bathing or immersion were
(16:10):
very popular, and it seems that kind of declined later
in the Roman Empire and was again comparatively rare through
the early Middle Ages. But then there was sort of
a resurgence in interest in bath culture and in medicine
involving bathing in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance,
and then there was another big rush for it. I
(16:32):
think maybe in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Yeah, so
a lot of this. You see the fads come and
go right now, specifically with leak Slip here. This is
located near the town of leak Slip in northeast Ireland.
It's spelled l ei x LP, and I understand that
this area in general is a major Irish water source,
(16:55):
or at least there are various videos online about the
importance of the very so water operations located in this region.
This particular spa, however, was apparently it's not one that
has like a deep history in and on itself, or
at least that doesn't seem to be the case based
on the research I was looking at. Apparently the spa
was uncovered in seventeen ninety three by workmen digging the
(17:17):
Royal Canal. They discovered this spring and then as they
were developing everything, they ended up building it out into
kind of a Romanesque spa, and it was apparently quite
popular for a good run there, but then it fell
out of use steering the early nineteenth century, and based
on what it was reading, it was like for a
while it was just kind of in ruins, and I
(17:38):
think this probably lines up was just sort of a
general dip in the popularity of balteotherapeutic medicine. Now, when
you initially start reading about the leak slip Spa, you know,
it basically sounds like any other spa situation you might
be looking at, you know, sulfurous waters that were thought
to have healing properties, Romanesque baths catering to folks, and
(18:00):
of such healing. But what really caught my attention is
that in this particular story anyway, there is also a worm.
A worm. Yes. So as we move into this id
to turn to the writings of Caesar Oddway, who lists
seventeen eighty through eighteen forty two. He talks about this
in his eighteen thirty nine book A Tour in conn It,
(18:22):
and he describes leak slip Spa as follows. And I
have to warn this is all just part of a
gigantic run on sentence that I guess was just the
style in those days. Right. I don't know if I
can summon the energy to give it proper justice. I
have faith, Oddway writes, it is not only a beautiful
but an extraordinary spring. For if you believe all the neighbors,
(18:46):
not a fish or frog will live in its waters.
And though there be a fluculent, rusty colored ochreous matter
constantly rising to the surface of the well, exactly similar
to that which is found in spring, strongly impregnated with iron.
Yet no test, either gallic acid or prussiate of potash,
can identify any iron. But in the center of this
(19:08):
fluculent matter is found a very red little worm, about
half an inch long, which all those who who have
still faith in the celebrity of the well say, is
the sovereignest remedy alive for a sore leg. Nay more,
let anyone who has drank overnight from fifteen to twenty
tumblers of punch, and whose head is so hot that
(19:29):
it makes the water fizz into which it is plunged,
Let him, I say, but take a quart or two
of the water of this spring on the following morning,
and he will lose all his whiskey fever and walk
home as cool as a cucumber. I assure you, gentle reader,
I have seen Sundry making the experiment, and I actually
saw them afterwards. Sober WHOA I want to read the
(19:50):
rest of this guy's book. Yeah, like I say, it
has a great energy to it so to refresh. Oddway
is telling us that nothing else lives in these waters,
but they seem like iron infused waters despite negative testing,
and that flocculation occurs, creating a kind of wool like
coagulation on top of the water in which you'll find
(20:11):
tiny red worms. These waters will cure you of your
sore leg or your punch inflicted hangover. Either. That is
a great story. And this did make me look up flocculent. Okay,
So flocculent means kind of like coagulant. It means making
particles clump together. Didn't a new word for the vocab. Yeah,
(20:32):
but I think, you know, like sometimes I guess you
see it with like the kind of foaminess on top
of like flowing waters where they kind of like get
kind of dead ended in a particular part of the stream.
That kind of thing, or at least that's what I'm
picturing in my head. Okay, But when he's talking about
the worm, I can't tell does he mean literally a worm,
like a biological organism a worm, or does he mean
(20:54):
like a worm like clump of something. He appears to
mean an actual worm, because I found plenty of other
references to it. These details that I'm about to read
are from a twenty twenty one source survey of the
heritage of Holy Wells and County killedare by Laughlin at
All for Ireland's Archeology Plan Heritage Solutions. Quote. A small
(21:19):
worm lived in the scum on the top of the
pond and people used to put it between two pieces
of cloth and rub it to their eyes as a
cure for weak eyes. Some people left the pieces of
cloth on the briars beside the well, but others didn't
as there was no saint associated with the well. So
(21:39):
what there's no saint there to scold you into leaving
the pieces of cloth on the briars beside the well,
so you would just steal the cloth. I'm less sure
about what they're getting at with that, but okay, it's
hard for me to get past the idea that, okay,
not only yes, are there tiny red worms in these
thermals rings, but you also are going to essentially squeeze
(22:04):
them into your eyeballs or something like that, something way
too close to that to initially said, well with me,
So you're what, you're squeezing out the little red worm
juice into your eyes and that cures their weakness, I guess,
and it's maybe going through the cloth a little bit.
I couldn't find much in the way of other references
(22:24):
to that particular process, but still it seems to be
the case that there are there are multiple accounts of
the red worms here. So setting aside any actual curative
effects of the worms, you know what might they be. Obviously,
to live in such an environment, you need some matter
of thermophile or extremophile organism, and we know that there
are plenty of examples of those sorts of organisms, creatures
(22:45):
that are able to thrive in heated waters, for example.
But I was looking around and there there are plenty
of accounts of red worms and also things described as
worms living in thermal spring environments around the world, with
some certainly endemic to particular springs or immediate environments, and
others more sort of widespread. For example CT Brews and
(23:08):
Animal Life in Hot Springs, published in nineteen twenty seven
in the Quarterly Review of Biology. Rights of the blood
worms that are found in particular waters understood at least
by this author, to be the larval form of various midges,
and that while they might occur in various waters. The
author described having encountered them in a shallow thermal pool
(23:32):
at Yellowstone National Park. Oh okay, so it may so,
this so called worm may have not been permanently a worm,
but one of the stages of life of another organism,
maybe the larval form of like of a type of fly. Exactly. Yeah,
And you can look up images at this These are
well documented. But they're yeah, they're not true worms. They
(23:54):
have legs, they're they're a larva now there. But still
that doesn't solve everything because there are also sulfur cave
worms to consider. There is a recent study of these
creatures at Sulfur Cave and Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Thousands of
these worms live in the waters there, and Aaron Scott
at All for MPR describe them as follows in September
(24:16):
of twenty twenty two. Quote. The worm blobs look like
dark red sea and enemies wriggling in the stream bed.
The individual worms are around one inch long then a
pencil lead, and live off the bacteria in the cave,
which in turn lives off the sulfur. See that's already
checking off some boxes there. Yeah. Yeah, Now, the worms
(24:39):
in this case dubbed limnodrillis sulfur incests seem endemic to
this particular thermal spring, but one of its relatives, limnodrillis hoffmeistory,
is also red in color and is very tough, able
to live in polluted waters that other organisms can handle.
And it's very widespread and is found in Ireland. Oh Okay,
(25:02):
so another candidate right right now. Interesting. In either case,
the red coloration of the worm or larva is due
to hemoglobin molecules in the organism. Both midge larva and
in the worms in question here are sometimes called blood worms.
They're they're both referred to as blood worms, and I
found an article about this with the Missouri Department of
(25:25):
Conservation pointing out, hey, if you're talking about blood worms,
you might be talking about a larva. You might be
talking about a particular type of worm. Both good for
weak guys. In either case, though, I would say, don't
go finding tiny red worms or larva and squeezing them
into your eyeballs. I looked around to try to find
any details on folk remedies or folk medicine traditions that
(25:49):
involved squeezing red worms into your eyes and or in
any way really using them medicinally, and I could not
find anything. Granted, that's exactly the sort of thing that
in some cases maybe lost to history. Though. Yeah, I
think there are tons of full crimidies. I think that
never or only barely make it into print. Yeah. Now,
(26:11):
I did run across one article concerning mysterious cattle diseases
kind of a throwback to our Halloween episodes. Oh. I
had to think for a second, but yes, we in
past October we did a couple of different livestock malady
episode series. We did the stuff on the cattle mutilation
panic of the nineteen seventies and on the traditional beliefs
(26:32):
about elf shot, where people thought that the sort of
subtle folk were using spiritual weapons to harm their livestock. Yeah,
I found in this case, it was an article from
nineteen fourteen titled the cattle disease called Conage and its
Traditional cure by Amulets and Charms. And this was by
William F. D. This miss Kane published in the Journal
(26:54):
of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland nineteen fourteen.
So the author here notes that the actual symptoms of
the disease vary and it's basically one of these situations
where you have kind of a catch all term that's
referring to probably different ailments in different species, and at
least in some cases it was attributed to some sort
(27:15):
of biting insect, but also to the consumption of some
sort of worm. Now the worm that is blamed. It
seems like accounts vary. There's like one account saying it's
some sort of a black worm, which obviously isn't what
we're talking about here, but there's at least some cases
where they refer to a tiny red worm as being
a potential cause of the ailment, and so the author
(27:37):
here is citing one of these these these accounts, there's
a discussion of quote, a very small worm as red
as scarlet and found in the height of summer and
never found at the time of the year when the
canag is seen. The cited source indicates of the scarlet
worm does not cause canag. He stresses is treated via bloodletting,
(27:59):
but the illness cause by ingesting the scarlet worm is
said to cause the head to swell, and then you
cure it by reaching inside the cow's mouth and squeezing
or popping a bladder that has grown at the root
of the tongue, and I I was just kind of
nodding my head to this. There's like, okay, I guess
that's a thing that happens. But the author here cites
a Professor Mason of Dublin quote, I think the scarlet
(28:21):
tiny worm of the writer is, with little doubt, the
well known bloodworm frequent in shallow water in summer, and
is the larva of the chironomous, a kind of crane fly,
a perfectly innocuous animal. And then Mason seems to just
dismiss this bladder bursting cure as a quack cure, similar
to one that was done by quack doctors that would
(28:43):
cure an animal by bursting internal bladders on the spine.
So some sort of you know, some sort of like
a fake healing technique. I don't know if this is
a solid accusation that the professor is making, or if
there maybe there was some sort of folk remedy in
play and some sort of like swelling on the back
of the tongue. But Professor Mason seems to be saying like,
(29:03):
no, no no, no, that's just some quack trying to you know,
cheat you out of a few coins by reaching down
your cow's throat. So this might be more akin to
curing your cattle of elf shot by having them like
eat fairy crabs and then poking them with a special
knife for something. Yeah, it's kind of interesting to think about.
Again with this paper, it deals in part with the
use of amulets to cure mysterious ailments, but there are
(29:27):
other ways to supernaturally address a particular ailment than another.
Note about the blood worm midge larva. Here, they are
consumed all the time by trout so and I believe
(29:49):
you can actually get them as bait as well. So
perhaps some of our anglers out there have some experience
with these blood worms flucculent fly fishers let us know. Yeah,
and they seem harmless. I think some people can have
allergic reactions to them. I saw a twenty thirteen paper
about this, but again I wasn't able to turn up
(30:09):
anything about their use in folk medicine or the use
of the other type of organism that is sometimes referred
to as a blood worm having any kind of role
in folk medicine. So again, don't go squirting worms into
your eyes. But I think it is fascinating because we
have a situation here where yeah, there's the more traditional
sort of sulfur springs scenario going on, but then this
(30:32):
added level of, oh, there's something about the things that
live in the spring water, there's something about the organisms
in it that have some reputed beneficial health effect. Yeah,
And I certainly haven't read anything about that in the
in like the ancient Roman context or anything. Yeah, but
it did end up reminding me of another example of
(30:57):
supposed therapeutic waters with organisms that live in them, in
which in cases where at least some traditions value the
presence of the organisms themselves, which leads us to the
world of fish. So, and some of you may know
exactly where this is going, But my earliest exposure to
anything out there about this about there being fish in
(31:17):
therapeutic waters and the fish or the therapeutic part of
the immersion experience, I mean, the most I think that
it ever happened is I've maybe been occasionally nibbled by
a fish in a lake or at the beach. But
back in two thousand and nine, my wife and I
visited Arawan National Park in Thailand and toured Arawan Falls.
These are beautiful waters, so basically you have just like
(31:41):
a whole system of waterfalls with these very clear pools
and between them that have kind of like this blue appearance,
very beautiful, and their fish in those pools, and you
were encouraged to, you know, come up, dip your feet,
to take your shoes off, put your get your feet
in those waters, and then the fish will come up
and nibble on the dead skin of your feet, which tickles.
(32:04):
But in some cases you're saying, some people believe there
to be health consequences of this kind of thing. Right
right now, I don't know specifically about the tie scenario,
if there if there's any kind of like traditional tie
medicinal understanding of these fish. If memory serves the guides
on this particular trip, they just made reference to it
(32:26):
being a pedicure there. I don't remember therere being any
kind of medical argument made for it. But I know
this is probably ringing about with a number of people
out there, because there is this wider spread use of
supposed fish pedicure services where you've got to go to
some sort of a pedicure business and you will put
(32:48):
your feet into a tank that has fish in it,
and the fish will eat the dead skin off of
your feet once again, it seems like a thing that's
unusual and interesting enough that a lot of people, I
bet would do it just for the novel experience, even
if it doesn't, you know, do much better than a
pumice stone for getting dead skin off your foot. Yeah. Now,
I'm not sure exactly what species of fish this was
(33:10):
that I encountered in Thailand again as a while back,
and I didn't take notes at the time. I'm not
sure if they mentioned a specific species, but I see
some references online and these are like not papers or anything,
but just like reviews and so forth, referring to it
being a gara rufa or a gara rufa I guess
(33:31):
more more accurately. And this is a particular This is
the fish that is often encountered in these supposed fish
pedicure services that you'll encounter some places. They're illegal in
some places, and I'm not recommending you go out and
try them. Uh, and we'll come We'll come back to
why in in a minute here. But yeah, I saw
(33:52):
some references to it being this gara rufa, but those
are at least I understand to be native to Western Asia.
And I'm not sure if this could be a situation
where they could potentially even be invasive there, because I
was reading on the US Fish and Wildlife Service website
that they're rated as like a low uncertain invasive risk.
(34:12):
So yeah, I'm not sure if this could even conceivably
be the same species, but research indicates that there are
definitely are other Gara species, and there are Gara species
in Thailand. They're at least three. There's a one that's
called Gara fluviatilis, and this seems to reside in the
same general area that I'm talking about here. So if
(34:36):
I if I had to just guess at all of
this and both ultimately all this is would be a
gas Based on some of the things I was reading,
I would say, maybe it's that species, but I just
don't know for sure. But the Gara rufa has certainly
traveled around the globe via the fish pedicure industry, and
I know I know a number of you've probably caught
wind of this one way or another. The idea being
(34:58):
that you go to this business, to a business, you
immerse your feet into a tank full of these fish,
and they nibble away at the dead skin on your feet,
like revealing like you brighter or more vibrant skin. I
don't know why I thought you were going to say
the face of God. You know, it's we talk many
We've just spoken many times on the show about situations
(35:20):
where there's some sort of like especially in oceanic environments,
where there's some sort of a grooming species that that
helps out another animal. I mean, most recently we talked
about the whale lice on whales and how they are
essentially doing the same thing. But to be clear, when
we're talking about about it being a pedicure service that
(35:40):
you're encountering, like in a tank under a table, that
is not a natural environment scenario. This is a very
augmented scenario, and they're various issues to be had with it. Yeah, definitely, Yeah,
I'm one hand potential sanitation concerns, but then also ethical
concerns as well concerning the fish, and as a result, yeah,
(36:01):
it's banned in many places. So yes, there are other
gara fish. But the Gara rufa is native to the
Middle East, particularly parts of Jordan, Syria, and Turkey, and
in the wild they feed on detritus, algae and tiny animals,
but in the absence of better food sources, they will
feed on dead skin. So the alleged origin of the
(36:24):
fish pedicure is in most of the literature we're looking
at is the Kangle Hot Spring in Turkey. Now, again
we're talking about hot springs in an area long known
to human beings, so it's likely that these springs were
known and utilized for all the reasons humans have visited
thermal springs throughout their history. And though while the fish
were certainly here, they were certainly present in this location,
(36:46):
it seems things have changed in the last hundred years
or so, one hundred years plus. So there's a two
thousand and seven Scientific American paper. This is one I
think you turned up and sent me Joe, titled fish
that goes in Deep And I guess it's not so
much an article. It's kind of a short bit. It
was just a short, little snippet article, but it had
a very interesting detail in it. Yes, yeah, it adds
(37:08):
a little bit of historical detail that I was having
trouble finding in other studies. Quote, these fish have acquired
a taste for humans, largely because they have little choice.
The spring is too hot to sustain enough algae and
plankton to feed them all In the past, the fish
were able to move between the spring and a creek
that runs nearby, but after learning of a story about
(37:31):
a local shepherd whose wounded leg healed after being dipped
into the spring in nineteen seventeen, builders walled off the
spring from the creek in the nineteen fifties to preserve
a captive school. A Turkish family has now constructed a hotel,
villas and a playground, and markets the resort to Sorias's patients. Now,
(37:52):
I came across this short SIAM article because we were
looking at papers that seemed to be focused on the
question of is this treatment actually effective or not for psoriasis.
It seems obviously this is a form of alternative medicine.
Zo I don't know if I have an opinion or
not on whether there's any evidence this is actually useful
(38:12):
for psoriasis. I guess I would have my doubts. But
the fascinating thing to me was the thing about like
enclosing this fish population that used to go back and
forth but apparently now is stuck in the pool. Yes,
and would not would would otherwise maybe not eat dead
skin off of people's feet. But given that it is
(38:35):
an altered environment, they are encouraged to do so due
to the lack of other food sources. Still, I think
the basic scenario here wrote what it reveals about the
natural environment that has been augmented. This does kind of
line up with the Thailand scenario where again, in that
Thailand scenario yet various clear pools that were connected by
multiple cascading waterfalls. So sort of these kind of like
(38:58):
traps of small aquatic habitats that are connected. Um, but
you can see why you might end up with the
population of fish in a given pool that are that
are hungry, that have maybe exhausted what they can eat,
and are then happy to check out anything that is introduced.
(39:18):
So advocates of this treatment, sometimes called ichyotherapy, they touted
as either a general cosmetic pedicure sort of procedure or
as a treatment for skin ailments such as psoriasis. Again,
we're not going to weigh in too much on the
ups and downs of this. This this is getting into
the area of alternative medicine. But but certainly when you're
(39:40):
dealing with the fish take environment version of it, there
are some some definite reasons to stay clear of it. Anyway,
in both of these cases, we have the blood worms,
we have these these little fish that nipple your toes.
These are both situations where we have spring waters that
are noted for their health inefits in part or entirely
(40:03):
due to the organisms that live in them, the animals
that live in them. And I think it leads at
least worth noting that thermal springs continue to be of
interest to scientists because of potential extreme of file organisms
that might live there that also might reveal some sort
of unique antibiotic discoveries. Though I don't think this is
the sort of thing that they merely bathing in the
(40:24):
waters would unlock for a person, right. It would be
more that, like the organisms there are useful for research
on antibiotics, not that like you're going to cure your diseases,
but just by getting in the water. Yeah, not that
I don't think anybody's making those claims within against the
exact sort of claims that could end up being made
about a given spring, like bathe in the extreme of
file waters of extremofile springs unlock the unknown antibiotics for
(40:50):
your own well being, that sort of thing. Well, the
hot spring blood worms and the hot spring fish, I
did not imagine this at all as an angle we
would end up going down. But this has been fascinating
and our series on the Healing Waters will have to
continue with at least one more episode, maybe a couple
more next week. There's a lot more interesting stuff to
talk about, of course, with a lot of the alleged
(41:11):
cure as we've been talking about up to this point,
probably the majority of them. If there was an effect,
it may have been a placebo effect, but there may
actually be some cases where there's pretty good evidence of
balneotherapy of various kinds, even in particular spring waters, having
an actual, direct mechanistic effect on healing certain illnesses. And
(41:33):
if that is the case, we're we're gonna talk about
some examples of that next time. Yeah, so be sure
to join us for that discussion. There's more strange stuff
in the Healing Waters. It'll be floculent, yes, yes, don't
drink the flaculent waters. Don't drink the bath water. All right. Well,
as we close it out here, want to remind everybody
(41:55):
that are core episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind.
You'll find them on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the Stuff
to Blow your podcast feed on Monday's we do listener Mail.
On Wednesdays we do a short form artifactor month to Fact.
On Fridays, we do Weird House Cinema. That's our time
to set aside most serious concerns and just talk about
a weird film. Huge thanks to our audio producer J J. Paseway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
(42:17):
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio
with the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening
(42:38):
to your favorite shows,
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Hey are you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind?
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
we're back with part two in our series about healing waters,
the belief held by many people throughout history that you
(00:25):
could heal your body from illness and restore your health
by bathing or by immersing yourself, sometimes just in hot
or cold waters, sometimes in the waters of a special
spring or location. Now, in the last episode, we discuss
the prehistoric origins of bathing, as well as some evidence
(00:46):
of ideas that became attached to bathing in the ancient world,
for example, ritual and religious ideas about purity. You can
see this in the ritual bathing by priests in ancient
Egypt or as or ritual washing bait procedures outlined in
the Bible. And then also the segue into the belief
that became especially popular among the physicians of ancient Greece
(01:08):
and Rome that you could cure diseases by immersing the
body in hot or cold water, often though not always
connected to explanations based on the theory of the four
humors in today's episode, I wanted to kick things off
by returning to talk about a few more aspects of
a paper we discussed in the previous episode. This was
(01:30):
the paper Water and Spas in the Classical World in
the Journal Medical History nineteen ninety by Ralph Jackson, who
was at the time a scholar working for the Department
of Prehistoric and Romano British Antiquities at the British Museum
in London. Now, as this paper addresses not only beliefs
about the healing powers of bathing in water, but also
(01:52):
of specific dedicated spa locations, I got interested in the
origins of the English word spa, and it seems to
me that the most commonly accepted etymology of the word
today is that Spa is derived from the name of
a particular curative mineral spring resort in eastern Belgium, which
(02:14):
is called Spa. So Spa the common noun derives from Spa,
the proper noun, the name of the place, which, by
the way, is a city that still exists today. You
can go to Spa, Belgium. And I saw on the
Wikipedia page that one of the violinists on the Titanic
was from Spa. Belgium, but the proper noun seems in
(02:35):
turn derived from a common noun in the Walloon language,
which is a Romance language spoken in eastern Belgium, and
the original noun there would have been spa, meaning a
fountain or perhaps also referring to a spring. Now, another
thing we talked about in the previous episode was a
number of names for healing by immersion in water and
(02:57):
related practices. So you have the idea of balneotherapy, that
is healing by bathing, often in mineral springs. Hydrotherapy a
more general term referring to all kinds of water based
treatments for disease. And I wanted to add to that
another one that is mentioned in this paper. This is
a phrase taken from what the Caesar Augustus did when
(03:20):
he was practicing some balneotherapy. He did a practice called
taking the waters. So in most cases that seems to
refer to, yeah, just immersion like bathing in waters, but
also maybe in some cases drinking the waters. And so
I like that because it sounds kind of like you're
taking the waters, almost like you take a pill. But
it also makes me think of the competitive aspect referenced
(03:44):
by plenty of the elder when he talks about people
bragging about how much of the thermal springs they can take,
either like you know, I can soak in this way
too long, I can soak in there so long, and
then also by allegedly drinking so much from the sulfurous
springs that you could no longer see their jewelry because
their skin would close over their rings. Sounds like an
(04:04):
exaggeration to me, or at least I hope. Yeah. And
I've seen this pop up with various springs we've been
looking at in our research, where there will be traditions
of bathing or soaking in the waters, but also of
drinking the waters. So it seems like these two are
easily in us. It's good enough for the epidermis, is
good enough for the digestive track. I guess yeah. It
(04:24):
invites kind of gross questions, like in what order do
you do those two things? Well, I mean, these are
the source of questions one I always have to ask
about one's water supply. I guess, well, I guess and
since that yes, every glass of water you drink contains
water that you know was poop and pea and everything else.
The water cycle just continues around the world, but at
(04:46):
least we hope today that water goes through some kind
of purification process before you can drink it. I'm just imagining,
I don't know, people soaking in sulfur springs and then
just scooping that ride up on and like a child
in about yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you have that one
to look forward to as well. Don't drink the bathwater.
See how many times you get to say that? Real
(05:09):
quick though, I was thinking about this, I think a
lot of this is what we're talking about here. It
kind of comes down to a few different realities that
are worth pointing out. One, we need water, and two
sources of water in the world are not all equal.
There are better sources than others, and a lot of
the human experience has has has had to do with
(05:31):
trying to figure out what are the best sources and
and so a lot of this, you could maybe even
look at it is just kind of like a human
over complication of that basic scenario, like I want the
best water for me, the water that's not going to
make me sick, the water that's going to ensure my
continued life, and then we kind of build up everything
on top of that. Well, yeah, that's exactly right. And
(05:53):
this brings us back to the next thing from this
paper I wanted to talk about, which is when we
discussed Jackson last time, we were talking about more general
ancient Greek and Roman beliefs about the healing powers of bathing,
but I mentioned there were also beliefs about the medicinal
virtues of specific water sources, either for bathing or drinking,
or sometimes both, and Jackson lists a number of examples
(06:17):
of this, And of course Plenty talked about specific waters
in the sense of waters with specific properties, so maybe
a sulfur springs versus alum springs and the different ailments
that those could address. But here you can actually get
into specific localities. So a few mentioned in Jackson's paper.
One is the aqui Cutility, which is a mineral spring
(06:42):
northeast of the city of Rome. Both Plenty and Kelsus
mentioned the cold waters of the spring as having the
power to cure stomach disorders. In particular, Jackson also mentions
the sulfur springs of aqui Abulee. This is near the
town of tiv also northeast of Rome, and Jackson writes
(07:02):
quote described by Vitruvius, Strabo, and Marshall, recommended by Plenty
for the healing of wounds, and frequented by Augustus when
he was troubled with rheumatism. But one of the most
famous locations in the ancient Roman world for bathing was
the facilities in the city of bay Ye, which is
(07:23):
near Naples, famous for its baths fed by hot springs,
and Jackson writes quote Kelsus recommended the sulfurous sweat baths
in the myrtle groves above bay. Strabo characterized the place
by its hot springs that were quotes suited both to
the taste of the fastidious and to the cure of disease,
(07:45):
and Plenty believed that quote nowhere is water more bountiful
than in the bay of Baye, or with more variety
of relief, meaning relief from disease. However, Baye and its
hot baths interestingly combined multiple reputation, so it was a
place of healing from disease, but it also had a
(08:07):
reputation as sort of a vice magnet or a party town.
So imagine what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But
for ancient Rome, which was already had, you know, sort
of a kind of baseline vegasiness to it. You get
you get hints of this reputation in the writings of
ancient authors. For example, Marshall described a story of a
(08:30):
virtuous woman who went to Baye and while she was there,
you know, she hung out in the baths and then
ended up deciding to leave her husband for a youth
that she met there. And Marshall Wrights quote she arrived
a penelope and departed a Helen, which very judgy but
gives you gives you an idea of what they thought. Yeah,
and you know, and this strikes to something that's kind
(08:52):
of key to the the overall history of certainly baths
and spas in European history, like that at times they
become morally suspect, and that can of course lead to
the downfall of various bath and spat cultures in different areas. Sure,
and of course it was also a place this is
another aspect of the kind of the Vegas equality of it.
(09:13):
It was a place of opulence and extravagance for the rich,
hosting private villas of emperors, fancy spa facilities that had
a lot of amenities. Jackson writes quote. Nevertheless, a vast
sector of baths, imposing buildings to enclose the hot springs
and sulfurous vapors. Grandiose rooms and extensive loggias and porticos
(09:34):
have all been identified in the multi level complex terraced
into the volcanic slope above the bay and Gulf, and
the paper goes on to describe a number of sort
of individual buildings here. One misleadingly named the Temple of Mercury,
misleading because it appears to not actually have been a
temple but a place for soaking in hot spa waters.
(09:54):
And this was this gigantic rotunda that was again built
up on the the volcanic slope, and it had these
big windows to let light in from the top, but
also to ventilate these sulfurous fumes. And it was said
to in some ways resentable the design of Hadrian's pantheon.
Another interesting thing about the area of bay is that
(10:16):
there have been found artifacts from the time which are
glass bottles that have engravings on them that are supposed
to depict this area, the region of Bayee like. There
was one example sited in the paper and included on
a plate that has all these engravings on the glass
(10:38):
that is described as a quote bulbous glass bottle that
was found in North Africa, and it has like these
drawings that are supposed to represent this area near Naples.
And it's thought that maybe these were glass bottles where
the water from Bayee was bottled so people could take
it away as a souvenir and I don't know, maybe
just hang onto it or drink it later or something.
(11:00):
That's that's fascinating. And of course we still see that
today with various waters that even if they're not considered sacred,
and in many cases they are still considered sacred at
the very least. It's it's it's some sort of a
curio you take home with you, some sort of keepsake
of a trip. Yeah uh. Now, though most were not
(11:21):
as luxurious as the facilities of bay which were for
for for the rich and powerful, many regions of the
Roman Empire had their own spa facilities, even kind of
far flung regions that were far away from the imperial center.
Jackson mentions, especially regions where the locals practiced Celtic religions.
So this would have included parts of Gaul, which is
(11:41):
sort of modern day France in Germany because water deities
in Celtic mythology held a special importance. And this also
brings up an association between the development of Roman baths
or spas and the presence of the Roman military in
places far away from from Rome itself, from the imperial core.
(12:02):
When the legion moved in, this would often lead to
the development of a spa resort at a natural thermal spring,
and a spa would become a place for wounded soldiers
to heal, or a place for recreation and sort of
maintenance of good health among the ranks. And Jackson mentions that,
so you know, the Romans come in, their military comes
(12:24):
in and they build a spa. That this was not
done out of a sense of kind heartedness to the locals,
like look what we're doing for you. It was out
of self interest, because it was for the Roman troops,
or at least for their benefit, even if it was
also open to locals. But certainly it does speak to
the value that the Romans placed on this spa culture. Yes,
(12:46):
And it's also interesting how that cultural importance means it
gets sort of wrapped up in religious ideas as well,
because Jackson writes that under Roman rule. In one of
these areas of the empire, you build a spa, and
a deity of the local religion would usually be conflated
with a Greco Roman deity that had similar powers or patronage,
(13:08):
and thus you'd get situations like you had in the
German city of Aachen, where the local Celtic deity Granis
was combined with the Greco Roman figure of Apollo the Healer,
and thus the composite cult figure Apollo Granis is born
and rules over the local hot springs the spa there.
And this is interesting because it helps give you a
(13:30):
sense of on the ground how these spas were used.
Jackson includes an image from an early second century votive
altar found near Achen, appearing to depict Apollo Granis. Here
this composite figure of the Greco Roman and the Celtic deity,
and in describing it, Jackson writes, quote, the enthroned god
(13:51):
holds a liar and a plectrum to musical instruments, and
carries his bow and quiver of arrows over his right shoulder.
An inscription records that the altar was dedicated in fulfillment
of a vow by l latinious Massaire, a native of
Verona and senior officer or Prefectus castorum of the ninth Legion,
(14:14):
who may have been restored to health at the spa.
So you get healed at the spa, that may mean
that you have to now make a donation there. Maybe
you made a vow to the local deity and said, like, Okay,
if these waters heal my wound or heal my sickness,
I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna be the sponsor of
this altar or something. Now, this paper also gets into
(14:37):
another major spa location, a very historically important and interesting
one at Bath in England. But I think I'm gonna
save that one for the next episode in the series
because that brings up its own fascinating mysteries and histories.
So we'll come back to Bath now for the next
(15:03):
example we're going to look at here. I wanted to
hit on something from Irish tradition, in part because the
week this episode is coming out, it's the week of
Saint Patrick's Day, and I'd like to spend my research
time a little bit on something Ireland related. And I
found a great example in the waters of Leek Slip Spa.
(15:25):
Now you'll find numerous thermal springs in Ireland, and you
also find this tradition of healing wells and holy wells
that you also see throughout England. You know, you'll find
sacred wells in Ireland as well, different wells and different
springs or attribute to different healing properties for different maladies.
And you'll also find them connected to such figures as
(15:46):
Saint Patrick, but also to older gods and goddesses of
Irish tradition. But at any rate, balneotherapeutic medicine in Ireland
was especially big in the seventeenth, eighteenth and at least
the early nineteenth centuries. Yes, And this sort of correlates
with how it seems that after the Roman so you know,
Greco Roman world, medical treatments involving bathing or immersion were
(16:10):
very popular, and it seems that kind of declined later
in the Roman Empire and was again comparatively rare through
the early Middle Ages. But then there was sort of
a resurgence in interest in bath culture and in medicine
involving bathing in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance,
and then there was another big rush for it. I
(16:32):
think maybe in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Yeah, so
a lot of this. You see the fads come and
go right now, specifically with leak Slip here. This is
located near the town of leak Slip in northeast Ireland.
It's spelled l ei x LP, and I understand that
this area in general is a major Irish water source,
(16:55):
or at least there are various videos online about the
importance of the very so water operations located in this region.
This particular spa, however, was apparently it's not one that
has like a deep history in and on itself, or
at least that doesn't seem to be the case based
on the research I was looking at. Apparently the spa
was uncovered in seventeen ninety three by workmen digging the
(17:17):
Royal Canal. They discovered this spring and then as they
were developing everything, they ended up building it out into
kind of a Romanesque spa, and it was apparently quite
popular for a good run there, but then it fell
out of use steering the early nineteenth century, and based
on what it was reading, it was like for a
while it was just kind of in ruins, and I
(17:38):
think this probably lines up was just sort of a
general dip in the popularity of balteotherapeutic medicine. Now, when
you initially start reading about the leak slip Spa, you know,
it basically sounds like any other spa situation you might
be looking at, you know, sulfurous waters that were thought
to have healing properties, Romanesque baths catering to folks, and
(18:00):
of such healing. But what really caught my attention is
that in this particular story anyway, there is also a worm.
A worm. Yes. So as we move into this id
to turn to the writings of Caesar Oddway, who lists
seventeen eighty through eighteen forty two. He talks about this
in his eighteen thirty nine book A Tour in conn It,
(18:22):
and he describes leak slip Spa as follows. And I
have to warn this is all just part of a
gigantic run on sentence that I guess was just the
style in those days. Right. I don't know if I
can summon the energy to give it proper justice. I
have faith, Oddway writes, it is not only a beautiful
but an extraordinary spring. For if you believe all the neighbors,
(18:46):
not a fish or frog will live in its waters.
And though there be a fluculent, rusty colored ochreous matter
constantly rising to the surface of the well, exactly similar
to that which is found in spring, strongly impregnated with iron.
Yet no test, either gallic acid or prussiate of potash,
can identify any iron. But in the center of this
(19:08):
fluculent matter is found a very red little worm, about
half an inch long, which all those who who have
still faith in the celebrity of the well say, is
the sovereignest remedy alive for a sore leg. Nay more,
let anyone who has drank overnight from fifteen to twenty
tumblers of punch, and whose head is so hot that
(19:29):
it makes the water fizz into which it is plunged,
Let him, I say, but take a quart or two
of the water of this spring on the following morning,
and he will lose all his whiskey fever and walk
home as cool as a cucumber. I assure you, gentle reader,
I have seen Sundry making the experiment, and I actually
saw them afterwards. Sober WHOA I want to read the
(19:50):
rest of this guy's book. Yeah, like I say, it
has a great energy to it so to refresh. Oddway
is telling us that nothing else lives in these waters,
but they seem like iron infused waters despite negative testing,
and that flocculation occurs, creating a kind of wool like
coagulation on top of the water in which you'll find
(20:11):
tiny red worms. These waters will cure you of your
sore leg or your punch inflicted hangover. Either. That is
a great story. And this did make me look up flocculent. Okay,
So flocculent means kind of like coagulant. It means making
particles clump together. Didn't a new word for the vocab. Yeah,
(20:32):
but I think, you know, like sometimes I guess you
see it with like the kind of foaminess on top
of like flowing waters where they kind of like get
kind of dead ended in a particular part of the stream.
That kind of thing, or at least that's what I'm
picturing in my head. Okay, But when he's talking about
the worm, I can't tell does he mean literally a worm,
like a biological organism a worm, or does he mean
(20:54):
like a worm like clump of something. He appears to
mean an actual worm, because I found plenty of other
references to it. These details that I'm about to read
are from a twenty twenty one source survey of the
heritage of Holy Wells and County killedare by Laughlin at
All for Ireland's Archeology Plan Heritage Solutions. Quote. A small
(21:19):
worm lived in the scum on the top of the
pond and people used to put it between two pieces
of cloth and rub it to their eyes as a
cure for weak eyes. Some people left the pieces of
cloth on the briars beside the well, but others didn't
as there was no saint associated with the well. So
(21:39):
what there's no saint there to scold you into leaving
the pieces of cloth on the briars beside the well,
so you would just steal the cloth. I'm less sure
about what they're getting at with that, but okay, it's
hard for me to get past the idea that, okay,
not only yes, are there tiny red worms in these
thermals rings, but you also are going to essentially squeeze
(22:04):
them into your eyeballs or something like that, something way
too close to that to initially said, well with me,
So you're what, you're squeezing out the little red worm
juice into your eyes and that cures their weakness, I guess,
and it's maybe going through the cloth a little bit.
I couldn't find much in the way of other references
(22:24):
to that particular process, but still it seems to be
the case that there are there are multiple accounts of
the red worms here. So setting aside any actual curative
effects of the worms, you know what might they be. Obviously,
to live in such an environment, you need some matter
of thermophile or extremophile organism, and we know that there
are plenty of examples of those sorts of organisms, creatures
(22:45):
that are able to thrive in heated waters, for example.
But I was looking around and there there are plenty
of accounts of red worms and also things described as
worms living in thermal spring environments around the world, with
some certainly endemic to particular springs or immediate environments, and
others more sort of widespread. For example CT Brews and
(23:08):
Animal Life in Hot Springs, published in nineteen twenty seven
in the Quarterly Review of Biology. Rights of the blood
worms that are found in particular waters understood at least
by this author, to be the larval form of various midges,
and that while they might occur in various waters. The
author described having encountered them in a shallow thermal pool
(23:32):
at Yellowstone National Park. Oh okay, so it may so,
this so called worm may have not been permanently a worm,
but one of the stages of life of another organism,
maybe the larval form of like of a type of fly. Exactly. Yeah,
And you can look up images at this These are
well documented. But they're yeah, they're not true worms. They
(23:54):
have legs, they're they're a larva now there. But still
that doesn't solve everything because there are also sulfur cave
worms to consider. There is a recent study of these
creatures at Sulfur Cave and Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Thousands of
these worms live in the waters there, and Aaron Scott
at All for MPR describe them as follows in September
(24:16):
of twenty twenty two. Quote. The worm blobs look like
dark red sea and enemies wriggling in the stream bed.
The individual worms are around one inch long then a
pencil lead, and live off the bacteria in the cave,
which in turn lives off the sulfur. See that's already
checking off some boxes there. Yeah. Yeah, Now, the worms
(24:39):
in this case dubbed limnodrillis sulfur incests seem endemic to
this particular thermal spring, but one of its relatives, limnodrillis hoffmeistory,
is also red in color and is very tough, able
to live in polluted waters that other organisms can handle.
And it's very widespread and is found in Ireland. Oh Okay,
(25:02):
so another candidate right right now. Interesting. In either case,
the red coloration of the worm or larva is due
to hemoglobin molecules in the organism. Both midge larva and
in the worms in question here are sometimes called blood worms.
They're they're both referred to as blood worms, and I
found an article about this with the Missouri Department of
(25:25):
Conservation pointing out, hey, if you're talking about blood worms,
you might be talking about a larva. You might be
talking about a particular type of worm. Both good for
weak guys. In either case, though, I would say, don't
go finding tiny red worms or larva and squeezing them
into your eyeballs. I looked around to try to find
any details on folk remedies or folk medicine traditions that
(25:49):
involved squeezing red worms into your eyes and or in
any way really using them medicinally, and I could not
find anything. Granted, that's exactly the sort of thing that
in some cases maybe lost to history. Though. Yeah, I
think there are tons of full crimidies. I think that
never or only barely make it into print. Yeah. Now,
(26:11):
I did run across one article concerning mysterious cattle diseases
kind of a throwback to our Halloween episodes. Oh. I
had to think for a second, but yes, we in
past October we did a couple of different livestock malady
episode series. We did the stuff on the cattle mutilation
panic of the nineteen seventies and on the traditional beliefs
(26:32):
about elf shot, where people thought that the sort of
subtle folk were using spiritual weapons to harm their livestock. Yeah,
I found in this case, it was an article from
nineteen fourteen titled the cattle disease called Conage and its
Traditional cure by Amulets and Charms. And this was by
William F. D. This miss Kane published in the Journal
(26:54):
of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland nineteen fourteen.
So the author here notes that the actual symptoms of
the disease vary and it's basically one of these situations
where you have kind of a catch all term that's
referring to probably different ailments in different species, and at
least in some cases it was attributed to some sort
(27:15):
of biting insect, but also to the consumption of some
sort of worm. Now the worm that is blamed. It
seems like accounts vary. There's like one account saying it's
some sort of a black worm, which obviously isn't what
we're talking about here, but there's at least some cases
where they refer to a tiny red worm as being
a potential cause of the ailment, and so the author
(27:37):
here is citing one of these these these accounts, there's
a discussion of quote, a very small worm as red
as scarlet and found in the height of summer and
never found at the time of the year when the
canag is seen. The cited source indicates of the scarlet
worm does not cause canag. He stresses is treated via bloodletting,
(27:59):
but the illness cause by ingesting the scarlet worm is
said to cause the head to swell, and then you
cure it by reaching inside the cow's mouth and squeezing
or popping a bladder that has grown at the root
of the tongue, and I I was just kind of
nodding my head to this. There's like, okay, I guess
that's a thing that happens. But the author here cites
a Professor Mason of Dublin quote, I think the scarlet
(28:21):
tiny worm of the writer is, with little doubt, the
well known bloodworm frequent in shallow water in summer, and
is the larva of the chironomous, a kind of crane fly,
a perfectly innocuous animal. And then Mason seems to just
dismiss this bladder bursting cure as a quack cure, similar
to one that was done by quack doctors that would
(28:43):
cure an animal by bursting internal bladders on the spine.
So some sort of you know, some sort of like
a fake healing technique. I don't know if this is
a solid accusation that the professor is making, or if
there maybe there was some sort of folk remedy in
play and some sort of like swelling on the back
of the tongue. But Professor Mason seems to be saying like,
(29:03):
no, no no, no, that's just some quack trying to you know,
cheat you out of a few coins by reaching down
your cow's throat. So this might be more akin to
curing your cattle of elf shot by having them like
eat fairy crabs and then poking them with a special
knife for something. Yeah, it's kind of interesting to think about.
Again with this paper, it deals in part with the
use of amulets to cure mysterious ailments, but there are
(29:27):
other ways to supernaturally address a particular ailment than another.
Note about the blood worm midge larva. Here, they are
consumed all the time by trout so and I believe
(29:49):
you can actually get them as bait as well. So
perhaps some of our anglers out there have some experience
with these blood worms flucculent fly fishers let us know. Yeah,
and they seem harmless. I think some people can have
allergic reactions to them. I saw a twenty thirteen paper
about this, but again I wasn't able to turn up
(30:09):
anything about their use in folk medicine or the use
of the other type of organism that is sometimes referred
to as a blood worm having any kind of role
in folk medicine. So again, don't go squirting worms into
your eyes. But I think it is fascinating because we
have a situation here where yeah, there's the more traditional
sort of sulfur springs scenario going on, but then this
(30:32):
added level of, oh, there's something about the things that
live in the spring water, there's something about the organisms
in it that have some reputed beneficial health effect. Yeah,
And I certainly haven't read anything about that in the
in like the ancient Roman context or anything. Yeah, but
it did end up reminding me of another example of
(30:57):
supposed therapeutic waters with organisms that live in them, in
which in cases where at least some traditions value the
presence of the organisms themselves, which leads us to the
world of fish. So, and some of you may know
exactly where this is going, But my earliest exposure to
anything out there about this about there being fish in
(31:17):
therapeutic waters and the fish or the therapeutic part of
the immersion experience, I mean, the most I think that
it ever happened is I've maybe been occasionally nibbled by
a fish in a lake or at the beach. But
back in two thousand and nine, my wife and I
visited Arawan National Park in Thailand and toured Arawan Falls.
These are beautiful waters, so basically you have just like
(31:41):
a whole system of waterfalls with these very clear pools
and between them that have kind of like this blue appearance,
very beautiful, and their fish in those pools, and you
were encouraged to, you know, come up, dip your feet,
to take your shoes off, put your get your feet
in those waters, and then the fish will come up
and nibble on the dead skin of your feet, which tickles.
(32:04):
But in some cases you're saying, some people believe there
to be health consequences of this kind of thing. Right
right now, I don't know specifically about the tie scenario,
if there if there's any kind of like traditional tie
medicinal understanding of these fish. If memory serves the guides
on this particular trip, they just made reference to it
(32:26):
being a pedicure there. I don't remember therere being any
kind of medical argument made for it. But I know
this is probably ringing about with a number of people
out there, because there is this wider spread use of
supposed fish pedicure services where you've got to go to
some sort of a pedicure business and you will put
(32:48):
your feet into a tank that has fish in it,
and the fish will eat the dead skin off of
your feet once again, it seems like a thing that's
unusual and interesting enough that a lot of people, I
bet would do it just for the novel experience, even
if it doesn't, you know, do much better than a
pumice stone for getting dead skin off your foot. Yeah. Now,
I'm not sure exactly what species of fish this was
(33:10):
that I encountered in Thailand again as a while back,
and I didn't take notes at the time. I'm not
sure if they mentioned a specific species, but I see
some references online and these are like not papers or anything,
but just like reviews and so forth, referring to it
being a gara rufa or a gara rufa I guess
(33:31):
more more accurately. And this is a particular This is
the fish that is often encountered in these supposed fish
pedicure services that you'll encounter some places. They're illegal in
some places, and I'm not recommending you go out and
try them. Uh, and we'll come We'll come back to
why in in a minute here. But yeah, I saw
(33:52):
some references to it being this gara rufa, but those
are at least I understand to be native to Western Asia.
And I'm not sure if this could be a situation
where they could potentially even be invasive there, because I
was reading on the US Fish and Wildlife Service website
that they're rated as like a low uncertain invasive risk.
(34:12):
So yeah, I'm not sure if this could even conceivably
be the same species, but research indicates that there are
definitely are other Gara species, and there are Gara species
in Thailand. They're at least three. There's a one that's
called Gara fluviatilis, and this seems to reside in the
same general area that I'm talking about here. So if
(34:36):
I if I had to just guess at all of
this and both ultimately all this is would be a
gas Based on some of the things I was reading,
I would say, maybe it's that species, but I just
don't know for sure. But the Gara rufa has certainly
traveled around the globe via the fish pedicure industry, and
I know I know a number of you've probably caught
wind of this one way or another. The idea being
(34:58):
that you go to this business, to a business, you
immerse your feet into a tank full of these fish,
and they nibble away at the dead skin on your feet,
like revealing like you brighter or more vibrant skin. I
don't know why I thought you were going to say
the face of God. You know, it's we talk many
We've just spoken many times on the show about situations
(35:20):
where there's some sort of like especially in oceanic environments,
where there's some sort of a grooming species that that
helps out another animal. I mean, most recently we talked
about the whale lice on whales and how they are
essentially doing the same thing. But to be clear, when
we're talking about about it being a pedicure service that
(35:40):
you're encountering, like in a tank under a table, that
is not a natural environment scenario. This is a very
augmented scenario, and they're various issues to be had with it. Yeah, definitely, Yeah,
I'm one hand potential sanitation concerns, but then also ethical
concerns as well concerning the fish, and as a result, yeah,
(36:01):
it's banned in many places. So yes, there are other
gara fish. But the Gara rufa is native to the
Middle East, particularly parts of Jordan, Syria, and Turkey, and
in the wild they feed on detritus, algae and tiny animals,
but in the absence of better food sources, they will
feed on dead skin. So the alleged origin of the
(36:24):
fish pedicure is in most of the literature we're looking
at is the Kangle Hot Spring in Turkey. Now, again
we're talking about hot springs in an area long known
to human beings, so it's likely that these springs were
known and utilized for all the reasons humans have visited
thermal springs throughout their history. And though while the fish
were certainly here, they were certainly present in this location,
(36:46):
it seems things have changed in the last hundred years
or so, one hundred years plus. So there's a two
thousand and seven Scientific American paper. This is one I
think you turned up and sent me Joe, titled fish
that goes in Deep And I guess it's not so
much an article. It's kind of a short bit. It
was just a short, little snippet article, but it had
a very interesting detail in it. Yes, yeah, it adds
(37:08):
a little bit of historical detail that I was having
trouble finding in other studies. Quote, these fish have acquired
a taste for humans, largely because they have little choice.
The spring is too hot to sustain enough algae and
plankton to feed them all In the past, the fish
were able to move between the spring and a creek
that runs nearby, but after learning of a story about
(37:31):
a local shepherd whose wounded leg healed after being dipped
into the spring in nineteen seventeen, builders walled off the
spring from the creek in the nineteen fifties to preserve
a captive school. A Turkish family has now constructed a hotel,
villas and a playground, and markets the resort to Sorias's patients. Now,
(37:52):
I came across this short SIAM article because we were
looking at papers that seemed to be focused on the
question of is this treatment actually effective or not for psoriasis.
It seems obviously this is a form of alternative medicine.
Zo I don't know if I have an opinion or
not on whether there's any evidence this is actually useful
(38:12):
for psoriasis. I guess I would have my doubts. But
the fascinating thing to me was the thing about like
enclosing this fish population that used to go back and
forth but apparently now is stuck in the pool. Yes,
and would not would would otherwise maybe not eat dead
skin off of people's feet. But given that it is
(38:35):
an altered environment, they are encouraged to do so due
to the lack of other food sources. Still, I think
the basic scenario here wrote what it reveals about the
natural environment that has been augmented. This does kind of
line up with the Thailand scenario where again, in that
Thailand scenario yet various clear pools that were connected by
multiple cascading waterfalls. So sort of these kind of like
(38:58):
traps of small aquatic habitats that are connected. Um, but
you can see why you might end up with the
population of fish in a given pool that are that
are hungry, that have maybe exhausted what they can eat,
and are then happy to check out anything that is introduced.
(39:18):
So advocates of this treatment, sometimes called ichyotherapy, they touted
as either a general cosmetic pedicure sort of procedure or
as a treatment for skin ailments such as psoriasis. Again,
we're not going to weigh in too much on the
ups and downs of this. This this is getting into
the area of alternative medicine. But but certainly when you're
(39:40):
dealing with the fish take environment version of it, there
are some some definite reasons to stay clear of it. Anyway,
in both of these cases, we have the blood worms,
we have these these little fish that nipple your toes.
These are both situations where we have spring waters that
are noted for their health inefits in part or entirely
(40:03):
due to the organisms that live in them, the animals
that live in them. And I think it leads at
least worth noting that thermal springs continue to be of
interest to scientists because of potential extreme of file organisms
that might live there that also might reveal some sort
of unique antibiotic discoveries. Though I don't think this is
the sort of thing that they merely bathing in the
(40:24):
waters would unlock for a person, right. It would be
more that, like the organisms there are useful for research
on antibiotics, not that like you're going to cure your diseases,
but just by getting in the water. Yeah, not that
I don't think anybody's making those claims within against the
exact sort of claims that could end up being made
about a given spring, like bathe in the extreme of
file waters of extremofile springs unlock the unknown antibiotics for
(40:50):
your own well being, that sort of thing. Well, the
hot spring blood worms and the hot spring fish, I
did not imagine this at all as an angle we
would end up going down. But this has been fascinating
and our series on the Healing Waters will have to
continue with at least one more episode, maybe a couple
more next week. There's a lot more interesting stuff to
talk about, of course, with a lot of the alleged
(41:11):
cure as we've been talking about up to this point,
probably the majority of them. If there was an effect,
it may have been a placebo effect, but there may
actually be some cases where there's pretty good evidence of
balneotherapy of various kinds, even in particular spring waters, having
an actual, direct mechanistic effect on healing certain illnesses. And
(41:33):
if that is the case, we're we're gonna talk about
some examples of that next time. Yeah, so be sure
to join us for that discussion. There's more strange stuff
in the Healing Waters. It'll be floculent, yes, yes, don't
drink the flaculent waters. Don't drink the bath water. All right. Well,
as we close it out here, want to remind everybody
(41:55):
that are core episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind.
You'll find them on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the Stuff
to Blow your podcast feed on Monday's we do listener Mail.
On Wednesdays we do a short form artifactor month to Fact.
On Fridays, we do Weird House Cinema. That's our time
to set aside most serious concerns and just talk about
a weird film. Huge thanks to our audio producer J J. Paseway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
(42:17):
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
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(42:38):
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